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Title: American short stories : Selected and edited with an introductory essay on the short story by Charles Sears Baldwin
Author: Various
Language: English
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AMERICAN SHORT STORIES
CHARLES SEARS BALDWIN, A.M., PH.D.
AMERICAN
SHORT STORIES
SELECTED AND EDITED
WITH AN INTRODUCTORY ESSAY ON
THE SHORT STORY
BY
CHARLES SEARS BALDWIN, A.M., PH.D.
PROFESSOR OF RHETORIC IN COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
_NEW IMPRESSION_
LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO.
FOURTH AVENUE & 30TH STREET, NEW YORK
39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON
BOMBAY, CALCUTTA, AND MADRAS
1921
_Copyright, 1904_,
BY LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
_All rights reserved._
First Edition, August, 1904
Reprinted, May, 1906, October, 1909
October, 1910, January, 1912, April, 1916
June, 1921
TO
G. E. B.
_In the brief tale, however, the author is enabled to carry out the
fulness of his intention, be it what it may. During the hour of
perusal the soul of the reader is at the writer’s control. There
are no external or extrinsic influences resulting from weariness or
interruption._
_A skilful literary artist has constructed a tale. If wise, he has
not fashioned his thoughts to accommodate his incidents; but having
conceived, with deliberate care, a certain unique or single effect to
be wrought out, he then invents such incidents, he then combines such
events as may best aid him in establishing this preconceived effect. If
his very initial sentence tend not to the out-bringing of this effect,
then he has failed in his first step. In the whole composition there
should be no word written of which the tendency, direct or indirect, is
not to the one pre-established design._--EDGAR ALLAN POE.
PREFACE
The object of this volume is not to collect the best American short
stories. So delicate a choice may the more readily be left to
time, since it must include some authors now living. That dramatic
concentration which is the habit of a hundred writers for our magazines
to-day was extremely rare before 1835; it was not common before 1870;
it has become habitual within the memory of its younger practitioners.
This collection, then, seeks to exhibit, and the introductory essay
seeks to follow and formulate, a development. The development from
inchoate tales into that distinct and self-consistent form which, for
lack of a distinctive term, we have tacitly agreed to call the short
story is a chapter of American literary history.
Influences from abroad and from the past, though they could not be
displayed at large, have been indicated in the aspects that seemed
most suggestive for research. The significance in form of Boccaccio’s
experiments, for example, because it has hardly been defined before,
is proposed in outline to students of comparative literature. But
the American development is so far independent that it may be fairly
comprehended in one volume. To exhibit this by typical instances,
from Irving down, did not preclude variety alike of talents and
of scenes. Indeed, that the collection should thus express many
tempers--Knickerbocker leisure, Yankee adaptability, Irish fervor;
and many localities, from elder New England to the new coast of gold,
from the rude Michigan frontier to the gentle colonies of the lower
Mississippi--makes it the more American.
It is a pleasure to record my obligation to Walter Austin, Esq., for
the rare edition of his grandfather’s literary papers, and to the
publishers whose courtesy permits me to include some stories valuable
in copyright as in art.
C. S. B.
[NOTE.--The story entitled ‘The Eve of the Fourth’ is printed here
(page 305) by permission of Mr. William Heinemann, publisher of
‘The Copperhead, and Other Stories, etc.,’ by Harold Frederic.]
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION Page
I. The Tale in America before 1835 1
II. Poe’s Invention of the Short Story 15
III. A Glance at Derivation: Ancient Tales, Mediæval Tales,
The Modern French Short Story 23
PART I. THE TENTATIVE PERIOD
Chapter
I. WASHINGTON IRVING
_Rip Van Winkle_ _1820_ 39
II. WILLIAM AUSTIN
_Peter Rugg, the Missing Man_ _1824_ 61
III. JAMES HALL
_The French Village_ _1829_ 99
IV. ALBERT PIKE
_The Inroad of the Nabajo_ _1833_ 115
PART II. THE PERIOD OF THE NEW FORM
V. NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
_The White Old Maid_ _1835_ 131
VI. HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
_The Notary of Périgueux_ _1835_ 145
VII. EDGAR ALLAN POE
_The Fall of the House of Usher_ _1839_ 155
VIII. NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS
_The Inlet of Peach Blossoms_ _1840–5_ 179
IX. CAROLINE MATILDA STANSBURY KIRKLAND
_The Bee-Tree_ _1846_ 195
X. FITZ-JAMES O’BRIEN
_What was It? A Mystery_ _1859_ 213
XI. FRANCIS BRET HARTE
_The Outcasts of Poker Flat_ _1869_ 231
XII. ALBERT FALVEY WEBSTER
_Miss Eunice’s Glove_ _1873_ 247
XIII. BAYARD TAYLOR
_Who was She?_ _1874_ 269
XIV. HENRY CUYLER BUNNER
_The Love-Letters of Smith_ _1890_ 291
XV. HAROLD FREDERIC
_The Eve of the Fourth_ _1897_ 305
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 325
INDEX 327
AMERICAN SHORT STORIES
INTRODUCTION
I. THE TALE IN AMERICA BEFORE 1835
How few years comprise the history of American literature is
strikingly suggested by the fact that so much of it can be covered
by the reminiscence of a single man of letters.[1] A life beginning
in the ’20’s had actual touch in boyhood with Irving, and seized
fresh from the press the romances of Cooper. And if the history
of American literature be read more exclusively as the history of
literary development essentially American, its years are still fewer.
“I perceive,” says a foreign visitor in Austin’s story of _Joseph
Natterstrom_, “this is a very young country, but a very old people.”[2]
Some critics, indeed, have been so irritated by the spreading of
the eagle in larger pretensions as to deprecate entirely the phrase
“American literature.” Our literature, they retort, has shown no
national, essential difference from the literature of the other peoples
using the same language. How these carpers accommodate to their view
Thoreau, for instance, is not clear. But waiving other claims, the case
might almost be made out from the indigenous growth of one literary
form. Our short story, at least, is definitely American.
The significance of the short story as a new form of fiction appears
on comparison of the staple product of tales before 1835 with the
staple product thereafter. 1835 is the date of Poe’s _Berenice_. Before
it lies a period of experiment, of turning the accepted anecdotes,
short romances, historical sketches, toward something vaguely felt
after as more workmanlike. This is the period of precocious local
magazines,[3] and of that ornament of the marble-topped tables of our
grandmothers, the annual. Various in name and in color, the annual
gift-books are alike,--externally in profusion of design and gilding,
internally in serving up, as staples of their miscellany, poems and
tales. Keepsakes they were called generically in England, France, and
America; their particular style might be _Garland_ or _Gem_.[4] The
_Atlantic Souvenir_, earliest in this country, so throve during seven
years (1826–1832) as to buy and unite with itself (1833) its chief
rival, the _Token_. The utterly changed taste which smiles at these
annuals, as at the clothes of their readers, obscures the fact that
they were a medium, not only for the stories of writers forgotten long
since, but also for the earlier work of Hawthorne. By 1835 the _New
England Magazine_ had survived its infancy, and the _Southern Literary
Messenger_ was born with promise. Since then--since the realisation
of the definite form in Poe’s _Berenice_--the short story has been
explored and tested to its utmost capacity by almost every American
prose-writer of note, and by many without note, as the chief American
form of fiction. The great purveyor has been the monthly magazine.
Before 1835, then, is a period of experiment with tales; after 1835, a
period of the manifold exercise of the short story. The tales of the
former have much that is national in matter; the short stories of the
latter show nationality also in form.
Nationality, even provinciality, in subject-matter has been too much
in demand. The best modern literature knows best that it is heir of
all the ages, and that its goal should be, not local peculiarity, but
such humanity as passes place and time.[5] Therefore we have heard too
much, doubtless, of local color. At any rate, many purveyors of local
color in fiction have given us documents rather than stories. Still
there was some justice in asking of America the things of America. If
the critics who begged us to be American have not always seemed to know
clearly what they meant, still they may fairly be interpreted to mean
in general something reasonable enough,--namely, that we ought to catch
from the breadth and diversity of our new country new inspirations. The
world, then, was looking to us, in so far as it looked at all, for the
impulse from untrodden and picturesque ways, for a direct transmission
of Indians, cataracts, prairies, bayous, and Sierras. Well and good.
But, according to our abilities, we were giving the world just that.
Years before England decided that our only American writers in this
sense were Whitman, Mark Twain, and Bret Harte,--seventy years before
the third of this perversely chosen group complacently informed the
British public[6] that he was a pioneer only in the sense of making
the short story American in scenes and motives,--American writers were
exploring their country for fiction north and south, east and west,
up and down its history. What we lacked was, not appreciation of our
material, but skill in expressing it; not inspiration, but art. We had
to wait, not indeed for Bret Harte in the ’60’s, but for Poe in the
’30’s. The material was known and felt, and again and again attempted.
Nothing could expose more vividly the fallacy that new material makes
new literature. We were at school for our short story; but we had long
known what stories we had to tell. In that sense American fiction has
always been American.
For by 1830 the preference of native subjects for tales, to say nothing
of novels, is plainly marked. The example of Irving in this direction
could not fail of followers. From their beginning the early magazines
and annuals essay in fiction the legends, the history, and even the
local manners of the United States, in circles widening with the area
of the country. Thus the _Atlantic Souvenir_ for 1829, furnishing
forth in its short fictions an historical romance of mediæval France,
a moral tale in oriental setting, a melodrama of the Pacific Islands,
and a lively farce on the revolution in Peru, presented also, with
occasional attempt at native scenery, the following: _The Methodist’s
Story_, a moral situation of the anger of father and son; _Narantsauk_,
an historical tale of Baron Castine; _The Catholic_, weaving into
King Philip’s attack on Springfield the hopeless affection of a
Catholic girl and a Protestant youth--the very field of Hawthorne; and
a melodramatic _Emigrant’s Daughter_. In the same year, 1829, James
Hall, then fairly afloat on his vocation of law and his avocation
of letters, compiled, indeed largely composed, the first _Western
Souvenir_ at Vandalia, Illinois. Its most significant tales are three
of his own, set, with more careful locality than most of the seaboard
attempts, in the frontier life along the Mississippi. _The Indian
Hater_ and _Pete Featherton_ present backwoodsmen of Illinois and Ohio.
_The French Village_ is definitely a _genre_ study. Loose enough in
plot, it has in detail a delicacy and local truth not unworthy the
material of Cable. That there was a definite tendency toward native
themes is amply confirmed by the annuals of subsequent years before
1835. Besides Hawthorne’s earlier pieces in the _Token_, there had
appeared by 1831 studies of the Natchez and of the Minnesota Indians,
the Maryland Romanists, Shays’s Rebellion, the North-River Dutch, and
the Quakers. And the same tendency appears in the early magazines.
_The Western Monthly Review_, adventurously put forth by Timothy Flint
in Cincinnati, had among its few tales before 1831 an Irish-Shawnee
farce on the Big Miami, _The Hermit of the Prairies_, a romance of
French Louisiana, a rather forcible study of Simon Girty and the attack
on Bryant’s Station, and two local character sketches entitled _Mike
Shuck_ and _Colonel Plug_. To extend the period of consideration is
to record the strengthening of the tendency established by Irving
and Cooper. The books of John Pendleton Kennedy are collections of
local sketches. Mrs. Hale, praised for her fidelity to local truth,
was supported in the same ambition by Mrs. Gilman. Mrs. Kirkland’s
sketches of early Michigan are as convincing as they are vivacious.
Most of these studies emerge, if that can be said to emerge which is
occasionally fished up by the antiquary, only by force of what we have
been berated for lacking--local inspiration.
What were the forms of this evident endeavor to interpret American
life in brief fictions; and, more important, what was the form toward
which they were groping? For this inquiry the natural point of
departure is the tales of Irving. Any reappreciation of Irving would
now be officious. We know that classical serenity, alike of pathos
and of humor; and we have heard often enough that he got his style of
Addison. Indeed no attentive reader of English literature could well
fail to discern either Irving’s schooling with the finest prose of the
previous century--with Goldsmith, for instance, as well as Addison--or
the essential originality of his own prose. He is a pupil of the
_Spectator_.[7] That is a momentous fact in the history of American
literature. We know what it means in diction. What does it mean in
form? That our first eminent short fictions were written by the pupil
of a school of essayists vitally affected their structure. The matter
of the _Spectator_ suggested in England a certain type of novel;[8] its
manner was not the manner to suggest in America the short story, even
to an author whose head was full of the proper material. For though
it may be hard to prove in the face of certain novels that an essay
is one thing and a story another, it is obvious to any craftsman, _a
priori_, that the way of the essay will not lead to the short story.
And in fact it did not lead to the short story. The tales of Irving
need no praise. Composed in the manner typical of the short story,
they might have been better or worse; but they are not so composed.
It was not at random that Irving called his first collection of them
(1819–20) _The Sketch Book_. _The Wife_, for instance, is a short-story
plot; it is handled, precisely in the method of the British essay,
as an illustrative anecdote. So _The Widow and Her Son_; so _The
Pride of the Village_, most evidently in its expository introduction;
so, in essence of method, many of the others. And _Rip Van Winkle_?
Here, indeed, is a difference, but not, as may at first appear, a
significant difference. True, the descriptive beginning is modern
rather than Addisonian; romanticism had opened the eyes of the son of
the classicals; but how far the typical looseness of romanticism is
from the typical compactness of the short story may be seen in Irving’s
German tale of the _Spectre Bridegroom_, and it may be seen here. True
again, the characterisation, though often expository, is deliciously
concrete; but it is not more so than the characterisation of Sir Roger
de Coverley; nor is Rip’s conversation with his dog, for instance, in
itself the way of the short story any more than Sir Roger’s counting of
heads in church. Unity of tone there is, unity clearer than in Irving’s
models, and therefore doubtless more conscious. But Irving did not go
so far as to show his successors that the surer way to unity of tone is
unity of narrative form. Still less did he display the value of unity
of form for itself. His stories do not culminate. As there is little
emphasis on any given incident, so there is no direction of incidents
toward a single goal of action. Think of the Catskill legend done _à la
mode_. Almost any clever writer for to-morrow’s magazines would begin
with Rip’s awakening, keep the action within one day by letting the
previous twenty years transpire through Rip’s own narrative at the new
tavern, and culminate on the main disclosure. That he might easily thus
spoil _Rip Van Winkle_ is not in point. The point is that he would thus
make a typical short story, and that the _Sketch Book_ did not tend
in that direction. Nor as a whole do the _Tales of a Traveller_. Not
only is _Buckthorne and His Friends_ avowedly a sketch for a novel, but
the involved and somewhat laborious machinery of the whole collection
will not serve to move any of its separable parts in the short-story
manner. Even the _German Student_, which is potentially much nearer to
narrative singleness, has an explanatory introduction and a blurred
climax. Such few of the Italian bandit stories as show compression of
time remain otherwise, like the rest, essentially the same in form as
other romantic tales of the period. In narrative adjustment Irving did
not choose to make experiments.[9]
It is not surprising, therefore, that Irving’s influence, so far at
it is discernible in subsequent short fictions, seems rather to have
retarded than to have furthered the development toward distinct form.
Our native sense of form appears in that the short story emerged
fifteen years after the _Sketch Book_; but where we feel Irving we
feel a current from another source moving in another direction. The
short descriptive sketches composing John Pendleton Kennedy’s _Swallow
Barn_ (1832) have so slight a sequence,[10] and sometimes so clear a
capacity for self-consistent form, that it is easy to imagine them as
separate short stories of local manners; but, whether through Irving,
or directly through the literary tradition of Virginia, they keep
the way of the _Spectator_. James Hall, who had been still nearer
to the short story of local manners in his _French Village_ (1829),
was poaching on Irving’s manor in his _Village Musician_ (1831) with
evident disintegration. In Hawthorne, who, of course, was nearest of
all before Poe’s genius for form seized and fixed the short story, it
is difficult to be sure of the influence of Irving. True, Hawthorne’s
earlier historical tales, though they have far greater imaginative
realisation, are not essentially different in method from Irving’s
_Philip of Pokanoket_; but it was quite as likely Hawthorne’s natural
bent toward the descriptive essay that made his earlier development
in fiction tentative and vacillating, as any counsel from the happy,
leisurely form of the elder master. Be that as it may, Irving’s
influence in general, if not deterrent, seems at least not to have
counted positively in the development of the short story.
Rather Irving left the writers for the annuals and abortive early
magazines to feel after a form. What were the modes already accepted;
and what were their several capacities for this shaping? The moral
tale, of course, is obvious to any one who has glanced over the
literary diversions of his forbears; and this, equally of course,
had often its unity of purpose. But since the message, instead
of permeating the tale by suggestion, was commonly formulated in
expository introduction or hortatory conclusion, it did not suffice to
keep the whole in unity of form. Indeed, the moral tale was hardly a
form. It might be mere applied anecdote; it might be the bare skeleton
of a story, as likely material for a novel as for a short story; it was
often shapeless romance.[11] But two tendencies are fairly distinct.
Negatively there was a general avoidance, before Hawthorne, of allegory
or symbolism. For a moral tale allegory seems an obvious method; but
it is a method of suggestion, and these tales, with a few exceptions,
such as Austin’s _Peter Rugg_, hardly rise above the method of formal
propounding. Positively there was a natural use of oriental manner
and setting, as in Austin’s _Joseph Natterstrom_ and Paulding’s _Ben
Hadar_.[12]
Another typical ingredient of the annual salad is the yarn or
hoax-story. The significance of this as American has been often urged;
and indeed it spread with little seeding, and, as orally spontaneous,
has made a favorite diversion of the frontier. Its significance in form
is that it absolutely demands an arrangement of incidents for suspense.
The superiority of form, however, was associated, unfortunately for any
influence, with triviality of matter. Again, the annuals are full of
short historical sketches. Sometimes these are mere summary of facts or
mere anecdote, to serve as explanatory text for the steel engravings
then fashionable as “embellishments”; sometimes they are humorous
renderings of recent events;[13] more commonly they are painstaking
studies,--Delia Bacon’s, for instance, or Charlotte Sedgwick’s, in
the setting of American Colonial and Revolutionary history; most
commonly of all, whether native or foreign, modern or mediæval, they
are thorough-going romances, running often into swash-buckling and
almost always into melodrama.[14] The tendency to melodramatic variety,
with the typical looseness of romanticism, then everywhere dominant in
letters, held the historical sketches back from compactness, or even
definiteness, of form.[15] So clever a writer as Hall leaves many of
his historical pieces with the ends loose, as mere sketches for novels.
The theoretical difference between a novelette and a short story[16] is
thus practically evident throughout this phase of the annuals in lack
of focus.
Still the studies of historical environment were more promising in
themselves and also confirmed that attempt to realise the locality,
as it were, of the present or the immediate past which emerges as
_genre_ or local color. The intention of Miss Sedgwick’s _Reminiscence
of Federalism_ (1835) is the same as that of Miss Wilkins’s stories
of the same environment. Her _Mary Dyre_ comes as near in form as
Hawthorne’s _Gentle Boy_ to extracting the essence of Quakerdom. Where
her studies fail is in that vital intensity which depends most of
all on compression of place and time. Now an easier way toward this
was open through the more descriptive sketch of local manners. To
realise the genius of a place is a single aim; to keep the tale on
the one spot is almost a necessity; to keep it within a brief time by
focusing on one significant situation is a further counsel of unity
which, though it had not occurred to American writers often, could not
be long delayed. Thus, before 1835, Albert Pike had so far focused
his picturesque incidents of New Mexico as to burn an impression of
that colored frontier life; and James Hall, in spite of the bungling,
unnecessary time-lapse, had so turned his _French Village_ (1829) as to
give a single picture of French colonial manners.
Hawthorne, indeed, had gone further. His affecting _Wives of the
Dead_ (1832) is brought within the compass of a single night. If
the significance of this experiment was clear to Hawthorne, then he
must have abandoned deliberately what Poe seized as vital; for he
recurred to the method but now and then. The trend of his work is
quite different. But there is room to believe that the significance
of the form escaped him; for as to literary method, as to form,
Hawthorne seems not to see much farther than the forgotten writers
whose tales stand beside his in the annuals. An obvious defect of these
short fictions is in measure. The writers do not distinguish between
what will make a good thirty-page story and what will make a good
three-hundred-page story. They cannot gauge their material. Austin’s
_Peter Rugg_ is too long for its best effect; it is definitely a
short-story plot. Many of the others are far too short for any clear
effect; they are definitely not short-story plots, but novel plots;
they demand development of character or revolution of incidents.
Aristotle’s distinction between simple and complex plots[17] underlies
the difference between the two modern forms. Now even Hawthorne
seems not quite aware of this difference. The conception of _Roger
Malvin’s Burial_ (1832) demands more development of character than is
possible within its twenty-eight pages. The sense of artistic unity
appears in the expiation at the scene of guilt; but the deficiency
of form also appears in the long time-lapse. _Alice Doane’s Appeal_
(1835) is the hint of a tragedy, a conception not far below that of
the _Scarlet Letter_. For lack of scope the tragic import is obscured
by trivial description; it cannot emerge from the awkward mechanism
of a tale within a tale; it remains partial, not entire. Like _Alice
Doane_, _Ethan Brand_ is conceived as the culmination of a novel.
To say that either might have taken form as a short story is not to
belittle Hawthorne’s art, but to indicate his preference of method.
_Ethan Brand_ achieves a picturesqueness more vivid than is usual in
Hawthorne’s shorter pieces. The action begins, as in Hawthorne it does
not often begin, at once. The narrative skill appears in the delicate
and thoroughly characteristic device of the little boy; but imagine the
increase of purely narrative interest if Hawthorne had focused this
tale as he focused _The White Old Maid_; and then imagine _The White
Old Maid_ itself composed without the superfluous lapse of time, like
_The Wives of the Dead_. That Hawthorne seems not to have realised
distinctly the proper scope of the short story, and further that he did
not follow its typical mode when that mode seems most apt,--both these
inferences are supported by the whole trend of his habit.
For Hawthorne’s genius was not bent in the direction of narrative form.
Much of his characteristic work is rather descriptive,--_Sunday at
Home_, _Sights from a Steeple_, _Main Street_, _The Village Uncle_,--to
turn over the leaves of his collections is to be reminded how many of
his short pieces are like these.[18] Again, his habitual symbolism is
handled quite unevenly, without narrative sureness. At its best it
has a fine, permeating suggestiveness, as in _The Ambitious Guest_;
at its worst, as in _Fancy’s Show Box_, it is moral allegory hardly
above the children’s page of the religious weekly journal. Lying
between these two extremes, a great bulk of his short fictions shows
imperfect command of narrative adjustments. The delicate symbolism of
_David Swan_ is introduced, like fifty pieces in the annuals, whose
authors were incapable of Hawthorne’s fancy, by formal exposition of
the meaning. The poetry of the _Snow Image_ is crudely embodied, and
has also to be expounded after the tale is done. The lovely morality
of the _Great Stone Face_ has a form almost as for a sermon. The
point for consideration is not the ultimate merit of Hawthorne’s
tales, but simply the tendency of their habit of form. For this view
it is important to remember also his bent toward essay. Description
and essay, separately and together, sum up the character of much of
his work that was evidently most spontaneous. Perhaps nothing that
Hawthorne wrote is finer or more masterly than the introduction to the
_Scarlet Letter_. For this one masterpiece who would not give volumes
of formally perfect short stories? Yet if it is characteristic of his
genius,--and few would deny that it is,--it suggests strongly why the
development of a new form of narrative was not for him. This habit of
mind explains why the _Marble Faun_, for all the beauty of its parts,
fails to hold the impulse of its highly imaginative conception in
singleness of artistic form. In his other long pieces Hawthorne did not
so fail. The form of the novel he felt; and it gave him room for that
discursiveness which is equally natural to him and delightful to his
readers. But the form of the short story, though he achieved it now
and again--as often in his early work as in his later--he seems not
to have felt distinctly. And, whether he felt it or not, his bent and
preference were not to carry it forward.
II. POE’S INVENTION OF THE SHORT STORY
For the realisation and development of the short-story form lying there
_in posse_, the man of the hour was Poe. Poe could write trenchant
essays; he turned sometimes to longer fictions; but he is above all,
in his prose, a writer of short stories. For this work was he born.
His artistic bent unconsciously, his artistic skill consciously, moved
in this direction. In theory and in practice he displayed for America
and for the world[19] a substantially new literary form. What is
there in the form, then, of Poe’s tales which, marking them off from
the past, marks them as models for the future? Primarily Poe, as a
literary artist, was preoccupied with problems of construction. More
than any American before him he felt narrative as structure;--not as
interpretation of life, for he lived within the walls of his own brain;
not as presentation of character or of locality, for there is not in
all his tales one man, one woman, and the stage is “out of space, out
of time”; but as structure. His chief concern was how to reach an
emotional effect by placing and building. When he talked of literary
art, he talked habitually in terms of construction. When he worked,
at least he planned an ingeniously suspended solution of incidents;
for he was always pleased with mere solutions, and he was master of
the detective story. At best he planned a rising edifice of emotional
impressions, a work of creative, structural imagination.
This habit of mind, this artistic point of view, manifests itself
most obviously in harmonisation. Every detail of setting and style is
selected for its architectural fitness. The Poe scenery is remarkable
not more for its original, phantasmal beauty or horror than for
the strictness of its keeping. Like the landscape gardening of the
Japanese, it is in each case very part of its castle of dreams. Its
contrivance to further the mood may be seen in the use of a single
physical detail as a recurring dominant,--most crudely in the dreadful
teeth of Berenice, more surely in the horse of Metzengerstein and the
sound of Morella’s name, most subtly in the wondrous eyes of Ligeia.
These recurrences in his prose are like the refrain of which he was
so fond in his verse. And the scheme of harmonisation includes every
smallest detail of style. Poe’s vocabulary has not the amplitude of
Hawthorne’s; but in color and in cadence, in suggestion alike of
meaning and of sound, its smaller compass is made to yield fuller
answer in declaring and sustaining and intensifying the required
mood. Even in 1835, the first year of his conscious prose form, the
harmonising of scene and of diction had reached this degree:--
“But one autumnal evening, when the winds lay still in heaven,
Morella called me to her bedside. There was a dim mist over all the
earth, and a warm glow upon the waters; and, amid the rich October
leaves of the forest, a rainbow from the firmament had surely
fallen.
“‘It is a day of days,’ she said, as I approached; ‘a day of all
days either to live or die. It is a fair day for the sons of earth
and life--ah, more fair for the daughters of heaven and death!’
“I kissed her forehead, and she continued:
“‘I am dying; yet shall I live.’
“‘Morella!’
“‘The days have never been when thou couldst love me--but her whom
in life thou didst abhor, in death thou shalt adore.’
“‘Morella!’
“‘I repeat that I am dying. But within me is a pledge of that
affection--ah, how little!--which thou didst feel for me, Morella.
And when my spirit departs shall the child live--thy child and
mine, Morella’s.’”
It is almost the last word of adaptation.
Yet in all this Poe simply did better what his predecessors had
done already. His harmonising of scene, of style, was no new thing.
The narrative form itself needed more artistic adjustment. To begin
with what now seems to us the commonest and most obvious defect, the
narrative mood and the narrative progress must not be disturbed by
introductory exposition. Not only the ruck of writers for the annuals,
but even Irving, but even sometimes Hawthorne, seem unable to begin
a story forthwith. They seem fatally constrained to lay down first a
bit of essay. Whether it be an adjuration to the patient reader to
mind the import, or a morsel of philosophy for a text, or a bridge
from the general to the particular, or an historical summary, or a
humorous intimation, it is like the juggler’s piece of carpet; it must
be laid down first. Poe’s intolerance of anything extraneous demanded
that this be cut off. And though since his time many worthy tales have
managed to rise in spite of this inarticulate member, the best art of
the short story, thanks to his surgery, has gained greatly in impulse.
One can almost see Poe experimenting from tale to tale. In _Berenice_
he charged the introduction with mysterious suggestion; that is, he
used it like an overture; he made it integral. In _Morella_, the point
of departure being similar, the theme is struck more swiftly and
surely, and the action begins more promptly. In _King Pest_, working
evidently for more rapid movement, he began with lively description.
_Metzengerstein_ recurs to the method of _Berenice_; but _Ligeia_ and
_Usher_, the summit of his achievement, have no introduction, nor have
more than two or three of the typical tales that follow.
“True! nervous--very, very dreadfully nervous, I had been and am;
but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my
senses--not destroyed--not dulled them. Above all was the sense of
hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth.
I heard many things in hell. How, then, am I mad? Hearken! and
observe how healthily--how calmly I can tell you the whole story.”
_The Tell-Tale Heart_ (_1843_).
Every one feels the force for this tale of this method of beginning;
and to many story-readers of to-day it may seem obvious; but it was
Poe, more than any one else, who taught us to begin so.
The idea of this innovation was negatively to reject what is from the
point of view of narrative form extraneous; positively it was to make
the narrative progress more direct. And the evident care to simplify
the narrative mechanism for directness of effect is the clue to Poe’s
advance in form, and his most instructive contribution to technic. This
principle explains more fully his method of setting the scene. The
harmonisation is secured mainly by suppression. The tale is stripped of
every least incongruity. In real life emotion is disturbed, confused,
perhaps thwarted; in art it cannot be interpreted without arbitrary
simplification; in Poe’s art the simplification brooks no intrusive
fact. We are kept in a dreamland that knows no disturbing sound. The
emotion has no more friction to overcome than a body in a vacuum. For
Poe’s directness is not the directness of spontaneity; it has nothing
conversational or “natural”; it is the directness of calculation. So
he had little occasion to improve his skill in dialogue. Dialogue is
the artistic imitation of real life. He had little use for it. His
best tales are typically conducted by monologue in the first person.
