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THE WORKS OF EDGAR ALLAN POE
VOLUME II
The Raven Edition
By Edgar Allan Poe
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THE PURLOINED LETTER
Nil sapientiae odiosius acumine nimio.
Seneca.
At Paris, just after dark one gusty evening in the autumn of 18--, I
was enjoying the twofold luxury of meditation and a meerschaum, in company
with my friend C. Auguste Dupin, in his little back library, or book-closet,
au troisijme, No. 33, Rue Duntt, 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 Rogjt. I looked upon it, therefore, as something of
a coincidence, when the door of our apartment was thrown open and admitted
our old acquaintance, Monsieur G, the Prefect of the Parisian
police.
We gave him a hearty welcome; for there was nearly half as much of the
entertaining as of the contemptible about the man, and we had not
seen him for several years. We had been sitting in the dark, and Dupin
now arose for the purpose of lighting a lamp, but sat down again, without
doing so, upon G.s saying that he had called to consult us, or rather
to ask the opinion of my friend, about some official business which had
occasioned a great deal of trouble.
If it is any point requiring reflection, observed Dupin,
as he forebore to enkindle the wick, we shall examine it
to better purpose in the dark.
That is another of your odd notions, said the Prefect, who
had a fashion of calling every thing odd that was beyond his
comprehension, and thus lived amid an absolute legion of oddities.
Very true, said Dupin, as he supplied his visiter with a
pipe, and rolled towards him a comfortable chair.
And what is the difficulty now? I asked. Nothing more
in the assassination way, I hope?
Oh no; nothing of that nature. The fact is, the business is very
simple indeed, and I make no doubt that we can manage it sufficiently
well ourselves; but then I thought Dupin would like to hear the details
of it, because it is so excessively odd.
Simple and odd, said Dupin.
Why, yes; and not exactly that, either. The fact is, we have all
been a good deal puzzled because the affair is so simple, and yet baffles
us altogether.
Perhaps it is the very simplicity of the thing which puts you
at fault, said my friend.
What nonsense you do talk! replied the Prefect, laughing
heartily.
Perhaps the mystery is a little too plain, said Dupin.
Oh, good heavens! who ever heard of such an idea?
A little too self-evident.
Ha! ha! haha! ha! ha!ho! ho! ho! roared our
visiter, profoundly amused, oh, Dupin, you will be the death
of me yet!
And what, after all, is the matter on hand? I asked.
Why, I will tell you, replied the Prefect, as he gave a
long, steady and contemplative puff, and settled himself in his chair.
I will tell you in a few words; but, before I begin, let me caution
you that this is an affair demanding the greatest secrecy, and that I
should most probably lose the position I now hold, were it known that
I confided it to any one.
Proceed, said I.
Or not, said Dupin.
Well, then; I have received personal information, from a very
high quarter, that a certain document of the last importance, has been
purloined from the royal apartments. The individual who purloined
it is known; this beyond a doubt; he was seen to take it. It is known,
also, that it still remains in his possession.
How is this known? asked Dupin.
It is clearly inferred, replied the Prefect, from
the nature of the document, and from the non-appearance of certain results
which would at once arise from its passing out of the robbers 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 robbers knowledge of the losers 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 questiona letter, to be frankhad 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 letterone of no importanceupon
the table.
Here, then, said Dupin to me, you have precisely what
you demand to make the ascendancy completethe robbers
knowledge of the losers 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 ministers hotel;
and here my chief embarrassment lay in the necessity of searching without
his knowledge. Beyond all things, I have been warned of the danger which
would result from giving him reason to suspect our design.
But, said I, you are quite au fait in these investigations.
The Parisian police have done this thing often before.
O yes; and for this reason I did not despair. The habits of the
minister gave me, too, a great advantage. He is frequently absent from
home all night. His servants are by no means numerous. They sleep at a
distance from their masters 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 documentits susceptibility of being produced
at a moments noticea 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 hes
a poet, which I take to be only one remove from a fool.
True, said Dupin, after a long and thoughtful whiff from
his meerschaum, although I have been guilty of certain doggrel
myself.
Suppose you detail, said I, the particulars of your
search.
Why the fact is, we took our time, and we searched every where.
I have had long experience in these affairs. I took the entire building,
room by room; devoting the nights of a whole week to each. We examined,
first, the furniture of each apartment. We opened every possible drawer;
and I presume you know that, to a properly trained police agent, such
a thing as a secret drawer is impossible. Any man is a dolt who permits
a secret drawer to escape him in a search of this kind. The
thing is so plain. There is a certain amount of bulkof spaceto
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 removedyou 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 betterwe 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 glueingany unusual gaping
in the jointswould 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 Ds 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 Iyes; I made the re-examination, however,
as Dupin suggestedbut 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 deala very liberal rewardI
dont like to say how much, precisely; but one thing I will say,
that I wouldnt 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 reallythink, G, you have not exerted
yourselfto the utmost in this matter. You mightdo a
little more, I think, eh?
How?in what way?
Whypuff, puffyou mightpuff, puffemploy
counsel in the matter, eh?puff, puff, puff. Do you remember the
story they tell of Abernethy?
No; hang Abernethy!
To be sure! hang him and welcome. But, once upon a time, a certain
rich miser conceived the design of spunging upon this Abernethy
for a medical opinion. Getting up, for this purpose, an ordinary conversation
in a private company, he insinuated his case to the physician,
as that of an imaginary individual.
We will suppose, said the miser, that
his symptoms are such and such; now, doctor, what would you have directed
him to take?
Take! said Abernethy, why, take advice, to be
sure.
But, said the Prefect, a little discomposed, I
am perfectly willing to take advice, and to pay for it. I would really
give fifty thousand francs to any one who would aid me in the matter.
In that case, replied Dupin, opening a drawer, and producing
a check-book, you may as well fill me up a check for the amount
mentioned. When you have signed it, I will hand you the letter.
I was astounded. The Prefect appeared absolutely thunder-stricken. For
some minutes he remained speechless and motionless, looking incredulously
at my friend with open mouth, and eyes that seemed starting from their
sockets; then, apparently recovering himself in some measure, he seized
a pen, and after several pauses and vacant stares, finally filled up and
signed a check for fifty thousand francs, and handed it across the table
to Dupin. The latter examined it carefully and deposited it in
his pocket-book; then, unlocking an escritoire, took thence a letter and
gave it to the Prefect. This functionary grasped it in a perfect
agony of joy, opened it with a trembling hand, cast a rapid glance at
its contents, and then, scrambling and struggling to the door, rushed
at length unceremoniously from the room and from the house, without having
uttered a syllable since Dupin had requested him to fill up the check.
When he had gone, my friend entered into some explanations.
The Parisian police, he said, are exceedingly
able in their way. They are persevering, ingenious, cunning,
and thoroughly versed in the knowledge which their duties seem chiefly
to demand. Thus, when G detailed to us his made of searching the
premises at the Hotel D, I felt entire confidence in his having
made a satisfactory investigationso 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 laughedbut 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 reasoners
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 reasoners
intellect with that of his opponent, depends, if I understand you aright,
upon the accuracy with which the opponents 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 muchthat 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 emergencyby some extraordinary rewardthey 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 incheswhat 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-legbut, 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 recherchis 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 concealeda
disposal of it in this recherchi 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 importanceor, what amounts
to the same thing in the policial eyes, when the reward is of magnitude,the
qualities in question have never been known to fail. You will now understand
what I meant in suggesting that, had the purloined letter been
hidden any where within the limits of the Prefects examinationin
other words, had the principle of its concealment been comprehended within
the principles of the Prefectits 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 ` parihr, replied Dupin, quoting from
Chamfort, que toute idie publique, toute convention regue
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 importanceif words derive any value from
applicabilitythen analysis conveys algebra
about as much as, in Latin, ambitus implies ambition,
religio religion, or homines honesti,
a set of honorablemen.
You have a quarrel on hand, I see, said I, with some
of the algebraists of Paris; but proceed.
I dispute the availability, and thus the value, of that reason
which is cultivated in any especial form other than the abstractly logical.
I dispute, in particular, the reason educed by mathematical study. The
mathematics are the science of form and quantity; mathematical reasoning
is merely logic applied to observation upon form and quantity. The great
error lies in supposing that even the truths of what is called pure algebra,
are abstract or general truths. And this error is so egregious
that I am confounded at the universality with which it has been received.
Mathematical axioms are not axioms of general truth. What
is true of relationof form and quantityis 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 applicabilityas
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
anticipateand events have proved that he did not fail to anticipatethe
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 arrivethe 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
concealedI 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 inertif, 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 wordthe
name of town, river, state or empireany 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 dignitarys ordinary searchthe 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 alivebut 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 middleas
if a design, in the first instance, to tear it entirely up as worthless,
had been altered, or stayed, in the second. It had a large black seal,
bearing the D cipher very conspicuously, and was addressed,
in a diminutive female hand, to D, the minister, himself.
It was thrust carelessly, and even, as it seemed, contemptuously,
into one of the uppermost divisions of the rack.
No sooner had I glanced at this letter, than I concluded it to
be that of which I was in search. To be sure, it was, to all appearance,
radically different from the one of which the Prefect had read us so minute
a description. Here the seal was large and black, with the D cipher;
there it was small and red, with the ducal arms of the S family.
Here, the address, to the Minister, diminutive and feminine; there
the superscription, to a certain royal personage, was markedly
bold and decided; the size alone formed a point of correspondence. But,
then, the radicalness of these differences, which was excessive; the dirt;
the soiled and torn condition of the paper, so inconsistent with the true
methodical habits of D, and so suggestive of a design to
delude the beholder into an idea of the worthlessness of the document;
these things, together with the hyper-obtrusive situation of this
document, full in the view of every visiter, and thus exactly in accordance
with the conclusions to which I had previously arrived; these things,
I say, were strongly corroborative of suspicion, in one who came with
the intention to suspect.
I protracted my visit as long as possible, and, while I
maintained a most animated discussion with the Minister upon a
topic which I knew well had never failed to interest and excite him, I
kept my attention really riveted upon the letter. In this examination,
I committed to memory its external appearance and arrangement in the rack;
and also fell, at length, upon a discovery which set at rest whatever
trivial doubt I might have entertained. In scrutinizing the edges
of the paper, I observed them to be more chafed than seemed necessary.
They presented the broken appearance which is manifested when a
stiff paper, having been once folded and pressed with a folder, is refolded
in a reversed direction, in the same creases or edges which had formed
the original fold. This discovery was sufficient. It was clear to me that
the letter had been turned, as a glove, inside out, re-directed, and re-sealed.
I bade the Minister good morning, and took my departure at once, leaving
a gold snuff-box upon the table.
The next morning I called for the snuff-box, when we resumed,
quite eagerly, the conversation of the preceding day. While thus engaged,
however, a loud report, as if of a pistol, was heard immediately beneath
the windows of the hotel, and was succeeded by a series of fearful screams,
and the shoutings of a terrified mob. D rushed to a casement, threw
it open, and looked out. In the meantime, I stepped to the card-rack took
the letter, put it in my pocket, and replaced it by a fac-simile,
(so far as regards externals,) which I had carefully prepared at my lodgingsimitating
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 herssince, 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 sympathyat
least no pityfor 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?
Whyit did not seem altogether right to leave the interior
blankthat 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, Sil nest
digne dAtrie, est digne de Thyeste. They are to be found in Crebillons
Atrie.
THE THOUSAND-AND-SECOND TALE OF SCHEHERAZADE
Truth is stranger than fiction.
OLD SAYING.
HAVING had occasion, lately, in the course of some Oriental investigations,
to consult the Tellmenow Isitsoornot, a work which (like the Zohar of
Simeon Jochaides) is scarcely known at all, even in Europe; and which
has never been quoted, to my knowledge, by any Americanif we except,
perhaps, the author of the Curiosities of American Literature;having
had occasion, I say, to turn over some pages of the firstmentioned
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 viziers daughter, Scheherazade, as that fate is depicted
in the Arabian Nights; and that the denouement there
given, if not altogether inaccurate, as far as it goes, is at least to
blame in not having gone very much farther.
For full information on this interesting topic, I must refer the inquisitive
reader to the Isitsoornot itself, but in the meantime, I shall
be pardoned for giving a summary of what I there discovered.
It will be remembered, that, in the usual version of the tales, a certain
monarch having good cause to be jealous of his queen, not only puts her
to death, but makes a vow, by his beard and the prophet, to espouse
each night the most beautiful maiden in his dominions, and the next morning
to deliver her up to the executioner.
Having fulfilled this vow for many years to the letter, and with a religious
punctuality and method that conferred great credit upon him as
a man of devout feeling and excellent sense, he was interrupted
one afternoon (no doubt at his prayers) by a visit from his grand vizier,
to whose daughter, it appears, there had occurred an idea.
Her name was Scheherazade, and her idea was, that she would either redeem
the land from the depopulating tax upon its beauty, or perish,
after the approved fashion of all heroines, in the attempt.
Accordingly, and although we do not find it to be leap-year (which makes
the sacrifice more meritorious), she deputes her father, the grand
vizier, to make an offer to the king of her hand. This hand the king eagerly
accepts(he had intended to take it at all events, and had put off
the matter from day to day, only through fear of the vizier),but,
in accepting it now, he gives all parties very distinctly to understand,
that, grand vizier or no grand vizier, he has not the slightest design
of giving up one iota of his vow or of his privileges. When, therefore,
the fair Scheherazade insisted upon marrying the king, and did actually
marry him despite her fathers excellent advice not to do any thing
of the kindwhen 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 bowstrunga
thing very little more pleasant than hanging, only a trifle more
genteel.
The kings 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 otherand,
as the day broke before its conclusion (notwithstanding all the queens
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 nextand 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 pleasantbut alas! like
a great many pleasant things, is more pleasant than true, and I am indebted
altogether to the Isitsoornot for the means of correcting
the error. Le mieux, says a French proverb, est
lennemi du bien, and, in mentioning that Scheherazade had
inherited the seven baskets of talk, I should have added that she put
them out at compound interest until they amounted to seventy-seven.
"My dear sister, said she, on the thousand-and-second night,
(I quote the language of the Isitsoornot at this point, verbatim)
my dear sister, said she, now that all this little difficulty
about the bowstring has blown over, and that this odious tax is
so happily repealed, I feel that I have been guilty of great indiscretion
in withholding from you and the king (who I am sorry to say, snoresa
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 shorta 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 neglectand as soon as I have given the king a pinch or
two in order to wake him up so far that he may stop making that horrible
noise, I will forthwith entertain you (and him if he pleases) with the
sequel of this very remarkable story.