What he desired, what he achieved, what his example taught, was
reduction to a straight, predetermined course. Everything that might
hinder this consistency were best away. So, as he reduced his scene
to proper symbols, he reduced it also, in his typical tales, to one
place. Change of place, lapse of time, are either excluded as by the
law of the classical unities,[20] or, if they are admitted, are never
evident enough to be remarked. What this meant as a lesson in form can
be appreciated only by inspecting the heavy machinery that sank many
good tales before him. What it means in ultimate import is the peculiar
value and the peculiar limitation of the short story--in a word, its
capacity as a literary form. The simplification that he set forth is
the way to intensity; but perhaps Hawthorne saw that it might be the
way to artificiality.
The history, then, of the short story--the feeling after the form, the
final achievement, will yield the definition of the form. The practical
process of defining by experiment compiles most surely the theoretical
definition. And to complete this definition it is safe to scrutinise
the art of Poe in still other aspects. His structure, appearing as
harmonisation and as simplification, appears also as gradation. That
the incidents of a tale should be arranged as progressive to a climax
is an elementary narrative principle not so axiomatic in the practice,
at least, of Poe’s time as to bind without the force of his example.
Even his detective stories, in their ingenious suspense and their swift
and steady mounting to climax, were a lesson in narrative. But this is
the least of his skill. The emotional and spiritual effects that he
sought as his artistic birthright could be achieved only by adjustments
far more subtle. The progressive heightening of the style corresponds
to a nice order of small details more and more significant up to the
final intensity of revelation. Little suggestion is laid to suggestion
until the great hypnotist has us in the mood to hear and feel what
he will. It is a minute process, and it is unhurried; but it is not
too slow to be accomplished within what before him would have seemed
incredible brevity. The grading of everything to scale and perspective,
that the little whole may be as complete, as satisfying, as any larger
whole--nay, that any larger treatment may seem, for the time of
comparison, too broad and coarse,--this is Poe’s finer architecture.
But for him we should hardly have guessed what might be done in fifteen
pages; but for him we should not know so clearly that the art of
fifteen pages is not the art of a hundred and fifty.
_Berenice_ casts a shadow first from the fatal library, chamber of
doubtful lore, of death, of birth, of pre-natal recollection “like
a shadow--vague, variable, indefinite, unsteady; and like a shadow,
too, in the impossibility of my getting rid of it while the sunlight
of my reason shall exist.” The last words deepen the shadow. Then the
“boyhood in books” turns vision into reality, reality into vision.
Berenice flashes across the darkened stage, and pines, and falls into
trances, “disturbing even the identity of her person.” While the
light from her is thus turning to darkness, the visionary’s morbid
attentiveness is warped toward a monomania of brooding over trivial
single objects. For the sake of the past and visionary Berenice
betrothed with horror to the decaying real Berenice, he is riveted
in brooding upon her person--her emaciation--her face--her lips--her
teeth. The teeth are his final curse. The rest is madness, realised
too horribly, but with what final swiftness of force! No catalogue of
details can convey the effect of this gradation of eight pages. Yet
_Berenice_ is Poe’s first and crudest elaboration. The same static art
in the same year moves _Morella_ more swiftly through finer and surer
degrees to a perfectly modulated close in five pages. His next study,
still of the same year, is in the grotesque. The freer and more active
movement of _King Pest_ shows his command of the kinetic short story of
incident as well as of the static short story of intensifying emotion.
By the next year he had contrived to unite in _Metzengerstein_ the two
processes, culminating intensity of feeling and culminating swiftness
of action for a direct stroke of terror and retribution. By 1836 Poe
knew his art; he had only to refine it. Continuing to apply his method
of gradation in both modes, he gained his own peculiar triumphs in
the static,--in a situation developed by exquisite gradation of such
infinitesimal incidents as compose _Berenice_ to an intense climax of
emotional suggestion, rather than in a situation developed by gradation
of events to a climax of action. But in both he disclosed the fine art
of the short story in drawing down everything to a point.
For all this was comprehended in Poe’s conception of unity. All these
points of technical skill are derived from what he showed to be the
vital principle of the short story, its defining mark,--unity of
impression through strict unity of form. “Totality of interest,” an
idea caught from Schlegel, he laid down first as the principle of the
short poem,[21] and then as the principle of the tale.[22] And what
this theory of narrative should imply in practice is seen best in
Poe. For Hawthorne, though he too achieves totality of interest, is
not so surely a master of it precisely because he is not so sure of
the technic. His symbolism is often unified, as it were, by logical
summary; for Poe’s symbolism summary would be an impertinence. Poe’s
harmonisation, not otherwise, perhaps, superior to Hawthorne’s, is
more instructive as being more strictly the accord of every word with
one constantly dominant impression. His simplification of narrative
mechanism went in sheer technical skill beyond the skill of any
previous writer in opening a direct course to a single revealing
climax. His gradation, too, was a progressive heightening and a nice
drawing to scale. All this means that he divined, realised, formulated
the short story as a distinct form of art. Before him was the tale,
which, though by chance it might attain self-consistency, was usually
and typically incomplete, either a part or an outline sketch; from
his brain was born the short story as a complete, finished, and
self-sufficing whole.
III. A GLANCE AT DERIVATION
ANCIENT TALES, MEDIÆVAL TALES, THE MODERN FRENCH SHORT STORY
[Sidenote: Milesian Tales.]
The nice questions of literary derivation cannot be finally answered
for the tale, any more than for other literary forms, without large
citation and analysis in particular. But, pending fuller discussion,
a general survey of the typical late Greek, late Latin, and mediæval
forms is full of suggestion. Stories being primarily for pleasure and
the pleasures of decadent Greece being largely carnal, it can give no
long amazement to find that the tales popular along the Mediterranean
of the Seleucids and the Ptolemies were erotic and often frankly
obscene. Known as Milesian[23] tales, doubtless from the bad eminence
of some collection in the Ionian city of pleasure, they set a fashion
for those Roman studies in the naturally and the unnaturally sexual of
which the _Satyricon_[24] of Petronius may stand as a type. The famous
tale of the Matron of Ephesus, which has more consistency than most of
this collection, reveals at once how far such pieces went in narrative
form. Clearly a capital plot for a short story, it is just as clearly
not a short story, but only a plot. It is as it were a narrative
sketch or study, like the scenario for a play. And in this it is like
many other tales of its class. The rest, the majority, are simply
anecdote.[25] They are such stories as men of free life and free speech
have in all ages told after dinner. That is their character of subject;
that is their capacity of form. Speaking broadly, then, the short tales
of antiquity are never short stories in our modern sense. They are
either anecdote or scenario.
[Sidenote: Daphnis and Chloe, Aucassin and Nicolette.]
Of the longer tale of antiquity a convenient type is the _Daphnis and
Chloe_ ascribed to Longus. A plot no less ancient than that of the
foundling reared in simple life and ultimately reclaimed by noble
parents receives from the Greek author the form of a pastoral[26]
romance, with episodes, complications, and a fairy-tale ending. Its
form, then, is essentially the same as the form of _Aucassin and
Nicolette_, _Florus and Jehane_, _Amis and Amile_, and other typical
short romances of the middle age. Between such short romances and the
modern short story there is the same difference of form as between
Chaucer’s tale of the Man of Law, which is one of the former, and
his tale of the Pardoner, which foreshadows how such material may be
handled in the way of the latter. For Chaucer, as in his _Troilus
and Criseyde_ he anticipates the modern novel, so in his Pardoner
anticipates the modern short story. The middle age and the Renaissance,
even antiquity,[27] show isolated, sporadic instances of short story,
whether in prose or in verse; but these are apart from the drift of
the time. Aside from such sporadic cases, the longer mediæval tale
or short romance, though often in length within the limits of short
story, is typically loose as to time and place, and as to incident
accumulative of marvels. It is to the long mediæval romance what the
modern tale--not the modern short story--is to the modern novel. And
it is a constant form from Greece--even from India and Egypt,[28]
down to the present. In form the Alexandrian _Daphnis and Chloe_,
the mediæval _Aucassin and Nicolette_, and the whole herd of modern
tales, such as Miss Edgeworth’s, are essentially alike. The modern
time has differentiated two forms: first, the novel, in which character
is progressively developed, incidents progressively complicated and
resolved; second, the short story, in which character and action are
so compressed as to suggest by a single situation without development.
The former is as it were an expansion of the tale; the latter, a
compression. In both cases the modern art of fiction seems to have
learned from the drama. Meantime the original, naïve tale has endured,
and doubtless will endure. To employ the figure of speech by which M.
Brunetière is enabled to speak of literature in terms of evolution, the
tale is the original jackal. From it have been developed two distinct
species; but their parent stock persists. Indeed, for aught we can see
from the past, posterity may behold a reversion to type.
[Sidenote: The Decameron.]
The significance of a division of ancient and early mediæval tales into
anecdote and scenario or summary romance becomes at once clearer by
reference to the greatest mediæval collection, the _Decameron_ (1353)
of Boccaccio. More than half the tales of the _Decameron_ may readily
be grouped as anecdote--all of the sixth day, for instance, most of the
first and eighth, half of the ninth. Of these some approach consistency
of form. Having long introductions, unnecessary lapse of time, or other
looseness of structure, they still work out a main situation in one
day or one night; they sometimes show dramatic ingenuity of incident;
less frequently they reach distinct climax. Where the climax, as in
the majority of cases, is merely an ingenious escape or a triumphant
retort, of course the tale remains simple anecdote; but in some few the
climax is the result of the action, is more nearly a culmination. This
is the character of the seventh day. Another class in the _Decameron_
rapidly summarises a large plot, the action ranging widely in time
and place. A narrative sketch, usually of a romance, it corresponds
essentially to the _Aucassin and Nicolette_ type,[29] and includes
nearly one half. Here was an open mine for the romantic drama of later
centuries. The _Decameron_, then, is almost all either anecdote or
scenario.
But not quite all. Besides those tales which seem to show a working for
consistency, there are a few that definitely achieve it. The fourth of
the first day (The Monk, the Woman, and the Abbot) is compact within
one place and a few hours. All it lacks for short story is definite
climax. Very like in compactness is the first of the second day (The
Three Florentines and the Body of the New Saint). Firmer still is
the eighth of the eighth day (Two Husbands and Two Wives). Here the
climax is not only definite, but is a solution, and includes all four
characters. If it is not convincing, that is because the _Decameron_ is
hardly concerned with characterisation. The action covers two days. It
might almost as easily have been kept within one. Finally there are two
tales that cannot, without hair-splitting, be distinguished from modern
short story. The second tale of the second day (Rinaldo, for his prayer
to St. Julian, well lodged in spite of mishap) is compressed within a
single afternoon and night and a few miles of a single road. The climax
is definitely a solution. The movement is largely by dialogue. In a
word, the tale is a self-consistent whole. Equally self-consistent,
and quite similar in method, is that farce comedy of errors, the
sixth tale of the ninth day (Two Travellers in a Room of Three Beds),
which Chaucer has among his Canterbury Tales. Both these are short
stories. If the other three be counted with them, we have five out of a
hundred.[30]
[Sidenote: Les Cent Nouvelles, Bandello, The Heptameron.]
The middle age, then, had the short story, but did not recognise, or
did not value, that opportunity. Not only does Boccaccio employ the
form seldom and, as it were, quite casually, but subsequent writers do
not carry it forward. In fact, they practically ignore it. _Les cent
nouvelles nouvelles_ (1450–1460), most famous of French collections,
shows no discernment of Boccaccio’s nicer art. In form, as in subject,
there is no essential change from the habit of antiquity. True, here
and there among the everlasting _histoires grivoises_ is a piece
of greater consistency and artistic promise. That delicious story
(the sixth _nouvelle_) of the drunken man who insisted on making his
confession on the highway to a priest unfortunately passing, who had
absolution at the point of the knife, and then resolved to die before
he lapsed from the state of grace, is not only a short-story plot; it
goes so far toward short-story form as to focus upon a few hours. Yet
even this hints the short story to us because we look back from the
achieved form. After all it remains anecdote; and it has few peers in
all the huge collection. Bandello (1480–1562), in this regard, shows
even a retrogression from Boccaccio. His brief romances are looser,
often indeed utterly extravagant of time and space. His anecdotes,
though they often have a stir of action, show less sense of bringing
people together on the stage. So the _Heptameron_ (1558–1559) of
the Queen of Navarre fails--so in general subsequent tale-mongers
fail--to appreciate the distinctive value of the terser form. Up to the
nineteenth century the short story was merely sporadic. It was achieved
now and again by writers of too much artistic sense to be quite unaware
of its value; but it never took its place as an accepted form.
[Sidenote: Nodier.]
Thus the modern development of the short story in France has both
its own artistic interest and the further historical interest of
background. When Charles Nodier (1783–1844), in the time of our own
Irving, harked back from the novel to the tale, he but followed
consciously what others had followed unconsciously, a tradition of
his race.[31] Some of Nodier’s legends are as mediæval in form as in
subject. But when he wrote _La combe à l’homme mort_ he made of the
same material something which, emerging here and there in the middle
age, waited for definite acceptance till Nodier’s own time--a short
story. The hypothesis that Nodier was a master to Hawthorne is not
supported by any close likeness. Yet there are resemblances. Both loved
to write tales for children; both lapse toward the overt moral and
fall easily into essay; both use the more compact short-story form as
it were by the way and not from preference. _Smarra_ (66 pages, 1821),
acknowledging a suggestion from Apuleius, is an essentially original
fantasy, creating the effect of a waking dream. The nearest English
parallel is, not Hawthorne, but De Quincey, or, in more elaborate
and restrained eloquence, Landor. _Smarra_, as Nodier says in his
preface, is an exercise in style to produce a certain phantasmagorical
impression. The clue to the effect he sought is given by the frequent
quotations from the _Tempest_. It is “such stuff as dreams are made
on.” _Jean François-les-bas-bleus_ (1836) and _Lidivine_, on the
other hand, are almost documentary studies of character. _La filleule
du Seigneur_ (1806), legendary anecdote like Irving’s, shows where
Nodier’s art began. He carried his art much further; but his pieces of
compactness, like _La combe à l’homme mort_, are so rare that one may
doubt their direct influence on the modern development of form.
For the bulk of Nodier’s work is not _conte_, but _nouvelle_. These
two terms have never been sharply differentiated in French use. _Les
cent nouvelles nouvelles_ are not only shorter, in average, than the
_novelle_ of Boccaccio; they are substantially like the _Contes de la
Reine de Navarre_. Some of the _nouvelles_ of Nodier, Mérimée, and
Gautier are indistinguishable in form from the _contes_ of Flaubert,
Daudet, and Maupassant. But though even to-day a collection of
French tales might bear either name, the short story as it grew in
distinctness and popularity seems to have taken more peculiarly to
itself the name _conte_.[32] Correspondingly _nouvelle_ is a convenient
name for those more extended tales, written sometimes in chapters,
which in English are occasionally called novelettes, and which have
their type in _Aucassin and Nicolette_. In this sense Nodier’s writing
is mainly, and from preference, _nouvelle_. Taking as his type for
modern adaptation the longer mediæval tale, he did not work in the
direction of short story.
[Sidenote: Mérimée.]
Nor, oddly enough, did Mérimée. People who assign to him the rôle of
pioneer in the short story, on account of his extraordinary narrative
conciseness, appear to forget that his typical tales--_Carmen_,
_Colomba_,[33] _Arsène Guillot_, are too long for the form; and that
many of his shorter pieces--_L’enlèvement de la redoute_, _Tamango_,
_La vision de Charles XI._, are deliberately composed as descriptive
anecdotes. Mérimée’s compactness consists rather in reducing to a
_nouvelle_ what most writers would have made a _roman_ than in focusing
on a single situation in a _conte_. _Carmen_, though compact in its
main structure, has a long prelude. Beyond question the method is well
adapted; but it shows no tendency to short story. And the habit is
equally marked in _Le vase étrusque_, with its superfluous characters.
Evidently his artistic bent, like Hawthorne’s, like Nodier’s, was not
in that direction. All the more striking, therefore, is his single
experiment. _La Vénus d’Ille_ (1837) is definitely and perfectly a
short story. Giving the antecedent action and the key in skilful
opening dialogue, it proceeds by a series of increasingly stronger
premonitions to a seizing climax. Like Poe, Mérimée intensifies a
mood till it can receive whatever he chooses, but not at all in Poe’s
way. Instead, the mystery and horror are accentuated by a tone of
worldly-wise skepticism. Less compressed, too, than Poe, he can be more
“natural.” Withal he keeps the same perfection of grading. Strange that
a man who did this once should never have done it again. But the single
achievement was marked enough to compel imitation.
[Sidenote: Balzac.]
That the propagation of the short story in France owes much to Balzac
might readily be presumed from the enormous influence of Balzac’s work
in general, but can hardly be held after scrutiny of his short pieces
in particular. Of these, two will serve to recall the limitations
of the great observer. _El Verdugo_ (1829), though it is reduced to
two days and substantially one scene, hardly realises the gain from
such compression. Instead of intensifying progressively, Balzac has
at last to append his conclusion, and for lack of gradation to leave
his tale barely credible. _Les Proscrits_ (1831), more unified in
imaginative conception, and again limited in time-lapse, again fails
of that progressive intensity which is the very essence of Poe’s force
and Mérimée’s. It is not even held steady, but lapses into intrusive
erudition and falls into three quite separate scenes. Others of
Balzac’s short pieces, _La messe de l’athée_ (1836), for example, and
_Z. Marcas_ (1840), are obviously in form, like many of Hawthorne’s,
essays woven on anecdote or character. Some of his tales may, indeed,
have suggested the opportunity of different handling. Some of them, at
any rate, seem from our point of view almost to call for that. But his
own handling does not seem, as Poe’s does, directive. And in general,
much as Balzac had to teach his successors, had he much to teach them
of form?
[Sidenote: Gautier.]
The tales of Musset, which are but incidental in his development, and
are confined, most of them, within the years 1837–1838, show no grasp
of form. Gautier, even more evidently than Mérimée, preferred the
_nouvelle_, partly from indolent fluency, partly from a slight sense
of narrative conclusion. Few even of his most compact _contes_, such
as _Le nid de rossignols_, compress the time. He was garrulous; he had
read Sterne[34]; above all, he was bent, like Sterne, on description.
But Gautier too shows a striking exception. _La morte amoureuse_,
though it has not Poe’s mechanism of compression, is otherwise so
startlingly like Poe that one turns involuntarily to the dates. _La
morte amoureuse_ appeared in 1836; _Berenice_, in 1835. The _Southern
Literary Messenger_ could not have reached the boulevards in a year.
Indeed, the debt of either country to the other can hardly be proved.
Remarkable as is the coincident appearance in Paris and in Richmond of
a new literary form, it remains a coincidence. And whereas by 1837 Poe
was in full career on his hobby, Gautier and Mérimée did not repeat the
excursion.
[Sidenote: France and America.]
The history of the tale in England, however important otherwise, is
hardly distinct enough as a development of form to demand separate
discussion here. For England, apparently trying the short-story form
later than France and the United States, apparently also learned it
from them. Perhaps the foremost short-story writers of our time in
English--though that must still be a moot point--are Kipling and
Stevenson. But Stevenson’s short story looks to France; and Kipling
probably owes much to the American magazine. Without venturing on the
more complicated question of the relations of Germany, Russia,[35]
and Scandinavia to France, it is safe to put forward as a working
hypothesis that the new form was invented by France and America, and by
each independently for itself. Our priority, if it be substantiated,
can be but of a year or two. The important fact is that after due
incubation the new form, in each country, has germinated and spread
with extraordinary vigor. Daudet, Richepin, Maupassant--to make a list
of French short-story writers in the time just past, is to include
almost all writers of eminence in fiction. What is true of France is
even more obviously true of the United States. Our most familiar names
in recent fiction were made familiar largely through distinction in the
short story. The native American yarn, still thriving in spontaneous
oral vigour, has been turned to various art in _The Jumping Frog_
and _Marjorie Daw_ and _The Wreck of the Thomas Hyke_. The capacity
of the short story for focusing interest dramatically on a strictly
limited scene and a few hours, no less than its capacity for fixing
local color, is exhibited most strikingly in the human significance
of _Posson Jone_. Mr. James, though his preoccupation with scientific
analysis demands typically, as it demanded of Mérimée, a somewhat
larger scope, vindicates his skill more obviously in such intense
pieces of compression as _The Great Good Place_. To instance further
would but lead into catalogue. In a word, the two nations that have
in our time shown keenest consciousness of form in fiction have
most fostered the short story. For ourselves, we may find in this
development of a literary form one warrant for asserting that we have a
literary history.
PART I
THE TENTATIVE PERIOD
WASHINGTON IRVING
1783–1859
For a discussion of Irving in general, and of _Rip Van Winkle_ in
particular, see pages 6–9 of the Introduction. The pseudo-documentary
notes before and after the tale show incidentally the strong
contemporary influence of Scott. The text is that of the first edition
(1819).
(The following tale was found among the papers of the late Diedrich
Knickerbocker, an old gentleman of New York, who was very curious in
the Dutch history of the province, and the manners of the descendants
from its primitive settlers. His historical researches, however, did
not lie so much among books as among men; for the former are lamentably
scanty on his favourite topics; whereas he found the old burghers, and
still more their wives, rich in that legendary lore so invaluable to
true history. Whenever, therefore, he happened upon a genuine Dutch
family, snugly shut up in its low-roofed farmhouse, under a spreading
sycamore, he looked upon it as a little clasped volume of black-letter,
and studied it with the zeal of a book-worm.
The result of all these researches was a history of the province
during the reign of the Dutch governors, which he published some years
since. There have been various opinions as to the literary character
of his work, and, to tell the truth, it is not a whit better than it
should be. Its chief merit is its scrupulous accuracy, which indeed
was a little questioned on its first appearance, but has since been
completely established; and it is now admitted into all historical
collections as a book of unquestionable authority.
The old gentleman died shortly after the publication of his work, and
now, that he is dead and gone, it cannot do much harm to his memory, to
say, that his time might have been much better employed in weightier
labours. He, however, was apt to ride his hobby in his own way; and
though it did now and then kick up the dust a little in the eyes of
his neighbours, and grieve the spirit of some friends, for whom he
felt the truest deference and affection; yet his errors and follies
are remembered “more in sorrow than in anger,[36]” and it begins to be
suspected that he never intended to injure or offend. But however his
memory may be appreciated by critics, it is still held dear among many
folk, whose good opinion is well worth having; particularly by certain
biscuit bakers, who have gone so far as to imprint his likeness on
their New Year cakes, and have thus given him a chance for immortality,
almost equal to the being stamped on a Waterloo medal, or a Queen
Anne’s farthing.)
RIP VAN WINKLE
A POSTHUMOUS WRITING OF DIEDRICH KNICKERBOCKER
[_From the “Sketch Book,” 1819–1820_]
By Woden, God of Saxons,
From whence comes Wensday, that is Wodensday,
Truth is a thing that ever I will keep
Unto thylke day in which I creep into
My sepulchre----
CARTWRIGHT.
Whoever has made a voyage up the Hudson, must remember the Kaatskill
mountains. They are a dismembered branch of the great Appalachian
family, and are seen away to the west of the river, swelling up to a
noble height, and lording it over the surrounding country. Every change
of season, every change of weather, indeed, every hour of the day,
produces some change in the magical hues and shapes of these mountains,
and they are regarded by all the good wives, far and near, as perfect
barometers. When the weather is fair and settled, they are clothed in
blue and purple, and print their bold outlines on the clear evening
sky; but sometimes, when the rest of the landscape is cloudless, they
will gather a hood of gray vapours about their summits, which, in the
last rays of the setting sun, will glow and light up like a crown of
glory.
At the foot of these fairy mountains, the voyager may have descried the
light smoke curling up from a village, whose shingle roofs gleam among
the trees, just where the blue tints of the upland melt away into the
fresh green of the nearer landscape. It is a little village of great
antiquity, having been founded by some of the Dutch colonists, in the
early times of the province, just about the beginning of the government
of the good Peter Stuyvesant (may he rest in peace!), and there were
some of the houses of the original settlers standing within a few years
with lattice windows, gable fronts surmounted with weathercocks, and
built of small yellow bricks brought from Holland.
In that same village, and in one of these very houses, (which, to
tell the precise truth, was sadly timeworn and weather-beaten,) there
lived many years since, while the country was yet a province of Great
Britain, a simple goodnatured fellow, of the name of Rip Van Winkle.
He was a descendant of the Van Winkles who figured so gallantly in the
chivalrous days of Peter Stuyvesant, and accompanied him to the siege
of Fort Christina. He inherited, however, but little of the martial
character of his ancestors. I have observed that he was a simple
good-natured man; he was moreover a kind neighbour, and an obedient,
henpecked husband. Indeed, to the latter circumstance might be owing
that meekness of spirit which gained him such universal popularity;
for those men are most apt to be obsequious and conciliating abroad,
who are under the discipline of shrews at home. Their tempers,
doubtless, are rendered pliant and malleable in the fiery furnace of
domestic tribulation, and a curtain lecture is worth all the sermons
in the world for teaching the virtues of patience and long suffering.
A termagant wife may, therefore, in some respects, be considered a
tolerable blessing; and if so, Rip Van Winkle was thrice blessed.
Certain it is, that he was a great favourite among all the good wives
of the village, who, as usual with the amiable sex, took his part in
all family squabbles, and never failed, whenever they talked those
matters over in their evening gossippings, to lay all the blame on
Dame Van Winkle. The children of the village, too, would shout with
joy whenever he approached. He assisted at their sports, made their
playthings, taught them to fly kites and shoot marbles, and told them
long stories of ghosts, witches, and Indians. Whenever he went dodging
about the village, he was surrounded by a troop of them, hanging on
his skirts, clambering on his back, and playing a thousand tricks on
him with impunity; and not a dog would bark at him throughout the
neighbourhood.
The great error in Rip’s composition was an insuperable aversion to all
kinds of profitable labour. It could not be from the want of assiduity
or perseverance; for he would sit on a wet rock, with a rod as long
and heavy as a Tartar’s lance, and fish all day without a murmur,
even though he should not be encouraged by a single nibble. He would
carry a fowling-piece on his shoulder, for hours together, trudging
through woods and swamps, and up hill and down dale, to shoot a few
squirrels or wild pigeons. He would never even refuse to assist a
neighbour in the roughest toil, and was a foremost man at all country
frolicks for husking Indian corn, or building stone fences. The women
of the village, too, used to employ him to run their errands, and to do
such little odd jobs as their less obliging husbands would not do for
them;--in a word, Rip was ready to attend to anybody’s business but his
own; but as to doing family duty, and keeping his farm in order, it was
impossible.
In fact, he declared it was of no use to work on his farm; it was the
most pestilent little piece of ground in the whole country; everything
about it went wrong, and would go wrong, in spite of him. His fences
were continually falling to pieces; his cow would either go astray, or
get among the cabbages; weeds were sure to grow quicker in his fields
than anywhere else; the rain always made a point of setting in just as
he had some out-door work to do; so that though his patrimonial estate
had dwindled away under his management, acre by acre, until there was
little more left than a mere patch of Indian corn and potatoes, yet it
was the worst conditioned farm in the neighbourhood.
His children, too, were as ragged and wild as if they belonged to
nobody. His son Rip, an urchin begotten in his own likeness, promised
to inherit the habits, with the old clothes of his father. He was
generally seen trooping like a colt at his mother’s heels, equipped in
a pair of his father’s cast-off galligaskins, which he had much ado to
hold up with one hand, as a fine lady does her train in bad weather.
Rip Van Winkle, however, was one of those happy mortals, of foolish,
well-oiled dispositions, who take the world easy, eat white bread or
brown, whichever can be got with least thought or trouble, and would
rather starve on a penny than work for a pound. If left to himself,
he would have whistled life away, in perfect contentment; but his
wife kept continually dinning in his ears about his idleness, his
carelessness, and the ruin he was bringing on his family. Morning,
noon, and night, her tongue was incessantly going, and everything he
said or did was sure to produce a torrent of household eloquence. Rip
had but one way of replying to all lectures of the kind, and that, by
frequent use, had grown into a habit. He shrugged his shoulders, shook
his head, cast up his eyes, but said nothing. This, however, always
provoked a fresh volley from his wife, so that he was fain to draw off
his forces, and take to the outside of the house--the only side which,
in truth, belongs to a henpecked husband.
Rip’s sole domestic adherent was his dog Wolf, who was as much
henpecked as his master; for Dame Van Winkle regarded them as
companions in idleness, and even looked upon Wolf with an evil eye, as
the cause of his master’s so often going astray. True it is, in all
points of spirit befitting an honourable dog, he was as courageous an
animal as ever scoured the woods--but what courage can withstand the
ever-during and all-besetting terrors of a woman’s tongue? The moment
Wolf entered the house, his crest fell, his tail drooped to the ground,
or curled between his legs, he sneaked about with a gallows air,
casting many a sidelong glance at Dame Van Winkle, and at the least
flourish of a broomstick or ladle, would fly to the door with yelping
precipitation.
Times grew worse and worse with Rip Van Winkle as years of matrimony
rolled on; a tart temper never mellows with age, and a sharp tongue
is the only edged tool that grows keener by constant use. For a long
while he used to console himself, when driven from home, by frequenting
a kind of perpetual club of the sages, philosophers, and other idle
personages of the village, which held its sessions on a bench before
a small inn, designated by a rubicund portrait of his majesty George
the Third. Here they used to sit in the shade, of a long lazy summer’s
day, talking listlessly over village gossip, or telling endless sleepy
stories about nothing. But it would have been worth any statesman’s
money to have heard the profound discussions which sometimes took
place, when by chance an old newspaper fell into their hands, from some
passing traveller. How solemnly they would listen to the contents, as
drawled out by Derrick Van Bummel, the schoolmaster, a dapper learned
little man, who was not to be daunted by the most gigantic word in the
dictionary; and how sagely they would deliberate upon public events
some months after they had taken place.
The opinions of this junto were completely controlled by Nicholas
Vedder, a patriarch of the village, and landlord of the inn, at the
door of which he took his seat from morning till night, just moving
sufficiently to avoid the sun, and keep in the shade of a large
tree; so that the neighbours could tell the hour by his movements as
accurately as by a sun dial. It is true, he was rarely heard to speak,
but smoked his pipe incessantly. His adherents, however, (for every
great man has his adherents,) perfectly understood him, and knew how to
gather his opinions. When anything that was read or related displeased
him, he was observed to smoke his pipe vehemently, and send forth
short, frequent, and angry puffs; but when pleased, he would inhale the
smoke slowly and tranquilly, and emit it in light and placid clouds,
and sometimes taking the pipe from his mouth, and letting the fragrant
vapour curl about his nose, would gravely nod his head in token of
perfect approbation.
From even this stronghold the unlucky Rip was at length routed by his
termagant wife, who would suddenly break in upon the tranquillity of
the assemblage, and call the members all to nought; nor was that august
personage, Nicholas Vedder himself, sacred from the daring tongue of
this terrible virago, who charged him outright with encouraging her
husband in habits of idleness.
Poor Rip was at last reduced almost to despair; and his only
alternative to escape from the labour of the farm and clamour of his
wife, was to take gun in hand, and stroll away into the woods. Here
he would sometimes seat himself at the foot of a tree, and share the
contents of his wallet with Wolf, with whom he sympathized as a fellow
sufferer in persecution. “Poor Wolf,” he would say, “thy mistress
leads thee a dog’s life of it; but never mind, my lad, while I live
thou shalt never want a friend to stand by thee!” Wolf would wag his
tail, look wistfully in his master’s face, and if dogs can feel pity, I
verily believe he reciprocated the sentiment with all his heart.
In a long ramble of the kind on a fine autumnal day, Rip had
unconsciously scrambled to one of the highest parts of the Kaatskill
mountains. He was after his favourite sport of squirrel shooting, and
the still solitudes had echoed and re-echoed with the reports of his
gun. Panting and fatigued, he threw himself, late in the afternoon, on
a green knoll, covered with mountain herbage, that crowned the brow
of a precipice. From an opening between the trees, he could overlook
all the lower country for many a mile of rich woodland. He saw at a
distance the lordly Hudson, far, far below him, moving on its silent
but majestic course, the reflection of a purple cloud, or the sail of a
lagging bark, here and there sleeping on its glassy bosom, and at last
losing itself in the blue highlands.
On the other side he looked down into a deep mountain glen, wild,
lonely, and shagged, the bottom filled with fragments from the
impending cliffs, and scarcely lighted by the reflected rays of the
setting sun. For some time Rip lay musing on this scene; evening was
gradually advancing, the mountains began to throw their long, blue
shadows over the valleys, he saw that it would be dark long before he
could reach the village, and he heaved a heavy sigh when he thought of
encountering the terrors of Dame Van Winkle.
As he was about to descend, he heard a voice from a distance,
hallooing, “Rip Van Winkle! Rip Van Winkle!” He looked around, but
could see nothing but a crow winging its solitary flight across the
mountain. He thought his fancy must have deceived him, and turned
again to descend, when he heard the same cry ring through the still
evening air; “Rip Van Winkle! Rip Van Winkle!”--at the same time
Wolf bristled up his back, and giving a low growl, skulked to his
master’s side, looking fearfully down into the glen. Rip now felt a
vague apprehension stealing over him; he looked anxiously in the same
direction, and perceived a strange figure slowly toiling up the rocks,
and bending under the weight of something he carried on his back. He
was surprised to see any human being in this lonely and unfrequented
place, but supposing it to be some one of the neighbourhood in need of
his assistance, he hastened down to yield it.
On nearer approach, he was still more surprised at the singularity of
the stranger’s appearance. He was a short square built old fellow,
with thick bushy hair, and a grizzled beard. His dress was of the
antique Dutch fashion--a cloth jerkin strapped round the waist--several
pair of breeches, the outer one of ample volume, decorated with rows
of buttons down the sides, and bunches at the knees. He bore on his
shoulders a stout keg, that seemed full of liquor, and made signs
for Rip to approach and assist him with the load. Though rather shy
and distrustful of this new acquaintance, Rip complied with his
usual alacrity, and mutually relieving one another, they clambered
up a narrow gully, apparently the dry bed of a mountain torrent. As
they ascended, Rip every now and then heard long rolling peals, like
distant thunder, that seemed to issue out of a deep ravine, or rather
cleft between lofty rocks, toward which their rugged path conducted.
He paused for an instant, but supposing it to be the muttering of
one of those transient thunder showers which often take place in
mountain heights, he proceeded. Passing through the ravine, they came
to a hollow, like a small amphitheatre, surrounded by perpendicular
precipices, over the brinks of which impending trees shot their
branches, so that you only caught glimpses of the azure sky, and the
bright evening cloud. During the whole time, Rip and his companion had
laboured on in silence; for though the former marvelled greatly what
could be the object of carrying a keg of liquor up this wild mountain,
yet there was something strange and incomprehensible about the unknown,
that inspired awe, and checked familiarity.
On entering the amphitheatre, new objects of wonder presented
themselves. On a level spot in the centre was a company of odd-looking
personages playing at nine-pins. They were dressed in a quaint,
outlandish fashion: some wore short doublets, others jerkins, with
long knives in their belts, and most had enormous breeches, of similar
style with that of the guide’s. Their visages, too, were peculiar:
one had a large head, broad face, and small piggish eyes; the face of
another seemed to consist entirely of nose, and was surmounted by a
white sugar-loaf hat, set off with a little red cock’s tail. They all
had beards, of various shapes and colours. There was one who seemed to
be the commander. He was a stout old gentleman, with a weather-beaten
countenance; he wore a laced doublet, broad belt and hanger, high
crowned hat and feather, red stockings, and high heeled shoes, with
roses in them. The whole group reminded Rip of the figures in an old
Flemish painting, in the parlour of Dominie Van Schaick, the village
parson, and which had been brought over from Holland at the time of the
settlement.
What seemed particularly odd to Rip, was that though these folks were
evidently amusing themselves, yet they maintained the gravest faces,
the most mysterious silence, and were, withal, the most melancholy
party of pleasure he had ever witnessed. Nothing interrupted the
stillness of the scene, but the noise of the balls, which, whenever
they were rolled, echoed along the mountains like rumbling peals of
thunder.
As Rip and his companion approached them, they suddenly desisted from
their play, and stared at him with such fixed statue-like gaze, and
such strange, uncouth, lacklustre countenances, that his heart turned
within him, and his knees smote together. His companion now emptied the
contents of the keg into large flagons, and made signs to him to wait
upon the company. He obeyed with fear and trembling; they quaffed the
liquor in profound silence, and then returned to their game.
By degrees, Rip’s awe and apprehension subsided. He even ventured, when
no eye was fixed upon him, to taste the beverage, which he found had
much of the flavour of excellent Hollands. He was naturally a thirsty
soul, and was soon tempted to repeat the draught. One taste provoked
another, and he reiterated his visits to the flagon so often, that at
length his senses were overpowered, his eyes swam in his head, his head
gradually declined, and he fell into a deep sleep.
On awaking, he found himself on the green knoll from whence he had
first seen the old man of the glen. He rubbed his eyes--it was a bright
sunny morning. The birds were hopping and twittering among the bushes,
and the eagle was wheeling aloft, and breasting the pure mountain
breeze. “Surely,” thought Rip, “I have not slept here all night.” He
recalled the occurrences before he fell asleep. The strange man with
a keg of liquor--the mountain ravine--the wild retreat among the
rocks--the woe-begone party at nine-pins--the flagon--“Oh! that flagon!
that wicked flagon!” thought Rip--“what excuse shall I make to Dame Van
Winkle?”
He looked round for his gun, but in place of the clean well-oiled
fowling-piece, he found an old firelock lying by him, the barrel
encrusted with rust, the lock falling off, and the stock worm-eaten. He
now suspected that the grave roysters of the mountain had put a trick
upon him, and having dosed him with liquor, had robbed him of his gun.
Wolf, too, had disappeared, but he might have strayed away after a
squirrel or partridge. He whistled after him, shouted his name, but all
in vain; the echoes repeated his whistle and shout, but no dog was to
be seen.
He determined to revisit the scene of the last evening’s gambol, and if
he met with any of the party, to demand his dog and gun. As he rose to
walk, he found himself stiff in the joints, and wanting in his usual
activity. “These mountain beds do not agree with me,” thought Rip, “and
if this frolic should lay me up with a fit of the rheumatism, I shall
have a blessed time with Dame Van Winkle.” With some difficulty he got
down into the glen; he found the gully up which he and his companion
had ascended the preceding evening; but to his astonishment a mountain
stream was now foaming down it, leaping from rock to rock, and filling
the glen with babbling murmurs. He, however, made shift to scramble
up its sides, working his toilsome way through thickets of birch,
sassafras, and witch hazle, and sometimes tripped up or entangled by
the wild grape vines that twisted their coils and tendrils from tree to
tree, and spread a kind of network in his path.
At length he reached to where the ravine had opened through the cliffs,
to the amphitheatre; but no traces of such opening remained. The
rocks presented a high impenetrable wall, over which the torrent came
tumbling in a sheet of feathery foam, and fell into a broad deep basin,
black from the shadows of the surrounding forest. Here, then, poor Rip
was brought to a stand. He again called and whistled after his dog;
he was only answered by the cawing of a flock of idle crows, sporting
high in air about a dry tree that overhung a sunny precipice; and who,
secure in their elevation, seemed to look down and scoff at the poor
man’s perplexities. What was to be done? the morning was passing away,
and Rip felt famished for want of his breakfast. He grieved to give up
his dog and gun; he dreaded to meet his wife; but it would not do to
starve among the mountains. He shook his head, shouldered the rusty
firelock, and, with a heart full of trouble and anxiety, turned his
steps homeward.
As he approached the village, he met a number of people, but none whom
he knew, which somewhat surprised him, for he had thought himself
acquainted with every one in the country round. Their dress, too, was
of a different fashion from that to which he was accustomed. They all
stared at him with equal marks of surprise, and whenever they cast
their eyes upon him, invariably stroked their chins. The constant
recurrence of this gesture induced Rip, involuntarily, to do the same,
when, to his astonishment, he found his beard had grown a foot long!
He had now entered the skirts of the village. A troop of strange
children ran at his heels, hooting after him, and pointing at his
gray beard. The dogs, too, none of which he recognized for his old
acquaintances, barked at him as he passed. The very village was
altered: it was larger and more populous. There were rows of houses
which he had never seen before, and those which had been his familiar
haunts had disappeared. Strange names were over the doors--strange
faces at the windows--everything was strange. His mind now began to
misgive him; he doubted whether both he and the world around him were
not bewitched. Surely this was his native village, which he had left
but the day before. There stood the Kaatskill mountains--there ran the
silver Hudson at a distance--there was every hill and dale precisely
as it had always been--Rip was sorely perplexed--“That flagon last
night,” thought he, “has addled my poor head sadly!”
It was with some difficulty he found the way to his own house, which
he approached with silent awe, expecting every moment to hear the
shrill voice of Dame Van Winkle. He found the house gone to decay--the
roof fallen in, the windows shattered, and the doors off the hinges.
A half-starved dog, that looked like Wolf, was skulking about it. Rip
called him by name, but the cur snarled, showed his teeth, and passed
on. This was an unkind cut indeed--“My very dog,” sighed poor Rip, “has
forgotten me!”
He entered the house, which, to tell the truth, Dame Van Winkle had
always kept in neat order. It was empty, forlorn, and apparently
abandoned. This desolateness overcame all his connubial fears--he
called loudly for his wife and children--the lonely chambers rung for a
moment with his voice, and then all again was silence.
He now hurried forth, and hastened to his old resort, the little
village inn--but it too was gone. A large ricketty wooden building
stood in its place, with great gaping windows, some of them broken, and
mended with old hats and petticoats, and over the door was painted,
“The Union Hotel, by Jonathan Doolittle.” Instead of the great tree
which used to shelter the quiet little Dutch inn of yore, there now
was reared a tall naked pole, with something on the top that looked
like a red nightcap, and from it was fluttering a flag, on which was
a singular assemblage of stars and stripes--all this was strange and
incomprehensible. He recognised on the sign, however, the ruby face
of King George, under which he had smoked so many a peaceful pipe,
but even this was singularly metamorphosed. The red coat was changed
for one of blue and buff, a sword was stuck in the hand instead of a
sceptre, the head was decorated with a cocked hat, and underneath was
painted in large characters, GENERAL WASHINGTON.
There was, as usual, a crowd of folk about the door, but none whom
Rip recollected. The very character of the people seemed changed.
There was a busy, bustling, disputatious tone about it, instead of the
accustomed phlegm and drowsy tranquillity. He looked in vain for the
sage Nicholas Vedder, with his broad face, double chin, and fair long
pipe, uttering clouds of tobacco smoke instead of idle speeches; or
Van Bummel, the schoolmaster, doling forth the contents of an ancient
newspaper. In place of these, a lean bilious looking fellow, with his
pockets full of hand-bills, was haranguing vehemently about rights of
citizens--election--members of Congress--liberty--Bunker’s Hill--heroes
of ’76--and other words, that were a perfect Babylonish jargon to the
bewildered Van Winkle.
The appearance of Rip, with his long grizzled beard, his rusty fowling
piece, his uncouth dress, and the army of women and children that had
gathered at his heels, soon attracted the attention of the tavern
politicians. They crowded around him, eying him from head to foot,
with great curiosity. The orator bustled up to him, and drawing him
partly aside, inquired “on which side he voted?” Rip stared in vacant
stupidity. Another short but busy little fellow pulled him by the arm,
and raising on tiptoe, inquired in his ear, “whether he was Federal or
Democrat.” Rip was equally at a loss to comprehend the question; when
a knowing, self-important old gentleman, in a sharp cocked hat, made
his way through the crowd, putting them to the right and left with his
elbows as he passed, and planting himself before Van Winkle, with one
arm akimbo, the other resting on his cane, his keen eyes and sharp hat
penetrating, as it were, into his very soul, demanded, in an austere
tone, “what brought him to the election with a gun on his shoulder,
and a mob at his heels, and whether he meant to breed a riot in the
village?” “Alas! gentlemen,” cried Rip, somewhat dismayed, “I am a poor
quiet man, a native of the place, and a loyal subject of the King, God
bless him!”
Here a general shout burst from the bystanders--“A tory! a tory! a spy!
a refugee! hustle him! away with him!” It was with great difficulty
that the self-important man in the cocked hat restored order; and
having assumed a tenfold austerity of brow, demanded again of the
unknown culprit, what he came there for, and whom he was seeking. The
poor man humbly assured him that he meant no harm; but merely came
there in search of some of his neighbours, who used to keep about the
tavern.
“Well--who are they?--name them.”
Rip bethought himself a moment, and inquired, “where’s Nicholas Vedder?”
There was a silence for a little while, when an old man replied, in
a thin piping voice, “Nicholas Vedder? why he is dead and gone these
eighteen years! There was a wooden tombstone in the churchyard that
used to tell all about him, but that’s rotted and gone too.”
“Where’s Brom Dutcher?”
“Oh, he went off to the army in the beginning of the war; some say he
was killed at the battle of Stoney Point--others say he was drowned in
a squall, at the foot of Antony’s Nose. I don’t know--he never came
back again.”
“Where’s Van Bummel, the schoolmaster?”
“He went off to the wars too, was a great militia general, and is now
in Congress.”
Rip’s heart died away, at hearing of these sad changes in his home and
friends, and finding himself thus alone in the world. Every answer
puzzled him, too, by treating of such enormous lapses of time, and of
matters which he could not understand: war--Congress--Stoney Point!--he
had no courage to ask after any more friends, but cried out in despair,
“Does nobody here know Rip Van Winkle?”
“Oh, Rip Van Winkle!” exclaimed two or three, “Oh, to be sure! that’s
Rip Van Winkle yonder, leaning against the tree.”
Rip looked, and beheld a precise counterpart of himself, as he went up
the mountain: apparently as lazy, and certainly as ragged. The poor
fellow was now completely confounded. He doubted his own identity,
and whether he was himself or another man. In the midst of his
bewilderment, the man in the cocked hat demanded who he was, and what
was his name?
“God knows,” exclaimed he, at his wit’s end; “I’m not myself--I’m
somebody else--that’s me yonder--no--that’s somebody else, got into my
shoes--I was myself last night, but I fell asleep on the mountain, and
they’ve changed my gun, and everything’s changed, and I’m changed, and
I can’t tell what’s my name, or who I am!”
The bystanders began now to look at each other, nod, wink
significantly, and tap their fingers against their foreheads. There
was a whisper, also, about securing the gun, and keeping the old
fellow from doing mischief; at the very suggestion of which, the
self-important man in the cocked hat retired with some precipitation.
At this critical moment a fresh likely woman pressed through the throng
to get a peep at the graybearded man. She had a chubby child in her
arms, which, frightened at his looks, began to cry. “Hush, Rip,” cried
she, “hush, you little fool, the old man won’t hurt you.” The name of
the child, the air of the mother, the tone of her voice, all awakened a
train of recollections in his mind. “What is your name, my good woman?”
asked he.
“Judith Gardenier.”
“And your father’s name?”
“Ah, poor man, his name was Rip Van Winkle; it’s twenty years since
he went away from home with his gun, and never has been heard of
since--his dog came home without him; but whether he shot himself, or
was carried away by the Indians, nobody can tell. I was then but a
little girl.”
Rip had but one question more to ask; but he put it with a faltering
voice:
“Where’s your mother?”
“Oh, she too had died but a short time since; she broke a blood vessel
in a fit of passion at a New-England peddler.”
There was a drop of comfort, at least, in this intelligence. The honest
man could contain himself no longer.--He caught his daughter and her
child in his arms.--“I am your father!” cried he--“Young Rip Van Winkle
once--old Rip Van Winkle now!--Does nobody know poor Rip Van Winkle!”
All stood amazed, until an old woman, tottering out from among the
crowd, put her hand to her brow, and peering under it in his face for a
moment, exclaimed, “Sure enough! it is Rip Van Winkle--it is himself.
Welcome home again, old neighbour.--Why, where have you been these
twenty long years?”
Rip’s story was soon told, for the whole twenty years had been to him
but as one night. The neighbours stared when they heard it; some were
seen to wink at each other, and put their tongues in their cheeks; and
the self-important man in the cocked hat, who, when the alarm was over,
had returned to the field, screwed down the corners of his mouth, and
shook his head--upon which there was a general shaking of the head
throughout the assemblage.
It was determined, however, to take the opinion of old Peter
Vanderdonk, who was seen slowly advancing up the road. He was a
descendant of the historian of that name, who wrote one of the earliest
accounts of the province. Peter was the most ancient inhabitant of the
village, and well versed in all the wonderful events and traditions of
the neighbourhood. He recollected Rip at once, and corroborated his
story in the most satisfactory manner. He assured the company that
it was a fact, handed down from his ancestor the historian, that the
Kaatskill mountains had always been haunted by strange beings. That it
was affirmed that the great Hendrick Hudson, the first discoverer of
the river and country, kept a kind of vigil there every twenty years,
with his crew of the Half-moon, being permitted in this way to revisit
the scenes of his enterprize, and keep a guardian eye upon the river,
and the great city called by his name. That his father had once seen
them in their old Dutch dresses playing at nine-pins in a hollow of
the mountain; and that he himself had heard, one summer afternoon, the
sound of their balls, like long peals of thunder.
To make a long story short, the company broke up, and returned to
the more important concerns of the election. Rip’s daughter took him
home to live with her; she had a snug, well-furnished house, and a
stout cheery farmer for a husband, whom Rip recollected for one of the
urchins that used to climb upon his back. As to Rip’s son and heir,
who was the ditto of himself, seen leaning against the tree, he was
employed to work on the farm; but evinced an hereditary disposition to
attend to anything else but his business.
Rip now resumed his old walks and habits; he soon found many of his
former cronies, though all rather the worse for the wear and tear of
time; and preferred making friends among the rising generation, with
whom he soon grew into great favour.
Having nothing to do at home, and being arrived at that happy age when
a man can do nothing with impunity, he took his place once more on the
bench, at the inn door, and was reverenced as one of the patriarchs
of the village, and a chronicle of the old times “before the war.” It
was some time before he could get into the regular track of gossip, or
could be made to comprehend the strange events that had taken place
during his torpor. How that there had been a revolutionary war--that
the country had thrown off the yoke of old England--and that, instead
of being a subject of his Majesty, George III., he was now a free
citizen of the United States. Rip, in fact, was no politician; the
changes of states and empires made but little impression on him; but
there was one species of despotism under which he had long groaned,
and that was--petticoat government; happily, that was at an end; he
had got his neck out of the yoke of matrimony, and could go in and out
whenever he pleased, without dreading the tyranny of Dame Van Winkle.
Whenever her name was mentioned, however, he shook his head, shrugged
his shoulders, and cast up his eyes; which might pass either for an
expression of resignation to his fate, or joy at his deliverance.
He used to tell his story to every stranger that arrived at Mr.
Doolittle’s hotel. He was observed, at first, to vary on some points
every time he told it, which was, doubtless, owing to his having so
recently awaked. It at last settled down precisely to the tale I have
related, and not a man, woman, or child in the neighbourhood but knew
it by heart. Some always pretended to doubt the reality of it, and
insisted that Rip had been out of his head, and that this was one
point on which he always remained flighty. The old Dutch inhabitants,
however, almost universally gave it full credit. Even to this day
they never hear a thunder storm of a summer afternoon, about the
Kaatskill, but they say Hendrick Hudson and his crew are at their game
of nine-pins; and it is a common wish of all henpecked husbands in the
neighbourhood, when life hangs heavy on their hands, that they might
have a quieting draught out of Rip Van Winkle’s flagon.
NOTE
The foregoing tale, one would suspect, had been suggested to Mr.
Knickerbocker by a little German superstition about the Emperor
Frederick and the Kypphauser mountain; the subjoined note, however,
which he had appended to the tale, shows that it is an absolute
fact, narrated with his usual fidelity.
“The story of Rip Van Winkle may seem incredible to many, but
nevertheless I give it my full belief, for I know the vicinity of
our old Dutch settlements to have been very subject to marvellous
events and appearances. Indeed, I have heard many stranger stories
than this, in the villages along the Hudson; all of which were too
well authenticated to admit of a doubt. I have even talked with Rip
Van Winkle myself, who, when last I saw him, was a very venerable
old man, and so perfectly rational and consistent on every other
point, that I think no conscientious person could refuse to take
this into the bargain; nay, I have seen a certificate on the
subject taken before a country justice and signed with a cross, in
the justice’s own handwriting. The story, therefore, is beyond the
possibility of a doubt.
“D. K.”
POSTSCRIPT[37]
The following are travelling notes from a memorandum book of Mr.
Knickerbocker:
The Kaatsberg, or Catskill Mountains, have always been a region
full of fable. The Indians considered them the abode of spirits,
who influenced the weather, spreading sunshine or clouds over the
landscape, and sending good or bad hunting seasons. They were ruled
by an old squaw spirit, said to be their mother. She dwelt on the
highest peak of the Catskills, and had charge of the doors of day
and night to open and shut them at the proper hour. She hung up
the new moon in the skies, and cut up the old ones into stars. In
times of drought, if properly propitiated, she would spin light
summer clouds out of cobwebs and morning dew, and send them off
from the crest of the mountain, flake after flake, like flakes of
carded cotton, to float in the air; until, dissolved by the heat
of the sun, they would fall in gentle showers, causing the grass
to spring, the fruits to ripen, and the corn to grow an inch an
hour. If displeased, however, she would brew up clouds black as
ink, sitting in the midst of them like a bottle-bellied spider in
the midst of its web; and when these clouds broke, woe betide the
valleys!
In old times, say the Indian traditions, there was a kind of
Manitou or Spirit, who kept about the wildest recesses of the
Catskill Mountains, and took a mischievous pleasure in wreaking
all kinds of evils and vexations upon the red men. Sometimes he
would assume the form of a bear, a panther, or a deer, lead the
bewildered hunter a weary chase through tangled forests and among
ragged rocks; and then spring off with a loud ho! ho! leaving him
aghast on the brink of a beetling precipice or raging torrent.
The favorite abode of this Manitou is still shown. It is a great
rock or cliff on the loneliest part of the mountains, and, from
the flowering vines which clamber about it, and the wild flowers
which abound in its neighborhood, is known by the name of the
Garden Rock. Near the foot of it is a small lake, the haunt of
the solitary bittern, with water-snakes basking in the sun on the
leaves of the pond-lilies which lie on the surface. This place was
held in great awe by the Indians, insomuch that the boldest hunter
would not pursue his game within its precincts. Once upon a time,
however, a hunter who had lost his way, penetrated to the Garden
Rock, where he beheld a number of gourds placed in the crotches
of trees. One of these he seized and made off with it, but in the
hurry of his retreat he let it fall among the rocks, when a great
stream gushed forth, which washed him away and swept him down
precipices, where he was dashed to pieces, and the stream made its
way to the Hudson, and continues to flow to the present day; being
the identical stream known by the name of the Kaaterskill.
WILLIAM AUSTIN
1778–1841
William Austin was a Boston lawyer of literary tastes. He saw something
of the world in his cruises (1799–1800) on the “Constitution” as
chaplain, and of society during his eighteen months at Lincoln’s
Inn. An account of his life and works is prefixed to the collective
edition, now out of print, edited by his son, John Walker Austin (_The
Literary Papers of William Austin_, Boston, 1890). This also reprints
a large part of Col. T. W. Higginson’s “A Precursor of Hawthorne”
(_Independent_, 29th March, 1888. A reference will also be found at
pages 64 and 68 of Col. Higginson’s _Longfellow_). Of his few tales
only _Peter Rugg_ has had any currency. Indeed, the significance of
Austin’s narrative art is mainly negative. Even _Peter Rugg_ shows
wherein what might have been a short story failed of its form. For
all its undoubted quality, it is a short story _manqué_; and in this
it is quite typical of its time. If artistic sense is apparent in the
cumulation of foreshadowings, crudity of mechanism is equally apparent
in the management of each through a different interlocutor. It is
artistically right that Rugg should at last be brought home; it is
artistically wrong that the conclusion should be so like a moralising
summary. A conception much like Hawthorne’s is developed as it were by
mere accumulation instead of being focused in a unified progression.
(See also pages 10 and 12 of the Introduction.)
PETER RUGG, THE MISSING MAN
[_First part printed in Buckingham’s “New England Galaxy,” 10th
September, 1824; several times reprinted entire, e. g., in the
“Boston Book” for 1841; reprinted here from the standard collection
noted above_]
_From_ JONATHAN DUNWELL _of_ NEW YORK _to_ MR. HERMAN KRAUFF
Sir,--Agreeably to my promise, I now relate to you all the particulars
of the lost man and child which I have been able to collect. It is
entirely owing to the humane interest you seemed to take in the report,
that I have pursued the inquiry to the following result.
You may remember that business called me to Boston in the summer of
1820. I sailed in the packet to Providence, and when I arrived there I
learned that every seat in the stage was engaged. I was thus obliged
either to wait a few hours or accept a seat with the driver, who
civilly offered me that accommodation. Accordingly, I took my seat by
his side, and soon found him intelligent and communicative. When we
had travelled about ten miles, the horses suddenly threw their ears on
their necks, as flat as a hare’s. Said the driver, “Have you a surtout
with you?”
“No,” said I; “why do you ask?”
“You will want one soon,” said he. “Do you observe the ears of all the
horses?”
“Yes; and was just about to ask the reason.”
“They see the storm-breeder, and we shall see him soon.”
At this moment there was not a cloud visible in the firmament. Soon
after, a small speck appeared in the road.
“There,” said my companion, “comes the storm-breeder. He always leaves
a Scotch mist behind him. By many a wet jacket do I remember him. I
suppose the poor fellow suffers much himself,--much more than is known
to the world.”
Presently a man with a child beside him, with a large black horse, and
a weather-beaten chair, once built for a chaise-body, passed in great
haste, apparently at the rate of twelve miles an hour. He seemed to
grasp the reins of his horse with firmness, and appeared to anticipate
his speed. He seemed dejected, and looked anxiously at the passengers,
particularly at the stage-driver and myself. In a moment after he
passed us, the horses’ ears were up, and bent themselves forward so
that they nearly met.
“Who is that man?” said I; “he seems in great trouble.”
“Nobody knows who he is, but his person and the child are familiar to
me. I have met him more than a hundred times, and have been so often
asked the way to Boston by that man, even when he was travelling
directly from that town, that of late I have refused any communication
with him; and that is the reason he gave me such a fixed look.”
“But does he never stop anywhere?”
“I have never known him to stop anywhere longer than to inquire the way
to Boston; and let him be where he may, he will tell you he cannot stay
a moment, for he must reach Boston that night.”