Hereupon the sister of Scheherazade, as I have it from the Isitsoornot,
expressed no very particular intensity of gratification; but the king,
having been sufficiently pinched, at length ceased snoring, and finally
said, hum! and then hoo! when the queen, understanding
these words (which are no doubt Arabic) to signify that he was all attention,
and would do his best not to snore any morethe queen, I say, having
arranged these matters to her satisfaction, re-entered thus, at once,
into the history of Sinbad the sailor:
At length, in my old age, [these are the words of Sinbad
himself, as retailed by Scheherazade]at length, in my old
age, and after enjoying many years of tranquillity at home, I became
once more possessed of a desire of visiting foreign countries; and one
day, without acquainting any of my family with my design, I packed up
some bundles of such merchandise as was most precious and least bulky,
and, engaged a porter to carry them, went with him down to the sea-shore,
to await the arrival of any chance vessel that might convey me out of
the kingdom into some region which I had not as yet explored.
Having deposited the packages upon the sands, we sat down
beneath some trees, and looked out into the ocean in the hope of perceiving
a ship, but during several hours we saw none whatever. At length I fancied
that I could hear a singular buzzing or humming sound; and the
porter, after listening awhile, declared that he also could distinguish
it. Presently it grew louder, and then still louder, so that we could
have no doubt that the object which caused it was approaching us. At length,
on the edge of the horizon, we discovered a black speck, which rapidly
increased in size until we made it out to be a vast monster, swimming
with a great part of its body above the surface of the sea. It came toward
us with inconceivable swiftness, throwing up huge waves of foam
around its breast, and illuminating all that part of the sea through which
it passed, with a long line of fire that extended far off into the distance.
As the thing drew near we saw it very distinctly. Its length
was equal to that of three of the loftiest trees that grow, and it was
as wide as the great hall of audience in your palace, O most sublime
and munificent of the Caliphs. Its body, which was unlike that
of ordinary fishes, was as solid as a rock, and of a jetty blackness throughout
all that portion of it which floated above the water, with the exception
of a narrow blood-red streak that completely begirdled it. The belly,
which floated beneath the surface, and of which we could get only a glimpse
now and then as the monster rose and fell with the billows, was entirely
covered with metallic scales, of a color like that of the moon in misty
weather. The back was flat and nearly white, and from it there extended
upwards of six spines, about half the length of the whole body.
The horrible creature had no mouth that we could perceive,
but, as if to make up for this deficiency, it was provided with at least
four score of eyes, that protruded from their sockets like those
of the green dragon-fly, and were arranged all around the body in two
rows, one above the other, and parallel to the blood-red streak, which
seemed to answer the purpose of an eyebrow. Two or three of these dreadful
eyes were much larger than the others, and had the appearance of solid
gold.
Although this beast approached us, as I have before said,
with the greatest rapidity, it must have been moved altogether by necromancyfor
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 creatures 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 nosesa
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 evilfor, 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 carealthough 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 dinnerbut
I beg a thousand pardons, I had forgotten that your majesty is not conversant
with the dialect of the Cock-neighs (so the man-animals were called; I
presume because their language formed the connecting link between that
of the horse and that of the rooster). With your permission, I will translate.
Washish squashish, and so forth:that is to say, I
am happy to find, my dear Sinbad, that you are really a very excellent
fellow; we are now about doing a thing which is called circumnavigating
the globe; and since you are so desirous of seeing the world, I will strain
a point and give you a free passage upon back of the beast.
When the Lady Scheherazade had proceeded thus far, relates the Isitsoornot,
the king turned over from his left side to his right, and said:
It is, in fact, very surprising, my dear queen, that you omitted,
hitherto, these latter adventures of Sinbad. Do you know I think
them exceedingly entertaining and strange?
The king having thus expressed himself, we are told, the fair Scheherazade
resumed her history in the following words:
Sinbad went on in this manner with his narrative to the caliphI
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 wentso
to sayeither 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 husbands ill-mannered
ejaculation) leaving this island, we came to another where the forests
were of solid stone, and so hard that they shivered to pieces the finest-tempered
axes with which we endeavoured to cut them down." (*2)
Hum! said the king, again; but Scheherazade, paying him
no attention, continued in the language of Sinbad.
Passing beyond this last island, we reached a country where
there was a cave that ran to the distance of thirty or forty miles within
the bowels of the earth, and that contained a greater number of far more
spacious and more magnificent palaces than are to be found in all Damascus
and Bagdad. From the roofs of these palaces there hung myriads of gems,
liked diamonds, but larger than men; and in among the streets of towers
and pyramids and temples, there flowed immense rivers as black as ebony,
and swarming with fish that had no eyes. (*3)
Hum! said the king. We then swam into a region
of the sea where we found a lofty mountain, down whose sides there streamed
torrents of melted metal, some of which were twelve miles wide and sixty
miles long (*4); while from an abyss on the summit, issued so vast
a quantity of ashes that the sun was entirely blotted out from the heavens,
and it became darker than the darkest midnight; so that when we were even
at the distance of a hundred and fifty miles from the mountain, it was
impossible to see the whitest object, however close we held it to our
eyes. (*5)
Hum! said the king.
After quitting this coast, the beast continued his voyage
until we met with a land in which the nature of things seemed reversedfor
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 monsters 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 spotthe
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 usin which
there were several millions of millions of fowl. (*17)
Oh fy! said the king.
No sooner had we got rid of these birds, which occasioned
us great annoyance, than we were terrified by the appearance of a fowl
of another kind, and infinitely larger than even the rocs which I met
in my former voyages; for it was bigger than the biggest of the domes
on your seraglio, oh, most Munificent of Caliphs. This terrible
fowl had no head that we could perceive, but was fashioned entirely of
belly, which was of a prodigious fatness and roundness, of a soft-looking
substance, smooth, shining and striped with various colors. In its talons,
the monster was bearing away to his eyrie in the heavens, a house from
which it had knocked off the roof, and in the interior of which we distinctly
saw human beings, who, beyond doubt, were in a state of frightful despair
at the horrible fate which awaited them. We shouted with all our might,
in the hope of frightening the bird into letting go of its prey, but it
merely gave a snort or puff, as if of rage and then let fall upon our
heads a heavy sack which proved to be filled with sand!
Stuff! said the king.
It was just after this adventure that we encountered a continent
of immense extent and prodigious solidity, but which, nevertheless,
was supported entirely upon the back of a sky-blue cow that had no fewer
than four hundred horns. (*18)
That, now, I believe, said the king, because I have
read something of the kind before, in a book.
We passed immediately beneath this continent, (swimming
in between the legs of the cow), and, after some hours, found ourselves
in a wonderful country indeed, which, I was informed by the man-animal,
was his own native land, inhabited by things of his own species. This
elevated the man-animal very much in my esteem, and in fact, I
now began to feel ashamed of the contemptuous familiarity with
which I had treated him; for I found that the man-animals in general were
a nation of the most powerful magicians, who lived with worms in their
brain, (*19) which, no doubt, served to stimulate them by their painful
writhings and wrigglings to the most miraculous efforts of imagination!
Nonsense! said the king.
Among the magicians, were domesticated several animals of
very singular kinds; for example, there was a huge horse whose
bones were iron and whose blood was boiling water. In place of corn, he
had black stones for his usual food; and yet, in spite of so hard a diet,
he was so strong and swift that he would drag a load more weighty than
the grandest temple in this city, at a rate surpassing that of the flight
of most birds. (*20)
Twattle! said the king.
I saw, also, among these people a hen without feathers,
but bigger than a camel; instead of flesh and bone she had iron and brick;
her blood, like that of the horse, (to whom, in fact, she was nearly related,)
was boiling water; and like him she ate nothing but wood or black stones.
This hen brought forth very frequently, a hundred chickens in the day;
and, after birth, they took up their residence for several weeks within
the stomach of their mother. (*21)
Fa! lal! said the king.
One of this nation of mighty conjurors created a
man out of brass and wood, and leather, and endowed him with such ingenuity
that he would have beaten at chess, all the race of mankind with the exception
of the great Caliph, Haroun Alraschid. (*22) Another of these magi constructed
(of like material) a creature that put to shame even the genius of him
who made it; for so great were its reasoning powers that, in a second,
it performed calculations of so vast an extent that they would have required
the united labor of fifty thousand fleshy men for a year. (*23) But a
still more wonderful conjuror fashioned for himself a mighty thing
that was neither man nor beast, but which had brains of lead, intermixed
with a black matter like pitch, and fingers that it employed with such
incredible speed and dexterity that it would have had no trouble
in writing out twenty thousand copies of the Koran in an hour, and this
with so exquisite a precision, that in all the copies there should not
be found one to vary from another by the breadth of the finest hair. This
thing was of prodigious strength, so that it erected or overthrew
the mightiest empires at a breath; but its powers were exercised equally
for evil and for good.
Ridiculous! said the king.
Among this nation of necromancers there was also one who
had in his veins the blood of the salamanders; for he made no scruple
of sitting down to smoke his chibouc in a red-hot oven until his dinner
was thoroughly roasted upon its floor. (*24) Another had the faculty of
converting the common metals into gold, without even looking at them during
the process. (*25) Another had such a delicacy of touch that he made a
wire so fine as to be invisible. (*26) Another had such quickness of perception
that he counted all the separate motions of an elastic body, while
it was springing backward and forward at the rate of nine hundred millions
of times in a second. (*27)
Absurd! said the king.
Another of these magicians, by means of a fluid that nobody
ever yet saw, could make the corpses of his friends brandish their
arms, kick out their legs, fight, or even get up and dance at his will.
(*28) Another had cultivated his voice to so great an extent that he could
have made himself heard from one end of the world to the other. (*29)
Another had so long an arm that he could sit down in Damascus and indite
a letter at Bagdador indeed at any distance whatsoever. (*30) Another
commanded the lightning to come down to him out of the heavens, and it
came at his call; and served him for a plaything when it came. Another
took two loud sounds and out of them made a silence. Another constructed
a deep darkness out of two brilliant lights. (*31) Another made ice in
a red-hot furnace. (*32) Another directed the sun to paint his portrait,
and the sun did. (*33) Another took this luminary with the moon
and the planets, and having first weighed them with scrupulous
accuracy, probed into their depths and found out the solidity of the substance
of which they were made. But the whole nation is, indeed, of so surprising
a necromantic ability, that not even their infants, nor their commonest
cats and dogs have any difficulty in seeing objects that do not exist
at all, or that for twenty millions of years before the birth of the nation
itself had been blotted out from the face of creation." (*34)
Analogous experiments in respect to sound produce analogous results.
Preposterous! said the king.
The wives and daughters of these incomparably great and
wise magi, continued Scheherazade, without being in any manner
disturbed by these frequent and most ungentlemanly interruptions on the
part of her husband"the wives and daughters of these
eminent conjurers are every thing that is accomplished and refined;
and would be every thing that is interesting and beautiful, but for an
unhappy fatality that besets them, and from which not even the
miraculous powers of their husbands and fathers has, hitherto, been adequate
to save. Some fatalities come in certain shapes, and some in othersbut
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 cant stand that,
and I wont. 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 touchdo you take me for a fool? Upon the whole,
you might as well get up and be throttled.
These words, as I learn from the Isitsoornot, both grieved
and astonished Scheherazade; but, as she knew the king to be a man of
scrupulous integrity, and quite unlikely to forfeit his
word, she submitted to her fate with a good grace. She derived, however,
great consolation, (during the tightening of the bowstring,) from
the reflection that much of the history remained still untold, and that
the petulance of her brute of a husband had reaped for him a most
righteous reward, in depriving him of many inconceivable
adventures.
A DESCENT INTO THE MAELSTRVM.
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 manor at least such as no man ever survived to tell ofand
the six hours of deadly terror which I then endured have broken me up
body and soul. You suppose me a very old manbut 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 edgethis 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 skywhile 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 mentionedand 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
coastin the sixty-eighth degree of latitudein the great province
of Nordlandand in the dreary district of Lofoden. The mountain upon
whose top we sit is Helseggen, the Cloudy. Now raise yourself up a little
higherhold on to the grass if you feel giddysoand
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 geographers
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 directionas
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 offbetween Moskoe and Vurrghare
Otterholm, Flimen, Sandflesen, and Stockholm. These are the true names
of the placesbut 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 speedto 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 convulsionheaving, boiling, hissinggyrating
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. Suddenlyvery suddenlythis
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 Maelstrvm.
So it is sometimes termed, said he. We Norwegians
call it the Moskoe-strvm, 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 sceneor 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 seait 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-strvm 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 phenomenonsome of which,
I remember, seemed to me sufficiently plausible in perusalnow
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 Encyclopfdia Britannica.
Kircher and others imagine that in the centre of the channel of the Maelstrvm
is an abyss penetrating the globe, and issuing in some very remote
partthe 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 himfor, 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-strvm.
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 speculationthe 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-strvm, 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 comingone
that we felt sure would not fail us before our returnand 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
currentshere to-day and gone to-morrowwhich 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 groundsit is a bad spot to be in,
even in good weatherbut we made shift always to run the gauntlet
of the Moskoe-strvm 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 fishingbut, somehow, although we ran the risk ourselves, we had
not the heart to let the young ones get into the dangerfor, 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 forgetfor 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 usmy two brothers and myselfhad crossed
over to the islands about two oclock 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 Strvm
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
unusualsomething that had never happened to us beforeand 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 usin less
than two the sky was entirely overcastand 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 offthe
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 Strvm, by way of precaution against the chopping
seas. But for this circumstance we should have foundered at oncefor
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 thiswhich was undoubtedly
the very best thing I could have donefor 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 overboardbut the next moment all this joy was turned into horrorfor
he put his mouth close to my ear, and screamed out the word Moskoe-strvm!
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 enoughI knew what he
wished to make me understand. With the wind that now drove us on, we were
bound for the whirl of the Strvm, and nothing could save us!
You perceive that in crossing the Strvm 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 slackbut 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 slackthere
is some little hope in thatbut 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 skyas clear as I ever sawand
of a deep bright blueand 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 distinctnessbut, oh God,
what a scene it was to light up!
I now made one or two attempts to speak to my brotherbut,
in some manner which I could not understand, the din had so increased
that I could not make him hear a single word, although I screamed at the
top of my voice in his ear. Presently he shook his head, looking as pale
as death, and held up one of his finger, as if to say listen!
At first I could not make out what he meantbut 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
oclock! We were behind the time of the slack, and the whirl of the
Strvm 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 herwhich appears very strange to a landsmanand
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 roseupupas
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 aroundand
that one glance was all sufficient. I saw our exact position in an instant.
The Moskoe-Strvm whirlpool was about a quarter of a mile dead aheadbut
no more like the every-day Moskoe-Strvm, 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 shrieksuch
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 abyssdown 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 boastingbut what I tell you is truthI
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 Gods 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 mans mind in such extremityand
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 situationfor, 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 annoyancesjust us death-condemned
felons in prison are allowed petty indulgences, forbidden
them while their doom is yet uncertain.