We were now ascending a high hill in Walpole; and as we had a fair view
of the heavens, I was rather disposed to jeer the driver for thinking
of his surtout, as not a cloud as big as a marble could be discerned.
“Do you look,” said he, “in the direction whence the man came; that is
the place to look. The storm never meets him; it follows him.”
We presently approached another hill; and when at the height, the
driver pointed out in an eastern direction a little black speck about
as big as a hat. “There,” said he, “is the seed-storm. We may possibly
reach Polley’s before it reaches us, but the wanderer and his child
will go to Providence through rain, thunder, and lightning.”
And now the horses, as though taught by instinct, hastened with
increased speed. The little black cloud came on rolling over the
turnpike, and doubled and trebled itself in all directions. The
appearance of this cloud attracted the notice of all the passengers,
for after it had spread itself to a great bulk it suddenly became more
limited in circumference, grew more compact, dark, and consolidated.
And now the successive flashes of chain lightning caused the whole
cloud to appear like a sort of irregular net-work, and displayed
a thousand fantastic images. The driver bespoke my attention to a
remarkable configuration in the cloud. He said every flash of lightning
near its centre discovered to him, distinctly, the form of a man
sitting in an open carriage drawn by a black horse. But in truth I saw
no such thing; the man’s fancy was doubtless at fault. It is a very
common thing for the imagination to paint for the senses, both in the
visible and invisible world.
In the mean time the distant thunder gave notice of a shower at
hand; and just as we reached Polley’s tavern the rain poured down
in torrents. It was soon over, the cloud passing in the direction
of the turnpike toward Providence. In a few moments after, a
respectable-looking man in a chaise stopped at the door. The man and
child in the chair having excited some little sympathy among the
passengers, the gentleman was asked if he had observed them. He said he
had met them; that the man seemed bewildered, and inquired the way to
Boston; that he was driving at great speed, as though he expected to
outstrip the tempest; that the moment he had passed him, a thunder-clap
broke directly over the man’s head, and seemed to envelop both man and
child, horse and carriage. “I stopped,” said the gentleman, “supposing
the lightning had struck him, but the horse only seemed to loom up and
increase his speed; and as well as I could judge, he travelled just as
fast as the thunder-cloud.”
While this man was speaking, a pedler with a cart of tin merchandise
came up, all dripping; and on being questioned, he said he had met that
man and carriage, within a fortnight, in four different States; that at
each time he had inquired the way to Boston; and that a thunder-shower
like the present had each time deluged his wagon and his wares, setting
his tin pots, etc. afloat, so that he had determined to get a marine
insurance for the future. But that which excited his surprise most was
the strange conduct of his horse, for long before he could distinguish
the man in the chair, his own horse stood still in the road, and flung
back his ears. “In short,” said the pedler, “I wish never to see that
man and horse again; they do not look to me as though they belonged to
this world.”
This was all I could learn at that time; and the occurrence soon
after would have become with me, “like one of those things which had
never happened,” had I not, as I stood recently on the door-step of
Bennett’s hotel in Hartford, heard a man say, “There goes Peter Rugg
and his child! he looks wet and weary, and farther from Boston than
ever.” I was satisfied it was the same man I had seen more than three
years before; for whoever has once seen Peter Rugg can never after be
deceived as to his identity.
“Peter Rugg!” said I; “and who is Peter Rugg?”
“That,” said the stranger, “is more than any one can tell exactly. He
is a famous traveller, held in light esteem by all innholders, for he
never stops to eat, drink, or sleep. I wonder why the government does
not employ him to carry the mail.”
“Ay,” said a by-stander, “that is a thought bright only on one side;
how long would it take in that case to send a letter to Boston, for
Peter has already, to my knowledge, been more than twenty years
travelling to that place.”
“But,” said I, “does the man never stop anywhere; does he never
converse with any one? I saw the same man more than three years since,
near Providence, and I heard a strange story about him. Pray, sir, give
me some account of this man.”
“Sir,” said the stranger, “those who know the most respecting that man,
say the least. I have heard it asserted that Heaven sometimes sets a
mark on a man, either for judgment or a trial. Under which Peter Rugg
now labors, I cannot say; therefore I am rather inclined to pity than
to judge.”
“You speak like a humane man,” said I; “and if you have known him so
long, I pray you will give me some account of him. Has his appearance
much altered in that time?”
“Why, yes. He looks as though he never ate, drank, or slept; and his
child looks older than himself, and he looks like time broken off from
eternity, and anxious to gain a resting-place.”
“And how does his horse look?” said I.
“As for his horse, he looks fatter and gayer, and shows more animation
and courage than he did twenty years ago. The last time Rugg spoke to
me he inquired how far it was to Boston. I told him just one hundred
miles.”
“‘Why,’ said he, ‘how can you deceive me so? It is cruel to mislead
a traveller. I have lost my way; pray direct me the nearest way to
Boston.’
“I repeated, it was one hundred miles.
“‘How can you say so?’ said he; ‘I was told last evening it was but
fifty, and I have travelled all night.’
“‘But,’ said I, ‘you are now travelling from Boston. You must turn
back.’
“‘Alas,’ said he, ‘it is all turn back! Boston shifts with the wind,
and plays all around the compass. One man tells me it is to the east,
another to the west; and the guide-posts too, they all point the wrong
way.’
“‘But will you not stop and rest?’ said I; ‘you seem wet and weary.’
“‘Yes,’ said he, ‘it has been foul weather since I left home.’
“‘Stop, then, and refresh yourself.’
“‘I must not stop; I must reach home to-night, if possible: though I
think you must be mistaken in the distance to Boston.’
“He then gave the reins to his horse, which he restrained with
difficulty, and disappeared in a moment. A few days afterward I met the
man a little this side of Claremont,[38] winding around the hills in
Unity, at the rate, I believe, of twelve miles an hour.”
“Is Peter Rugg his real name, or has he accidentally gained that name?”
“I know not, but presume he will not deny his name; you can ask
him,--for see, he has turned his horse, and is passing this way.”
In a moment a dark-colored, high-spirited horse approached, and would
have passed without stopping, but I had resolved to speak to Peter
Rugg, or whoever the man might be. Accordingly I stepped into the
street; and as the horse approached, I made a feint of stopping him.
The man immediately reined in his horse. “Sir,” said I, “may I be so
bold as to inquire if you are not Mr. Rugg? for I think I have seen you
before.”
“My name is Peter Rugg,” said he. “I have unfortunately lost my way;
I am wet and weary, and will take it kindly of you to direct me to
Boston.”
“You live in Boston, do you; and in what street?”
“In Middle Street.”
“When did you leave Boston?”
“I cannot tell precisely; it seems a considerable time.”
“But how did you and your child become so wet? It has not rained here
to-day.”
“It has just rained a heavy shower up the river. But I shall not reach
Boston to-night if I tarry. Would you advise me to take the old road or
the turnpike?”
“Why, the old road is one hundred and seventeen miles, and the turnpike
is ninety-seven.”
“How can you say so? You impose on me; it is wrong to trifle with a
traveller; you know it is but forty miles from Newburyport to Boston.”
“But this is not Newburyport; this is Hartford.”
“Do not deceive me, sir. Is not this town Newburyport, and the river
that I have been following the Merrimack?”
“No, sir; this is Hartford, and the river the Connecticut.”
He wrung his hands and looked incredulous. “Have the rivers, too,
changed their courses, as the cities have changed places? But see! the
clouds are gathering in the south, and we shall have a rainy night. Ah,
that fatal oath!”
He would tarry no longer; his impatient horse leaped off, his hind
flanks rising like wings; he seemed to devour all before him, and to
scorn all behind.
I had now, as I thought, discovered a clew to the history of Peter
Rugg; and I determined, the next time my business called me to Boston,
to make a further inquiry. Soon after, I was enabled to collect the
following particulars from Mrs. Croft, an aged lady in Middle Street,
who has resided in Boston during the last twenty years. Her narration
is this:
Just at twilight last summer a person stopped at the door of the late
Mrs. Rugg. Mrs. Croft on coming to the door perceived a stranger, with
a child by his side, in an old weather-beaten carriage, with a black
horse. The stranger asked for Mrs. Rugg, and was informed that Mrs.
Rugg had died at a good old age, more than twenty years before that
time.
The stranger replied, “How can you deceive me so? Do ask Mrs. Rugg to
step to the door.”
“Sir, I assure you Mrs. Rugg has not lived here these twenty years; no
one lives here but myself, and my name is Betsy Croft.”
The stranger paused, looked up and down the street, and said, “Though
the paint is rather faded, this looks like my house.”
“Yes,” said the child, “that is the stone before the door that I used
to sit on to eat my bread and milk.”
“But,” said the stranger, “it seems to be on the wrong side of the
street. Indeed, everything here seems to be misplaced. The streets are
all changed, the people are all changed, the town seems changed, and
what is strangest of all, Catherine Rugg has deserted her husband and
child. Pray,” continued the stranger, “has John Foy come home from sea?
He went a long voyage; he is my kinsman. If I could see him, he could
give me some account of Mrs. Rugg.”
“Sir,” said Mrs. Croft, “I never heard of John Foy. Where did he live?”
“Just above here, in Orange-tree Lane.”
“There is no such place in this neighborhood.”
“What do you tell me! Are the streets gone? Orange-tree Lane is at the
head of Hanover Street, near Pemberton’s Hill.”
“There is no such lane now.”
“Madam, you cannot be serious! But you doubtless know my brother,
William Rugg. He lives in Royal Exchange Lane, near King Street.”
“I know of no such lane; and I am sure there is no such street as King
Street in this town.”
“No such street as King Street! Why, woman, you mock me! You may as
well tell me there is no King George. However, madam, you see I am wet
and weary, I must find a resting-place. I will go to Hart’s tavern,
near the market.”
“Which market, sir? for you seem perplexed; we have several markets.”
“You know there is but one market near the town dock.”
“Oh, the old market; but no such person has kept there these twenty
years.”
Here the stranger seemed disconcerted, and uttered to himself quite
audibly: “Strange mistake; how much this looks like the town of Boston!
It certainly has a great resemblance to it; but I perceive my mistake
now. Some other Mrs. Rugg, some other Middle Street.--Then,” said he,
“madam, can you direct me to Boston?”
“Why, this is Boston, the city of Boston; I know of no other Boston.”
“City of Boston it may be; but it is not the Boston where I live. I
recollect now, I came over a bridge instead of a ferry. Pray, what
bridge is that I just came over?”
“It is Charles River bridge.”
“I perceive my mistake: there is a ferry between Boston and
Charlestown; there is no bridge. Ah, I perceive my mistake. If I were
in Boston my horse would carry me directly to my own door. But my horse
shows by his impatience that he is in a strange place. Absurd, that I
should have mistaken this place for the old town of Boston! It is a
much finer city than the town of Boston. It has been built long since
Boston. I fancy Boston must lie at a distance from this city, as the
good woman seems ignorant of it.”
At these words his horse began to chafe, and strike the pavement with
his forefeet. The stranger seemed a little bewildered, and said, “No
home to-night;” and giving the reins to his horse, passed up the
street, and I saw no more of him.
It was evident that the generation to which Peter Rugg belonged had
passed away.
This was all the account of Peter Rugg I could obtain from Mrs. Croft;
but she directed me to an elderly man, Mr. James Felt, who lived near
her, and who had kept a record of the principal occurrences for the
last fifty years. At my request she sent for him; and after I had
related to him the object of my inquiry, Mr. Felt told me he had known
Rugg in his youth, and that his disappearance had caused some surprise;
but as it sometimes happens that men run away,--sometimes to be rid of
others, and sometimes to be rid of themselves,--and Rugg took his child
with him, and his own horse and chair, and as it did not appear that
any creditors made a stir, the occurrence soon mingled itself in the
stream of oblivion; and Rugg and his child, horse, and chair were soon
forgotten.
“It is true,” said Mr. Felt, “sundry stories grew out of Rugg’s affair,
whether true or false I cannot tell; but stranger things have happened
in my day, without even a newspaper notice.”
“Sir,” said I, “Peter Rugg is now living. I have lately seen Peter Rugg
and his child, horse, and chair; therefore I pray you to relate to me
all you know or ever heard of him.”
“Why, my friend,” said James Felt, “that Peter Rugg is now a living
man, I will not deny; but that you have seen Peter Rugg and his child,
is impossible, if you mean a small child; for Jenny Rugg, if living,
must be at least--let me see--Boston massacre, 1770--Jenny Rugg was
about ten years old. Why, sir, Jenny Rugg, if living, must be more than
sixty years of age. That Peter Rugg is living, is highly probable, as
he was only ten years older than myself, and I was only eighty last
March; and I am as likely to live twenty years longer as any man.”
Here I perceived that Mr. Felt was in his dotage, and I despaired of
gaining any intelligence from him on which I could depend.
I took my leave of Mrs. Croft, and proceeded to my lodgings at the
Marlborough Hotel.
“If Peter Rugg,” thought I, “has been travelling since the Boston
massacre, there is no reason why he should not travel to the end of
time. If the present generation know little of him, the next will know
less, and Peter and his child will have no hold on this world.”
In the course of the evening, I related my adventure in Middle Street.
“Ha!” said one of the company, smiling, “do you really think you have
seen Peter Rugg? I have heard my grandfather speak of him, as though
he seriously believed his own story.”
“Sir,” said I, “pray let us compare your grandfather’s story of Mr.
Rugg with my own.”
“Peter Rugg, sir,--if my grandfather was worthy of credit,--once
lived in Middle Street, in this city. He was a man in comfortable
circumstances, had a wife and one daughter, and was generally esteemed
for his sober life and manners. But unhappily, his temper, at times,
was altogether ungovernable, and then his language was terrible. In
these fits of passion, if a door stood in his way, he would never do
less than kick a panel through. He would sometimes throw his heels
over his head, and come down on his feet, uttering oaths in a circle;
and thus in a rage, he was the first who performed a somerset, and did
what others have since learned to do for merriment and money. Once Rugg
was seen to bite a tenpenny nail in halves. In those days everybody,
both men and boys, wore wigs; and Peter, at these moments of violent
passion, would become so profane that his wig would rise up from his
head. Some said it was on account of his terrible language; others
accounted for it in a more philosophical way, and said it was caused
by the expansion of his scalp, as violent passion, we know, will swell
the veins and expand the head. While these fits were on him, Rugg had
no respect for heaven or earth. Except this infirmity, all agreed that
Rugg was a good sort of a man; for when his fits were over, nobody was
so ready to commend a placid temper as Peter.
“One morning, late in autumn, Rugg, in his own chair, with a fine large
bay horse, took his daughter and proceeded to Concord. On his return a
violent storm overtook him. At dark he stopped in Menotomy, now West
Cambridge, at the door of a Mr. Cutter, a friend of his, who urged him
to tarry the night. On Rugg’s declining to stop, Mr. Cutter urged him
vehemently. ‘Why, Mr. Rugg,’ said Cutter, ‘the storm is overwhelming
you. The night is exceedingly dark. Your little daughter will perish.
You are in an open chair, and the tempest is increasing.’ ‘_Let the
storm increase_,’ said Rugg, with a fearful oath, ‘_I will see home
to-night, in spite of the last tempest, or may I never see home!_’ At
these words he gave his whip to his high-spirited horse and disappeared
in a moment. But Peter Rugg did not reach home that night, nor the
next; nor, when he became a missing man, could he ever be traced beyond
Mr. Cutter’s, in Menotomy.
“For a long time after, on every dark and stormy night the wife of
Peter Rugg would fancy she heard the crack of a whip, and the fleet
tread of a horse, and the rattling of a carriage passing her door. The
neighbors, too, heard the same noises, and some said they knew it was
Rugg’s horse; the tread on the pavement was perfectly familiar to them.
This occurred so repeatedly that at length the neighbors watched with
lanterns, and saw the real Peter Rugg, with his own horse and chair and
the child sitting beside him, pass directly before his own door, his
head turned toward his house, and himself making every effort to stop
his horse, but in vain.
“The next day the friends of Mrs. Rugg exerted themselves to find her
husband and child. They inquired at every public house and stable in
town; but it did not appear that Rugg made any stay in Boston. No
one, after Rugg had passed his own door, could give any account of
him, though it was asserted by some that the clatter of Rugg’s horse
and carriage over the pavements shook the houses on both sides of the
streets. And this is credible, if indeed Rugg’s horse and carriage did
pass on that night; for at this day, in many of the streets, a loaded
truck or team in passing will shake the houses like an earthquake.
However, Rugg’s neighbors never afterward watched. Some of them treated
it all as a delusion, and thought no more of it. Others of a different
opinion shook their heads and said nothing.
“Thus Rugg and his child, horse, and chair were soon forgotten; and
probably many in the neighborhood never heard a word on the subject.
“There was indeed a rumor that Rugg was seen afterward in Connecticut,
between Suffield and Hartford, passing through the country at headlong
speed. This gave occasion to Rugg’s friends to make further inquiry;
but the more they inquired, the more they were baffled. If they heard
of Rugg one day in Connecticut, the next they heard of him winding
round the hills in New Hampshire; and soon after a man in a chair, with
a small child, exactly answering the description of Peter Rugg, would
be seen in Rhode Island inquiring the way to Boston.
“But that which chiefly gave a color of mystery to the story of Peter
Rugg was the affair at Charleston bridge. The toll-gatherer asserted
that sometimes, on the darkest and most stormy nights, when no object
could be discerned, about the time Rugg was missing, a horse and
wheel-carriage, with a noise equal to a troop, would at midnight,
in utter contempt of the rates of toll, pass over the bridge. This
occurred so frequently that the toll-gatherer resolved to attempt a
discovery. Soon after, at the usual time, apparently the same horse
and carriage approached the bridge from Charlestown square. The
toll-gatherer, prepared, took his stand as near the middle of the
bridge as he dared, with a large three-legged stool in his hand; as
the appearance passed, he threw the stool at the horse, but heard
nothing except the noise of the stool skipping across the bridge. The
toll-gatherer on the next day asserted that the stool went directly
through the body of the horse, and he persisted in that belief ever
after. Whether Rugg, or whoever the person was, ever passed the bridge
again, the toll-gatherer would never tell; and when questioned, seemed
anxious to waive the subject. And thus Peter Rugg and his child, horse,
and carriage, remain a mystery to this day.”
This, sir, is all that I could learn of Peter Rugg in Boston.
FURTHER ACCOUNT OF PETER RUGG
BY JONATHAN DUNWELL
In the autumn of 1825 I attended the races at Richmond in Virginia. As
two new horses of great promise were run, the race-ground was never
better attended, nor was expectation ever more deeply excited. The
partisans of Dart and Lightning, the two race-horses, were equally
anxious and equally dubious of the result. To an indifferent spectator,
it was impossible to perceive any difference. They were equally
beautiful to behold, alike in color and height, and as they stood side
by side they measured from heel to forefeet within half an inch of
each other. The eyes of each were full, prominent, and resolute; and
when at times they regarded each other, they assumed a lofty demeanor,
seemed to shorten their necks, project their eyes, and rest their
bodies equally on their four hoofs. They certainly showed signs of
intelligence, and displayed a courtesy to each other unusual even with
statesmen.
It was now nearly twelve o’clock, the hour of expectation, doubt, and
anxiety. The riders mounted their horses; and so trim, light, and airy
they sat on the animals as to seem a part of them. The spectators, many
deep in a solid column, had taken their places, and as many thousand
breathing statues were there as spectators. All eyes were turned to
Dart and Lightning and their two fairy riders. There was nothing to
disturb this calm except a busy woodpecker on a neighboring tree.
The signal was given, and Dart and Lightning answered it with ready
intelligence. At first they proceed at a slow trot, then they quicken
to a canter, and then a gallop; presently they sweep the plain. Both
horses lay themselves flat on the ground, their riders bending forward
and resting their chins between their horses’ ears. Had not the ground
been perfectly level, had there been any undulation, the least rise
and fall, the spectator would now and then have lost sight of both
horses and riders.
While these horses, side by side, thus appeared, flying without
wings, flat as a hare, and neither gaining on the other, all eyes
were diverted to a new spectacle. Directly in the rear of Dart and
Lightning, a majestic black horse of unusual size, drawing an old
weather-beaten chair, strode over the plain; and although he appeared
to make no effort, for he maintained a steady trot, before Dart and
Lightning approached the goal the black horse and chair had overtaken
the racers, who, on perceiving this new competitor pass them, threw
back their ears, and suddenly stopped in their course. Thus neither
Dart nor Lightning carried away the purse.
The spectators now were exceedingly curious to learn whence came the
black horse and chair. With many it was the opinion that nobody was in
the vehicle. Indeed, this began to be the prevalent opinion; for those
at a short distance, so fleet was the black horse, could not easily
discern who, if anybody, was in the carriage. But both the riders, very
near to whom the black horse passed, agreed in this particular,--that a
sad-looking man and a little girl were in the chair. When they stated
this I was satisfied that the man was Peter Rugg. But what caused no
little surprise, John Spring, one of the riders (he who rode Lightning)
asserted that no earthly horse without breaking his trot could, in a
carriage, outstrip his race-horse; and he persisted, with some passion,
that it was not a horse,--or, he was sure it was not a horse, but a
large black ox. “What a great black ox can do,” said John, “I cannot
pretend to say; but no race-horse, not even flying Childers, could
out-trot Lightning in a fair race.”
This opinion of John Spring excited no little merriment, for it
was obvious to every one that it was a powerful black horse that
interrupted the race; but John Spring, jealous of Lightning’s
reputation as a horse, would rather have it thought that any other
beast, even an ox, had been the victor. However, the “horse-laugh”
at John Spring’s expense was soon suppressed; for as soon as Dart and
Lightning began to breathe more freely, it was observed that both of
them walked deliberately to the track of the race-ground, and putting
their heads to the earth, suddenly raised them again and began to
snort. They repeated this till John Spring said,--“These horses have
discovered something strange; they suspect foul play. Let me go and
talk with Lightning.”
He went up to Lightning and took hold of his mane; and Lightning put
his nose toward the ground and smelt of the earth without touching it,
then reared his head very high, and snorted so loudly that the sound
echoed from the next hill. Dart did the same. John Spring stooped down
to examine the spot where Lightning had smelled. In a moment he raised
himself up, and the countenance of the man was changed. His strength
failed him, and he sidled against Lightning.
At length John Spring recovered from his stupor and exclaimed, “It was
an ox! I told you it was an ox. No real horse ever yet beat Lightning.”
And now, on a close inspection of the black horse’s tracks in the
path, it was evident to every one that the forefeet of the black horse
were cloven. Notwithstanding these appearances, to me it was evident
that the strange horse was in reality a horse. Yet when the people
left the race-ground, I presume one half of all those present would
have testified that a large black ox had distanced two of the fleetest
coursers that ever trod the Virginia turf. So uncertain are all things
called historical facts.
While I was proceeding to my lodgings, pondering on the events of the
day, a stranger rode up to me, and accosted me thus,--“I think your
name is Dunwell, sir.”
“Yes, sir,” I replied.
“Did I not see you a year or two since in Boston, at the Marlborough
Hotel?”
“Very likely, sir, for I was there.”
“And you heard a story about one Peter Rugg?”
“I recollect it all,” said I.
“The account you heard in Boston must be true, for here he was to-day.
The man has found his way to Virginia, and for aught that appears, has
been to Cape Horn. I have seen him before to-day, but never saw him
travel with such fearful velocity. Pray, sir, where does Peter Rugg
spend his winters, for I have seen him only in summer, and always in
foul weather, except this time?”
I replied, “No one knows where Peter Rugg spends his winters; where or
when he eats, drinks, sleeps, or lodges. He seems to have an indistinct
idea of day and night, time and space, storm and sunshine. His only
object is Boston. It appears to me that Rugg’s horse has some control
of the chair; and that Rugg himself is, in some sort, under the control
of his horse.”
I then inquired of the stranger where he first saw the man and horse.
“Why, sir,” said he, “in the summer of 1824, I travelled to the North
for my health; and soon after I saw you at the Marlborough Hotel I
returned homeward to Virginia, and, if my memory is correct, I saw
this man and horse in every State between here and Massachusetts.
Sometimes he would meet me, but oftener overtake me. He never spoke but
once, and that once was in Delaware. On his approach he checked his
horse with some difficulty. A more beautiful horse I never saw; his
hide was as fair and rotund and glossy as the skin of a Congo beauty.
When Rugg’s horse approached mine he reined in his neck, bent his
ears forward until they met, and looked my horse full in the face. My
horse immediately withered into half a horse, his hide curling up like
a piece of burnt leather; spell-bound, he was fixed to the earth as
though a nail had been driven through each hoof.
“‘Sir,’ said Rugg, ‘perhaps you are travelling to Boston; and if so, I
should be happy to accompany you, for I have lost my way, and I must
reach home to-night. See how sleepy this little girl looks; poor
thing, she is a picture of patience.’
“‘Sir,’ said I, ‘it is impossible for you to reach home to-night, for
you are in Concord, in the county of Sussex, in the State of Delaware.’
“‘What do you mean,’ said he, ‘by State of Delaware? If I were in
Concord, that is only twenty miles from Boston, and my horse Lightfoot
could carry me to Charlestown ferry in less than two hours. You
mistake, sir; you are a stranger here; this town is nothing like
Concord. I am well acquainted with Concord. I went to Concord when I
left Boston.’
“‘But,’ said I, ‘you are in Concord, in the State of Delaware.’
“‘What do you mean by State?’ said Rugg.
“‘Why, one of the United States.’
“‘States!’ said he, in a low voice; ‘the man is a wag, and would
persuade me I am in Holland.’ Then, raising his voice, he said, ‘You
seem, sir, to be a gentleman, and I entreat you to mislead me not: tell
me, quickly, for pity’s sake, the right road to Boston, for you see my
horse will swallow his bits; he has eaten nothing since I left Concord.’
“‘Sir,’ said I, ‘this town is Concord,--Concord in Delaware, not
Concord in Massachusetts; and you are now five hundred miles from
Boston.’
“Rugg looked at me for a moment, more in sorrow than resentment, and
then repeated, ‘Five hundred miles! Unhappy man, who would have thought
him deranged; but nothing in this world is so deceitful as appearances.
Five hundred miles! This beats Connecticut River.’
“What he meant by Connecticut River, I know not; his horse broke away,
and Rugg disappeared in a moment.”
I explained to the stranger the meaning of Rugg’s expression,
“Connecticut River,” and the incident respecting him that occurred
at Hartford, as I stood on the door-stone of Mr. Bennett’s excellent
hotel. We both agreed that the man we had seen that day was the true
Peter Rugg.
Soon after, I saw Rugg again, at the toll-gate on the turnpike between
Alexandria and Middleburgh. While I was paying the toll, I observed to
the toll-gatherer that the drought was more severe in his vicinity than
farther south.
“Yes,” said he, “the drought is excessive; but if I had not heard
yesterday, by a traveller, that the man with the black horse was seen
in Kentucky a day or two since, I should be sure of a shower in a few
minutes.”
I looked all around the horizon, and could not discern a cloud that
could hold a pint of water.
“Look, sir,” said the toll-gatherer, “you perceive to the eastward,
just above that hill, a small black cloud not bigger than a blackberry,
and while I am speaking it is doubling and trebling itself, and rolling
up the turnpike steadily, as if its sole design was to deluge some
object.”
“True,” said I, “I do perceive it; but what connection is there between
a thunder-cloud and a man and horse?”
“More than you imagine, or I can tell you; but stop a moment, sir, I
may need your assistance. I know that cloud; I have seen it several
times before, and can testify to its identity. You will soon see a man
and black horse under it.”
While he was speaking, true enough, we began to hear the distant
thunder, and soon the chain-lightning performed all the figures
of a country-dance. About a mile distant we saw the man and black
horse under the cloud; but before he arrived at the toll-gate, the
thunder-cloud had spent itself, and not even a sprinkle fell near us.
As the man, whom I instantly knew to be Rugg, attempted to pass, the
toll-gatherer swung the gate across the road, seized Rugg’s horse by
the reins, and demanded two dollars.
Feeling some little regard for Rugg, I interfered, and began to
question the toll-gatherer, and requested him not to be wroth with the
man. The toll-gatherer replied that he had just cause, for the man had
run his toll ten times, and moreover that the horse had discharged a
cannon-ball at him, to the great danger of his life; that the man had
always before approached so rapidly that he was too quick for the rusty
hinges of the toll-gate; “but now I will have full satisfaction.”
Rugg looked wistfully at me, and said, “I entreat you, sir, to delay me
not; I have found at length the direct road to Boston, and shall not
reach home before night if you detain me. You see I am dripping wet,
and ought to change my clothes.”
The toll-gatherer then demanded why he had run his toll so many times.
“Toll! Why,” said Rugg, “do you demand toll? There is no toll to pay on
the king’s highway.”
“King’s highway! Do you not perceive this is a turnpike?”
“Turnpike! there are no turnpikes in Massachusetts.”
“That may be, but we have several in Virginia.”
“Virginia! Do you pretend I am in Virginia?”
Rugg then, appealing to me, asked how far it was to Boston.
Said I, “Mr. Rugg, I perceive you are bewildered, and am sorry to see
you so far from home; you are, indeed, in Virginia.”
“You know me, then, sir, it seems; and you say I am in Virginia. Give
me leave to tell you, sir, you are the most impudent man alive; for I
was never forty miles from Boston, and I never saw a Virginian in my
life. This beats Delaware!”
“Your toll, sir, your toll!”
“I will not pay you a penny,” said Rugg; “you are both of you highway
robbers. There are no turnpikes in this country. Take toll on the
king’s highway! Robbers take toll on the king’s highway!” Then in a
low tone, he said, “Here is evidently a conspiracy against me; alas, I
shall never see Boston! The highways refuse me a passage, the rivers
change their courses, and there is no faith in the compass.”
But Rugg’s horse had no idea of stopping more than one minute; for in
the midst of this altercation, the horse, whose nose was resting on the
upper bar of the turnpike-gate, seized it between his teeth, lifted it
gently off its staples, and trotted off with it. The toll-gatherer,
confounded, strained his eyes after his gate.
“Let him go,” said I, “the horse will soon drop your gate, and you will
get it again.”
I then questioned the toll-gatherer respecting his knowledge of this
man; and he related the following particulars:--
“The first time,” said he, “that man ever passed this toll-gate was
in the year 1806, at the moment of the great eclipse. I thought the
horse was frightened at the sudden darkness, and concluded he had run
away with the man. But within a few days after, the same man and horse
repassed with equal speed, without the least respect to the toll-gate
or to me, except by a vacant stare. Some few years afterward, during
the late war, I saw the same man approaching again, and I resolved to
check his career. Accordingly I stepped into the middle of the road,
and stretched wide both my arms, and cried, ‘Stop, sir, on your peril!’
At this the man said, ‘Now, Lightfoot, confound the robber!’ at the
same time he gave the whip liberally to the flank of his horse, which
bounded off with such force that it appeared to me two such horses,
give them a place to stand, would overcome any check man could devise.
An ammunition wagon which had just passed on to Baltimore had dropped
an eighteen pounder in the road; this unlucky ball lay in the way
of the horse’s heels, and the beast, with the sagacity of a demon,
clinched it with one of his heels and hurled it behind him. I feel
dizzy in relating the fact, but so nearly did the ball pass my head,
that the wind thereof blew off my hat; and the ball embedded itself in
that gate-post, as you may see if you will cast your eye on the post. I
have permitted it to remain there in memory of the occurrence,--as the
people of Boston, I am told, preserve the eighteen-pounder which is now
to be seen half imbedded in Brattle Street church.”
I then took leave of the toll-gatherer, and promised him if I saw or
heard of his gate I would send him notice.
A strong inclination had possessed me to arrest Rugg and search his
pockets, thinking great discoveries might be made in the examination;
but what I saw and heard that day convinced me that no human force
could detain Peter Rugg against his consent. I therefore determined if
I ever saw Rugg again to treat him in the gentlest manner.
In pursuing my way to New York, I entered on the turnpike in Trenton;
and when I arrived at New Brunswick, I perceived the road was newly
macadamized. The small stones had just been laid thereon. As I passed
this piece of road, I observed that, at regular distances of about
eight feet, the stones were entirely displaced from spots as large as
the circumference of a half-bushel measure. This singular appearance
induced me to inquire the cause of it at the turnpike-gate.
“Sir,” said the toll-gatherer, “I wonder not at the question, but I am
unable to give you a satisfactory answer. Indeed, sir, I believe I am
bewitched, and that the turnpike is under a spell of enchantment; for
what appeared to me last night cannot be a real transaction, otherwise
a turnpike-gate is a useless thing.”
“I do not believe in witchcraft or enchantment,” said I; “and if you
will relate circumstantially what happened last night, I will endeavor
to account for it by natural means.”
“You may recollect the night was uncommonly dark. Well, sir, just
after I had closed the gate for the night, down the turnpike, as far
as my eye could reach, I beheld what at first appeared to be two
armies engaged. The report of the musketry, and the flashes of their
firelocks, were incessant and continuous. As this strange spectacle
approached me with the fury of a tornado, the noise increased; and
the appearance rolled on in one compact body over the surface of the
ground. The most splendid fireworks rose out of the earth and encircled
this moving spectacle. The divers tints of the rainbow, the most
brilliant dyes that the sun lays in the lap of spring, added to the
whole family of gems, could not display a more beautiful, radiant, and
dazzling spectacle than accompanied the black horse. You would have
thought all the stars of heaven had met in merriment on the turnpike.
In the midst of this luminous configuration sat a man, distinctly to
be seen, in a miserable-looking chair, drawn by a black horse. The
turnpike-gate ought, by the laws of Nature and the laws of the State,
to have made a wreck of the whole, and have dissolved the enchantment;
but no, the horse without an effort passed over the gate, and drew the
man and chair horizontally after him without touching the bar. This was
what I call enchantment. What think you, sir?”
“My friend,” said I, “you have grossly magnified a natural occurrence.
The man was Peter Rugg, on his way to Boston. It is true, his horse
travelled with unequalled speed, but as he reared high his forefeet,
he could not help displacing the thousand small stones on which he
trod, which flying in all directions struck one another, and resounded
and scintillated. The top bar of your gate is not more than two feet
from the ground, and Rugg’s horse at every vault could easily lift the
carriage over that gate.”
This satisfied Mr. McDoubt, and I was pleased at that occurrence; for
otherwise Mr. McDoubt, who is a worthy man, late from the Highlands,
might have added to his calendar of superstitions. Having thus
disenchanted the macadamized road and the turnpike-gate, and also Mr.
McDoubt, I pursued my journey homeward to New York.
Little did I expect to see or hear anything further of Mr. Rugg, for
he was now more than twelve hours in advance of me. I could hear
nothing of him on my way to Elizabethtown, and therefore concluded that
during the past night he had turned off from the turnpike and pursued
a westerly direction; but just before I arrived at Powles’s Hook, I
observed a considerable collection of passengers in the ferry-boat,
all standing motionless, and steadily looking at the same object. One
of the ferry-men, Mr. Hardy, who knew me well, observing my approach
delayed a minute, in order to afford me a passage, and coming up,
said, “Mr. Dunwell, we have a curiosity on board that would puzzle Dr.
Mitchell.”
“Some strange fish, I suppose, has found its way into the Hudson.”
“No,” said he, “it is a man who looks as if he had lain hidden in the
ark, and had just now ventured out. He has a little girl with him, the
counterpart of himself, and the finest horse you ever saw, harnessed to
the queerest-looking carriage that ever was made.”
“Ah, Mr. Hardy,” said I, “you have, indeed, hooked a prize; no one
before you could ever detain Peter Rugg long enough to examine him.”
“Do you know the man?” said Mr. Hardy.
“No, nobody knows him, but everybody has seen him. Detain him as long
as possible; delay the boat under any pretence, cut the gear of the
horse, do anything to detain him.”
As I entered the ferry-boat, I was struck at the spectacle before me.
There, indeed, sat Peter Rugg and Jenny Rugg in the chair, and there
stood the black horse, all as quiet as lambs, surrounded by more than
fifty men and women, who seemed to have lost all their senses but one.
Not a motion, not a breath, not a rustle. They were all eye. Rugg
appeared to them to be a man not of this world; and they appeared to
Rugg a strange generation of men. Rugg spoke not, and they spoke not;
nor was I disposed to disturb the calm, satisfied to reconnoitre Rugg
in a state of rest. Presently, Rugg observed in a low voice, addressed
to nobody, “A new contrivance, horses instead of oars; Boston folks are
full of notions.”
It was plain that Rugg was of Dutch extraction. He had on three pairs
of small clothes, called in former days of simplicity breeches, not
much the worse for wear; but time had proved the fabric, and shrunk one
more than another, so that they showed at the knees their different
qualities and colors. His several waistcoats, the flaps of which rested
on his knees, made him appear rather corpulent. His capacious drab
coat would supply the stuff for half a dozen modern ones; the sleeves
were like meal bags, in the cuffs of which you might nurse a child to
sleep. His hat, probably once black, now of a tan color, was neither
round nor crooked, but in shape much like the one President Monroe
wore on his late tour. This dress gave the rotund face of Rugg an
antiquated dignity. The man, though deeply sunburned, did not appear
to be more than thirty years of age. He had lost his sad and anxious
look, was quite composed, and seemed happy. The chair in which Rugg sat
was very capacious, evidently made for service, and calculated to last
for ages; the timber would supply material for three modern carriages.
This chair, like a Nantucket coach, would answer for everything that
ever went on wheels. The horse, too, was an object of curiosity; his
majestic height, his natural mane and tail, gave him a commanding
appearance, and his large open nostrils indicated inexhaustible wind.
It was apparent that the hoofs of his forefeet had been split, probably
on some newly macadamized road, and were now growing together again; so
that John Spring was not altogether in the wrong.
How long this dumb scene would otherwise have continued I cannot tell.
Rugg discovered no sign of impatience. But Rugg’s horse having been
quiet more than five minutes, had no idea of standing idle; he began
to whinny, and in a moment after, with his right forefoot he started a
plank. Said Rugg, “My horse is impatient, he sees the North End. You
must be quick, or he will be ungovernable.”
At these words, the horse raised his left forefoot; and when he laid
it down every inch of the ferry-boat trembled. Two men immediately
seized Rugg’s horse by the nostrils. The horse nodded, and both of them
were in the Hudson. While we were fishing up the men, the horse was
perfectly quiet.
“Fret not the horse,” said Rugg, “and he will do no harm. He is only
anxious, like myself, to arrive at yonder beautiful shore; he sees the
North Church, and smells his own stable.”
“Sir,” said I to Rugg, practising a little deception, “pray tell me,
for I am a stranger here, what river is this, and what city is that
opposite, for you seem to be an inhabitant of it?”
“This river, sir, is called Mystic River, and this is Winnisimmet
ferry,--we have retained the Indian names,--and that town is Boston.
You must, indeed, be a stranger in these parts, not to know that yonder
is Boston, the capital of the New England provinces.”
“Pray, sir, how long have you been absent from Boston?”
“Why, that I cannot exactly tell. I lately went with this little girl
of mine to Concord, to see my friends; and I am ashamed to tell you,
in returning lost the way, and have been travelling ever since. No one
would direct me right. It is cruel to mislead a traveller. My horse,
Lightfoot, has boxed the compass; and it seems to me he has boxed it
back again. But, sir, you perceive my horse is uneasy; Lightfoot, as
yet, has only given a hint and a nod. I cannot be answerable for his
heels.”
At these words Lightfoot reared his long tail, and snapped it as you
would a whiplash. The Hudson reverberated with the sound. Instantly
the six horses began to move the boat. The Hudson was a sea of glass,
smooth as oil, not a ripple. The horses, from a smart trot, soon
pressed into a gallop; water now ran over the gunwale; the ferry-boat
was soon buried in an ocean of foam, and the noise of the spray was
like the roaring of many waters. When we arrived at New York, you might
see the beautiful white wake of the ferry-boat across the Hudson.
Though Rugg refused to pay toll at turnpikes, when Mr. Hardy reached
his hand for the ferriage, Rugg readily put his hand into one of his
many pockets, took out a piece of silver, and handed it to Hardy.
“What is this?” said Mr. Hardy.
“It is thirty shillings,” said Rugg.
“It might once have been thirty shillings, old tenor,” said Mr. Hardy,
“but it is not at present.”
“The money is good English coin,” said Rugg; “my grandfather brought a
bag of them from England, and had them hot from the mint.”
Hearing this, I approached near to Rugg, and asked permission to see
the coin. It was a half-crown, coined by the English Parliament, dated
in the year 1649. On one side, “The Commonwealth of England,” and St.
George’s cross encircled with a wreath of laurel. On the other, “God
with us,” and a harp and St. George’s cross united. I winked at Mr.
Hardy, and pronounced it good current money; and said loudly, “I will
not permit the gentleman to be imposed on, for I will exchange the
money myself.”
On this, Rugg spoke,--“Please to give me your name, sir.”
“My name is Dunwell, sir,” I replied.
“Mr. Dunwell,” said Rugg, “you are the only honest man I have seen
since I left Boston. As you are a stranger here, my house is your
home; Dame Rugg will be happy to see her husband’s friend. Step into
my chair, sir, there is room enough; move a little, Jenny, for the
gentleman, and we will be in Middle Street in a minute.”
Accordingly I took a seat by Peter Rugg.
“Were you never in Boston before?” said Rugg.
“No,” said I.
“Well, you will now see the queen of New England, a town second only to
Philadelphia, in all North America.”
“You forget New York,” said I.
“Poh, New York is nothing; though I never was there. I am told you
might put all New York in our mill-pond. No, sir, New York, I assure
you, is but a sorry affair; no more to be compared with Boston than a
wigwam with a palace.”
As Rugg’s horse turned into Pearl Street, I looked Rugg as fully in the
face as good manners would allow, and said, “Sir, if this is Boston, I
acknowledge New York is not worthy to be one of its suburbs.”
Before we had proceeded far in Pearl Street, Rugg’s countenance
changed: his nerves began to twitch; his eyes trembled in their
sockets; he was evidently bewildered. “What is the matter, Mr. Rugg;
you seem disturbed.”
“This surpasses all human comprehension; if you know, sir, where we
are, I beseech you to tell me.”
“If this place,” I replied, “is not Boston, it must be New York.”
“No, sir, it is not Boston; nor can it be New York. How could I be in
New York, which is nearly two hundred miles from Boston?”
By this time we had passed into Broadway, and then Rugg, in truth,
discovered a chaotic mind. “There is no such place as this in North
America. This is all the effect of enchantment; this is a grand
delusion, nothing real. Here is seemingly a great city, magnificent
houses, shops and goods, men and women innumerable, and as busy as in
real life, all sprung up in one night from the wilderness; or what
is more probable, some tremendous convulsion of Nature has thrown
London or Amsterdam on the shores of New England. Or, possibly, I may
be dreaming, though the night seems rather long; but before now I
have sailed in one night to Amsterdam, bought goods of Vandogger, and
returned to Boston before morning.”
At this moment a hue-and-cry was heard, “Stop the madmen, they will
endanger the lives of thousands!” In vain hundreds attempted to stop
Rugg’s horse. Lightfoot interfered with nothing; his course was
straight as a shooting-star. But on my part, fearful that before night
I should find myself behind the Alleghanies, I addressed Mr. Rugg in a
tone of entreaty, and requested him to restrain the horse and permit me
to alight.
“My friend,” said he, “we shall be in Boston before dark, and Dame Rugg
will be most exceeding glad to see us.”
“Mr. Rugg,” said I, “you must excuse me. Pray look to the west; see
that thunder-cloud swelling with rage, as if in pursuit of us.”
“Ah!” said Rugg, “it is in vain to attempt to escape. I know that
cloud; it is collecting new wrath to spend on my head.” Then checking
his horse, he permitted me to descend, saying, “Farewell, Mr. Dunwell,
I shall be happy to see you in Boston; I live in Middle Street.”
It is uncertain in what direction Mr. Rugg pursued his course, after
he disappeared in Broadway; but one thing is sufficiently known to
everybody,--that in the course of two months after he was seen in New
York, he found his way most opportunely to Boston.
It seems the estate of Peter Rugg had recently fallen to the
Commonwealth of Massachusetts for want of heirs; and the Legislature
had ordered the solicitor-general to advertise and sell it at public
auction. Happening to be in Boston at the time, and observing his
advertisement, which described a considerable extent of land, I felt
a kindly curiosity to see the spot where Rugg once lived. Taking the
advertisement in my hand, I wandered a little way down Middle Street,
and without asking a question of any one, when I came to a certain
spot I said to myself, “This is Rugg’s estate; I will proceed no
farther. This must be the spot; it is a counterpart of Peter Rugg.”
The premises, indeed, looked as if they had fulfilled a sad prophecy.
Fronting on Middle Street, they extended in the rear to Ann Street,
and embraced about half an acre of land. It was not uncommon in former
times to have half an acre for a house-lot; for an acre-of land then,
in many parts of Boston, was not more valuable than a foot in some
places at present. The old mansion-house had become a powder-post,
and been blown away. One other building, uninhabited, stood ominous,
courting dilapidation. The street had been so much raised that the
bed-chamber had descended to the kitchen and was level with the
street. The house seemed conscious of its fate; and as though tired
of standing there, the front was fast retreating from the rear, and
waiting the next south wind to project itself into the street. If the
most wary animals had sought a place of refuge, here they would have
rendezvoused. Here, under the ridge-pole, the crow would have perched
in security; and in the recesses below, you might have caught the fox
and the weasel asleep. “The hand of destiny,” said I, “has pressed
heavy on this spot; still heavier on the former owners. Strange that
so large a lot of land as this should want an heir! Yet Peter Rugg, at
this day, might pass by his own door-stone, and ask, ‘Who once lived
here?’”
The auctioneer, appointed by the solicitor to sell this estate, was
a man of eloquence, as many of the auctioneers of Boston are. The
occasion seemed to warrant, and his duty urged, him to make a display.
He addressed his audience as follows,--
“The estate, gentlemen, which we offer you this day, was once the
property of a family now extinct. For that reason it has escheated
to the Commonwealth. Lest any one of you should be deterred from
bidding on so large an estate as this for fear of a disputed title,
I am authorized by the solicitor-general to proclaim that the
purchaser shall have the best of all titles,--a warranty-deed from
the Commonwealth. I state this, gentlemen, because I know there is
an idle rumor in this vicinity, that one Peter Rugg, the original
owner of this estate, is still living. This rumor, gentlemen, has no
foundation, and can have no foundation in the nature of things. It
originated about two years since, from the incredible story of one
Jonathan Dunwell, of New York. Mrs. Croft, indeed, whose husband I
see present, and whose mouth waters for this estate, has countenanced
this fiction. But, gentlemen, was it ever known that any estate,
especially an estate of this value, lay unclaimed for nearly half a
century, if any heir, ever so remote, were existing? For, gentlemen,
all agree that old Peter Rugg, if living, would be at least one hundred
years of age. It is said that he and his daughter, with a horse and
chaise, were missed more than half a century ago; and because they
never returned home, forsooth, they must be now living, and will some
day come and claim this great estate. Such logic, gentlemen, never
led to a good investment. Let not this idle story cross the noble
purpose of consigning these ruins to the genius of architecture. If
such a contingency could check the spirit of enterprise, farewell to
all mercantile excitement. Your surplus money, instead of refreshing
your sleep with the golden dreams of new sources of speculation, would
turn to the nightmare. A man’s money, if not employed, serves only to
disturb his rest. Look, then, to the prospect before you. Here is half
an acre of land,--more than twenty thousand square feet,--a corner
lot, with wonderful capabilities; none of your contracted lots of
forty feet by fifty, where, in dog-days, you can breathe only through
your scuttles. On the contrary, an architect cannot contemplate this
lot of land without rapture, for here is room enough for his genius
to shame the temple of Solomon. Then the prospect--how commanding! To
the east, so near to the Atlantic that Neptune, freighted with the
select treasures of the whole earth, can knock at your door with his
trident. From the west, the produce of the river of Paradise--the
Connecticut--will soon, by the blessings of steam, railways, and canals
pass under your windows; and thus, on this spot, Neptune shall marry
Ceres, and Pomona from Roxbury, and Flora from Cambridge, shall dance
at the wedding.
“Gentlemen of science, men of taste, ye of the literary emporium,--for
I perceive many of you present,--to you this is holy ground. If the
spot on which in times past a hero left only the print of a footstep
is now sacred, of what price is the birthplace of one who all the
world knows was born in Middle Street, directly opposite to this lot;
and who, if his birthplace were not well known, would now be claimed
by more than seven cities. To you, then, the value of these premises
must be inestimable. For ere long there will arise in full view of the
edifice to be erected here, a monument, the wonder and veneration of
the world. A column shall spring to the clouds; and on that column will
be engraven one word which will convey all that is wise in intellect,
useful in science, good in morals, prudent in counsel, and benevolent
in principle,--a name of one who, when living, was the patron of the
poor, the delight of the cottage, and the admiration of kings; now
dead, worth the whole seven wise men of Greece. Need I tell you his
name? He fixed the thunder and guided the lightning.
“Men of the North End! Need I appeal to your patriotism, in order to
enhance the value of this lot? The earth affords no such scenery as
this; there, around that corner, lived James Otis; here, Samuel Adams;
there, Joseph Warren; and around that other corner, Josiah Quincy. Here
was the birthplace of Freedom; here Liberty was born, and nursed, and
grew to manhood. Here man was newly created. Here is the nursery of
American Independence--I am too modest--here began the emancipation of
the world; a thousand generations hence millions of men will cross the
Atlantic just to look at the north end of Boston. Your fathers--what do
I say--yourselves,--yes, this moment, I behold several attending this
auction who lent a hand to rock the cradle of Independence.
“Men of speculation,--ye who are deaf to everything except the sound
of money,--you, I know, will give me both of your ears when I tell you
the city of Boston must have a piece of this estate in order to widen
Ann Street. Do you hear me,--do you all hear me? I say the city must
have a large piece of this land in order to widen Ann Street. What a
chance! The city scorns to take a man’s land for nothing. If it seizes
your property, it is generous beyond the dreams of avarice. The only
oppression is, you are in danger of being smothered under a load of
wealth. Witness the old lady who lately died of a broken heart when
the mayor paid her for a piece of her kitchen-garden. All the faculty
agreed that the sight of the treasure, which the mayor incautiously
paid her in dazzling dollars, warm from the mint, sped joyfully all the
blood of her body into her heart, and rent it with raptures. Therefore,
let him who purchases this estate fear his good fortune, and not Peter
Rugg. Bid, then, liberally, and do not let the name of Rugg damp your
ardor. How much will you give per foot for this estate?”
Thus spoke the auctioneer, and gracefully waved his ivory hammer. From
fifty to seventy-five cents per foot were offered in a few moments. The
bidding labored from seventy-five to ninety. At length one dollar was
offered. The auctioneer seemed satisfied; and looking at his watch,
said he would knock off the estate in five minutes, if no one offered
more.
There was a deep silence during this short period. While the hammer
was suspended, a strange rumbling noise was heard, which arrested
the attention of every one. Presently, it was like the sound of many
shipwrights driving home the bolts of a seventy-four. As the sound
approached nearer, some exclaimed, “The buildings in the new market are
falling in promiscuous ruins.” Others said, “No, it is an earthquake;
we perceive the earth tremble.” Others said, “Not so; the sound
proceeds from Hanover Street, and approaches nearer;” and this proved
true, for presently Peter Rugg was in the midst of us.
“Alas, Jenny,” said Peter, “I am ruined; our house has been burned, and
here are all our neighbors around the ruins. Heaven grant your mother,
Dame Rugg, is safe.”
“They don’t look like our neighbors,” said Jenny; “but sure enough our
house is burned, and nothing left but the door-stone and an old cedar
post. Do ask where mother is.”
In the mean time more than a thousand men had surrounded Rugg and
his horse and chair. Yet neither Rugg personally, nor his horse and
carriage, attracted more attention than the auctioneer. The confident
look and searching eyes of Rugg carried more conviction to every one
present that the estate was his, than could any parchment or paper
with signature and seal. The impression which the auctioneer had just
made on the company was effaced in a moment; and although the latter
words of the auctioneer were, “Fear not Peter Rugg,” the moment the
auctioneer met the eye of Rugg his occupation was gone; his arm fell
down to his hips, his late lively hammer hung heavy in his hand, and
the auction was forgotten. The black horse, too, gave his evidence. He
knew his journey was ended; for he stretched himself into a horse and a
half, rested his head over the cedar post, and whinnied thrice, causing
his harness to tremble from headstall to crupper.
Rugg then stood upright in his chair, and asked with some authority,
“Who has demolished my house in my absence, for I see no signs of
a conflagration? I demand by what accident this has happened, and
wherefore this collection of strange people has assembled before my
door-step. I thought I knew every man in Boston, but you appear to me a
new generation of men. Yet I am familiar with many of the countenances
here present, and I can call some of you by name; but in truth I do not
recollect that before this moment I ever saw any one of you. There, I
am certain, is a Winslow, and here a Sargent; there stands a Sewall,
and next to him a Dudley. Will none of you speak to me,--or is this all
a delusion? I see, indeed, many forms of men, and no want of eyes, but
of motion, speech, and hearing, you seem to be destitute. Strange!
Will no one inform me who has demolished my house?”
Then spake a voice from the crowd, but whence it came I could not
discern: “There is nothing strange here but yourself, Mr. Rugg. Time,
which destroys and renews all things, has dilapidated your house, and
placed us here. You have suffered many years under an illusion. The
tempest which you profanely defied at Menotomy has at length subsided;
but you will never see home, for your house and wife and neighbors have
all disappeared. Your estate, indeed, remains, but no home. You were
cut off from the last age, and you can never be fitted to the present.
Your home is gone, and you can never have another home in this world.”
JAMES HALL
1793–1868
Judge Hall gained eminence in the early Middle West at both law and
letters. His law studies in Philadelphia, where he was born, were
interrupted by the war of 1812. After soldiering along the Niagara
he went sailoring with Decatur in the Mediterranean (1815). Then
completing his studies at Pittsburgh, he emigrated to Shawneetown,
where he became public prosecutor. The office of state treasurer
bringing him to Vandalia, he edited there, with Robert Blackwell, the
_Illinois Intelligencer_. _The Western Souvenir_, projected, edited,
and largely written by him, was published at Cincinnati in 1829; the
_Illinois Magazine_, at Vandalia, 1829–1831, then successively at
Cincinnati, St. Louis, and again at Cincinnati. Following himself
its last remove, Hall continued it there, 1833–1835, as the _Western
Monthly Magazine_. _Letters from the West_, which appeared first,
1821–1824, in the _Portfolio_, were printed collectively in London,
1828. His scattered observations were brought into more consistent
form: _Sketches of the West_, Philadelphia, 1835; _Notes on the Western
States_, Philadelphia, 1838. A collection of his tales, entitled
_The Wilderness and the War Path_, appeared in Wiley and Putnam’s
“Library of American Books,” 1846. A uniform edition of his works was
published in four volumes, 1853–1856 (a list is given in the American
Cyclopedia). Some details of his life not compiled in the cyclopedias
were published by Hiram W. Beckwith of Danville, in the fifth of the
papers entitled “The Land of the Illini,” Chicago _Tribune_, 8th
September, 1895.
A writer of tolerable verse and historically valuable descriptive
sketches of the frontier, Hall gave much of his leisure also to
embodying the history, legend, and local color of the Mississippi
valley and the prairies beyond in tales. These are often removed from
our present taste by the magniloquence then considered literary; but
they keep the interest of close observation and have their flashes of
enduring human import. The local truth of Hall’s tales is commended in
the _Western Monthly Review_ for November, 1828 (volume ii, page 367).
Unless the reference be to some of the early _Letters from the West_,
the tale printed below may have appeared earlier than the date of its
incorporation in the _Western Souvenir_. (See also pages 5, 9 and 12 of
the Introduction.)
THE FRENCH VILLAGE
[_From the “Western Souvenir,” 1829_]
[A long introduction and a concluding summary of the effects of
American development have been omitted as not essential to the
narrative; and certain obvious corrections have been made in the
text.]
* * * * *
This little colony was composed partly of emigrants from France,
and partly of natives--not Indians, but _bona fide_ French, born in
America, but preserving their language, their manners, and their
agility in dancing, although several generations had passed away since
their first settlement. Here they lived perfectly happy, and well they
might, for they enjoyed to the full extent those three blessings on
which our declaration of independence has laid so much stress--life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Their lives, it is true,
were sometimes threatened by the miasm aforesaid; but this was soon
ascertained to be an imaginary danger. For whether it was owing to
their temperance or their cheerfulness, their activity or their being
acclimated, or to the want of attraction between French people and
fever, or to all these together, certain it is that they were blessed
with a degree of health enjoyed only by the most favoured nations. As
to liberty, the wild Indian scarcely possessed more; for although the
“grand monarque” had not more loyal subjects in his wide domains, he
had never condescended to honor them with a single act of oppression,
unless the occasional visits of the Commandant could be so called.
He sometimes, when levying supplies, called upon the village for its
portion, which they always contributed with many protestations of
gratitude for the honor conferred on them. And as for happiness, they
pursued nothing else. Inverting the usual order, to enjoy life was
their daily business, to provide for its wants an occasional labor,
sweetened by its brief continuance, and its abundant fruit. A large
tract of land around the village was called the “common field.” Most
of this was allowed to remain in open pasturage; but spots of it
were cultivated by any who chose to enclose them; and such enclosure
gave a firm title to the individual so long as the occupancy lasted,
but no longer. They were _not_ an agricultural people, further than
the rearing of a few esculents for the table made them such; relying
chiefly on their large herds, and on the produce of the chase for
support. With the Indians they drove an amicable, though not extensive,
trade, for furs and peltry; giving them in exchange, merchandize and
trinkets, which they procured from their countrymen at St. Louis. To
the latter place they annually carried their skins, bringing back a
fresh supply of goods for barter, together with such articles as their
own wants required; not forgetting a large portion of finery for the
ladies, a plentiful supply of rosin and catgut for the fiddler, and
liberal presents for his reverence, the priest.