How often we made the circuit of the belt it is impossible to
say. We careered round and round for perhaps an hour, flying rather than
floating, getting gradually more and more into the middle of the surge,
and then nearer and nearer to its horrible inner edge. All this time I
had never let go of the ring-bolt. My brother was at the stern, holding
on to a small empty water-cask which had been securely lashed under the
coop of the counter, and was the only thing on deck that had not been
swept overboard when the gale first took us. As we approached the brink
of the pit he let go his hold upon this, and made for the ring, from which,
in the agony of his terror, he endeavored to force my hands, as
it was not large enough to afford us both a secure grasp. I never felt
deeper grief than when I saw him attempt this actalthough I knew
he was a madman when he did ita 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 keelonly 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 themwhile 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 keelthat is to say, her deck lay in a plane parallel
with that of the waterbut 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 bottombut 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 sweptnot
with any uniform movementbut in dizzying swings and jerks, that
sent us sometimes only a few hundred yardssometimes 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 deliriousfor 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 allthis factthe fact of my invariable miscalculationset
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-strvm. By far the greater number of the articles
were shattered in the most extraordinary wayso chafed and
roughened as to have the appearance of being stuck full of splintersbut
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 absorbedthat 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 descentthe
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 spherethe 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 mealthough I have forgotten
the explanationhow what I observed was, in fact, the natural consequence
of the forms of the floating fragmentsand 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 brothers
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 designbut, 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 moments hesitation.
The result was precisely what I had hoped it might be. As it is
myself who now tell you this taleas you see that I did escapeand
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 sayI
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-strvm had been. It
was the hour of the slackbut the sea still heaved in mountainous
waves from the effects of the hurricane. I was borne violently into the
channel of the Strvm, and in a few minutes was hurried down the coast
into the grounds of the fishermen. A boat picked me upexhausted
from fatigueand (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 companionsbut 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
storythey did not believe it. I now tell it to youand
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 Sillimans 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
Kempelens 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 designatednearly eight
years agohow 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 babyso like an owlas 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. Kissams
(or is it Mr. Quizzems?) 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 writers own eye, but an inspection
of the pamphlet will convince almost any thinking person of the
truth of my suggestion. The fact is, Sir Humphrey Davy was about the last
man in the world to commit himself on scientific topics. Not only had
he a more than ordinary dislike to quackery, but he was morbidly
afraid of appearing empirical; so that, however fully he might have been
convinced that he was on the right track in the matter now in question,
he would never have spoken out, until he had every thing ready for the
most practical demonstration. I verily believe that his last moments
would have been rendered wretched, could he have suspected that
his wishes in regard to burning this Diary (full of crude
speculations) would have been unattended to; as, it seems, they
were. I say his wishes, for that he meant to include this
note-book among the miscellaneous papers directed to be burnt,
I think there can be no manner of doubt. Whether it escaped the flames
by good fortune or by bad, yet remains to be seen. That the passages quoted
above, with the other similar ones referred to, gave Von Kempelen the
hint, I do not in the slightest degree question; but I repeat, it yet
remains to be seen whether this momentous discovery itself (momentous
under any circumstances) will be of service or disservice to mankind
at large. That Von Kempelen and his immediate friends will reap a rich
harvest, it would be folly to doubt for a moment. They will scarcely be
so weak as not to realize, in time, by large purchases of
houses and land, with other property of intrinsic value.
In the brief account of Von Kempelen which appeared in the Home
Journal, and has since been extensively copied, several misapprehensions
of the German original seem to have been made by the translator, who professes
to have taken the passage from a late number of the Presburg Schnellpost.
Viele has evidently been misconceived (as it often is), and
what the translator renders by sorrows, is probably
lieden, which, in its true version, sufferings,
would give a totally different complexion to the whole account; but, of
course, much of this is merely guess, on my part.
Von Kempelen, however, is by no means a misanthrope,
in appearance, at least, whatever he may be in fact. My acquaintance with
him was casual altogether; and I am scarcely warranted in saying that
I know him at all; but to have seen and conversed with a man of so prodigious
a notoriety as he has attained, or will attain in a few
days, is not a small matter, as times go.
The Literary World speaks of him, confidently, as a native
of Presburg (misled, perhaps, by the account in The Home Journal)
but I am pleased in being able to state positively, since I have it from
his own lips, that he was born in Utica, in the State of New York, although
both his parents, I believe, are of Presburg descent. The family is connected,
in some way, with Maelzel, of Automaton-chess-player memory. In
person, he is short and stout, with large, fat, blue eyes, sandy hair
and whiskers, a wide but pleasing mouth, fine teeth, and I think a Roman
nose. There is some defect in one of his feet. His address is frank,
and his whole manner noticeable for bonhomie. Altogether, he looks, speaks,
and acts as little like a misanthrope as any man I
ever saw. We were fellow-sojouners for a week about six years ago, at
Earls 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 Aladdins 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 crucibletwo 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 chemists 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 couldnt move itwhy its full to
the brim of old bits of brass!
Putting his feet, now, against the wall so as to get a good purchase,
and pushing with all his force, while his companions pulled with an theirs,
the trunk, with much difficulty, was slid out from under the bed, and
its contents examined. The supposed brass with which it was filled was
all in small, smooth pieces, varying from the size of a pea to that of
a dollar; but the pieces were irregular in shape, although more or less
flat-looking, upon the whole, very much as lead looks when thrown
upon the ground in a molten state, and there suffered to grow cool.
Now, not one of these officers for a moment suspected this metal to be
any thing but brass. The idea of its being gold never entered their brains,
of course; how could such a wild fancy have entered it? And their astonishment
may be well conceived, when the next day it became known, all over Bremen,
that the lot of brass which they had carted so contemptuously
to the police office, without putting themselves to the trouble of pocketing
the smallest scrap, was not only goldreal goldbut 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 Kempelens 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 philosophers 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 discoverya 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 anotherthe exceeding inopportuneness of
Von Kempelens 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 onewhat 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 maintainedthat 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 professionan
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 thesewhich are the laws of mesmerism in its
general featuresit 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 souls
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 assentthe soulthe 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 conclusionthe cause
and its effectare 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-wakerthe 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. Yesno 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.] Nono!
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 wordsuch for instance as truth, beautya
quality, I mean.
P. Is not God immaterial?
V. There is no immaterialityit is a mere word. That which
is not matter, is not at allunless 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 seebut
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
unparticledwithout particlesindivisibleone
and here the law of impulsion and permeation is modified. The ultimate,
or unparticled matter, not only permeates all things but impels
all thingsand 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 mindnot 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 etherconceive 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 massan 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 pointthere
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 spacea
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 itselfin the other it is
endlessly accumulative.
P. But in all thisin this identification of mere matter
with Godis 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. Yesto 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
Godwould be unindividualized. But he can never be thus divestedat
least never will beelse we must imagine an action of God
returning upon itselfa 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 bodiesthe 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 worms metamorphosis we are palpably
cognizant.
V. We, certainlybut 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 onethe
nature of the volition of Godthat 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 etherin unison with itthe 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
nebulf, planets, suns, and other bodies which are neither nebulf, 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 lifeimmortalityand
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 createdbut that SPACE itselfthat
infinity of which the truly substantive vastness swallows up the
star-shadowsblotting 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 lawthe Divine Volition. With the view
of producing impediment, the organic life and matter, (complex,
substantial, and law-encumbered,) were contrived.
P. But againwhy need this impediment have been produced?
V. The result of law inviolate is perfectionrightnegative
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 Venusmany things visible and tangible in Venus, which
we could not be brought to appreciate as existing at all. But to the inorganic
beingsto the angelsthe whole of the unparticled matter is
substancethat 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 Azraels 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 investigationthrough our endeavors to effect thisa
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 factsas 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 curiositythe last
in especial, from the immensely important character of its consequences.
In looking around me for some subject by whose means I might test these
particulars, I was brought to think of my friend, M. Ernest Valdemar,
the well-known compiler of the Bibliotheca Forensica, and
author (under the nom de plume of Issachar Marx) of the Polish versions
of Wallenstein and Gargantua. M. Valdemar, who
has resided principally at Harlaem, N.Y., since the year 1839,
is (or was) particularly noticeable for the extreme spareness of his personhis
lower limbs much resembling those of John Randolph; and, also, for the
whiteness of his whiskers, in violent contrast to the blackness of his
hairthe latter, in consequence, being very generally mistaken
for a wig. His temperament was markedly nervous, and rendered
him a good subject for mesmeric experiment. On two or three occasions
I had put him to sleep with little difficulty, but was disappointed in
other results which his peculiar constitution had naturally led me to
anticipate. His will was at no period positively, or thoroughly, under
my control, and in regard to clairvoyance, I could accomplish with
him nothing to be relied upon. I always attributed my failure at these
points to the disordered state of his health. For some months previous
to my becoming acquainted with him, his physicians had declared him in
a confirmed phthisis. It was his custom, indeed, to speak calmly of his
approaching dissolution, as of a matter neither to be avoided nor
regretted.
When the ideas to which I have alluded first occurred to me,
it was of course very natural that I should think of M. Valdemar. I knew
the steady philosophy of the man too well to apprehend any scruples
from him; and he had no relatives in America who would be likely to interfere.
I spoke to him frankly upon the subject; and, to my surprise, his
interest seemed vividly excited. I say to my surprise, for, although
he had always yielded his person freely to my experiments, he had never
before given me any tokens of sympathy with what I did. His disease
was if that character which would admit of exact calculation in respect
to the epoch of its termination in death; and it was finally arranged
between us that he would send for me about twenty-four hours before the
period announced by his physicians as that of his decease.
It is now rather more than seven months since I received, from M. Valdemar
himself, the subjoined note:
My DEAR P,
You may as well come now. Dand Fare 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 mans 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 distinctnesstook some palliative
medicines without aidand, 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 Valdemars hand, I took these gentlemen aside, and
obtained from them a minute account of the patients condition. The
left lung had been for eighteen months in a semi-osseous or cartilaginous
state, and was, of course, entirely useless for all purposes of vitality.
The right, in its upper portion, was also partially, if not thoroughly,
ossified, while the lower region was merely a mass of purulent
tubercles, running one into another. Several extensive perforations
existed; and, at one point, permanent adhesion to the ribs had
taken place. These appearances in the right lobe were of comparatively
recent date. The ossification had proceeded with very unusual rapidity;
no sign of it had discovered a month before, and the adhesion had
only been observed during the three previous days. Independently of the
phthisis, the patient was suspected of aneurism of the aorta; but on this
point the osseous symptoms rendered an exact diagnosis impossible.
It was the opinion of both physicians that M. Valdemar would die about
midnight on the morrow (Sunday). It was then seven oclock on Saturday
evening.
On quitting the invalids bed-side to hold conversation with myself,
Doctors Dand Fhad 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 Ll), 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. Ll 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 patients
hand, I begged him to state, as distinctly as he could, to Mr. Ll,
whether he (M. Valdemar) was entirely willing that I should make the experiment
of mesmerizing him in his then condition.
He replied feebly, yet quite audibly, Yes, I wish to be.
I fear you have mesmerized"adding immediately afterwards,
deferred it too long.
While he spoke thus, I commenced the passes which I had already found
most effectual in subduing him. He was evidently influenced
with the first lateral stroke of my hand across his forehead; but
although I exerted all my powers, no farther perceptible
effect was induced until some minutes after ten oclock, 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
hesitationexchanging, 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
ceasedthat is to say, its stertorousness was no longer apparent;
the intervals were undiminished. The patients 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. Valdemars 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. Ll and the nurses remained.
We left M. Valdemar entirely undisturbed until about three oclock
in the morning, when I approached him and found him in precisely the same
condition as when Dr. Fwent awaythat is to say, he lay in
the same position; the pulse was imperceptible; the breathing was
gentle (scarcely noticeable, unless through the application of a mirror
to the lips); the eyes were closed naturally; and the limbs were as rigid
and as cold as marble. Still, the general appearance was certainly not
that of death.
As I approached M. Valdemar I made a kind of half effort to influence
his right arm into pursuit of my own, as I passed the latter gently
to and fro above his person. In such experiments with this patient had
never perfectly succeeded before, and assuredly I had little thought of
succeeding now; but to my astonishment, his arm very readily, although
feebly, followed every direction I assigned it with mine. I determined
to hazard a few words of conversation.
M. Valdemar, I said, are you asleep? He made
no answer, but I perceived a tremor about the lips, and was thus
induced to repeat the question, again and again. At its third repetition,
his whole frame was agitated by a very slight shivering; the eyelids
unclosed themselves so far as to display a white line of the ball; the
lips moved sluggishly, and from between them, in a barely audible
whisper, issued the words:
Yes;asleep now. Do not wake me!let me die so!
I here felt the limbs and found them as rigid as ever. The right
arm, as before, obeyed the direction of my hand. I questioned the sleep-waker
again:
Do you still feel pain in the breast, M. Valdemar?
The answer now was immediate, but even less audible than before:
No painI 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 asleepdying.
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 superveneand
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 voicesuch
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 intonationas well
adapted to convey some idea of its unearthly peculiarity. In the first
place, the voice seemed to reach our earsat least minefrom
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 distinctof even wonderfully,
thrillingly distinctsyllabification. M. Valdemar spokeobviously
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 sleepingand nownowI
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. Ll (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, silentlywithout the utterance of a wordin
endeavors to revive Mr. Ll. When he came to himself, we addressed
ourselves again to an investigation of M. Valdemars 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
insensiblealthough 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-wakers
state at this epoch. Other nurses were procured; and at
ten oclock I left the house in company with the two physicians and
Mr. Ll.
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 weekan interval of nearly
seven monthswe continued to make daily calls at M. Valdemars
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 circlesto 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 patients
arm, as heretofore. I made the attempt and failed. Dr. Fthen 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 Gods sake!quick!quick!put me to sleepor,
quick!waken me!quick!I say to you that I am dead!
I was thoroughly unnerved, and for an instant remained undecided what
to do. At first I made an endeavor to re-compose the patient; but,
failing in this through total abeyance of the will, I retraced
my steps and as earnestly struggled to awaken him. In this attempt
I soon saw that I should be successfulor at least I soon fancied
that my success would be completeand 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 oncewithin the space of a single
minute, or even less, shrunkcrumbledabsolutely rotted away
beneath my hands. Upon the bed, before that whole company, there lay a
nearly liquid mass of loathsomeof detestable putridity.
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 notand 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 terrifiedhave
torturedhave destroyed me. Yet I will not attempt to expound them.
To me, they have presented little but Horrorto many they will seem
less terrible than barroques. Hereafter, perhaps, some intellect
may be found which will reduce my phantasm to the common-placesome
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 pointand I mention the matter
at all for no better reason than that it happens, just now, to be remembered.