If this village had no other recommendation, it is endeared to my
recollection as the birthplace and residence of Monsieur Baptiste
Menou, who was one of its principal inhabitants when I first visited
it. He was a bachelor of forty, a tall, lank, hard featured personage,
as straight as a ramrod, and almost as thin, with stiff, black hair,
sunken cheeks, and a complexion a tinge darker than that of the
aborigines. His person was remarkably erect, his countenance grave,
his gait deliberate; and when to all this is added an enormous pair
of sable whiskers, it will be admitted that Mons. Baptiste was no
insignificant person. He had many estimable qualities of mind and
person which endeared him to his friends, whose respect was increased
by the fact of his having been a soldier and a traveller. In his
youth he had followed the French Commandant in two campaigns; and not
a comrade in the ranks was better dressed, or cleaner shaved on parade
than Baptiste, who fought besides with the characteristic bravery of
the nation to which he owed his lineage. He acknowledged, however, that
war was not as pleasant a business as is generally supposed. Accustomed
to a life totally free from constraint, he complained of being obliged
to eat and drink and sleep at the call of the drum. Burnishing a
gun, and brushing a coat, and polishing shoes, were duties beneath a
gentleman; and after all, Baptiste saw but little honor in tracking
the wily Indians through endless swamps. Besides he began to have some
scruples as to the propriety of cutting the throats of the respectable
gentry whom he had been in the habit of considering as the original and
lawful possessors of the soil. He therefore proposed to resign, and was
surprised when his commander informed him that he was enlisted for a
term, which was not yet expired. He bowed, shrugged his shoulders, and
submitted to his fate. He had too much honor to desert, and was too
loyal, and too polite, to murmur; but he forthwith made a solemn vow to
his patron saint never again to get into a scrape from which he could
not retreat whenever it suited his convenience. It was thought that he
owed his celibacy in some measure to this vow. He had since accompanied
the friendly Indians on several hunting expeditions towards the sources
of the Mississippi, and had made a trading voyage to New Orleans. Thus
accomplished, he had been more than once called upon by the Commandant
to act as a guide, or an interpreter; honors which failed not to elicit
suitable marks of respect from his fellow villagers, but which had not
inflated the honest heart of Baptiste with any unbecoming pride. On the
contrary there was not a more modest man in the village.
In his habits he was the most regular of men. He might be seen at any
hour of the day, either sauntering through the village, or seated in
front of his own door, smoking a large pipe formed of a piece of
buckhorn, curiously hollowed out, and lined with tin; to which was
affixed a short stem of cane from the neighboring swamp. This pipe was
his inseparable companion; and he evinced towards it a constancy which
would have immortalized his name, had it been displayed in a better
cause. When he walked abroad, it was to stroll leisurely from door to
door, chatting familiarly with his neighbours, patting the white-haired
children on the head, and continuing his lounge, until he had
peregrinated the village. His gravity was not a “mysterious carriage
of the body to conceal the defects of the mind,” but a constitutional
seriousness of aspect, which covered as happy and as humane a spirit
as ever existed. It was simply a want of sympathy between his muscles
and his brains; the former utterly refusing to express any agreeable
sensation which might happily titillate the organs of the latter.
Honest Baptiste loved a joke, and uttered many, and good ones; but his
rigid features refused to smile even at his own wit--a circumstance
which I am the more particular in mentioning, as it is not common. He
had an orphan niece whom he had reared from childhood to maturity,--a
lovely girl, of whose beautiful complexion a poet might say that its
roses were cushioned upon ermine. A sweeter flower bloomed not upon
the prairie than Gabrielle Menou. But as she was never afflicted with
weak nerves, dyspepsia or consumption, and had but one avowed lover,
whom she treated with uniform kindness, and married with the consent of
all parties, she has no claim to be considered as the heroine of this
history. That station will be awarded by every sensible reader to the
important personage who will be presently introduced.
Across the street, immediately opposite to Mons. Baptiste, lived
Mademoiselle Jeannette Duval, a lady who resembled him in some
respects, but in many others was his very antipode. Like him, she was
cheerful and happy, and single; but unlike him, she was brisk, and fat,
and plump. Monsieur was the very pink of gravity; and Mademoiselle was
blessed with a goodly portion thereof,--but hers was specific gravity.
Her hair was dark, but her heart was light, and her eyes, though
black, were as brilliant a pair of orbs as ever beamed upon the dreary
solitude of a bachelor’s heart. Jeannette’s heels were as light as her
heart, and her tongue as active as her heels, so that notwithstanding
her rotundity, she was as brisk a Frenchwoman as ever frisked through
the mazes of a cotillion. To sum her perfections, her complexion was of
a darker olive than the genial sun of France confers on her brunettes,
and her skin was as smooth and shining as polished mahogany. Her whole
household consisted of herself and a female negro servant. A spacious
garden, which surrounded her house, a pony, and a herd of cattle,
constituted, in addition to her personal charms, all the wealth of this
amiable spinster. But with these she was rich, as they supplied her
table without adding much to her cares. Her quadrupeds, according to
the example set by their superiors, pursued their own happiness without
let or molestation, wherever they could find it--waxing fat or lean,
as nature was more or less bountiful in supplying their wants; and
when they strayed too far, or when her agricultural labours became too
arduous for the feminine strength of herself and her sable assistant,
every monsieur of the village was proud of an occasion to serve
Mam’selle. And well they might be, for she was the most noticeable lady
in the village, the life of every party, the soul of every frolic. She
participated in every festive meeting, and every sad solemnity. Not a
neighbor could get up a dance, or get down a dose of bark, without her
assistance. If the ball grew dull, Mam’selle bounced on the floor, and
infused new spirit into the weary dancers. If the conversation flagged,
Jeannette, who occupied a kind of neutral ground between the young and
the old, the married and the single, chatted with all, and loosened
all tongues. If the girls wished to stroll in the woods, or romp on
the prairie, Mam’selle was taken along to keep off the wolves and the
rude young men; and in respect to the latter, she faithfully performed
her office by attracting them around her own person. Then she was the
best neighbour and the kindest soul! She made the richest soup, the
clearest coffee, and the neatest pastry in the village; and in virtue
of her confectionery was the prime favourite of all the children. Her
hospitality was not confined to her own domicile, but found its way in
the shape of sundry savoury viands, to every table in the vicinity. In
the sick chamber she was the most assiduous nurse, her step was the
lightest, and her voice the most cheerful--so that the priest must
inevitably have become jealous of her skill, had it not been for divers
plates of rich soup, and bottles of cordial, with which she conciliated
his favour, and purchased absolution for these and other offences.
Baptiste and Jeannette were the best of neighbours. He always rose at
the dawn, and after lighting his pipe, sallied forth into the open air,
where Jeannette usually made her appearance at the same time; for there
was an emulation of long standing between them, which should be the
earlier riser.
“Bon jour! Mam’selle Jeannette,” was his daily salutation.
“Ah! bon jour! Mons. Menou,” was her daily reply.
Then as he gradually approximated the little paling which surrounded
her door, he hoped Mam’selle was well this morning, and she reiterated
the kind inquiry, but with increased emphasis. Then Monsieur enquired
after Mam’selle’s pony and Mam’selle’s cow, and her garden, and
everything appertaining to her, real, personal and mixed; and she
displayed a corresponding interest in all concerns of her kind
neighbour. These discussions were mutually beneficial. If Mam’selle’s
cattle ailed, or if her pony was guilty of an impropriety, who was so
able to advise her as Mons. Baptiste? And if his plants drooped, or his
poultry died, who so skilful in such matters as Mam’selle Jeanette?
Sometimes Baptiste forgot his pipe in the superior interest of the
“tête à tête,” and must needs step in to light it at Jeannette’s fire,
which caused the gossips of the village to say that he purposely let
his pipe go out, in order that he might himself go in. But he denied
this, and, indeed, before offering to enter the dwelling of Mam’selle
on such occasions, he usually solicited permission to light his pipe
at Jeannette’s sparkling eyes, a compliment at which, although it had
been repeated some scores of times, Mam’selle never failed to laugh and
curtesy, with great good humour and good breeding.
It cannot be supposed that a bachelor of so much discernment could long
remain insensible to the galaxy of charms which centered in the person
of Mam’selle Jeannette; and accordingly it was currently reported that
a courtship of some ten years standing had been slyly conducted on his
part, and as cunningly eluded on hers. It was not averred that Baptiste
had actually gone the fearful length of offering his hand; or that
Jeannette had been so imprudent as to discourage, far less reject, a
lover of such respectable pretensions. But there was thought to exist
a strong hankering on the part of the gentleman, which the lady had
managed so skilfully as to keep his mind in a kind of equilibrium,
like that of the patient animal between the two bundles of hay--so
that he would sometimes halt in the street, midway between the two
cottages, and cast furtive glances, first at the one, and then at the
other, as if weighing the balance of comfort, while the increased
volumes of smoke which issued from his mouth seemed to argue that
the fire of his love had other fuel than tobacco, and was literally
consuming the inward man. The wary spinster was always on the alert
on such occasions, manœuvering like a skilful general according to
circumstances. If honest Baptiste, after such a consultation, turned on
his heel and retired to his former cautious position at his own door,
Mam’selle rallied all her attractions, and by a sudden demonstration
drew him again into the field; but if he marched with an embarrassed
air towards her gate, she retired into her castle, or kept shy, and by
able evolutions avoided everything which might bring matters to an
issue. Thus the courtship continued longer than the siege of Troy, and
Jeannette maintained her freedom, while Baptiste with a magnanimity
superior to that of Agamemnon, kept his temper, and smoked his pipe in
good humour with Jeannette and all the world.
Such was the situation of affairs when I first visited this village,
about the time of the cession of Louisiana to the United States. The
news of that event had just reached this sequestered spot, and was but
indifferently relished. Independently of the national attachment, which
all men feel, and the French so justly, the inhabitants of this region
had reason to prefer to all others the government which had afforded
them protection without constraining their freedom, or subjecting them
to any burthens; and with the kindest feelings towards the Americans,
they would willingly have dispensed with any nearer connexion than
that which already existed. They, however, said little on the subject;
and that little was expressive of their cheerful acquiescence in the
honor done them by the American people, in buying the country which the
Emperor had done them the honor to sell.
It was on the first day of the Carnival that I arrived in the village,
about sunset, seeking shelter only for the night, and intending to
proceed on my journey in the morning. The notes of the violin and the
groups of gaily attired people who thronged the street attracted my
attention, and induced me to inquire the occasion of this merriment.
My host informed me that a “King Ball” was to be given at the house
of a neighbour, adding the agreeable intimation that strangers were
always expected to attend without invitation. Young and ardent, I
required little persuasion to change my dress, and hasten to the
scene of festivity. The moment I entered the room, I felt that I was
welcome. Not a single look of surprise, not a glance of more than
ordinary attention, denoted me as a stranger, or an unexpected guest.
The gentlemen nearest the door, bowed as they opened a passage for me
through the crowd, in which for a time I mingled, apparently unnoticed.
At length a young gentleman adorned with a large nosegay approached me,
invited me to join the dancers, and after inquiring my name, introduced
me to several females, among whom I had no difficulty in selecting a
graceful partner. I was passionately fond of dancing, so that readily
imbibing the joyous spirit of those around me, I advanced rapidly in
their estimation. The native ease and elegance of the females, reared
in the wilderness, and unhackneyed in the forms of society, surprised
and delighted me, as much as the amiable frankness of all classes. By
and by the dancing ceased, and four young ladies of exquisite beauty,
who had appeared during the evening to assume more consequence than
the others, stood alone on the floor. For a moment their arch glances
wandered over the company who stood silently around, when one of them
advancing to a young gentleman led him into the circle, and taking a
large bouquet from her own bosom, pinned it upon the left breast of his
coat, and pronounced him “KING!” The gentleman kissed his fair elector,
and led her to a seat. Two others were selected almost at the same
moment. The fourth lady hesitated for an instant, then advancing to the
spot where I stood, presented me her hand, led me forward and placed
the symbol on my breast, before I could recover from the surprise into
which the incident had thrown me. I regained my presence of mind,
however, in time to salute my lovely consort; and never did king enjoy
with more delight the first fruits of his elevation; for the beautiful
Gabrielle, with whom I had just danced, and who had so unexpectedly
raised me, as it were, to the purple, was the freshest and fairest
flower in this assemblage.
The ceremony was soon explained to me. On the first day of the
Carnival, four self-appointed kings, having selected their queens, give
a ball, at their own proper costs, to the whole village. In the course
of that evening the queens select, in the manner described, the kings
for the ensuing day, who choose their queens, in turn, by presenting
the nosegay and the kiss. This is repeated every evening in the week,
the kings for the time being giving the ball at their own expense, and
all the inhabitants attending without invitation. On the morning after
each ball, the kings of the preceding evening make small presents to
their late queens, and their temporary alliance is dissolved. Thus
commenced my acquaintance with Gabrielle Menou, who, if she cost me a
few sleepless nights, amply repaid me in the many happy hours for which
I was indebted to her friendship.
I remained several weeks at this hospitable village. Few evenings
passed without a dance, at which all were assembled, young and old; the
mothers vying in agility with their daughters, and the old men setting
examples of gallantry to the young. I accompanied their young men to
the Indian towns, and was hospitably entertained. I followed them to
the chase, and witnessed the fall of many a noble buck. In their light
canoes I glided over the turbid waters of the Mississippi, or through
the labyrinths of the morass, in pursuit of water fowl. I visited
the mounds where the bones of thousands of warriors were mouldering,
overgrown with prairie violets and thousands of nameless flowers. I saw
the moccasin snake basking in the sun, the elk feeding on the prairie;
and returned to mingle in the amusements of a circle, where, if there
was not Parisian elegance, there was more than Parisian cordiality.
Several years passed away before I again visited this country. The
jurisdiction of the American government was now extended over this
immense region, and its beneficial effects were beginning to be widely
disseminated. The roads were crowded with the teams, and herds, and
families of emigrants, hastening to the land of promise. Steamboats
navigated every stream, the axe was heard in every forest, and the
plough broke the sod whose verdure had covered the prairie for ages.
It was sunset when I reached the margin of the prairie on which the
village is situated. My horse, wearied with a long day’s travel, sprang
forward with new vigour, when his hoof struck the smooth, firm road
which led across the plain. It was a narrow path, winding among the
tall grass, now tinged with the mellow hues of autumn. I gazed with
delight over the beautiful surface. The mounds, and the solitary trees,
were there, just as I had left them; and they were familiar to my eye
as the objects of yesterday. It was eight miles across the prairie,
and I had not passed half the distance when night set in. I strained
my eyes to catch a glimpse of the village; but two large mounds and a
clump of trees, which intervened, defeated my purpose. I thought of
Gabrielle, and Jeannette, and Baptiste, and the priest--the fiddles,
dances, and French ponies; and fancied every minute an hour, and every
foot a mile, which separated me from scenes and persons so deeply
impressed on my imagination.
At length I passed the mounds, and beheld the lights twinkling in the
village, now about two miles off, like a brilliant constellation in
the horizon. The lights seemed very numerous--I thought they moved;
and at last discovered that they were rapidly passing about. “What can
be going on in the village?” thought I--then a strain of music met
my ear--“they are going to dance,” said I, striking my spurs into my
jaded nag, “and I shall see all my friends together.” But as I drew
near, a volume of sounds burst upon me such as defied all conjecture.
Fiddles, flutes and tambourines, drums, cow-horns, tin trumpets, and
kettles mingled their discordant notes with a strange accompaniment of
laughter, shouts and singing. This singular concert proceeded from a
mob of men and boys, who paraded through the streets, preceded by one
who blew an immense tin horn, and ever and anon shouted, “Cha-ri-va-ry!
Charivary!” to which the mob responded “Charivary!” I now recollected
having heard of a custom which prevails among the American French of
serenading at the marriage of a widow or widower, with such a concert
as I now witnessed; and I rode towards the crowd, who had halted before
a well known door, to ascertain who were the happy parties.
“Charivary!” shouted the leader.
“Pour qui?” said another voice.
“Pour Mons. Baptiste Menou. Il s’est marié!”
“Avec qui?”
“Avec Mam’selle Jeannette Duval--Charivary!”
“Charivary!” shouted the whole company, and a torrent of music poured
from the full band--tin kettles, cow-horns and all.
The door of the little cabin, whose hospitable threshold I had so often
crossed, now opened, and Baptiste made his appearance,--the identical,
lank, sallow, erect personage with whom I had parted several years
before, with the same pipe in his mouth. His visage was as long and as
melancholy as ever, except that there was a slight tinge of triumph
in its expression, and a bashful casting down of the eye, reminding
one of a conqueror, proud but modest in his glory. He gazed with an
embarrassed air at the serenaders, bowed repeatedly, as if conscious
that he was the hero of the night, and then exclaimed,
“For what make you this charivary?”
“Charivary!” shouted the mob; and the tin trumpets gave an exquisite
flourish.
“Gentlemen!” expostulated the bridegroom, “for why you make this
charivary for me? I have never been marry before--and Mam’selle
Jeannette has never been marry before!”
Roll went the drum!--cow-horns, kettles, tin trumpets and fiddles
poured forth volumes of sound, and the mob shouted in unison.
“Gentlemen! pardonnez moi--” supplicated the distressed Baptiste. “If
I understan dis custom, which have long prevail vid us, it is vat I
say--ven a gentilman, who has been marry before, shall marry de second
time--or ven a lady have de misfortune to lose her husban, and be so
happy to marry some odder gentilman, den we make de charivary--but
’tis not so wid Mam’selle Duval and me. Upon my honor we have never
been marry before dis time!”
“Why, Baptiste,” said one, “you certainly have been married and have a
daughter grown.”
“Oh, excuse me sir! Madame Ste. Marie is my niece. I have never been so
happy to be marry, until Mam’selle Duval have do me dis honneur.”
“Well, well! it’s all one. If you have not been married, you ought to
have been, long ago--and might have been, if you had said the word.”
“Ah, gentilmen, you mistake.”
“No, no! there’s no mistake about it. Mam’selle Jeanette would have had
you ten years ago, if you had asked her.”
“You flatter too much,” said Baptiste, shrugging his shoulders; and
finding that there was no means of avoiding the charivary, he with
great good humour accepted the serenade, and according to custom
invited the whole party into his house.
I retired to my former quarters, at the house of an old settler--a
little shrivelled, facetious Frenchman, whom I found in his red flannel
nightcap, smoking his pipe, and seated like Jupiter in the midst of
clouds of his own creating.
“Merry doings in the village!” said I, after we had shaken hands.
“Eh, bien! Mons. Baptiste is marry to Mam’selle Jeannette.”
“I see the boys are making merry on the occasion.”
“Ah Sacré! de dem boy! they have play hell to-night.”
“Indeed! how so?”
“For make dis charivary--dat is how so, my friend. Dis come for have d’
Americain government to rule de countrie. Parbleu! they make charivary
for de old maid, and de old bachelor!”
* * * * *
ALBERT PIKE
1809–1891
Albert Pike was a pioneer and a free lance. From school-teaching in old
Newburyport he broke away in 1831 to the new Southwest. Successively
explorer, editor, and lawyer in New Mexico and Arkansas for some
fifteen years, he found time also to gratify a strong literary impulse.
On his journey out he sent to the _American Monthly Magazine_ (1831)
both prose and verse, and to the same journal five years later his
_Letters from Arkansas_. Meantime (1834) he had published in Boston the
thin volume from which is taken the following tale. _Hymns to the Gods_
appeared in Blackwood for June, 1839 (volume xlv, page 819; see also
volume xlvii, page 354), with a letter dated at Little Rock, August 15,
1838. (The American Cyclopedia puts the original publication of these
at Boston, 1831.) After serving against Mexico and in the Confederacy,
he gave himself mainly to the practice of the law. But he edited the
_Memphis Appeal_, 1867–1868, published volumes of his verse in 1854,
1873, and 1882, and wrote extensively, as an adept, on freemasonry.
Though Pike has more narrative directness than Hall, he is usually
loose in narrative structure. Plot seems of smaller concern to him than
setting. The abundance of vivid detail and some nervous force in the
phrase make his sketches permanently convincing as description.
THE INROAD OF THE NABAJO
[_From “Prose Sketches and Poems written in the Western Country,”
Boston, 1834. The preface is dated Arkansas Territory, May, 1833_]
It was a keen, cold morning in the latter part of November, when I
wound out of the narrow, rocky cañon or valley, in which I had for
some time been travelling, and came in sight of the village of San
Fernandez, in the valley of Taos. Above, below, and around me, lay the
sheeted snow, till, as the eye glanced upward, it was lost among the
dark pines which covered the upper part of the mountains, although at
the very summit, where the pines were thinnest, it gleamed from among
them like a white banner spread between them and heaven. Below me on
the left, half open, half frozen, ran the little clear stream, which
gave water to the inhabitants of the valley, and along the margin of
which I had been travelling. On the right and left the ridges which
formed the dark and precipitous sides of the cañon, sweeping apart,
formed a spacious amphitheatre. Along their sides extended a belt of
deep, dull blue mist, above and below which was to be seen the white
snow, and the deep darkness of the pines. On the right, these mountains
swelled to a greater and more precipitous height, till their tops
gleamed in unsullied whiteness over the plain below. Still farther to
the right was a broad opening, where the mountains seemed to sink into
the plain; and afar off in front were the tall and stupendous mountains
between me and the city of Santa Fé. Directly in front of me, with the
dull color of its mud buildings contrasting with the dazzling whiteness
of the snow, lay the little village, resembling an oriental town, with
its low, square, mud-roofed houses and its two square church towers,
also of mud. On the path to the village were a few Mexicans, wrapped
in their striped blankets, and driving their jackasses heavily laden
with wood towards the village. Such was the aspect of the place at a
distance. On entering it, you found only a few dirty, irregular lanes,
and a quantity of mud houses.
To an American the first sight of these New Mexican villages is novel
and singular. He seems taken into a different world. Everything is new,
strange, and quaint: the men with their pantalones of cloth, gaily
ornamented with lace, split up on the outside of the leg to the knee,
and covered at the bottom with a broad strip of morocco; the jacket of
calico; the botas of stamped and embroidered leather; the zarape or
blanket of striped red and white; the broad-brimmed hat, with a black
silk handkerchief tied round it in a roll; or in the lower class, the
simple attire of breeches of leather reaching only to the knees, a
shirt and a zarape; the bonnetless women, with a silken scarf or a red
shawl over their heads; and, added to all, the continual chatter of
Spanish about him--all remind him that he is in a strange land.
On the evening after my arrival in the village I went to a fandango. I
saw the men and women dancing waltzes and drinking whiskey together;
and in another room I saw the monti-bank open. It is a strange sight, a
Spanish fandango. Well dressed women--they call them ladies--priests,
thieves, half-breed Indians--all spinning round together in a waltz.
Here a filthy, ragged fellow with half a shirt, a pair of leather
breeches, long, dirty woollen stockings, and Apache moccasins, was
whirling round with the pretty wife of Pedro Vigil. I was soon
disgusted; but among the graceless shapes and more graceless dresses
at the fandango I saw one young woman who appeared to me exceedingly
pretty. She was under the middle size, slightly formed; and, besides
the delicate foot and ancle and the keen black eye common to all the
women in that country, she possessed a clear and beautiful complexion,
and a modest, downcast look not often to be met with among the New
Mexican females.
I was informed to my surprise that she had been married several years
before, and was now a widow. There was an air of gentle and deep
melancholy in her face which drew my attention to her; but when one
week afterward I left Taos, and went down to Santa Fé, the pretty widow
was forgotten.
Among my acquaintances in Santa Fé was one American in particular by
the name of L----. He had been in the country several years, had much
influence there among the people, and was altogether a very talented
man. Of his faults, whatever they were, I have nothing to say. It
was from him, some time after my arrival, and when the widow had
ceased almost to be a thing of memory, that I learned the following
particulars respecting her former fortunes. I give them in L’s own
words as nearly as I can, and can only say that for the truth of them
he is my authority. True or not, such as I received them do I present
them to my readers.
“You know,” said he, “that I have been in this country several years.
Six or eight years ago I was at Taos, upon business, and was lodging in
the house of an old acquaintance, Dick Taylor. Early the next morning I
was suddenly awakened by Dick, who, shaking me roughly by the shoulder,
exclaimed, ‘Get up, man--get up--if you wish to see sport, and dress
yourself.’ Half awake and half asleep, I heard an immense clamor in the
street. Cries, yells, oaths, and whoops resounded in every direction. I
knew it would be useless to ask an explanation of the matter from the
sententious Dick; and I therefore quietly finished dressing and, taking
my rifle, followed him into the street. For a time I was at a loss to
understand what was the matter. Men were running wildly about, some
armed with fusees, with locks as big as a gunbrig, some with bows and
arrows, and some with spears. Women were scudding hither and thither,
with their black hair flying, and their naked feet shaming the ground
by their superior filth. Indian girls were to be seen here and there,
with suppressed smiles, and looks of triumph. Men, women, and children,
however, seemed to trust less in their armor than in the arm of the
Lord and of the saints. They were accordingly earnest in calling
upon _Tata Dios! Dios bendito! Virgen purisima!_ and all the saints
of the calendar, and above all, upon _Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe_,
to aid, protect, and assist them. One cry, at last, explained the
whole matter,--‘_Los malditos y picaros que son los Nabajos_.’ The
Nabajos had been robbing them. They had entered the valley below, and
were sweeping it of all the flocks and herds; and this produced the
consternation. You have never seen any of these Nabajos. They approach
much nearer in character to the Indians in the south of the Mexican
Republic than any others in this province. They are whiter; they raise
corn; they have vast flocks of sheep and large herds of horses; they
make blankets, too, and sell them to the Spaniards. Their great men
have a number of servants under them; and in fact their government
is apparently patriarchal. Sometimes they choose a captain over the
nation; but even then they obey him or not, just as they please.
They live about three days’ journey west of this, and have about ten
thousand souls in the tribe. Like most other Indians, they have their
medicine men, who intercede for them with the Great Spirit by strange
rites and ceremonies.
“Through the tumult we proceeded towards the outer edge of the town,
whither all the armed men seemed to be hastening. On arriving in
the street which goes out towards the cañon of the river, we found
ourselves in the place of action. Nothing was yet to be seen out in
the plain, which extends to the foot of the hills and to the cañon.
Some fifty Mexicans had gathered there, mostly armed, and were pressing
forward towards the extremity of the street. Behind them were a dozen
Americans with their rifles, all as cool as might be; for the men that
came through the prairie then were all braves. Sundry women were
scudding about, exhorting their husbands to fight well, and praising
‘_Los Señores Americanos_.’ We had waited perhaps half an hour when the
foe came in sight, sweeping in from the west, and bearing towards the
cañon, driving before them numerous herds and flocks, and consisting
apparently of about one hundred men. When they were within about half
a mile of us, they separated. One portion of them remained with the
booty, and the other, all mounted, came sweeping down upon us. The
effect was instantaneous and almost magical. In a moment not a woman
was to be seen far or near; and the heroes who had been chattering
and boasting in front of the Americans, shrunk behind them, and
left them to bear the brunt of the battle. We immediately extended
ourselves across the street, and waited the charge. The Indians made a
beautiful appearance as they came down upon us with their fine looking
horses, and their shields ornamented with feathers and fur, and their
dresses of unstained deer-skin. At that time they knew nothing about
the Americans. They supposed that their good allies, the Spaniards,
would run as they commonly do, that they should have the pleasure of
frightening the village and shouting in it and going off safely. As
they neared us, each of us raised his gun when he judged it proper,
and fired. A dozen cracks of the rifle told them the difference. Five
or six tumbled out of their saddles, and were immediately picked up by
their comrades, who then turned their backs and retreated as swiftly
as they had come. The Americans, who were, like myself, not very eager
to fight the battles of the New Mexicans, loaded their guns with
immense coolness; and we stood gazing at them as they again gathered
their booty and prepared to move towards the cañon. The Mexicans
tried to induce us to mount and follow; but we, or at least I, was
perfectly contented. In fact, I did not care much which whipped. The
Nabajos seemed thus in a very good way of going off with their booty
unhindered, when suddenly the scene was altered. A considerable
body, perhaps sixty, of the Pueblo of Taos, civilized Indians who are
Catholics, and citizens of the Republic, appeared suddenly under the
mountains, dashing at full speed towards the mouth of the cañon. They
were all fine looking men, well mounted, large, and exceedingly brave.
[Here is omitted a digression upon the Pueblos, which, though very
interesting historically, is irrelevant to the story.]
“Upon seeing the Pueblo of Taos between them and the mouth of the
cañon, the Nabajos uttered a shrill yell of defiance, and moved to meet
them. Leaving a few men to guard the cattle, the remainder, diverging
like the opening sticks of a fan, rushed to the attack. Each man shot
his arrow as he approached, till he was within thirty or forty yards,
and then wheeling, retreated, shooting as he went. They were steadily
received by the Pueblo with a general discharge of fire-arms and arrows
at every charge, and were frustrated in every attempt at routing them.
Several were seen to fall at every charge; but they were always taken
up and borne to those who were guarding the cattle. During the contest
several Mexicans mounted and went out from the village to join the
Pueblos, but only two or three ventured to do so; the others kept at a
very respectful distance. At length, finding the matter grow desperate,
more men were joined to those who guarded the cattle, and they then
moved steadily towards the cañon. The others, again diverging, rushed
on till they came within fifty yards, and then converging again,
charged boldly upon one point; and as the Pueblo were unprepared for
this manœuvre, they broke through and again charged back. Drawing
them together in this way to oppose, they drove nearly two thirds
of the cattle through the line, goaded by arrows and frightened by
shouts. Many of the Nabajos, however, fell in the mêlée by the long
spears and quick arrows of the Pueblo. In the mean time I had mounted,
and approached within two hundred yards of the scene of contest. I
observed one tall and good-looking Spaniard, of middle age, who was
particularly active in the contest. He had slightly wounded a large,
athletic Nabajo with his spear; and I observed that he was continually
followed by him. When this large chief had concluded that the cattle
were near enough to the mouth of the cañon to be out of danger, he gave
a shrill cry; and his men, who were now reduced to about sixty, besides
those with the cattle, gathered simultaneously between the Pueblo and
the cañon. Only the chief remained behind; and rushing towards the
Spaniard who had wounded him, he grasped him with one hand and raised
him from the saddle as if he had been a boy. Taken by surprise, the
man made no resistance for a moment or two, and that moment or two
sufficed for the horse of the Nabajo--a slightly made, Arabian-looking
animal--to place him, with two or three bounds, among his own men.
Then his knife glittered in the air, and I saw the Spaniard’s limbs
contract and then collapse. A moment more sufficed for him to tear
the scalp from the head. He was then tumbled to the ground; and with
a general yell the whole body rushed forward, closely pursued by the
Pueblo. In hurrying to the cañon, the Nabajo lost several men and more
of the cattle; but when they had once entered its rocky jaws, and the
Pueblo turned back, still more than half the plunder remained with the
robbers. Fifteen Nabajos only were left dead; and the remainder were
borne off before their comrades. The Pueblos lost nearly one third of
their number.
“It was this fight, sir, this inroad of the Nabajos, which brought me
acquainted with the young widow of whom we have spoken before. She was
then an unmarried girl of fourteen; and a very pretty girl too was La
Señorita Ana Maria Ortega. I need not trouble you with descriptions of
her; for she has saved me the trouble by appearing to your eyes in that
sublime place, a fandango--when you first saw the charms of New Mexican
beauty, and had your eyes ravished with the melody and harmony of a
Spanish waltz--I beg Spain’s pardon--a New Mexican waltz.”
“Which waltz,” said I, “I heard the next morning played over a coffin
at a funeral; and in the afternoon, in the procession of the Host.”
“Oh! that is common. Melody, harmony, fiddle, banjo, and all--all is
common to all occasions. They have but little music, and they are right
in being economical with it; and the presence of the priest sanctifies
anything. You know the people of Taos?”
“Yes. The people were afraid to get drunk on my first fandango night.
I was astonished to find them so sober. The priest was there; and they
feared to get drunk until he had done so. That event took place about
eleven at night, and then _aguadiente_ was in demand.”
“Yes, I dare say. That same priest once asked me if England was a
province or a state. I told him it was a province. He reads Voltaire’s
Philosophical Dictionary, and takes the old infidel to be an excellent
christian. Ana Maria was his god-daughter, I think, or some such
matter; and I became acquainted with her in that way. He wanted me to
marry her. She knew nothing of it, though; but I backed out. I did
not mind the marrying so much as the baptism and the citizenship. I
don’t exchange my country for Mexico, or the name American for that of
Mexican. Ana was in truth not a girl to be slighted. She was pretty
and rich and sensible. Her room was the best furnished mud apartment
in Taos. Her zarapes were of the best texture, some of them even from
Chihuahua; and they were piled showily around the room. The roses
skewered upon the wall were of red silk; and the santos and other
images had been brought from Mexico. There were some half dozen of
looking-glasses, too, all out of reach, and various other adornments
common to great apartments. The medal which she wore round her neck,
with a cross-looking San Pablo upon it, was of beaten gold, or some
other kind of gold. She had various dresses of calico and silk, all
bought at high prices of the new comers; and her little fairy feet
were always adorned with shoes. That was a great extravagance in
those days. Ana Maria had no mother when I first saw her; and she had
transferred all her affection to her father. When the knife of the
Nabajo made her an orphan, I suppose she felt as if her last hold upon
life were gone. She appeared to, at least.
“Victorino Alasi had been her lover, and her favored one. He had never
thought of any other than Ana Maria as his bride, and he had talked of
his love to her a hundred times. But there came in a young trapper who
gave him cause to tremble lest he should lose his treasure. Henry or,
as he was most commonly called, Hentz Wilson, was a formidable rival.
Ana knew not, herself, which to prefer. The long friendship and love of
Victorino were almost balanced by the different style of beauty, the
odd manners, and the name American, which recommended Hentz. Her vanity
was flattered by the homage of an American, and Victorino was in danger
of losing his bride. The bold, open bearing of Hentz, and his bravery,
as well as his knowledge, which, though slight at home, was wondrous to
the simple New Mexicans, had recommended him, likewise, to the father,
whose death suspended, for a time, all operations. They had each of
them made application by letter (the common custom) for the hand of Ana
Maria. In the course of a fortnight after the inroad of the Nabajo,
each of the lovers received, as answer, that she had determined to give
her hand to either of them who should kill the murderer of her father.
And with this they both were obliged to content themselves for the
present.
“Directly after the inroad, I came down to Santa Fé. The Lieutenant
Colonel of the Province, Viscara, was raising a body of men to go out
against the Nabajo, and repay them for this and other depredations
lately committed upon the people, and he was urgent for me to accompany
him--so much so that I was obliged to comply with his requests, and
promised to go. Troops were sent for from below; and in the course of
four months, the expedition was ready, and we set out upon the Nabajo
campaign. We were a motley set. First there was a body of regular
troops, all armed with British muskets and with lances. Here was a grey
coat and leathern pantaloons; there, no coat and short breeches. But
you have seen the ragged, ununiformed troops here in the city, and I
need not describe them to you. Next there was a parcel of militia, all
mounted, some with lances, some with old fusees; and last, a body of
Indians of the different Pueblos, with bows and shields--infinitely the
best troops we had, as well as the bravest men. Among the militia of
Taos I observed the young Victorino. Hentz had likewise volunteered to
accompany the expedition, and lived with me in the General’s tent.
“It was in the driest part of the summer that we left Santa Fé, and
marched towards the country of the Nabajo. We went out by the way of
Xemes, and then, crossing the Rio Puerco, went into the mountains of
the Nabajo. We came up with them, fought them, and they fled before
us, driving their cattle and sheep with them into a wide sand desert;
and we, being now out of provisions, were obliged to overtake them or
starve. We were two days without a drop of water, and nearly all the
animals gave out in consequence. On the third day Viscara, fifteen
soldiers, and myself went ahead of the army (which, I forgot to say,
was thirteen hundred strong). Viscara and his men were mounted. I
was on foot, with no clothing except a cloth round my middle, with a
lance in one hand, and a rifle in the other. That day I think I ran
seventy-five miles, bare-footed, and through the burning sand.”
“Viscara tells me that you ran thirty leagues.”
“Viscara is mistaken, and overrates it. Just before night we came up
with a large body of Nabajos, and attacked them. We took about two
thousand sheep from them, and three hundred cattle, and drove them
back that night to the army. The Nabajos supposed, when we rushed on
them, that the whole of our force was at hand, and they were afraid to
pursue us. But it is the battle in which you are most concerned. When
we attacked the Nabajo, they were drawn up, partly on foot, and partly
on horseback, in the bed of a little creek which was dry. It was the
common way of fighting--charge, fire and retreat; and if you have seen
one fight on horseback, you have seen all. I observed particularly one
Nabajo, upon whom three Pueblos charged, all on foot. He shot two of
them down before they reached him. Another arrow struck the remaining
one in the belly. He still came on with only a tomahawk, and another
arrow struck him in the forehead. Yet still he braved his foe and they
were found lying dead together. I could have shot the Nabajo with great
ease, at the time; for the whole of this took place within seventy
yards of me.
“In the midst of the battle I observed Victorino and Hentz standing
together in the front rank, seeming rather to be spectators than men
interested in the fight. They were both handsome men, but entirely
different in appearance. Victorino was a dark-eyed, slender, agile
young Spaniard, with a tread like a tiger-cat, and with all his nerves
indurate with toil. His face was oval, thin, and of a rich olive,
through which the blood seemed ready to break; and you could hardly
have chosen a better figure for a statuary as he stood, now and then
discharging his fusee, but commonly glancing his eyes uneasily about
from one part of the enemy to the other. Hentz, on the contrary, was
a tall and well-proportioned young fellow, of immense strength and
activity, but with little of the cat-like quickness of his rival. His
skin was fair even to effeminacy, and his blue eyes were shaded by
a profusion of chestnut hair. He, too, seemed expecting some one to
appear amid the enemy; for though he now and then fired and reloaded,
it was but seldom, and he spent more time in leaning on his long rifle,
and gazing about among the Nabajos.
“On a sudden, a sharp yell was heard, and a party of Nabajos came
dashing down the bank of the creek, all mounted, and headed by the big
chief who had killed the father of Ana Maria. Then the apathy of the
two rivals was at once thrown aside. Hentz quickly threw his gun into
the hollow of his arm, examined the priming, and again stood quietly
watching the motions of the chief; and Victorino did the same. Wheeling
round several times, and discharging a flight of arrows continually
upon us, this new body of Nabajo at length bore down directly toward
Hentz and Victorino. As the chief came on, Victorino raised his gun,
took a steady, long aim, and fired. Another moment, and the Nabajo
were upon them, and then retreated again like a wave tossing back
from the shore. The chief still sat on his horse as before; another
yell, and they came down again. When they were within about a hundred
yards, Hentz raised his rifle, took a steady, quick aim, and fired.
Still they came on; the chief bent down over the saddle-bow, and his
horse, seemingly frightened by the strange pressure of the rider, bore
down directly towards Hentz, who sprang to meet him, and caught the
bridle; the horse sprang to one side, and the wounded chief lost his
balance, and fell upon the ground. The horse dashed away through friend
and foe, and was out of sight in a moment. The Nabajo rallied to save
the body of their chief, and Viscara himself rushed in with me to the
rescue of Hentz. But the long barrel of Hentz’s rifle, which he swayed
with a giant’s strength, the sword of Viscara, and the keen knife of
Victorino, who generously sprang in the aid of his rival, would all
have failed in saving the body, had not a band of the gallant Pueblo
attacked them in the rear and routed them. Hentz immediately dispatched
the chief, who was by this time half hidden by a dozen Nabajos, and
immediately deprived his head of the hair, which is more valuable to an
Indian than life.
“The Nabajos sued for peace, and we returned to Santa Fé. Poor
Victorino, I observed, rode generally alone, and had not a word to say
to any one. Although formerly he had been the most merry and humorous,
now he seemed entirely buried in sorrow. He kept listlessly along,
looking neither to the right hand nor to the left, with his bridle
lying on the neck of his mule. I tried to comfort him; but he answered
me gloomily, ‘Why should I cheer up? What have I to live for? Had I
lost her by any fault of my own, I would not have thought so hardly of
it; but by this cursed old fusee, and because another man can shoot
better than I--Oh! sir, leave me to myself, I pray you, and make me no
offers which do me no good. I think I shall be happy again, but it will
be in my grave, and _Dios me perdone_! I care not how soon I am there.’
“As I fell back towards the rear, where I generally marched, Hentz rode
up by me and inquired what the young Spaniard had said. I repeated
it to him. ‘Do you think he is really that troubled?’ inquired he.
‘Yes,’ said I, ‘the poor fellow seems to feel all he says.’ Without
a word, Hentz rode towards him, and reining up by him, tapped him on
the shoulder. Victorino looked fiercely up, and seemed inclined to
resent it; but Hentz, without regarding the glance, proceeded with a
mass of immensely bad Spanish, which I know not how the poor fellow
ever understood. ‘Here,’ said he, ‘you love Ana better than I do, I
know--you have known her longer, and will feel her loss more; and after
all, you would have killed the chief if you could have done it--and
you did help me save the body. Take this bunch of stuff,’ holding out
the hair, ‘and give me your hand.’ Victorino did so, and shook the
offered hand heartily. Then taking the scalp, he deposited it in his
shot-pouch, and dashing the tears from his eyes, rode off towards his
comrades like a madman. So much for the inroad of the Nabajos.”
“But what became of Victorino?” inquired I.
“He married Ana Maria after she had laid aside the luto (mourning);
and two years ago he died of the small-pox, in the Snake country. Poor
fellow--he was almost an American.”
PART II
THE PERIOD OF THE NEW FORM
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
1804–1864
For an estimate of Hawthorne as a writer of short stories see pages
12–15 of the Introduction.
THE WHITE OLD MAID
[_From “Twice-Told Tales.” The story was first published in “The New
England Magazine” for July, 1835_]
The moonbeams came through two deep and narrow windows, and showed
a spacious chamber richly furnished in an antique fashion. From one
lattice the shadow of the diamond panes was thrown upon the floor; the
ghostly light through the other slept upon the bed, falling between the
heavy silken curtains and illuminating the face of a young man. But
how quietly the slumberer lay! how pale his features! And how like a
shroud the sheet was wound about his frame! Yes, it was a corpse in its
burial-clothes.
Suddenly the fixed features seemed to move with dark emotion. Strange
fantasy! It was but the shadow of the fringed curtain waving betwixt
the dead face and the moonlight as the door of the chamber opened and a
girl stole softly to the bedside. Was there delusion in the moonbeams,
or did her gesture and her eye betray a gleam of triumph as she bent
over the pale corpse, pale as itself, and pressed her living lips to
the cold ones of the dead? As she drew back from that long kiss her
features writhed as if a proud heart were fighting with its anguish.
Again it seemed that the features of the corpse had moved responsive
to her own. Still an illusion. The silken curtains had waved a second
time betwixt the dead face and the moonlight as another fair young
girl unclosed the door and glided ghostlike to the bedside. There the
two maidens stood, both beautiful, with the pale beauty of the dead
between them. But she who had first entered was proud and stately, and
the other a soft and fragile thing.
“Away!” cried the lofty one. “Thou hadst him living; the dead is mine.”
“Thine!” returned the other, shuddering. “Well hast thou spoken. The
dead is thine.”
The proud girl started, and stared into her face with a ghastly look.
But a wild and mournful expression passed across the features of the
gentle one, and, weak and helpless, she sank down on the bed, her head
pillowed beside that of the corpse and her hair mingling with his dark
locks. A creature of hope and joy, the first draught of sorrow had
bewildered her.
“Edith!”[39] cried her rival.
Edith groaned as with a sudden compression of the heart; and removing
her cheek from the dead youth’s pillow, she stood upright, fearfully
encountering the eyes of the lofty girl.
“Wilt thou betray me?” said the latter, calmly.
“Till the dead bid me speak I will be silent,” answered Edith. “Leave
us alone together. Go and live many years, and then return and tell me
of thy life. He too will be here. Then, if thou tellest of sufferings
more than death, we will both forgive thee.”
“And what shall be the token?” asked the proud girl, as if her heart
acknowledged a meaning in these wild words.
“This lock of hair,” said Edith, lifting one of the dark, clustering
curls that lay heavily on the dead man’s brow.
The two maidens joined their hands over the bosom of the corpse, and
appointed a day and hour far, far in time to come for their next
meeting in that chamber. The statelier girl gave one deep look at the
motionless countenance and departed--yet turned again and trembled ere
she closed the door, almost believing that her dead lover frowned upon
her. And Edith, too! Was not her white form fading into the moonlight?
Scorning her own weakness, she went forth and perceived that a negro
slave was waiting in the passage with a wax-light, which he held
between her face and his own, and regarded her, as she thought, with
an ugly expression of merriment. Lifting his torch on high, the slave
lighted her down the staircase and undid the portal of the mansion. The
young clergyman of the town had just ascended the steps, and, bowing to
the lady, passed in without a word.
Years, many years, rolled on. The world seemed new again, so much
older was it grown since the night when those pale girls had clasped
their hands across the bosom of the corpse. In the interval a lonely
woman had passed from youth to extreme age, and was known by all the
town as the “Old Maid in the Winding-Sheet.” A taint of insanity had
affected her whole life, but so quiet, sad and gentle, so utterly free
from violence, that she was suffered to pursue her harmless fantasies
unmolested by the world, with whose business or pleasures she had
naught to do. She dwelt alone, and never came into the daylight, except
to follow funerals. Whenever a corpse was borne along the street, in
sunshine, rain or snow, whether a pompous train of the rich and proud
thronged after it or few and humble were the mourners, behind them came
the lonely woman in a long white garment which the people called her
shroud. She took no place among the kindred or the friends, but stood
at the door to hear the funeral prayer, and walked in the rear of the
procession as one whose earthly charge it was to haunt the house of
mourning, and be the shadow of affliction, and see that the dead were
duly buried. So long had this been her custom that the inhabitants of
the town deemed her a part of every funeral, as much as the coffin-pall
or the very corpse itself, and augured ill of the sinner’s destiny
unless the Old Maid in the Winding-Sheet came gliding like a ghost
behind. Once, it is said, she affrighted a bridal party with her pale
presence, appearing suddenly in the illuminated hall just as the
priest was uniting a false maid to a wealthy man before her lover had
been dead a year. Evil was the omen to that marriage! Sometimes she
stole forth by moonlight and visited the graves of venerable integrity,
and wedded love, and virgin innocence, and every spot where the ashes
of a kind and faithful heart were mouldering. Over the hillocks of
those favored dead would she stretch out her arms with a gesture as if
she were scattering seeds, and many believed that she brought them from
the garden of Paradise; for the graves which she had visited were green
beneath the snow and covered with sweet flowers from April to November.
Her blessing was better than a holy verse upon the tombstone. Thus wore
away her long, sad, peaceful and fantastic life till few were so old as
she, and the people of later generations wondered how the dead had ever
been buried, or mourners had endured their grief, without the Old Maid
in the Winding-Sheet.
Still years went on, and still she followed funerals and was not yet
summoned to her own festival of death. One afternoon the great street
of the town was all alive with business and bustle, though the sun
now gilded only the upper half of the church-spire, having left the
house-tops and loftiest trees in shadow. The scene was cheerful and
animated in spite of the somber shade between the high brick buildings.
Here were pompous merchants in white wigs and laced velvet, the bronzed
faces of sea-captains, the foreign garb and air of Spanish creoles,
and the disdainful port of natives of Old England, all contrasted
with the rough aspect of one or two back-settlers negociating sales
of timber from forests where axe had never sounded. Sometimes a lady
passed, swelling roundly forth in an embroidered petticoat, balancing
her steps in high-heeled shoes, and courtesying with lofty grace to the
punctilious obeisances of the gentlemen. The life of the town seemed to
have its very centre not far from an old mansion that stood somewhat
back from the pavement, surrounded by neglected grass, with a strange
air of loneliness, rather deepened than dispelled by the throng so
near it. Its site would have been suitably occupied by a magnificent
Exchange or a brick block lettered all over with various signs; or the
large house itself might have made a noble tavern with the “King’s
Arms” swinging before it, and guests in every chamber, instead of
the present solitude. But, owing to some dispute about the right of
inheritance, the mansion had been long without a tenant, decaying from
year to year and throwing the stately gloom of its shadow over the
busiest part of the town. Such was the scene, and such the time, when a
figure unlike any that have been described was observed at a distance
down the street.
“I espy a strange sail yonder,” remarked a Liverpool captain; “that
woman in the long white garment.”
The sailor seemed much struck by the object, as were several others who
at the same moment caught a glimpse of the figure that had attracted
his notice. Almost immediately the various topics of conversation gave
place to speculations in an undertone on this unwonted occurrence.
“Can there be a funeral so late this afternoon?” inquired some.
They looked for the signs of death at every door--the sexton, the
hearse, the assemblage of black-clad relatives--all that makes up the
woeful pomp of funerals. They raised their eyes, also, to the sun-gilt
spire of the church, and wondered that no clang proceeded from its
bell, which had always tolled till now when this figure appeared in the
light of day. But none had heard that a corpse was to be borne to its
home that afternoon, nor was there any token of a funeral except the
apparition of the Old Maid in the Winding-Sheet.
“What may this portend?” asked each man of his neighbor.
All smiled as they put the question, yet with a certain trouble in
their eyes, as if pestilence, or some other wide calamity, were
prognosticated by the untimely intrusion among the living of one whose
presence had always been associated with death and woe. What a comet
is to the earth was that sad woman to the town. Still she moved on,
while the hum of surprise was hushed at her approach, and the proud and
the humble stood aside that her white garment might not wave against
them. It was a long, loose robe of spotless purity. Its wearer appeared
very old, pale, emaciated and feeble, yet glided onward without the
unsteady pace of extreme age. At one point of her course a little rosy
boy burst forth from a door and ran with open arms towards the ghostly
woman, seeming to expect a kiss from her bloodless lips. She made a
slight pause, fixing her eye upon him with an expression of no earthly
sweetness, so that the child shivered and stood awe-struck rather than
affrighted while the Old Maid passed on. Perhaps her garment might have
been polluted even by an infant’s touch; perhaps her kiss would have
been death to the sweet boy within the year.
“She is but a shadow,” whispered the superstitious. “The child put
forth his arms and could not grasp her robe.”
The wonder was increased when the Old Maid passed beneath the porch
of the deserted mansion, ascended the moss-covered steps, lifted the
iron knocker and gave three raps. The people could only conjecture that
some old remembrance, troubling her bewildered brain, had impelled the
poor woman hither to visit the friends of her youth; all gone from
their home long since and forever, unless their ghosts still haunted
it--fit company for the Old Maid in the Winding-Sheet. An elderly man
approached the steps and, reverently uncovering his gray locks, essayed
to explain the matter.
“None, madam,” said he, “have dwelt in this house these fifteen years
agone--no, not since the death of old Colonel Fenwicke, whose funeral
you may remember to have followed. His heirs, being ill-agreed among
themselves, have let the mansion-house go to ruin.”
The Old Maid looked slowly round with a slight gesture of one hand
and a finger of the other upon her lip, appearing more shadow-like
than ever in the obscurity of the porch. But again she lifted the
hammer, and gave, this time, a single rap. Could it be that a footstep
was now heard coming down the staircase of the old mansion which all
conceived to have been so long untenanted? Slowly, feebly, yet heavily,
like the pace of an aged and infirm person, the step approached, more
distinct on every downward stair, till it reached the portal. The bar
fell on the inside; the door was opened. One upward glance toward the
church-spire, whence the sunshine had just faded, was the last that the
people saw of the “Old Maid in the Winding-Sheet.”
“Who undid the door?” asked many.
This question, owing to the depth of shadow beneath the porch, no one
could satisfactorily answer. Two or three aged men, while protesting
against an inference which might be drawn, affirmed that the person
within was a negro, and bore a singular resemblance to old Cæsar,
formerly a slave in the house, but freed by death some thirty years
before.
“Her summons has waked up a servant of the old family,” said one, half
seriously.
“Let us wait here,” replied another. “More guests will knock at the
door anon. But the gate of the grave-yard should be thrown open.”
Twilight had overspread the town before the crowd began to separate,
or the comments on this incident were exhausted. One after another was
wending his way homeward, when a coach--no common spectacle in those
days--drove slowly into the street. It was an old-fashioned equipage,
hanging close to the ground, with arms on the pannels, a footman
behind, and a grave, corpulent coachman seated high in front--the whole
giving an idea of solemn state and dignity. There was something awful
in the heavy rumbling of the wheels. The coach rolled down the street,
till, coming to the gateway of the deserted mansion, it drew up, and
the footman sprang to the ground.
“Whose grand coach is this?” asked a very inquisitive body.
The footman made no reply, but ascended the steps of the old house,
gave three taps with the iron hammer, and returned to open the coach
door. An old man possessed of the heraldic lore so common in that day
examined the shield of arms on the pannel.
“Azure, a lion’s head erased, between three flower de luces,” said he;
then whispered the name of the family to whom these bearings belonged.
The last inheritor of its honors was recently dead, after a long
residence amid the splendor of the British court, where his birth and
wealth had given him no mean station. “He left no child,” continued the
herald, “and these arms, being in a lozenge, betoken that the coach
appertains to his widow.”
Further disclosures, perhaps, might have been made, had not the speaker
been suddenly struck dumb by the stern eye of an ancient lady who
thrust forth her head from the coach, preparing to descend. As she
emerged the people saw that her dress was magnificent, and her figure
dignified in spite of age and infirmity--a stately ruin, but with a
look at once of pride and wretchedness. Her strong and rigid features
had an awe about them unlike that of the White Old Maid, but as of
something evil. She passed up the steps, leaning on a gold-headed cane.
The door swung open as she ascended--and the light of a torch glittered
on the embroidery of her dress and gleamed on the pillars of the porch.
After a momentary pause--a glance backwards--and then a desperate
effort--she went in. The decypherer of the coat of arms had ventured up
the lowest step, and, shrinking back immediately, pale and tremulous,
affirmed that the torch was held by the very image of old Cæsar.
“But such a hideous grin,” added he, “was never seen on the face of
mortal man, black or white! It will haunt me till my dying day.”
Meantime the coach had wheeled round, with a prodigious clatter on the
pavement, and rumbled up the street, disappearing in the twilight,
while the ear still tracked its course. Scarcely was it gone when
the people began to question whether the coach and attendants, the
ancient lady, the spectre of old Cæsar and the Old Maid herself, were
not all a strangely combined delusion with some dark purport in its
mystery. The whole town was astir, so that, instead of dispersing, the
crowd continually increased, and stood gazing up at the windows of
the mansion, now silvered by the brightening moon. The elders, glad
to indulge the narrative propensity of age, told of the long-faded
splendor of the family, the entertainments they had given and the
guests, the greatest of the land, and even titled and noble ones from
abroad, who had passed beneath that portal. These graphic reminiscences
seemed to call up the ghosts of those to whom they referred. So strong
was the impression on some of the more imaginative hearers that two
or three were seized with trembling fits at one and the same moment,
protesting that they had distinctly heard three other raps of the iron
knocker.
“Impossible!” exclaimed others. “See! The moon shines beneath the
porch, and shows every part of it, except in the narrow shade of that
pillar. There is no one there.”
“Did not the door open?” whispered one of these fanciful persons.
“Didst thou see it too?” said his companion, in a startled tone.
But the general sentiment was opposed to the idea that a third
visitant had made application at the door of the deserted house. A
few, however, adhered to this new marvel, and even declared that a red
gleam like that of a torch had shone through the great front window,
as if the negro were lighting a guest up the staircase. This, too, was
pronounced a mere fantasy. But at once the whole multitude started,
and each man beheld his own terror painted in the faces of all the rest.
“What an awful thing is this!” cried they.
A shriek, too fearfully distinct for doubt, had been heard within the
mansion, breaking forth suddenly and succeeded by a deep stillness,
as if a heart had burst in giving it utterance. The people knew not
whether to fly from the very sight of the house, or to rush trembling
in and search out the strange mystery. Amid their confusion and
affright, they were somewhat reassured by the appearance of their
clergyman, a venerable patriarch, and equally a saint, who had taught
them and their fathers the way to heaven for more than the space of an
ordinary life-time. He was a reverend figure with long white hair upon
his shoulders, a white beard upon his breast, and a back so bent over
his staff that he seemed to be looking downward continually, as if to
choose a proper grave for his weary frame. It was some time before the
good old man, being deaf and of impaired intellect, could be made to
comprehend such portions of the affair as were comprehensible at all.
But, when possessed of the facts, his energies assumed unexpected vigor.
“Verily,” said the old gentleman, “it will be fitting that I enter the
mansion-house of the worthy Colonel Fenwicke, lest any harm should have
befallen that true Christian woman whom ye call the ‘Old Maid in the
Winding-Sheet.’”
Behold, then, the venerable clergyman ascending the steps of the
mansion with a torch-bearer behind him. It was the elderly man who had
spoken to the Old Maid, and the same who had afterward explained the
shield of arms and recognized the features of the negro. Like their
predecessors, they gave three raps with the iron hammer.
“Old Cæsar cometh not,” observed the priest. “Well, I wot he no longer
doth service in this mansion.”
“Assuredly, then, it was something worse in old Cæsar’s likeness!” said
the other adventurer.
“Be it as God wills,” answered the clergyman. “See! my strength, though
it be much decayed, hath sufficed to open this heavy door. Let us enter
and pass up the staircase.”
Here occurred a singular exemplification of the dreamy state of a
very old man’s mind. As they ascended the wide flight of stairs, the
aged clergyman appeared to move with caution, occasionally standing
aside, and oftener bending his head, as it were in salutation, thus
practicing all the gestures of one who makes his way through a throng.
Reaching the head of the staircase, he looked around with sad and
solemn benignity, laid aside his staff, bared his hoary locks, and was
evidently on the point of commencing a prayer.
“Reverend Sir,” said his attendant, who conceived this a very suitable
prelude to their further search, “would it not be well that the people
join with us in prayer?”
“Well-a-day!” cried the old clergyman, staring strangely around him.
“Art thou here with me, and none other? Verily, past times were present
to me, and I deemed that I was to make a funeral prayer, as many a time
heretofore, from the head of this staircase. Of a truth, I saw the
shades of many that are gone. Yea, I have prayed at their burials, one
after another, and the Old Maid in the Winding-Sheet hath seen them to
their graves!”
Being now more thoroughly awake to their present purpose, he took his
staff and struck forcibly on the floor, till there came an echo from
each deserted chamber, but no menial to answer their summons. They
therefore walked along the passage, and again paused, opposite to the
great front window, through which was seen the crowd in the shadow and
partial moonlight of the street beneath. On their right hand was the
open door of a chamber, and a closed one on their left. The clergyman
pointed his cane to the carved oak pannel of the latter.
“Within that chamber,” observed he, “a whole life-time since, did I
sit by the death-bed of a goodly young man who, being now at the last
gasp----”
Apparently, there was some powerful excitement in the ideas which
had now flashed across his mind. He snatched the torch from his
companion’s hand, and threw open the door with such sudden violence
that the flame was extinguished, leaving them no other light than the
moonbeams, which fell through two windows into the spacious chamber. It
was sufficient to discover all that could be known. In a high-backed
oaken arm-chair, upright, with her hands clasped across her breast,
and her head thrown back, sat the “Old Maid in the Winding-Sheet.” The
stately dame had fallen on her knees with her forehead on the holy
knees of the Old Maid, one hand upon the floor and the other pressed
convulsively against her heart. It clutched a lock of hair, once sable,
now discolored with a greenish mould. As the priest and layman advanced
into the chamber, the Old Maid’s features assumed such a semblance
of shifting expression that they trusted to hear the whole mystery
explained by a single word. But it was only the shadow of a tattered
curtain waving betwixt the dead face and the moonlight.