Plutothis was the cats namewas 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 characterthrough the instrumentality
of the Fiend Intemperancehad (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 mefor what
disease is like Alcohol!and at length even Pluto, who was now becoming
old, and consequently somewhat peevisheven 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 morningwhen I had slept off the
fumes of the nights debauchI 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 heartone
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 itselfto offer violence to its
own natureto do wrong for the wrongs sake onlythat 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 sina
deadly sin that would so jeopardize my immortal soul as to place
itif such a thing wore possibleeven 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 factsand 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 firea 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
animals neck.
When I first beheld this apparitionfor I could scarcely
regard it as lessmy 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 crowdby some one of whom the animal
must have been cut from the tree and thrown, through an open window, into
my chamber. This had probably been done with the view of arousing me from
sleep. The falling of other walls had compressed the victim of my cruelty
into the substance of the freshly-spread plaster; the lime of which, with
the flames, and the ammonia from the carcass, had then accomplished
the portraiture as I saw it.
Although I thus readily accounted to my reason, if not altogether to
my conscience, for the startling fact just detailed, it did not the less
fail to make a deep impression upon my fancy. For months I could not rid
myself of the phantasm of the cat; and, during this period, there
came back into my spirit a half-sentiment that seemed, but was not, remorse.
I went so far as to regret the loss of the animal, and to look about me,
among the vile haunts which I now habitually frequented,
for another pet of the same species, and of somewhat similar appearance,
with which to supply its place.
One night as I sat, half stupified, in a den of more than infamy,
my attention was suddenly drawn to some black object, reposing
upon the head of one of the immense hogsheads of Gin, or of Rum, which
constituted the chief furniture of the apartment. I had been looking
steadily at the top of this hogshead for some minutes, and what now caused
me surprise was the fact that I had not sooner perceived the object thereupon.
I approached it, and touched it with my hand. It was a black cata
very large onefully 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 itknew nothing of ithad 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; butI know not how
or why it wasits 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 graduallyvery graduallyI 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 chieflylet
me confess it at onceby absolute dread of the beast.
This dread was not exactly a dread of physical eviland yet I should
be at a loss how otherwise to define it. I am almost ashamed to ownyes,
even in this felons cell, I am almost ashamed to ownthat 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 degreesdegrees
nearly imperceptible, and which for a long time my Reason struggled
to reject as fancifulit had, at length, assumed a rigorous
distinctness of outline. It was now the representation of an object that
I shudder to nameand for this, above all, I loathed, and
dreaded, and would have rid myself of the monster had I daredit
was now, I say, the image of a hideousof a ghastly thingof
the GALLOWS!oh, mournful and terrible engine of Horror and
of Crimeof 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
destroyeda brute beast to work out for mefor
me a man, fashioned in the image of the High Godso much of insufferable
wo! Alas! neither by day nor by night knew I the blessing of Rest any
more! During the former the creature left me no moment alone; and, in
the latter, I started, hourly, from dreams of unutterable
fear, to find the hot breath of the thing upon my face, and its
vast weightan incarnate Night-Mare that I had no power to
shake offincumbent 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 intimatesthe
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 yardabout packing it in a box, as if merchandize,
with the usual arrangements, and so getting a porter to take it from the
house. Finally I hit upon what I considered a far better expedient
than either of these. I determined to wall it up in the cellaras
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 nightand 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 institutedbut 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, thisthis
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 inhumana howla wailing shriek, half of horror and
half of triumph, such as might have arisen only out of hell, conjointly
from the throats of the dammed in their agony and of the demons that exult
in the damnation.
Of my own thoughts it is folly to speak. Swooning, I staggered
to the opposite wall. For one instant the party upon the stairs remained
motionless, through extremity of terror and of awe. In the next,
a dozen stout arms were toiling at the wall. It fell bodily.
The corpse, already greatly decayed and clotted with gore, stood erect
before the eyes of the spectators. Upon its head, with red extended mouth
and solitary eye of fire, sat the hideous beast whose craft had seduced
me into murder, and whose informing voice had consigned me to the
hangman. I had walled the monster up within the tomb!
THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER
Son coeur est un luth suspendu;
Sitot quon le touche il resonne.
De Biranger.
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 wasbut,
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 meupon
the mere house, and the simple landscape features of the domainupon
the bleak wallsupon the vacant eye-like windowsupon
a few rank sedgesand upon a few white trunks of decayed treeswith
an utter depression of soul which I can compare to no earthly sensation
more properly than to the after-dream of the reveller upon opiumthe
bitter lapse into everyday lifethe hideous dropping off of
the veil. There was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heartan
unredeemed dreariness of thought which no goading of the imagination
could torture into aught of the sublime. What was itI
paused to thinkwhat 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 downbut with a shudder even more thrilling than
beforeupon 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 countrya letter from himwhich, 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 illnessof
a mental disorder which oppressed himand 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 saidit was the apparent heart that went with his requestwhich
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 otherit
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 experimentthat
of looking down within the tarnhad been to deepen the first singular
impression. There can be no doubt that the consciousness of the rapid
increase of my superstitionfor 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 fancya 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 vicinityan 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 tarna 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 mewhile 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 infancywhile I hesitated not to acknowledge how familiar was
all thisI 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 cordialityof the
constrained effort of the ennuyi; 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 incoherencean
inconsistency; and I soon found this to arise from a series of feeble
and futile struggles to overcome an habitual trepidancyan
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 concisionthat abrupt, weighty,
unhurried, and hollow-sounding enunciationthat 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 remedya 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 effectin terror. In this unnervedin
this pitiable conditionI 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
forthin regard to an influence whose supposititious force was conveyed
in terms too shadowy here to be re-statedan 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 spiritan
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 originto the severe and long-continued illnessindeed
to the evidently approaching dissolutionof a tenderly beloved
sisterhis sole companion for long yearshis 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 dreadand
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 brotherbut 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 obtainthat 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
leastin the circumstances then surrounding methere 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 palacereared its head.
In the monarch Thoughts 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;
(Thisall thiswas 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 lutes well-tunid 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 monarchs 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 laughbut 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 Ushers 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 stonesin the order of their arrangement, as
well as in that of the many fungi which overspread them, and of
the decayed trees which stood aroundabove all, in the long undisturbed
endurance of this arrangement, and in its reduplication in the still waters
of the tarn. Its evidencethe evidence of the sentiencewas
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 himwhat 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 booksthe books which, for years, had formed no small portion
of the mental existence of the invalidwere, 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 DIndagini, 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 Gothicthe
manual of a forgotten churchthe 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 deadfor
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 huebut 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 terrifiedthat 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 couchwhile 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 roomof 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,
harkenedI know not why, except that an instinctive spirit prompted
meto 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
wanbut, moreover, there was a species of mad hilarity in
his eyesan evidently restrained hysteria in his whole
demeanor. His air appalled mebut 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 thisyet we had no glimpse of the
moon or starsnor 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 notyou 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 uncommonor 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 Ushers
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 amazementfor
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 soundthe exact counterpart of
what my fancy had already conjured up for the dragons 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
breastyet 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 ideafor 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 t feet upon the silver floor,
with a mighty great and terrible ringing sound.
No sooner had these syllables passed my lips, thanas if a shield
of brass had indeed, at the moment, fallen heavily upon a floor of silverI
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.
Longlonglongmany minutes, many hours, many days,
have I heard ityet I dared notoh, pity me, miserable
wretch that I am!I dared notI 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 themmany, many
days agoyet I dared notI dared not speak! And
nowto-nightEthelredha! ha!the breaking of
the hermits 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 hurryin 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 soulMadman!
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 spellthe 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 gustbut 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 thresholdthen, 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 widenedthere
came a fierce breath of the whirlwindthe entire orb of the satellite
burst at once upon my sightmy brain reeled as I saw the mighty walls
rushing asunderthere was a long tumultuous shouting
sound like the voice of a thousand watersand the deep and dank
tarn at my feet closed sullenly and silently over the fragments
of the House of Usher.
SILENCEA FABLE
ALCMAN. The mountain pinnacles slumber; valleys, crags
and caves are silent.
LISTEN to me, said the Demon as he placed his hand upon
my head. The region of which I speak is a dreary region in Libya,
by the borders of the river Zaire. And there is no quiet there, nor silence.
The waters of the river have a saffron and sickly hue; and they
flow not onwards to the sea, but palpitate forever and forever
beneath the red eye of the sun with a tumultuous and convulsive
motion. For many miles on either side of the rivers 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 realmthe 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 headand 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 indistinctbut 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 tempestand
the rain beat upon the head of the manand the floods of the river
came downand the river was tormented into foamand the water-lilies
shrieked within their bedsand the forest crumbled before the windand
the thunder rolledand the lightning felland 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
heavenand the thunder died awayand the lightning did not flashand
the clouds hung motionlessand the waters sunk to their level and
remainedand the trees ceased to rockand the water-lilies sighed
no moreand 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 Magiin 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 seaand 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 Dodonabut,
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 sealthe 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 princes 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 sevenan
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 dukes 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 blueand 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 orangethe fifth
with whitethe 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 scarleta deep
blood color. Now in no one of the seven apartments was there any lamp
or candelabrum, amid the profusion of golden ornaments that lay
scattered to and fro or depended from the roof. There was no light of
any kind emanating from lamp or candle within the suite of chambers.
But in the corridors that followed the suite, there stood, opposite to
each window, a heavy tripod, bearing a brazier of fire that protected
its rays through the tinted glass and so glaringly illumined the room.
And thus were produced a multitude of gaudy and fantastic
appearances. But in the western or black chamber the effect of the fire-light
that streamed upon the dark hangings through the blood-tinted panes, was
ghastly in the extreme, and produced so wild a look upon the countenances
of those who entered, that there were few of the company bold enough to
set foot within its precincts at all.
It was in this apartment, also, that there stood against the western
wall, a gigantic clock of ebony. Its pendulum swung to and fro with a
dull, heavy, monotonous clang; and when the minute-hand made the
circuit of the face, and the hour was to be stricken, there came from
the brazen lungs of the clock a sound which was clear and loud
and deep and exceedingly musical, but of so peculiar a note and emphasis
that, at each lapse of an hour, the musicians of the orchestra
were constrained to pause, momentarily, in their performance, to hearken
to the sound; and thus the waltzers perforce ceased their evolutions;
and there was a brief disconcert of the whole gay company; and,
while the chimes of the clock yet rang, it was observed that the giddiest
grew pale, and the more aged and sedate passed their hands over
their brows as if in confused reverie or meditation. But when the
echoes had fully ceased, a light laughter at once pervaded the
assembly; the musicians looked at each other and smiled as if at their
own nervousness and folly, and made whispering vows, each to the other,
that the next chiming of the clock should produce in them no similar emotion;
and then, after the lapse of sixty minutes, (which embrace three
thousand and six hundred seconds of the Time that flies,) there came yet
another chiming of the clock, and then were the same disconcert
and tremulousness and meditation as before.
But, in spite of these things, it was a gay and magnificent revel.
The tastes of the duke were peculiar. He had a fine eye for colors and
effects. He disregarded the decora of mere fashion. His plans were bold
and fiery, and his conceptions glowed with barbaric lustre. There
are some who would have thought him mad. His followers felt that he was
not. It was necessary to hear and see and touch him to be sure that he
was not.
He had directed, in great part, the moveable embellishments of the seven
chambers, upon occasion of this great fete; and it was his own
guiding taste which had given character to the masqueraders. Be
sure they were grotesque. There were much glare and glitter and
piquancy and phantasmmuch 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 thesethe dreamswrithed
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 awaythey have endured but an instantand 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 surprisethen, 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 princes 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 bloodand 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 himthat 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 clearlyfor 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 princes 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 purplethrough the purple to the
greenthrough the green to the orangethrough this again to
the whiteand 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 cryand 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
settledbut 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 pointthis Fortunatoalthough 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 opportunityto
practise imposture upon the British and Austrian millionaires.
In painting and gemmary, Fortunato, like his countrymen, was a quackbut
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.
Truetrue, I replied; and, indeed, I had no intention
of alarming you unnecessarilybut 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 dor, 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 rivers 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 Grbve. 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 movementa 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 hesitatedI 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-echoedI aidedI 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 indeedan
excellent jest. We will have many a rich laugh about it at the palazzohe!
he! he!over our winehe! 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 sickon 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 impulsesof 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 beliefof 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 impulsefor 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 designsto 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 Gods 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 wrongs 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 ones 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 indefiniteof 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 chanticleernote to the ghost that has so long overawed
us. It fliesit disappearswe 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 abysswe
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 precipices 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 fallthis rushing annihilationfor
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 imaginationfor
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 victims 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 Coroners 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 safeI am
safeyesif 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 murderedand beckoned me
on to death.
At first, I made an effort to shake off this nightmare of the soul.
I walked vigorouslyfasterstill fasterat 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 earsa rougher grasp seized me by the
shoulder. I turnedI 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-meme; tous les autres veulent
des temoins. He here confounds the pleasure derivable from sweet
sounds with the capacity for creating them. No more than any other talent,
is that for music susceptible of complete enjoyment, where there
is no second party to appreciate its exercise. And it is only in common
with other talents that it produces effects which may be fully enjoyed
in solitude. The idea which the raconteur has either failed to entertain
clearly, or has sacrificed in its expression to his national love of point,
is, doubtless, the very tenable one that the higher order of music
is the most thoroughly estimated when we are exclusively alone. The proposition,
in this form, will be admitted at once by those who love the lyre
for its own sake, and for its spiritual uses. But there is one pleasure
still within the reach of fallen mortality and perhaps only onewhich
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 presencenot
of human life only, but of life in any other form than that of the green
things which grow upon the soil and are voicelessis a stain upon
the landscapeis 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
wholea 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 braina 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
handnotwithstanding the cant of the more ignorant of the priesthoodthat
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 principleindeed, 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 quelquun 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 allthat 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 itsuch was the character of phantasm
which it wore.
On all sidessave to the west, where the sun was about sinkingarose
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 eastwhile 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 airso 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, erectbright, slender, and graceful,of eastern
figure and foliage, with bark smooth, glossy, and parti-colored.
There seemed a deep sense of life and joy about all; and although no airs
blew from out the heavens, yet every thing had motion through the gentle
sweepings to and fro of innumerable butterflies, that might have
been mistaken for tulips with wings. (*4)
The other or eastern end of the isle was whelmed in the blackest
shade. A sombre, yet beautiful and peaceful gloom here pervaded
all things. The trees were dark in color, and mournful in form and attitude,
wreathing themselves into sad, solemn, and spectral shapes that
conveyed ideas of mortal sorrow and untimely death. The grass wore
the deep tint of the cypress, and the heads of its blades hung droopingly,
and hither and thither among it were many small unsightly hillocks, low
and narrow, and not very long, that had the aspect of graves, but were
not; although over and all about them the rue and the rosemary
clambered. The shade of the trees fell heavily upon the water,
and seemed to bury itself therein, impregnating the depths of the element
with darkness. I fancied that each shadow, as the sun descended lower
and lower, separated itself sullenly from the trunk that gave it
birth, and thus became absorbed by the stream; while other shadows issued
momently from the trees, taking the place of their predecessors
thus entombed.
This idea, having once seized upon my fancy, greatly excited it, and
I lost myself forthwith in revery. If ever island were enchanted,
said I to myself, this is it. This is the haunt of the few gentle
Fays who remain from the wreck of the race. Are these green tombs theirs?or
do they yield up their sweet lives as mankind yield up their own? In dying,
do they not rather waste away mournfully, rendering unto God, little
by little, their existence, as these trees render up shadow after
shadow, exhausting their substance unto dissolution? What the wasting
tree is to the water that imbibes its shade, growing thus blacker
by what it preys upon, may not the life of the Fay be to the death which
engulfs it?
As I thus mused, with half-shut eyes, while the sun sank rapidly
to rest, and eddying currents careered round and round the island,
bearing upon their bosom large, dazzling, white flakes of the bark
of the sycamore-flakes which, in their multiform positions upon
the water, a quick imagination might have converted into any thing it
pleased, while I thus mused, it appeared to me that the form of
one of those very Fays about whom I had been pondering made its way slowly
into the darkness from out the light at the western end of the island.
She stood erect in a singularly fragile canoe, and urged it with
the mere phantom of an oar. While within the influence of the lingering
sunbeams, her attitude seemed indicative of joybut sorrow deformed
it as she passed within the shade. Slowly she glided along, and at length
rounded the islet and re-entered the region of light. The
revolution which has just been made by the Fay, continued I, musingly,
is the cycle of the brief year of her life. She has floated through
her winter and through her summer. She is a year nearer unto Death; for
I did not fail to see that, as she came into the shade, her shadow fell
from her, and was swallowed up in the dark water, making its blackness
more black.
And again the boat appeared and the Fay, but about the attitude of the
latter there was more of care and uncertainty and less of elastic
joy. She floated again from out the light and into the gloom (which deepened
momently) and again her shadow fell from her into the ebony water, and
became absorbed into its blackness. And again and again she made the circuit
of the island, (while the sun rushed down to his slumbers), and at each
issuing into the light there was more sorrow about her person, while it
grew feebler and far fainter and more indistinct, and at each passage
into the gloom there fell from her a darker shade, which became whelmed
in a shadow more black. But at length when the sun had utterly departed,
the Fay, now the mere ghost of her former self, went disconsolately
with her boat into the region of the ebony flood, and that she issued
thence at all I cannot say, for darkness fell over an things and I beheld
her magical figure no more.
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!notoh
not as thou artin the cold valley and shadowbut as thou shouldst
besquandering away a life of magnificent meditation in
that city of dim visions, thine own Venicewhich 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 itas thou shouldst be. There are surely other
worlds than thisother thoughts than the thoughts of the multitudeother
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 rememberah! 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 Aphroditethe adoration of
all Venicethe gayest of the gaythe most lovely where all were
beautifulbut 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. Yetstrange to say!her
large lustrous eyes were not turned downwards upon that grave wherein
her brightest hope lay buriedbut riveted in a widely different direction!
The prison of the Old Republic is, I think, the stateliest building in
all Venicebut 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 windowwhat, then, could
there be in its shadowsin its architecturein its ivy-wreathed
and solemn cornicesthat the Marchesa di Mentoni had not wondered
at a thousand times before? Nonsense!Who does not remember that,
at such a time as this, the eye, like a shattered mirror, multiplies the
images of its sorrow, and sees in innumerable far-off places, the
wo which is close at hand?
Many steps above the Marchesa, and within the arch of the water-gate,
stood, in full dress, the Satyr-like figure of Mentoni himself.
He was occasionally occupied in thrumming a guitar, and seemed ennuye
to the very death, as at intervals he gave directions for the recovery
of his child. Stupified and aghast, I had myself no power to move
from the upright position I had assumed upon first hearing the shriek,
and must have presented to the eyes of the agitated group a spectral
and ominous appearance, as with pale countenance and rigid
limbs, I floated down among them in that funereal gondola.
All efforts proved in vain. Many of the most energetic in the search
were relaxing their exertions, and yielding to a gloomy sorrow. There
seemed but little hope for the child; (how much less than for the mother!)
but now, from the interior of that dark niche which has been already
mentioned as forming a part of the Old Republican prison, and as fronting
the lattice of the Marchesa, a figure muffled in a cloak, stepped
out within reach of the light, and, pausing a moment upon the verge
of the giddy descent, plunged headlong into the canal. As, in an
instant afterwards, he stood with the still living and breathing child
within his grasp, upon the marble flagstones by the side of the Marchesa,
his cloak, heavy with the drenching water, became unfastened, and, falling
in folds about his feet, discovered to the wonder-stricken spectators
the graceful person of a very young man, with the sound of whose name
the greater part of Europe was then ringing.
No word spoke the deliverer. But the Marchesa! She will now receive
her childshe will press it to her heartshe will cling to its
little form, and smother it with her caresses. Alas! anothers
arms have taken it from the strangeranothers arms have
taken it away, and borne it afar off, unnoticed, into the palace! And
the Marchesa! Her lipher beautiful lip trembles: tears are gathering
in her eyesthose eyes which, like Plinys acanthus, are soft
and almost liquid. Yes! tears are gathering in those eyesand
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 answerexcept
that, having left, in the eager haste and terror of a mothers 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
lowthe 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 conqueredone hour after sunrisewe shall meetso
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 strangerlet me call him by this title, who to
all the world was still a strangerthe 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 deitysingular, wild, full, liquid eyes, whose
shadows varied from pure hazel to intense and brilliant jetand a
profusion of curling, black hair, from which a forehead of unusual breadth
gleamed forth at intervals all light and ivoryhis 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 peculiarit
had no settled predominant expression to be fastened upon the memory;
a countenance seen and instantly forgottenbut 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 facebut 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 noneneither
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 apartmentat my statuesmy picturesmy 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
Morea very fine man was Sir Thomas MoreSir 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 Palf; ochori,) at Sparta, I say, to the west of the citadel,
among a chaos of scarcely visible ruins, is a kind of socle, upon
which are still legible the letters 7!=9. They are undoubtedly part of
+7!=9!. Now, at Sparta were a thousand temples and shrines to a
thousand different divinities. How exceedingly strange that the altar
of Laughter should have survived all the others! But in the present instance,
he resumed, with a singular alteration of voice and manner, I
have no right to be merry at your expense. You might well have been amazed.
Europe cannot produce anything so fine as this, my little regal
cabinet. My other apartments are by no means of the same ordermere
ultras of fashionable insipidity. This is better than fashionis
it not? Yet this has but to be seen to become the ragethat is, with
those who could afford it at the cost of their entire patrimony.
I have guarded, however, against any such profanation. With one
exception, you are the only human being besides myself and my valet,
who has been admitted within the mysteries of these imperial precincts,
since they have been bedizzened as you see!
I bowed in acknowledgmentfor 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 doeuvre 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 Guidos own! I said, with all the enthusiasm
of my nature, for I had been poring intently over its surpassing loveliness.
It is Guidos own!how could you have obtained
it?she is undoubtedly in painting what the Venus is in sculpture.
Ha! said he thoughtfully, the Venusthe 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 copythere can be no doubt of itblind fool that I am,
who cannot behold the boasted inspiration of the Apollo! I cannot helppity
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 lottimo 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 actionsintruding upon his moments of dallianceand
interweaving itself with his very flashes of merrimentlike 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 trepidationa
degree of nervous unction in action and in speechan
unquiet excitability of manner which appeared to me at all times unaccountable,
and upon some occasions even filled me with alarm. Frequently, too, pausing
in the middle of a sentence whose commencement he had apparently forgotten,
he seemed to be listening in the deepest attention, as if either in momentary
expectation of a visiter, or to sounds which must have had existence in
his imagination alone.
It was during one of these reveries or pauses of apparent abstraction,
that, in turning over a page of the poet and scholar Politians 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 acta passage of the
most heart-stirring excitementa passage which, although tainted
with impurity, no man shall read without a thrill of novel emotionno
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 oer the Past
(Dim gulf!) my spirit hovering lies,
Mutemotionlessaghast!
For alas! alas! with me
The light of life is oer.
No moreno moreno 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 oer 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 Englisha language with which
I had not believed their author acquaintedafforded 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 overscorednot, 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 (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 tragedythere 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 Chapmans Bussy DAmbois, 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 earlybut 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 earlybut 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 Mentonis household burst into the room, and faltered
out, in a voice choking with emotion, the incoherent words, My
mistress!my mistress!Poisoned!poisoned! Oh, beautifuloh,
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
rigidhis lips were lividhis lately beaming eyes
were riveted in death. I staggered back towards the tablemy
hand fell upon a cracked and blackened gobletand 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 sicksick 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 sentencethe dread sentence of deathwas
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 revolutionperhaps
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 whitewhiter than the sheet upon which
I trace these wordsand thin even to grotesqueness; thin with
the intensity of their expression of firmnessof immoveable resolutionof
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 slumberno! In
deliriumno! In a swoonno! In deathno!
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 iswhat? 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 floweris 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 downdownstill
downtill 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 hearts 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 madnessthe
madness of a memory which busies itself among forbidden things.
Very suddenly there came back to my soul motion and soundthe 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 toucha
tingling sensation pervading my frame. Then the mere consciousness
of existence, without thoughta 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 narratedfables
I had always deemed thembut 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 masonryvery 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 objectcertainly no hope these researches; but a vague
curiosity prompted me to continue them. Quitting the wall, I resolved
to cross the area of the enclosure. At first I proceeded with extreme
caution, for the floor, although seemingly of solid material, was treacherous
with slime. At length, however, I took courage, and did not hesitate to
step firmly; endeavoring to cross in as direct a line as possible.
I had advanced some ten or twelve paces in this manner, when the remnant
of the torn hem of my robe became entangled between my legs. I stepped
on it, and fell violently on my face.
In the confusion attending my fall, I did not immediately apprehend
a somewhat startling circumstance, which yet, in a few seconds afterward,
and while I still lay prostrate, arrested my attention. It was
thismy 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 pitsthat 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 mea
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 stepsthus 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 observedwith what horror it
is needless to saythat 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
agentsthe pit whose horrors had been destined for so bold a recusant
as myselfthe 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 inchline
by linewith a descent only appreciable at intervals that
seemed agesdown and still down it came! Days passedit might
have been that many days passedere 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 prayedI 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 veryoh,
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 joyof hope. Yet what business had I with hope?
It was, as I say, a half formed thoughtman has many such which are
never completed. I felt that it was of joyof hope; but felt also
that it had perished in its formation. In vain I struggled to perfectto
regain it. Long suffering had nearly annihilated all my ordinary
powers of mind. I was an imbecilean 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 robeit would return and repeat its operationsagainand
again. Notwithstanding terrifically wide sweep (some thirty feet or more)
and the its hissing vigor of its descent, sufficient to sunder
these very walls of iron, still the fraying of my robe would be all that,
for several minutes, it would accomplish. And at this thought I paused.
I dared not go farther than this reflection. I dwelt upon it with a pertinacity
of attentionas 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 garmentupon 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.
Downsteadily down it crept. I took a frenzied pleasure in contrasting
its downward with its lateral velocity. To the rightto the
leftfar and widewith 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.
Downcertainly, 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!
Downstill unceasinglystill 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 quiverthe frame to shrink.
It was hopethe hope that triumphs on the rackthat 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 hoursor perhaps daysI thought. It now occurred
to me that the bandage, or surcingle, which enveloped me, was unique.
I was tied by no separate cord. The first stroke of the razorlike crescent
athwart any portion of the band, would so detach it that it might
be unwound from my person by means of my left hand. But how fearful, in
that case, the proximity of the steel! The result of the slightest struggle
how deadly! Was it likely, moreover, that the minions of the torturer
had not foreseen and provided for this possibility! Was it probable that
the bandage crossed my bosom in the track of the pendulum? Dreading
to find my faint, and, as it seemed, in last hope frustrated, I so far
elevated my head as to obtain a distinct view of my breast. The surcingle
enveloped my limbs and body close in all directionssave 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 presentfeeble,
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 changeat 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 woodthey
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 pressedthey 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 calculationsnor 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 movementcautious,
sidelong, shrinking, and slowI 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
unusualsome change which, at first, I could not appreciate distinctlyit
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 tormentorsoh! 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 forcedit wrestled its way into my soulit 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 handsweeping 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 celland
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 acutetwo, 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 backbut 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 brinkI
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 factit is the realityit
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, indeedthe ultimate woeis particular,
not diffuse. That the ghastly extremes of agony are endured
by man the unit, and never by man the massfor 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 effectsthat the well-known occurrence
of such cases of suspended animation must naturally give rise, now and
then, to premature intermentsapart 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 Congresswas
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 ironwork 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 buriednot
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 womans
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 ladys 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 Leipsica periodical of
high authority and merit, which some American bookseller would do well
to translate and republish, records in a late number a very distressing
event of the character in question.
An officer of artillery, a man of gigantic stature and of robust
health, being thrown from an unmanageable horse, received a very severe
contusion upon the head, which rendered him insensible
at once; the skull was slightly fractured, but no immediate danger was
apprehended. Trepanning was accomplished successfully. He was bled,
and many other of the ordinary means of relief were adopted. Gradually,
however, he fell into a more and more hopeless state of stupor,
and, finally, it was thought that he died.
The weather was warm, and he was buried with indecent haste in one of
the public cemeteries. His funeral took place on Thursday. On the Sunday
following, the grounds of the cemetery were, as usual, much thronged
with visiters, and about noon an intense excitement was created by the
declaration of a peasant that, while sitting upon the grave of the officer,
he had distinctly felt a commotion of the earth, as if occasioned
by some one struggling beneath. At first little attention was paid to
the mans 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 thenspoke. 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 awebut 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
friendsfrom whom, however, all knowledge of his resuscitation
was withheld, until a relapse was no longer to be apprehended.
Their wondertheir rapturous astonishmentmay 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
insensiblethat, 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 thesebut
I forbearfor, 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 suspicionbut 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 lungsthe
stifling fumes from the damp earththe clinging to the death garmentsthe
rigid embrace of the narrow housethe blackness of the absolute
Nightthe silence like a sea that overwhelmsthe unseen but
palpable presence of the Conqueror Wormthese 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 informedthat our hopeless portion
is that of the really deadthese 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 Earthwe 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 knowledgeof 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 weekseven for months; while the closest scrutiny,
and the most rigorous medical tests, fail to establish any material
distinction between the state of the sufferer and what we conceive of
absolute death. Very usually he is saved from premature interment
solely by the knowledge of his friends that he has been previously subject
to catalepsy, by the consequent suspicion excited, and, above all, by
the non-appearance of decay. The advances of the malady are, luckily,
gradual. The first manifestations, although marked, are unequivocal.
The fits grow successively more and more distinctive, and endure each
for a longer term than the preceding. In this lies the principal security
from inhumation. The unfortunate whose first attack should be of the extreme
character which is occasionally seen, would almost inevitably be consigned
alive to the tomb.
My own case differed in no important particular from those mentioned
in medical books. Sometimes, without any apparent cause, I sank, little
by little, into a condition of hemi-syncope, or half swoon; and,
in this condition, without pain, without ability to stir, or, strictly
speaking, to think, but with a dull lethargic consciousness of life and
of the presence of those who surrounded my bed, I remained, until the
crisis of the disease restored me, suddenly, to perfect sensation. At
other times I was quickly and impetuously smitten. I grew sick,
and numb, and chilly, and dizzy, and so fell prostrate at once.
Then, for weeks, all was void, and black, and silent, and Nothing became
the universe. Total annihilation could be no more. From these latter
attacks I awoke, however, with a gradation slow in proportion to
the suddenness of the seizure. Just as the day dawns to the friendless
and houseless beggar who roams the streets throughout the long desolate
winter nightjust so tardilyjust so wearilyjust 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 maladyunless, 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 excessivein the latter,
supreme. When the grim Darkness overspread the Earth, then, with every
horror of thought, I shookshook as the quivering plumes upon the
hearse. When Nature could endure wakefulness no longer, it was with a
struggle that I consented to sleepfor 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 nightof 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 notoh! 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 notO, 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 reasonwould
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 epochas often before there had arrivedin
which I found myself emerging from total unconsciousness into the first
feeble and indefinite sense of existence. Slowlywith a tortoise
gradationapproached the faint gray dawn of the psychal day.
A torpid uneasiness. An apathetic endurance of dull pain.
No careno hopeno 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 Dangerby 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 fateand yet there was something at
my heart which whispered me it was sure. Despairsuch as no other
species of wretchedness ever calls into beingdespair alone urged
me, after long irresolution, to uplift the heavy lids of my eyes. I uplifted
them. It was darkall 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 facultiesand yet it was darkall
darkthe 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 attemptbut 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
limbsbut 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 Hopefor
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 preparedand
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
strangerswhen, or how, I could not rememberand it was they
who had buried me as a dognailed up in some common coffinand
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 devils 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 slumberfor I was wide
awake when I screamedbut 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 vesseland 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 visionfor it was no dream,
and no nightmarearose naturally from the circumstances of my positionfrom
my ordinary bias of thoughtand 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 fearfullythey
were inconceivably hideous; but out of Evil proceeded Good; for
their very excess wrought in my spirit an inevitable revulsion. My soul
acquired toneacquired 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 churchyardsno
bugaboo talessuch as this. In short, I became a new man, and lived
a mans 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 Hellbut 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 fancifulbut, like the Demons in
whose company Afrasiab made his voyage down the Oxus, they must sleep,
or they will devour usthey 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 Condorcetof 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 mans 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 mankindthat as a species we have in our possession
the as yet unwrought elements of contentand 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. Ellisons 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 timeor busying himself with political intrigueor
aiming at ministerial poweror purchasing increase of nobilityor
collecting large museums of virtuor playing the munificent
patron of letters, of science, of artor 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 opulenceenriching 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 poetif 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 seenand
that, unless through some series of accidents goading the noblest
order of mind into distasteful exertion, the world will never seethat
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 effortor, more properly, in its adaptation to the eyes which
were to behold it on earthhe perceived that he should be employing
the best meanslaboring to the greatest advantagein 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 excessmany 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 earths surface as
to have fulfilled at all points mans sense of perfection in the
beautiful, the sublime, or the picturesque; but that this
primitive intention had been frustrated by the known geological disturbancesdisturbances
of form and colorgrouping, 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 earths 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 largein massfrom some point distant from the earths
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 orderour unpicturesqueness
picturesque, in a word, the earth-angels, for whose scrutiny
more especially than our own, and for whose deathrefined 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 incongruitiesin
the prevalence of a healthy harmony and orderthan 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 landscapegardening, 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 mosscovered 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 denialto 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 authors 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 incontrovertiblebut there may be something beyond it.
There may be an object in keeping with the principlean 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 wildernessesin the most
savage of the scenes of pure naturethere 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 depressedto be brought into something
like harmony or consistency with the sense of human artto form an
intermedium between the two:let us imagine, for example, a landscape
whose combined vastness and definitivenesswhose united beauty, magnificence,
and strangeness, shall convey the idea of care, or culture, or superintendence,
on the part of beings superior, yet akin to humanitythen the sentiment
of interest is preserved, while the art intervolved is made to assume
the air of an intermediate or secondary naturea 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 thisin the free exercise in the open air ensured
by the personal superintendence of his plansin the unceasing object
which these plans affordedin the high spirituality of the objectin
the contempt of ambition which it enabled him truly to feelin the
perennial springs with which it gratified, without possibility
of satiating, that one master passion of his soul, the thirst for
beauty, above all, it was in the sympathy of a woman, not unwomanly, whose
loveliness and love enveloped his existence in the purple atmosphere of
Paradise, that Ellison thought to find, and found, exemption from the
ordinary cares of humanity, with a far greater amount of positive happiness
than ever glowed in the rapt day-dreams of De Stael.
I despair of conveying to the reader any distinct conception of the
marvels which my friend did actually accomplish. I wish to describe, but
am disheartened by the difficulty of description, and hesitate between
detail and generality. Perhaps the better course will be to unite
the two in their extremes.
Mr. Ellisons 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 nights 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 citywhose 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 Ellisons 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, excitesand
then fatigues, depresses. For the occasional scene nothing can
be betterfor 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 seclusionthe sentiment and sense which
we seek to humor in retiring to the country. In looking from
the summit of a mountain we cannot help feeling abroad in the world. The
heart-sick avoid distant prospects as a pestilence.
It was not until toward the close of the fourth year of our search that
we found a locality with which Ellison professed himself satisfied.
It is, of course, needless to say where was the locality. The late death
of my friend, in causing his domain to be thrown open to certain classes
of visiters, has given to Arnheim a species of secret and subdued
if not solemn celebrity, similar in kind, although infinitely superior
in degree, to that which so long distinguished Fonthill.
The usual approach to Arnheim was by the river. The visiter left the
city in the early morning. During the forenoon he passed between shores
of a tranquil and domestic beauty, on which grazed innumerable
sheep, their white fleeces spotting the vivid green of rolling
meadows. By degrees the idea of cultivation subsided into that
of merely pastoral care. This slowly became merged in a sense of
retirementthis 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 floorthe 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 gorgealthough
the term is somewhat inapplicable, and I employ it merely because the
language has no word which better represents the most strikingnot
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 branchnot a withered leafnot a stray pebblenot
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 onethat immediately fronting the vessel as it enteredby
hills equal in general height to the walls of the chasm, although
of a thoroughly different character. Their sides sloped from the waters
edge at an angle of some forty-five degrees, and they were clothed from
base to summitnot a perceptible point escapingin 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 glimpsesthat is to say, whenever
the eye could permit itself not to see, far down in the inverted heaven,
the duplicate blooming of the hills. On these latter there were
no trees, nor even shrubs of any size. The impressions wrought on the
observer were those of richness, warmth, color, quietude, uniformity,
softness, delicacy, daintiness, voluptuousness, and a miraculous
extremeness of culture that suggested dreams of a new race of fairies,
laborious, tasteful, magnificent, and fastidious; but as
the eye traced upward the myriad-tinted slope, from its sharp junction
with the water to its vague termination amid the folds of overhanging
cloud, it became, indeed, difficult not to fancy a panoramic cataract
of rubies, sapphires, opals, and golden onyxes, rolling silently out of
the sky.
The visiter, shooting suddenly into this bay from out the gloom of the
ravine, is delighted but astounded by the full orb of the declining
sun, which he had supposed to be already far below the horizon, but which
now confronts him, and forms the sole termination of an otherwise limitless
vista seen through another chasmlike 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 cheerthat the fates will
take care of him. The larger vessel disappears, and he is left alone in
the canoe, which lies apparently motionless in the middle of the lake.
While he considers what course to pursue, however, he becomes aware of
a gentle movement in the fairy bark. It slowly swings itself around until
its prow points toward the sun. It advances with a gentle but gradually
accelerated velocity, while the slight ripples it creates seem to break
about the ivory side in divinest melody-seem to offer the only possible
explanation of the soothing yet melancholy music for whose unseen origin
the bewildered voyager looks around him in vain.
The canoe steadily proceeds, and the rocky gate of the vista
is approached, so that its depths can be more distinctly seen. To the
right arise a chain of lofty hills rudely and luxuriantly wooded. It is
observed, however, that the trait of exquisite cleanness where
the bank dips into the water, still prevails. There is not one
token of the usual river debris. To the left the character
of the scene is softer and more obviously artificial. Here the bank slopes
upward from the stream in a very gentle ascent, forming a broad sward
of grass of a texture resembling nothing so much as velvet, and of a brilliancy
of green which would bear comparison with the tint of the purest emerald.
This plateau varies in width from ten to three hundred yards; reaching
from the river-bank to a wall, fifty feet high, which extends, in an infinity
of curves, but following the general direction of the river, until lost
in the distance to the westward. This wall is of one continuous rock,
and has been formed by cutting perpendicularly the once rugged
precipice of the streams 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 canoes 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 leftin 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 dreamlike intermingling to the eye of tall slender Eastern
treesbosky shrubberiesflocks of golden and crimson birdslily-fringed
lakesmeadows of violets, tulips, poppies, hyacinths, and tuberoseslong
intertangled lines of silver streamletsand, 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.
LANDORS 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 shonestrictly speakingduring 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 appearancealthough, 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 easePonto
taking charge of my gununtil 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 wagonthe most
aspiring vehicle, I take it, of its kind. The road, however, except
in being open through the woodif wood be not too weighty a name
for such an assemblage of light treesand except in the particulars
of evident wheel-tracksbore no resemblance to any road I had before
seen. The tracks of which I speak were but faintly perceptiblehaving
been impressed upon the firm, yet pleasantly moist surface ofwhat
looked more like green Genoese velvet than any thing else. It was grass,
clearlybut grass such as we seldom see out of Englandso short,
so thick, so even, and so vivid in color. Not a single impediment
lay in the wheel-routenot even a chip or dead twig. The stones that
once obstructed the way had been carefully placednot 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 undoubtedlythat
did not surprise meall 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 herewith 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 fairylike 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 earand 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 viewthus gradually as I describe itpiece
by piece, here a tree, there a glimpse of water, and here again the summit
of a chimney, I could scarcely help fancying that the whole was one of
the ingenious illusions sometimes exhibited under the name of vanishing
pictures.
By the time, however, that the fog had thoroughly disappeared, the sun
had made its way down behind the gentle hills, and thence, as it with
a slight chassez to the south, had come again fully into sight, glaring
with a purplish lustre through a chasm that entered the
valley from the west. Suddenly, thereforeand as if by the hand of
magicthis whole valley and every thing in it became brilliantly
visible.
The first coup doeil, as the sun slid into the position
described, impressed me very much as I have been impressed, when a boy,
by the concluding scene of some well-arranged theatrical spectacle or
melodrama. Not even the monstrosity of color was wanting;
for the sunlight came out through the chasm, tinted all orange
and purple; while the vivid green of the grass in the valley was
reflected more or less upon all objects from the curtain of vapor that
still hung overhead, as if loth to take its total departure from a scene
so enchantingly beautiful.
The little vale into which I thus peered down from under the
fog canopy could not have been more than four hundred yards long;
while in breadth it varied from fifty to one hundred and fifty or perhaps
two hundred. It was most narrow at its northern extremity, opening
out as it tended southwardly, but with no very precise regularity. The
widest portion was within eighty yards of the southern extreme. The slopes
which encompassed the vale could not fairly be called hills,
unless at their northern face. Here a precipitous ledge of granite
arose to a height of some ninety feet; and, as I have mentioned, the valley
at this point was not more than fifty feet wide; but as the visiter proceeded
southwardly from the cliff, he found on his right hand and on his left,
declivities at once less high, less precipitous, and less
rocky. All, in a word, sloped and softened to the south; and yet the whole
vale was engirdled by eminences, more or less high, except
at two points. One of these I have already spoken of. It lay considerably
to the north of west, and was where the setting sun made its way, as I
have before described, into the amphitheatre, through a cleanly
cut natural cleft in the granite embankment; this fissure
might have been ten yards wide at its widest point, so far as the eye
could trace it. It seemed to lead up, up like a natural causeway,
into the recesses of unexplored mountains and forests. The other
opening was directly at the southern end of the vale. Here, generally,
the slopes were nothing more than gentle inclinations, extending from
east to west about one hundred and fifty yards. In the middle of this
extent was a depression, level with the ordinary floor of the valley.
As regards vegetation, as well as in respect to every thing else, the
scene softened and sloped to the south. To the northon the craggy
precipicea few paces from the vergeup 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 locustthese
again by the softer linden, red-bud, catalpa, and maplethese yet
again by still more graceful and more modest varieties. The whole face
of the southern declivity was covered with wild shrubbery alonean
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 triplestemmed tulip-treethe Liriodendron Tulipiferumone
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,
delicatelygranulated 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 wentuntil 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-housearose from the lake not far
from its northern shoreto which it was connected by means of an
inconceivably lightlooking 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 deepat some points thirty feetbut the rivulet
seldom exceeded three, while its greatest width was about eight. Its bottom
and banks were as those of the pondif 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 lawns
velvet was exquisitely spotted with sheepa considerable flock of
which roamed about the vale, in company with three tamed deer,
and a vast number of brilliantlyplumed ducks. A very large mastiff
seemed to be in vigilant attendance upon these animals, each and
all.
Along the eastern and western cliffswhere, toward the upper portion
of the amphitheatre, the boundaries were more or less precipitousgrew
ivy in great profusionso 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-houseand
when I say that this house, like the infernal terrace seen
by Vathek, etait dune 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 proprietyin 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 simplemore 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 itfrom a position
on the stone wall at the southern extreme of the amphitheatre.
The main building was about twenty-four feet long and sixteen broadcertainly
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 onenot exactly in the middleextended
a third compartment, very smallbeing, in general, one-third less
than the western wing. The roofs of the two larger were very steepsweeping
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 eastwhile the two windows were to the west. These latter
did not extend to the floor, but were much longer and narrower than usualthey
had single shutters like doorsthe panes were of lozenge form, but
quite large. The door itself had its upper half of glass, also in lozenge
panesa movable shutter secured it at night. The door to the west
wing was in its gable, and quite simplea 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 itthe 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 loftfor 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 materialnot 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 outhouses 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 bobolinkwhile 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 roofthen 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 shinglesbroad, 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 topafter 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 advantagefor the southeastern angle was thrown forwardso
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 travellers
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 amityand 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 thresholdthat
of a young woman about twenty-eight years of ageslender, 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 enteredpassing 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. Landorfor
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 wingprobably a kitchen.
Nothing could be more rigorously simple than the furniture of
the parlor. On the floor was an ingrain carpet, of excellent texturea
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 floorjust 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
Juliens 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 heada 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 groundglass 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. Landors residenceas I found it. How he made
it what it wasand whywith some particulars of Mr. Landor himselfmay,
possibly form the subject of another article.
WILLIAM WILSON
What say of it? what say of CONSCIENCE grim,
That spectre in my path?
Chamberlaynes 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 scornfor the horrorfor
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 epochthese
later yearstook 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 chancewhat 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 sympathyI had nearly said for the
pityof 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 allowwhat they cannot refrain from allowingthat,
although temptation may have erewhile existed as great, man was never
thus, at least, tempted beforecertainly, 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 ammisery, alas! only too realI 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 weekonce
every Saturday afternoon, when, attended by two ushers, we were permitted
to take brief walks in a body through some of the neighbouring fieldsand
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 mysterya 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 indeedsuch as a first advent
to school or final departure thence, or perhaps, when a parent or friend
having called for us, we joyfully took our way home for the Christmas
or Midsummer holy-days.
But the house!how quaint an old building was this!to
me how veritably a palace of enchantment! There was really no end
to its windingsto 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 innumerableinconceivableand 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 houseI could not help thinking,
in the world. It was very long, narrow, and dismally low, with pointed
Gothic windows and a ceiling of oak. In a remote and terror-inspiring
angle was a square enclosure of eight or ten feet, comprising the sanctum,
during hours, of our principal, the Reverend Dr. Bransby.
It was a solid structure, with massy door, sooner than open which in the
absence of the Dominic, we would all have willingly perished
by the peine forte et dure. In other angles were two other similar
boxes, far less reverenced, indeed, but still greatly matters of
awe. One of these was the pulpit of the classical usher, one
of the English and mathematical. Interspersed about
the room, crossing and recrossing in endless irregularity, were innumerable
benches and desks, black, ancient, and time-worn, piled desperately with
much-bethumbed books, and so beseamed with initial letters, names at full
length, grotesque figures, and other multiplied efforts of the
knife, as to have entirely lost what little of original form might have
been their portion in days long departed. A huge bucket with water stood
at one extremity of the room, and a clock of stupendous
dimensions at the other.
Encompassed by the massy walls of this venerable academy,
I passed, yet not in tedium or disgust, the years of the third
lustrum of my life. The teeming brain of childhood requires no external
world of incident to occupy or amuse it; and the apparently dismal monotony
of a school was replete with more intense excitement than my riper
youth has derived from luxury, or my full manhood from crime. Yet I must
believe that my first mental development had in it much of the uncommoneven
much of the outre. Upon mankind at large the events of very early existence
rarely leave in mature age any definite impression. All is gray shadowa
weak and irregular remembrancean 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 factin the fact of the worlds viewhow little
was there to remember! The mornings awakening, the nightly summons
to bed; the connings, the recitations; the periodical half-holidays, and
perambulations; the play-ground, with its broils, its pastimes,
its intrigues;these, by a mental sorcery long forgotten,
were made to involve a wilderness of sensation, a world of rich incident,
an universe of varied emotion, of excitement the most passionate and spirit-stirring.
Oh, le bon temps, que ce siecle de fer!
In truth, the ardor, the enthusiasm, and the imperiousness
of my disposition, soon rendered me a marked character among
my schoolmates, and by slow, but natural gradations, gave me an ascendancy
over all not greatly older than myself;over all with a single exception.
This exception was found in the person of a scholar, who, although no
relation, bore the same Christian and surname as myself;a
circumstance, in fact, little remarkable; for, notwithstanding a noble
descent, mine was one of those everyday appellations which seem,
by prescriptive right, to have been, time out of mind, the common property
of the mob. In this narrative I have therefore designated myself as William
Wilson,a fictitious title not very dissimilar to the real.
My namesake alone, of those who in school phraseology constituted
our set, presumed to compete with me in the studies of the
classin the sports and broils of the play-groundto refuse
implicit belief in my assertions, and submission to my willindeed,
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.
Wilsons 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 superiorityeven
this equalitywas 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 Wilsons 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. Bransbys,
I casually learned that my namesake was born on the nineteenth of January,
1813and 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 wits end than myself;my rival had a weakness in
the faucal or guttural organs, which precluded him from raising
his voice at any time above a very low whisper. Of this defect I did not
fall to take what poor advantage lay in my power.
Wilsons 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 consolationin the fact that the
imitation, apparently, was noticed by myself alone, and that I had to
endure only the knowing and strangely sarcastic smiles of my namesake
himself. Satisfied with having produced in my bosom the intended
effect, he seemed to chuckle in secret over the sting he had inflicted,
and was characteristically disregardful of the public applause which the
success of his witty endeavours might have so easily elicited.
That the school, indeed, did not feel his design, perceive its accomplishment,
and participate in his sneer, was, for many anxious months, a riddle I
could not resolve. Perhaps the gradation of his copy rendered
it not so readily perceptible; or, more possibly, I owed my security
to the master air of the copyist, who, disdaining the letter, (which
in a painting is all the obtuse can see,) gave but the full spirit
of his original for my individual contemplation and chagrin.
I have already more than once spoken of the disgusting air of patronage
which he assumed toward me, and of his frequent officious interference
withy my will. This interference often took the ungracious character of
advice; advice not openly given, but hinted or insinuated. I received
it with a repugnance which gained strength as I grew in years.
Yet, at this distant day, let me do him the simple justice to acknowledge
that I can recall no occasion when the suggestions of my rival were on
the side of those errors or follies so usual to his immature age and seeming
inexperience; that his moral sense, at least, if not his general talents
and worldly wisdom, was far keener than my own; and that I might, to-day,
have been a better, and thus a happier man, had I less frequently rejected
the counsels embodied in those meaning whispers which I then but
too cordially hated and too bitterly despised.
As it was, I at length grew restive in the extreme under his
distasteful supervision, and daily resented more and more openly what
I considered his intolerable arrogance. I have said that, in the
first years of our connexion as schoolmates, my feelings in regard to
him might have been easily ripened into friendship: but, in the latter
months of my residence at the academy, although the intrusion of
his ordinary manner had, beyond doubt, in some measure, abated,
my sentiments, in nearly similar proportion, partook very much
of positive hatred. Upon one occasion he saw this, I think, and afterwards
avoided, or made a show of avoiding me.
It was about the same period, if I remember aright, that, in an altercation
of violence with him, in which he was more than usually thrown off his
guard, and spoke and acted with an openness of demeanor rather
foreign to his nature, I discovered, or fancied I discovered, in his accent,
his air, and general appearance, a something which first startled, and
then deeply interested me, by bringing to mind dim visions of my earliest
infancywild, 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 agosome 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 thesethese 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 appearedassuredly not
thusin 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. Bransbys,
or at least to effect a material change in the nature of the feelings
with which I remembered them. The truththe tragedyof 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
herea 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. Bransbys 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 Wilsonthe noblest and most
commoner at Oxfordhim whose follies (said his parasites) were but
the follies of youth and unbridled fancywhose errors but
inimitable whimwhose 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, Glendinningrich,
said report, as Herodes Atticushis 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 gamblers usual art, to let him win considerable sums, the
more effectually to entangle him in my snares. At length, my schemes
being ripe, I met him (with the full intention that this meeting should
be final and decisive) at the chambers of a fellow-commoner, (Mr. Preston,)
equally intimate with both, but who, to do him Justice, entertained
not even a remote suspicion of my design. To give to this a better colouring,
I had contrived to have assembled a party of some eight or ten,
and was solicitously careful that the introduction of cards should
appear accidental, and originate in the proposal of my contemplated dupe
himself. To be brief upon a vile topic, none of the low finesse
was omitted, so customary upon similar occasions that it is a just matter
for wonder how any are still found so besotted as to fall its victim.
We had protracted our sitting far into the night, and I had at
length effected the manoeuvre of getting Glendinning as my sole antagonist.
The game, too, was my favorite ecarte! The rest of the company, interested
in the extent of our play, had abandoned their own cards, and were standing
around us as spectators. The parvenu, who had been induced
by my artifices in the early part of the evening, to drink deeply,
now shuffled, dealt, or played, with a wild nervousness of manner for
which his intoxication, I thought, might partially, but could not
altogether account. In a very short period he had become my debtor to
a large amount, when, having taken a long draught of port, he did
precisely what I had been coolly anticipatinghe proposed to double
our already extravagant stakes. With a well-feigned show of reluctance,
and not until after my repeated refusal had seduced him into some
angry words which gave a color of pique to my compliance, did I
finally comply. The result, of course, did but prove how entirely the
prey was in my toils; in less than an hour he had quadrupled his
debt. For some time his countenance had been losing the florid
tinge lent it by the wine; but now, to my astonishment, I perceived
that it had grown to a pallor truly fearful. I say to my astonishment.
Glendinning had been represented to my eager inquiries as immeasurably
wealthy; and the sums which he had as yet lost, although in themselves
vast, could not, I supposed, very seriously annoy, much less so violently
affect him. That he was overcome by the wine just swallowed, was the idea
which most readily presented itself; and, rather with a view to the preservation
of my own character in the eyes of my associates, than from any less interested
motive, I was about to insist, peremptorily, upon a discontinuance
of the play, when some expressions at my elbow from among the company,
and an ejaculation evincing utter despair on the part of Glendinning,
gave me to understand that I had effected his total ruin under circumstances
which, rendering him an object for the pity of all, should have
protected him from the ill offices even of a fiend.
What now might have been my conduct it is difficult to say. The pitiable
condition of my dupe had thrown an air of embarrassed gloom over all;
and, for some moments, a profound silence was maintained, during
which I could not help feeling my cheeks tingle with the many burning
glances of scorn or reproach cast upon me by the less abandoned
of the party. I will even own that an intolerable weight of anxiety
was for a brief instant lifted from my bosom by the sudden and
extraordinary interruption which ensued. The wide, heavy folding
doors of the apartment were all at once thrown open, to their full extent,
with a vigorous and rushing impetuosity that extinguished, as if
by magic, every candle in the room. Their light, in dying, enabled us
just to perceive that a stranger had entered, about my own height, and
closely muffled in a cloak. The darkness, however, was now total; and
we could only feel that he was standing in our midst. Before any one of
us could recover from the extreme astonishment into which this rudeness
had thrown all, we heard the voice of the intruder.
Gentlemen, he said, in a low, distinct, and never-to-be-forgotten
whisper which thrilled to the very marrow of my bones, Gentlemen,
I make no apology for this behaviour, because in thus behaving, I am but
fulfilling a duty. You are, beyond doubt, uninformed of the true character
of the person who has to-night won at ecarte a large sum of money from
Lord Glendinning. I will therefore put you upon an expeditious
and decisive plan of obtaining this very necessary information. Please
to examine, at your leisure, the inner linings of the cuff of his left
sleeve, and the several little packages which may be found in the somewhat
capacious pockets of his embroidered morning wrapper.
While he spoke, so profound was the stillness that one might
have heard a pin drop upon the floor. In ceasing, he departed at once,
and as abruptly as he had entered. Can Ishall I describe my sensations?must
I say that I felt all the horrors of the damned? Most assuredly I had
little time given for reflection. Many hands roughly seized me upon the
spot, and lights were immediately reprocured. A search ensued.
In the lining of my sleeve were found all the court cards essential in
ecarte, and, in the pockets of my wrapper, a number of packs, facsimiles
of those used at our sittings, with the single exception that mine were
of the species called, technically, arrondees; the honours being slightly
convex at the ends, the lower cards slightly convex at the
sides. In this disposition, the dupe who cuts, as customary, at
the length of the pack, will invariably find that he cuts his antagonist
an honor; while the gambler, cutting at the breadth, will, as certainly,
cut nothing for his victim which may count in the records of the game.
Any burst of indignation upon this discovery would have affected
me less than the silent contempt, or the sarcastic composure, with
which it was received.
Mr. Wilson, said our host, stooping to remove from beneath
his feet an exceedingly luxurious cloak of rare furs, Mr. Wilson,
this is your property. (The weather was cold; and, upon quitting
my own room, I had thrown a cloak over my dressing wrapper, putting it
off upon reaching the scene of play.) I presume it is supererogatory
to seek here (eyeing the folds of the garment with a bitter smile) for
any farther evidence of your skill. Indeed, we have had enough. You will
see the necessity, I hope, of quitting Oxfordat 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, tooat Berlinand
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 Etonin the destroyer of my honor at Oxford,in him who thwarted
my ambition at Rome, my revenge at Paris, my passionate love at Naples,
or what he falsely termed my avarice in Egypt,that in this,
my arch-enemy and evil genius, could fall to recognise the William Wilson
of my school boy days,the namesake, the companion, the rival,the
hated and dreaded rival at Dr. Bransbys? 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 notyou 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 adjoiningdragging
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 confusionnow 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 antagonistit
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 raimentnot 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
deaddead to the World, to Heaven and to Hope! In me didst thou existand,
in my death, see by this image, which is thine own, how utterly thou hast
murdered thyself.
THE TELL-TALE HEART.
TRUE!nervousvery, very dreadfully nervous I had been and
am; but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my sensesnot
destroyednot 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 healthilyhow
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 vulturea pale blue eye, with
a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by
degreesvery graduallyI 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 proceededwith
what cautionwith what foresightwith 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 itoh 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 slowlyvery,
very slowly, so that I might not disturb the old mans 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 cautiouslycautiously (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 nightsevery night just at midnightbut
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 watchs minute hand moves more quickly than did mine. Never
before that night had I felt the extent of my own powersof 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 backbut 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"Whos
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 griefoh, 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
chimneyit 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 feelalthough
he neither saw nor heardto 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 littlea very, very little crevice
in the lantern. So I opened ityou cannot imagine how stealthily,
stealthilyuntil, 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 openwide, wide openand I grew furious as I gazed
upon it. I saw it with perfect distinctnessall 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 mans 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 mans 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 mans 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 methe sound would be heard by a neighbour!
The old mans hour had come! With a loud yell, I threw open the lantern
and leaped into the room. He shrieked onceonce 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 eyenot even hiscould have detected
any thing wrong. There was nothing to wash outno stain of any kindno
blood-spot whatever. I had been too wary for that. A tub had caught allha!
ha!
When I had made an end of these labors, it was four oclockstill
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
searchsearch 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 definitenessuntil, 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 increasedand what could
I do? It was a low, dull, quick soundmuch such a sound as a watch
makes when enveloped in cotton. I gasped for breathand yet the officers
heard it not. I talked more quicklymore 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 menbut
the noise steadily increased. Oh God! what could I do? I foamedI
ravedI 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 louderlouderlouder! 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 nowagain!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 aliquantulum forelevatas.
Ebn Zaiat.
MISERY is manifold. The wretchedness of earth is multiform. Overreaching
the wide horizon as the rainbow, its hues are as various as the hues of
that archas 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 particularsin the character of the family mansionin
the frescos of the chief saloonin the tapestries of the dormitoriesin
the chiselling of some buttresses in the armorybut
more especially in the gallery of antique paintingsin the fashion
of the library chamberand, lastly, in the very peculiar nature of
the librarys contentsthere is more than sufficient evidence
to warrant the belief.
The recollections of my earliest years are connected with that chamber,
and with its volumesof 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 beforethat 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 formsof
spiritual and meaning eyesof sounds, musical yet sada remembrance
which will not be excluded; a memory like a shadowvague, 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 landinto a palace of imaginationinto the wild dominions
of monastic thought and eruditionit is not singular
that I gazed around me with a startled and ardent eyethat
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 fathersit
is wonderful what stagnation there fell upon the springs
of my lifewonderful 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 grewI, ill of health, and buried in gloomshe,
agile, graceful, and overflowing with energy; hers, the ramble
on the hill-sidemine the studies of the cloister; I, living within
my own heart, and addicted, body and soul, to the most intense and painful
meditationshe, 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 nameBerenice!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 thenthen all is mystery and terror, and a tale
which should not be told. Diseasea 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 victimwhere is she? I knew her notor 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 itselftrance very nearly resembling
positive dissolution, and from which her manner of recovery was
in most instances, startlingly abrupt. In the mean time my own diseasefor
I have been told that I should call it by no other appellationmy
own disease, then, grew rapidly upon me, and assumed finally a monomaniac
character of a novel and extraordinary formhourly and momently
gaining vigorand 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 summers 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. Austins great work, the City
of God; and Tertullians De Carne Christi,
in which the paradoxical sentence Mortuus est Dei filius;
credible est quia ineptum est: et sepultus resurrexit; certum est
quia impossibile est, occupied my undivided time, for many weeks
of laborious and fruitless investigation.
Thus it will appear that, shaken from its balance only by trivial things,
my reason bore resemblance to that ocean-crag spoken of by Ptolemy
Hephestion, which steadily resisting the attacks of human violence, and
the fiercer fury of the waters and the winds, trembled only to the touch
of the flower called Asphodel. And although, to a careless thinker, it
might appear a matter beyond doubt, that the alteration produced by her
unhappy malady, in the moral condition of Berenice, would
afford me many objects for the exercise of that intense and abnormal meditation
whose nature I have been at some trouble in explaining, yet such was not
in any degree the case. In the lucid intervals of my infirmity,
her calamity, indeed, gave me pain, and, taking deeply to heart
that total wreck of her fair and gentle life, I did not fall to ponder,
frequently and bitterly, upon the wonder-working means by which so strange
a revolution had been so suddenly brought to pass. But these reflections
partook not of the idiosyncrasy of my disease, and were
such as would have occurred, under similar circumstances, to the ordinary
mass of mankind. True to its own character, my disorder revelled
in the less important but more startling changes wrought in the physical
frame of Berenicein 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 morningamong
the trellised shadows of the forest at noondayand in the silence
of my library at nightshe had flitted by my eyes, and I had seen
hernot 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 nownow 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 yearone 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 imaginationor the misty influence of the
atmosphereor the uncertain twilight of the chamberor the gray
draperies which fell around her figurethat caused in it so vacillating
and indistinct an outline? I could not tell. She spoke no word;
and Inot for worlds could I have uttered a syllable. An icy chill
ran through my frame; a sense of insufferable anxiety oppressed
me; a consuming curiosity pervaded my soul; and sinking back upon
the chair, I remained for some time breathless and motionless, with my
eyes riveted upon her person. Alas! its emaciation was excessive,
and not one vestige of the former being lurked in any single line
of the contour. My burning glances at length fell upon the face.
The forehead was high, and very pale, and singularly placid;
and the once jetty hair fell partially over it, and overshadowed the hollow
temples with innumerable ringlets, now of a vivid yellow,
and jarring discordantly, in their fantastic character, with the
reigning melancholy of the countenance. The eyes were lifeless,
and lustreless, and seemingly pupilless, and I shrank involuntarily
from their glassy stare to he contemplation of the thin and shrunken lips.
They parted; and in a smile of peculiar meaning, the teeth of the
changed Berenice disclosed themselves slowly to my view. Would to God
that I had never beheld them, or that, having done so, I had died!
The shutting of a door disturbed me, and, looking up, I found that my
cousin had departed from the chamber. But from the disordered chamber
of my brain, had not, alas! departed, and would not be driven away, the
white and ghastly spectrum of the teeth. Not a speck on
their surfacenot a shade on their enamelnot an indenture in
their edgesbut 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.
Theythey alone were present to the mental eye, and they, in their
sole individuality, became the essence of my mental life. I held them
in every light. I turned them in every attitude. I surveyed their characteristics.
I dwelt upon their peculiarities. I pondered upon their conformation.
I mused upon the alteration in their nature. I shuddered as I assigned
to them in imagination a sensitive and sentient power, and even
when unassisted by the lips, a capability of moral expression. Of Mademoiselle
Salle it has been well said, Que tous ses pas etaient des sentiments,
and of Berenice I more seriously believed que toutes ses dents etaient
des idees. Des idees!ah here was the idiotic thought
that destroyed me! Des idees!ah therefore it was that
I coveted them so madly! I felt that their possession could alone
ever restore me to peace, in giving me back to reason.
And the evening closed in upon me thusand then the darkness came,
and tarried, and wentand the day again dawnedand the mists
of a second night were now gathering aroundand still I sat motionless
in that solitary roomand still I sat buried in meditationand
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 wasno
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 horrorhorror 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 deedwhat 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 doorand, 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 nightof the gathering
together of the householdof a search in the direction of the sound;
and then his tones grew thrillingly distinct as he whispered me of a violated
graveof a disfigured body enshrouded, yet still breathingstill
palpitatingstill 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 formae specificae salva anima.
Raymond Lully.
I AM come of a race noted for vigor of fancy and ardor of passion.
Men have called me mad; but the question is not yet settled, whether madness
is or is not the loftiest intelligencewhether much that is gloriouswhether
all that is profounddoes not spring from disease of thoughtfrom
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 existencethe condition of a
lucid reason, not to be disputed, and belonging to the memory of
events forming the first epoch of my lifeand 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 valleyI, 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 others embrace, beneath the serpent-like trees,
and looked down within the water of the River of Silence at our images
therein. We spoke no words during the rest of that sweet day, and our
words even upon the morrow were tremulous and few. We had drawn
the God Eros from that wave, and now we felt that he had enkindled within
us the fiery souls of our forefathers. The passions which had for centuries
distinguished our race, came thronging with the fancies for which
they had been equally noted, and together breathed a delirious
bliss over the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass. A change fell upon all
things. Strange, brilliant flowers, star-shaped, burn out upon the trees
where no flowers had been known before. The tints of the green carpet
deepened; and when, one by one, the white daisies shrank away, there sprang
up in place of them, ten by ten of the ruby-red asphodel. And life arose
in our paths; for the tall flamingo, hitherto unseen, with all gay glowing
birds, flaunted his scarlet plumage before us. The golden and silver fish
haunted the river, out of the bosom of which issued, little by
little, a murmur that swelled, at length, into a lulling melody more divine
than that of the harp of Aeolus-sweeter than all save the voice of Eleonora.
And now, too, a voluminous cloud, which we had long watched in
the regions of Hesper, floated out thence, all gorgeous in crimson and
gold, and settling in peace above us, sank, day by day, lower and lower,
until its edges rested upon the tops of the mountains, turning all their
dimness into magnificence, and shutting us up, as if forever, within a
magic prison-house of grandeur and of glory.
The loveliness of Eleonora was that of the Seraphim; but she was a maiden
artless and innocent as the brief life she had led among the flowers.
No guile disguised the fervor of love which animated
her heart, and she examined with me its inmost recesses as we walked
together in the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass, and discoursed of the
mighty changes which had lately taken place therein.
At length, having spoken one day, in tears, of the last sad change which
must befall Humanity, she thenceforward dwelt only upon this one sorrowful
theme, interweaving it into all our converse, as, in the songs of the
bard of Schiraz, the same images are found occurring, again and again,
in every impressive variation of phrase.
She had seen that the finger of Death was upon her bosomthat,
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 Earththat
I would in no manner prove recreant to her dear memory, or to the
memory of the devout affection with which she had blessed me. And
I called the Mighty Ruler of the Universe to witness the pious
solemnity of my vow. And the curse which I invoked of Him and of
her, a saint in Helusion should I prove traitorous to that promise, involved
a penalty the exceeding great horror of which will not permit me to make
record of it here. And the bright eyes of Eleonora grew brighter at my
words; and she sighed as if a deadly burthen had been taken from her breast;
and she trembled and very bitterly wept; but she made acceptance of the
vow, (for what was she but a child?) and it made easy to her the bed of
her death. And she said to me, not many days afterward, tranquilly
dying, that, because of what I had done for the comfort of her spirit
she would watch over me in that spirit when departed, and, if so it were
permitted her return to me visibly in the watches of the night; but, if
this thing were, indeed, beyond the power of the souls in Paradise, that
she would, at least, give me frequent indications of her presence, sighing
upon me in the evening winds, or filling the air which I breathed with
perfume from the censers of the angels. And, with these words upon her
lips, she yielded up her innocent life, putting an end to the first epoch
of my own.
Thus far I have faithfully said. But as I pass the barrier in Times
path, formed by the death of my beloved, and proceed with the second era
of my existence, I feel that a shadow gathers over my brain, and I mistrust
the perfect sanity of the record. But let me on.Years dragged themselves
along heavily, and still I dwelled within the Valley of the Many-Colored
Grass; but a second change had come upon all things. The star-shaped flowers
shrank into the stems of the trees, and appeared no more. The tints of
the green carpet faded; and, one by one, the ruby-red asphodels withered
away; and there sprang up, in place of them, ten by ten, dark, eye-like
violets, that writhed uneasily and were ever encumbered
with dew. And Life departed from our paths; for the tall flamingo flaunted
no longer his scarlet plumage before us, but flew sadly from the vale
into the hills, with all the gay glowing birds that had arrived in his
company. And the golden and silver fish swam down through the gorge at
the lower end of our domain and bedecked the sweet river never
again. And the lulling melody that had been softer than the wind-harp
of Aeolus, and more divine than all save the voice of Eleonora,
it died little by little away, in murmurs growing lower and lower, until
the stream returned, at length, utterly, into the solemnity of its original
silence. And then, lastly, the voluminous cloud uprose, and, abandoning
the tops of the mountains to the dimness of old, fell back into the regions
of Hesper, and took away all its manifold golden and gorgeous glories
from the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass.
Yet the promises of Eleonora were not forgotten; for I heard the sounds
of the swinging of the censers of the angels; and streams of a holy perfume
floated ever and ever about the valley; and at lone hours, when my heart
beat heavily, the winds that bathed my brow came unto me laden with soft
sighs; and indistinct murmurs filled often the night air, and onceoh,
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 onceat 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 themand
of her.
I wedded;nor dreaded the curse I had invoked; and its bitterness
was not visited upon me. And oncebut 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 THIS VOLUME
Notes Scherezade
(*1) The coralites.
(*2) One of the most remarkable natural curiosities in Texas is
a petrified forest, near the head of Pasigno river. It consists of several
hundred trees, in an erect position, all turned to stone. Some trees,
now growing, are partly petrified. This is a startling fact for natural
philosophers, and must cause them to modify the existing theory of petrification.Kennedy.
This account, at first discredited, has since been corroborated
by the discovery of a completely petrified forest, near the head waters
of the Cheyenne, or Chienne river, which has its source in the Black Hills
of the rocky chain.
There is scarcely, perhaps, a spectacle on the surface of the globe
more remarkable, either in a geological or picturesque point of
view than that presented by the petrified forest, near Cairo. The traveller,
having passed the tombs of the caliphs, just beyond the gates of the city,
proceeds to the southward, nearly at right angles to the road across
the desert to Suez, and after having travelled some ten miles up a low
barren valley, covered with sand, gravel, and sea shells, fresh as if
the tide had retired but yesterday, crosses a low range of sandhills,
which has for some distance run parallel to his path. The scene now presented
to him is beyond conception singular and desolate. A mass
of fragments of trees, all converted into stone, and when struck by his
horses 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 Simmonas 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 nutrimentsubsisting
altogether upon air.
(*11) The Parasites, such as the wonderful Rafflesia Arnaldii.
(*12) Schouw advocates a class of plants that grow upon
living animalsthe 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 beesever since bees werehave been constructing
their cells with just such sides, in just such number, and at just such
inclinations, as it has been demonstrated (in a problem involving the
profoundest mathematical principles) are the very sides, in the very number,
and at the very angles, which will afford the creatures the most room
that is compatible with the greatest stability of structure.
During the latter part of the last century, the question arose
among mathematicians"to determine the best form that can be
given to the sails of a windmill, according to their varying distances
from the revolving vanes, and likewise from the centres of the revoloution.
This is an excessively complex problem, for it is, in other words, to
find the best possible position at an infinity of varied distances and
at an infinity of points on the arm. There were a thousand futile
attempts to answer the query on the part of the most illustrious
mathematicians, and when at length, an undeniable solution was discovered,
men found that the wings of a bird had given it with absolute precision
ever since the first bird had traversed the air.
(*17) He observed a flock of pigeons passing betwixt Frankfort and the
Indian territory, one mile at least in breadth; it took up four hours
in passing, which, at the rate of one mile per minute, gives a length
of 240 miles; and, supposing three pigeons to each square yard, gives
2,230,272,000 Pigeons."Travels in Canada and the United
States, by Lieut. F. Hall.
(*18) The earth is upheld by a cow of a blue color, having horns four
hundred in number."Sales Koran.
(*19) The Entozoa, or intestinal worms, have repeatedly
been observed in the muscles, and in the cerebral substance of men."See
Wyatts 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) Maelzels Automaton Chess-player.
(*23) Babbages 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 samethe difference varying with a
uniform increase from the violet to the red.
(*32) Place a platina crucible over a spirit lamp, and keep it
a red heat; pour in some sulphuric acid, which, though the most volatile
of bodies at a common temperature, will be found to become completely
fixed in a hot crucible, and not a drop evaporatesbeing 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, 20or even 1000
yearswould 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 impossiblenot even
improbable.
NotesMaelstrom
(*1) See Archimedes, De Incidentibus in Fluido."lib.
2.
NotesIsland 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) Balzacin substanceI 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 Princes statement, although a grossly exaggerated one.
The germ, and in fact, the commencement of the present paper was published
many years agoprevious to the issue of the first number of Sues
admirable Juif Errant, which may possibly have been suggested
to him by Muskaus account.
NotesBerenice
(*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 HalcyonSimonides
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