“Both dead!” said the venerable man. “Then who shall divulge the
secret? Methinks it glimmers to and fro in my mind like the light and
shadow across the Old Maid’s face. And now ’tis gone!”
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
1807–1882
The very large proportion of narrative poetry throughout Longfellow’s
work suggests a native bent toward story. _Outre-Mer_ (begun in
parts, 1833; published entire, 1835) at once reminded his reviewers
of Irving’s _Tales of a Traveller_. The parallel is obvious; but _The
Notary of Périgueux_, slight as is its substance, is superior to
Irving’s typical form in narrative compactness.
THE NOTARY OF PÉRIGUEUX
[_From “Outre-Mer,” 1835_]
Do not trust thy body with a physician. He’ll make thy foolish
bones go without flesh in a fortnight, and thy soul walk without a
body in a se’nnight after.
SHIRLEY.
You must know, gentlemen, that there lived some years ago, in the
city of Périgueux, an honest notary public, the descendant of a very
ancient and broken-down family, and the occupant of one of those
old weather-beaten tenements which remind you of the times of your
great-grandfather. He was a man of an unoffending, quiet disposition;
the father of a family, though not the head of it--for in that family
“the hen overcrowed the cock,” and the neighbors, when they spake of
the notary, shrugged their shoulders, and exclaimed, “Poor fellow! his
spurs want sharpening.” In fine--you understand me, gentlemen--he was
henpecked.
Well, finding no peace at home, he sought it elsewhere, as was very
natural for him to do; and at length discovered a place of rest far
beyond the cares and clamors of domestic life. This was a little _café
estaminet_ a short way out of the city, whither he repaired every
evening to smoke his pipe, drink sugar-water, and play his favorite
game of domino. There he met the boon companions he most loved,
heard all the floating chitchat of the day, laughed when he was in
merry mood, found consolation when he was sad, and at all times gave
vent to his opinions without fear of being snubbed short by a flat
contradiction.
Now the notary’s bosom friend was a dealer in claret and cognac,
who lived about a league from the city, and always passed his
evenings at the _estaminet_. He was a gross, corpulent fellow, raised
from a full-blooded Gascon breed, and sired by a comic actor of
some reputation in his way. He was remarkable for nothing but his
good-humor, his love of cards, and a strong propensity to test the
quality of his own liquors by comparing them with those sold at other
places.
As evil communications corrupt good manners, the bad practices of the
wine-dealer won insensibly upon the worthy notary; and before he was
aware of it, he found himself weaned from domino and sugar-water,
and addicted to piquet and spiced wine. Indeed, it not infrequently
happened that, after a long session at the _estaminet_, the two friends
grew so urbane that they would waste a full half-hour at the door in
friendly dispute which should conduct the other home.
Though this course of life agreed well enough with the sluggish,
phlegmatic temperament of the wine-dealer, it soon began to play the
very deuce with the more sensitive organization of the notary, and
finally put his nervous system completely out of tune. He lost his
appetite, became gaunt and haggard, and could get no sleep. Legions
of blue-devils haunted him by day; and by night strange faces peeped
through his bed-curtains, and the nightmare snorted in his ear. The
worse he grew, the more he smoked and tippled; and the more he smoked
and tippled--why, as a matter of course, the worse he grew. His wife
alternately stormed, remonstrated, entreated; but all in vain. She made
the house too hot for him--he retreated to the tavern; she broke his
long-stemmed pipes upon the andirons--he substituted a short-stemmed
one, which, for safe keeping, he carried in his waistcoat-pocket.
Thus the unhappy notary ran gradually down at the heel. What with his
bad habits and his domestic grievances, he became completely hipped. He
imagined that he was going to die, and suffered in quick succession all
the diseases that ever beset mortal man. Every shooting pain was an
alarming symptom--every uneasy feeling after dinner a sure prognostic
of some mortal disease. In vain did his friends endeavor to reason, and
then to laugh him out of his strange whims; for when did ever jest or
reason cure a sick imagination? His only answer was, “Do let me alone;
I know better than you what ails me.”
Well, gentlemen, things were in this state when, one afternoon in
December, as he sat moping in his office, wrapped in an overcoat, with
a cap on his head and his feet thrust into a pair of furred slippers,
a cabriolet stopped at the door, and a loud knocking without aroused
him from his gloomy revery. It was a message from his friend the
wine-dealer, who had been suddenly attacked with a violent fever,
and, growing worse and worse, had now sent in the greatest haste
for the notary to draw up his last will and testament. The case was
urgent, and admitted neither excuse nor delay; and the notary, tying
a handkerchief round his face, and buttoning up to the chin, jumped
into the cabriolet, and suffered himself, though not without some
dismal presentiments and misgivings of heart, to be driven to the
wine-dealer’s house.
When he arrived he found everything in the greatest confusion. On
entering the house he ran against the apothecary, who was coming down
stairs, with a face as long as your arm; and a few steps farther he
met the housekeeper--for the wine-dealer was an old bachelor--running
up and down, and wringing her hands, for fear that the good man should
die without making his will. He soon reached the chamber of his sick
friend, and found him tossing about in a paroxysm of fever and calling
aloud for a draught of cold water. The notary shook his head. He
thought this a fatal symptom. For ten years back the wine-dealer had
been suffering under a species of hydrophobia, which seemed suddenly to
have left him.
When the sick man saw who stood by his bedside, he stretched out his
hand and exclaimed:
“Ah! my dear friend! have you come at last? You see it is all over with
me. You have arrived just in time to draw up that--that passport of
mine. Ah, _grand diable!_ how hot it is here! Water--water--water! Will
nobody give me a drop of cold water?”
As the case was an urgent one, the notary made no delay in getting his
papers in readiness; and in a short time the last will and testament of
the wine-dealer was drawn up in due form, the notary guiding the sick
man’s hand as he scrawled his signature at the bottom.
As the evening wore away, the wine-dealer grew worse and worse, and at
length became delirious, mingling in his incoherent ravings the phrases
of the Credo and Paternoster with the shibboleth of the dram-shop and
the card-table.
“Take care! take care! There, now--_Credo in_--pop! ting-a-ling-ling!
give me some of that. Cent-é-dize! Why, you old publican, this wine is
poisoned--I know your tricks!--_Sanctam ecclesiam Catholicam_--Well,
well, we shall see. Imbecile! to have a tierce-major and a seven
of hearts, and discard the seven! By St. Anthony, capot! You are
lurched--ha! ha! I told you so. I knew very well--there--there--don’t
interrupt me--_Carnis resurrectionem et vitam eternam!_”
With these words upon his lips the poor wine-dealer expired. Meanwhile
the notary sat cowering over the fire, aghast at the fearful scene
that was passing before him, and now and then striving to keep up his
courage by a glass of cognac. Already his fears were on the alert, and
the idea of contagion flitted to and fro through his mind. In order to
quiet these thoughts of evil import, he lighted his pipe, and began to
prepare for returning home. At that moment the apothecary turned round
to him and said:
“Dreadful sickly time, this! The disorder seems to be spreading.”
“What disorder?” exclaimed the notary, with a movement of surprise.
“Two died yesterday, and three to-day,” continued the apothecary,
without answering the question. “Very sickly time, sir--very.”
“But what disorder is it? What disease has carried off my friend here
so suddenly?”
“What disease? Why, scarlet fever, to be sure.”
“And is it contagious?”
“Certainly.”
“Then I am a dead man!” exclaimed the notary, putting his pipe into
his waistcoat-pocket, and beginning to walk up and down the room in
despair. “I am a dead man! Now don’t deceive me--don’t, will you?
What--what are the symptoms?”
“A sharp burning pain in the right side,” said the apothecary.
“Oh, what a fool I was to come here!”
In vain did the housekeeper and the apothecary strive to pacify him.
He was not a man to be reasoned with. He answered that he knew his own
constitution better than they did, and insisted upon going home without
delay. Unfortunately, the vehicle he came in had returned to the city;
and the whole neighbourhood was abed and asleep. What was to be done?
Nothing in the world but to take the apothecary’s horse, which stood
hitched at the door, patiently waiting his master’s will.
Well, gentlemen, as there was no remedy, our notary mounted this
raw-boned steed, and set forth upon his homeward journey. The night
was cold and gusty, and the wind set right in his teeth. Overhead the
leaden clouds were beating to and fro, and through them the newly-risen
moon seemed to be tossing and drifting along like a cock-boat in the
surf; now swallowed up in a huge billow of cloud, and now lifted upon
its bosom and dashed with silvery spray. The trees by the roadside
groaned with a sound of evil omen, and before him lay three mortal
miles, beset with a thousand imaginary perils. Obedient to the whip and
spur, the steed leaped forward by fits and starts, now dashing away in
a tremendous gallop, and now relaxing into a long, hard trot; while the
rider, filled with symptoms of disease and dire presentiments of death,
urged him on, as if he were fleeing before the pestilence.
In this way, by dint of whistling and shouting, and beating right and
left, one mile of the fatal three was safely passed. The apprehensions
of the notary had so far subsided that he even suffered the poor horse
to walk up-hill; but these apprehensions were suddenly revived again
with tenfold violence by a sharp pain in the right side, which seemed
to pierce him like a needle.
“It is upon me at last!” groaned the fear-stricken man. “Heaven be
merciful to me, the greatest of sinners! And must I die in a ditch,
after all? He! get up! get up!”
And away went horse and rider at full speed--hurry-scurry--up-hill
and down--panting and blowing like a whirlwind. At every leap the
pain in the rider’s side seemed to increase. At first it was a little
point like the prick of a needle--then it spread to the size of a
half-franc piece--then covered a piece as large as the palm of your
hand. It gained upon him fast. The poor man groaned aloud in agony;
faster and faster sped the horse over the frozen ground--farther and
farther spread the pain over his side. To complete the dismal picture,
the storm commenced--snow mingled with rain. But snow, and rain, and
cold were naught to him; for, though his arms and legs were frozen to
icicles, he felt it not. The fatal symptom was upon him; he was doomed
to die--not of cold, but of scarlet fever!
At length, he knew not how, more dead than alive, he reached the gate
of the city. A band of ill-bred dogs, that were serenading at a corner
of the street, seeing the notary dash by, joined in the hue and cry,
and ran barking and yelping at his heels. It was now late at night,
and only here and there a solitary lamp twinkled from an upper story.
But on went the notary, down this street and up that, till at last he
reached his own door. There was a light in his wife’s bed chamber. The
good woman came to the window, alarmed at such a knocking and howling
and clattering at her door so late at night.
“Let me in! let me in! Quick! quick!” he exclaimed, almost breathless
from terror and fatigue.
“Who are you, that come to disturb a lone woman at this hour of the
night?” cried a sharp voice from above. “Begone about your business,
and let quiet people sleep.”
“Oh, _diable, diable_! Come down and let me in! I am your husband.
Don’t you know my voice? Quick, I beseech you; for I am dying here in
the street!”
After a few moments of delay and a few more words of parley, the door
was opened, and the notary stalked into his domicil, pale and haggard
in aspect, and as stiff and straight as a ghost. Cased from head to
heel in an armor of ice, as the glare of the lamp fell upon him he
looked like a knight-errant mailed in steel. But in one place his armor
was broken. On his right side was a circular spot as large as the crown
of your hat, and about as black!
“My dear wife!” he exclaimed, with more tenderness than he had
exhibited for many years, “reach me a chair. My hours are numbered. I
am a dead man!”
Alarmed at these exclamations, his wife stripped off his overcoat.
Something fell from beneath it, and was dashed to pieces on the hearth.
It was the notary’s pipe! He placed his hand upon his side, and, lo! it
was bare to the skin! Coat, waistcoat, and linen were burnt through and
through, and there was a blister on his side as large over as your head!
The mystery was soon explained, symptom and all. The notary had put his
pipe into his pocket without knocking out the ashes! And so my story
ends.
EDGAR ALLAN POE
1809–1849
For an appreciation of Poe as a short-story writer see pages 15–23 of
the Introduction.
THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER
[_First published in Burton’s “Gentleman’s Magazine and American
Monthly Review,” September, 1839_]
Son cœur est un luth suspendu;
Sitôt qu’on le touche il rèsonne.
DE BÉRANGER.
During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn
of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens,
I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary
tract of country; and at length found myself, as the shades of the
evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher. I know
not how it was; but, with the first glimpse of the building, a sense
of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit. I say insufferable; for
the feeling was unrelieved by any of that half-pleasurable, because
poetic, sentiment, with which the mind usually receives even the
sternest natural images of the desolate or terrible. I looked upon
the scene before me--upon the mere house, and the simple landscape
features of the domain--upon the bleak walls--upon the vacant eye-like
windows--upon a few rank sedges--and upon a few white trunks of decayed
trees--with an utter depression of soul which I can compare to no
earthly sensation more properly than to the after-dream of the reveller
upon opium--the bitter lapse into every-day life--the hideous dropping
off of the veil. There was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the
heart--an unredeemed dreariness of thought which no goading of the
imagination could torture into aught of the sublime. What was it--I
paused to think--what was it that so unnerved me in the contemplation
of the House of Usher? It was a mystery all insoluble; nor could I
grapple with the shadowy fancies that crowded upon me as I pondered. I
was forced to fall back upon the unsatisfactory conclusion that while,
beyond doubt, there _are_ combinations of very simple natural objects
which have the power of thus affecting us, still the analysis of this
power lies among considerations beyond our depth. It was possible, I
reflected, that a mere different arrangement of the particulars of the
scene, of the details of the picture, would be sufficient to modify,
or perhaps to annihilate its capacity for sorrowful impression; and,
acting upon this idea, I reined my horse to the precipitous brink of a
black and lurid tarn that lay in unruffled lustre by the dwelling, and
gazed down--but with a shudder even more thrilling than before--upon
the remodelled and inverted images of the gray sedge, and the ghastly
tree-stems, and the vacant and eye-like windows.
Nevertheless, in this mansion of gloom I now proposed to myself a
sojourn of some weeks. Its proprietor, Roderick Usher, had been one
of my boon companions in boyhood; but many years had elapsed since
our last meeting. A letter, however, had lately reached me in a
distant part of the country--a letter from him--which, in its wildly
importunate nature, had admitted of no other than a personal reply.
The MS. gave evidence of nervous agitation. The writer spoke of acute
bodily illness, of a mental disorder which oppressed him, and of an
earnest desire to see me, as his best, and indeed his only personal
friend, with a view of attempting, by the cheerfulness of my society,
some alleviation of his malady. It was the manner in which all this,
and much more, was said--it was the apparent _heart_ that went with his
request--which allowed me no room for hesitation; and I accordingly
obeyed forthwith what I still considered a very singular summons.
Although, as boys, we had been even intimate associates, yet I really
knew little of my friend. His reserve had been always excessive and
habitual. I was aware, however, that his very ancient family had been
noted, time out of mind, for a peculiar sensibility of temperament,
displaying itself, through long ages, in many works of exalted art, and
manifested, of late, in repeated deeds of munificent, yet unobtrusive
charity, as well as in a passionate devotion to the intricacies,
perhaps even more than to the orthodox and easily recognizable
beauties, of musical science. I had learned, too, the very remarkable
fact that the stem of the Usher race, all time-honored as it was, had
put forth, at no period, any enduring branch; in other words, that
the entire family lay in the direct line of descent, and had always,
with very trifling and very temporary variation, so lain. It was this
deficiency, I considered, while running over in thought the perfect
keeping of the character of the premises with the accredited character
of the people, and while speculating upon the possible influence which
the one, in the long lapse of centuries, might have exercised upon
the other--it was this deficiency, perhaps, of collateral issue, and
the consequent undeviating transmission, from sire to son, of the
patrimony with the name, which had, at length, so identified the two as
to merge the original title of the estate in the quaint and equivocal
appellation of the “House of Usher”--an appellation which seemed to
include, in the minds of the peasantry who used it, both the family and
the family mansion.
I have said that the sole effect of my somewhat childish experiment
of looking down within the tarn had been to deepen the first singular
impression. There can be no doubt that the consciousness of the rapid
increase of my superstition--for why should I not so term it?--served
mainly to accelerate the increase itself. Such, I have long known, is
the paradoxical law of all sentiments having terror as a basis. And it
might have been for this reason only, that, when I again uplifted my
eyes to the house itself, from its image in the pool, there grew in my
mind a strange fancy--a fancy so ridiculous, indeed, that I but mention
it to show the vivid force of the sensations which oppressed me. I had
so worked upon my imagination as really to believe that about the whole
mansion and domain there hung an atmosphere peculiar to themselves and
their immediate vicinity--an atmosphere which had no affinity with the
air of heaven, but which had reeked up from the decayed trees, and the
gray wall, and the silent tarn--a pestilent and mystic vapor, dull,
sluggish, faintly discernible, and leaden-hued.
Shaking off from my spirit what _must_ have been a dream, I scanned
more narrowly the real aspect of the building. Its principal feature
seemed to be that of an excessive antiquity. The discoloration of ages
had been great. Minute fungi overspread the whole exterior, hanging in
a fine, tangled web-work from the eaves. Yet all this was apart from
any extraordinary dilapidation. No portion of the masonry had fallen;
and there appeared to be a wild inconsistency between its still perfect
adaptation of parts, and the crumbling condition of the individual
stones. In this there was much that reminded me of the specious
totality of old wood-work which has rotted for years in some neglected
vault, with no disturbance from the breath of the external air. Beyond
this indication of extensive decay, however, the fabric gave little
token of instability. Perhaps the eye of a scrutinizing observer might
have discovered a barely perceptible fissure, which, extending from the
roof of the building in front, made its way down the wall in a zigzag
direction, until it became lost in the sullen waters of the tarn.
Noticing these things, I rode over a short causeway to the house. A
servant in waiting took my horse, and I entered the Gothic archway of
the hall. A valet, of stealthy step, thence conducted me, in silence,
through many dark and intricate passages in my progress to the _studio_
of his master. Much that I encountered on the way contributed, I know
not how, to heighten the vague sentiments of which I have already
spoken. While the objects around me--while the carvings of the
ceilings, the sombre tapestries of the walls, the ebon blackness of
the floors, and the phantasmagoric armorial trophies which rattled
as I strode, were but matters to which, or to such as which, I had
been accustomed from my infancy--while I hesitated not to acknowledge
how familiar was all this--I still wondered to find how unfamiliar
were the fancies which ordinary images were stirring up. On one of
the staircases, I met the physician of the family. His countenance, I
thought, wore a mingled expression of low cunning and perplexity. He
accosted me with trepidation and passed on. The valet now threw open a
door and ushered me into the presence of his master.
The room in which I found myself was very large and lofty. The windows
were long, narrow, and pointed, and at so vast a distance from the
black oaken floor as to be altogether inaccessible from within. Feeble
gleams of encrimsoned light made their way through the trelliced panes,
and served to render sufficiently distinct the more prominent objects
around; the eye, however, struggled in vain to reach the remoter angles
of the chamber, or the recesses of the vaulted and fretted ceiling.
Dark draperies hung upon the walls. The general furniture was profuse,
comfortless, antique, and tattered. Many books and musical instruments
lay scattered about, but failed to give any vitality to the scene. I
felt that I breathed an atmosphere of sorrow. An air of stern, deep,
and irredeemable gloom hung over and pervaded all.
Upon my entrance, Usher arose from a sofa on which he had been lying at
full length, and greeted me with a vivacious warmth which had much in
it, I at first thought, of an overdone cordiality--of the constrained
effort of the _ennuyé_ man of the world. A glance, however, at his
countenance convinced me of his perfect sincerity. We sat down; and for
some moments, while he spoke not, I gazed upon him with a feeling half
of pity, half of awe. Surely, man had never before so terribly altered,
in so brief a period, as had Roderick Usher! It was with difficulty
that I could bring myself to admit the identity of the wan being before
me with the companion of my early boyhood. Yet the character of his
face had been at all times remarkable. A cadaverousness of complexion;
an eye large, liquid, and luminous beyond comparison; lips somewhat
thin and very pallid, but of a surpassingly beautiful curve; a nose
of a delicate Hebrew model, but with a breadth of nostril unusual in
similar formations; a finely moulded chin, speaking, in its want of
prominence, of a want of moral energy; hair of a more than web-like
softness and tenuity; these features, with an inordinate expansion
above the regions of the temple, made up altogether a countenance
not easily to be forgotten. And now in the mere exaggeration of the
prevailing character of these features, and of the expression they were
wont to convey, lay so much of change that I doubted to whom I spoke.
The now ghastly pallor of the skin, and the now miraculous lustre of
the eye, above all things startled and even awed me. The silken hair,
too, had been suffered to grow all unheeded, and as, in its wild
gossamer texture, it floated rather than fell about the face, I could
not, even with effort, connect its arabesque expression with any idea
of simple humanity.
In the manner of my friend I was at once struck with an incoherence--an
inconsistency; and I soon found this to arise from a series of feeble
and futile struggles to overcome an habitual trepidancy, an excessive
nervous agitation. For something of this nature I had indeed been
prepared, no less by his letter than by reminiscences of certain
boyish traits, and by conclusions deduced from his peculiar physical
conformation and temperament. His action was alternately vivacious and
sullen. His voice varied rapidly from a tremulous indecision (when the
animal spirits seemed utterly in abeyance) to that species of energetic
concision--that abrupt, weighty, unhurried, and hollow-sounding
enunciation--that leaden, self-balanced and perfectly modulated
guttural utterance, which may be observed in the lost drunkard, or the
irreclaimable eater of opium, during the periods of his most intense
excitement.
It was thus that he spoke of the object of my visit, of his earnest
desire to see me, and of the solace he expected me to afford him. He
entered, at some length, into what he conceived to be the nature of his
malady. It was, he said, a constitutional and a family evil, and one
for which he despaired to find a remedy--a mere nervous affection, he
immediately added, which would undoubtedly soon pass off. It displayed
itself in a host of unnatural sensations. Some of these, as he detailed
them, interested and bewildered me; although, perhaps, the terms and
the general manner of the narration had their weight. He suffered much
from a morbid acuteness of the senses. The most insipid food was alone
endurable; he could wear only garments of certain texture; the odors
of all flowers were oppressive; his eyes were tortured by even a faint
light; and there were but peculiar sounds, and these from stringed
instruments, which did not inspire him with horror.
To an anomalous species of terror I found him a bounden slave. “I
shall perish,” said he, “I _must_ perish in this deplorable folly.
Thus, thus, and not otherwise, shall I be lost. I dread the events of
the future, not in themselves, but in their results. I shudder at the
thought of any, even the most trivial, incident, which may operate upon
this intolerable agitation of soul. I have, indeed, no abhorrence of
danger, except in its absolute effect--in terror. In this unnerved--in
this pitiable condition--I feel that the period will sooner or later
arrive when I must abandon life and reason together, in some struggle
with the grim phantasm, FEAR.”
I learned, moreover, at intervals, and through broken and equivocal
hints, another singular feature of his mental condition. He was
enchained by certain superstitious impressions in regard to the
dwelling which he tenanted, and whence, for many years, he had never
ventured forth--in regard to an influence whose supposititious force
was conveyed in terms too shadowy here to be restated--an influence
which some peculiarities in the mere form and substance of his family
mansion, had, by dint of long sufferance, he said, obtained over his
spirit--an effect which the _physique_ of the gray walls and turrets,
and of the dim tarn into which they all looked down, had, at length,
brought about upon the _morale_ of his existence.
He admitted, however, although with hesitation, that much of the
peculiar gloom which thus afflicted him could be traced to a more
natural and far more palpable origin--to the severe and long-continued
illness--indeed to the evidently approaching dissolution--of a tenderly
beloved sister, his sole companion for long years, his last and only
relative on earth. “Her decease,” he said, with a bitterness which I
can never forget, “would leave him (him the hopeless and the frail)
the last of the ancient race of the Ushers.” While he spoke, the lady
Madeline (for so was she called) passed slowly through a remote portion
of the apartment, and, without having noticed my presence, disappeared.
I regarded her with an utter astonishment not unmingled with dread;[40]
and yet I found it impossible to account for such feelings. A sensation
of stupor oppressed me, as my eyes followed her retreating steps. When
a door, at length, closed upon her, my glance sought instinctively and
eagerly the countenance of the brother; but he had buried his face in
his hands, and I could only perceive that a far more than ordinary
wanness had overspread the emaciated fingers through which trickled
many passionate tears.
The disease of the lady Madeline had long baffled the skill of her
physicians. A settled apathy, a gradual wasting away of the person,
and frequent although transient affections of a partially cataleptical
character, were the unusual diagnosis. Hitherto she had steadily borne
up against the pressure of her malady, and had not betaken herself
finally to bed; but, on the closing in of the evening of my arrival
at the house, she succumbed (as her brother told me at night with
inexpressible agitation) to the prostrating power of the destroyer;
and I learned that the glimpse I had obtained of her person would thus
probably be the last I should obtain--that the lady, at least while
living, would be seen by me no more.
For several days ensuing her name was unmentioned by either Usher or
myself; and during this period I was busied in earnest endeavors to
alleviate the melancholy of my friend. We painted and read together;
or I listened, as if in a dream, to the wild improvisations of his
speaking guitar. And thus, as a closer and still closer intimacy
admitted me more unreservedly into the recesses of his spirit, the more
bitterly did I perceive the futility of all attempt at cheering a mind
from which darkness, as if an inherent positive quality, poured forth
upon all objects of the moral and physical universe, in one unceasing
radiation of gloom.
I shall ever bear about me a memory of the many solemn hours I thus
spent alone with the master of the House of Usher. Yet I should fail in
any attempt to convey an idea of the exact character of the studies,
or of the occupations in which he involved me, or led me the way. An
excited and highly distempered ideality threw a sulphurous lustre over
all. His long improvised dirges will ring forever in my ears. Among
other things, I hold painfully in mind a certain singular perversion
and amplification of the wild air of the last waltz of Von Weber.
From the paintings over which his elaborate fancy brooded, and which
grew, touch by touch, into vaguenesses at which I shuddered the more
thrillingly because I shuddered knowing not why;--from these paintings
(vivid as their images now are before me) I would in vain endeavor to
educe more than a small portion which should lie within the compass
of merely written words. By the utter simplicity, by the nakedness
of his designs, he arrested and overawed attention. If ever mortal
painted an idea, that mortal was Roderick Usher. For me at least, in
the circumstances then surrounding me, there arose out of the pure
abstractions which the hypochondriac contrived to throw upon his
canvas, an intensity of intolerable awe, no shadow of which felt I ever
yet in the contemplation of the certainly glowing yet too concrete
reveries of Fuseli.
One of the phantasmagoric conceptions of my friend, partaking not so
rigidly of the spirit of abstraction, may be shadowed forth, although
feebly, in words. A small picture presented the interior of an
immensely long and rectangular vault or tunnel, with low walls, smooth,
white, and without interruption or device. Certain accessory points
of the design served well to convey the idea that this excavation lay
at an exceeding depth below the surface of the earth. No outlet was
observed in any portion of its vast extent, and no torch, or other
artificial source of light was discernible; yet a flood of intense rays
rolled throughout, and bathed the whole in a ghastly and inappropriate
splendor.
I have just spoken of that morbid condition of the auditory nerve which
rendered all music intolerable to the sufferer, with the exception
of certain effects of stringed instruments. It was, perhaps, the
narrow limits to which he thus confined himself upon the guitar,
which gave birth, in great measure, to the fantastic character of his
performances. But the fervid _facility_ of his _impromptus_ could not
be so accounted for. They must have been, and were, in the notes, as
well as in the words of his wild fantasias (for he not unfrequently
accompanied himself with rhymed verbal improvisations), the result of
that intense mental collectedness and concentration to which I have
previously alluded as observable only in particular moments of the
highest artificial excitement. The words of one of these rhapsodies I
have easily remembered. I was, perhaps, the more forcibly impressed
with it, as he gave it, because, in the under or mystic current of
its meaning, I fancied that I perceived, and for the first time, a
full consciousness on the part of Usher, of the tottering of his lofty
reason upon her throne. The verses, which were entitled “The Haunted
Palace,” ran very nearly, if not accurately, thus:
I.
In the greenest of our valleys,
By good angels tenanted,
Once a fair and stately palace--
Radiant palace--reared its head.
In the monarch Thought’s dominion--
It stood there!
Never seraph spread a pinion
Over fabric half so fair.
II.
Banners yellow, glorious, golden,
On its roof did float and flow;
(This--all this--was in the olden
Time long ago)
And every gentle air that dallied,
In that sweet day,
Along the ramparts plumed and pallid,
A winged odor went away.
III.
Wanderers in that happy valley
Through two luminous windows saw
Spirits moving musically
To a lute’s well-tunèd law,
Round about a throne, where sitting
(Porphyrogene!)
In state his glory well befitting,
The ruler of the realm was seen.
IV.
And all with pearl and ruby glowing
Was the fair palace door,
Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing,
And sparkling evermore,
A troop of Echoes whose sweet duty
Was but to sing,
In voices of surpassing beauty,
The wit and wisdom of their king.
V.
But evil things, in robes of sorrow,
Assailed the monarch’s high estate
(Ah, let us mourn, for never morrow
Shall dawn upon him, desolate!);
And, round about his home, the glory
That blushed and bloomed
Is but a dim-remembered story
Of the old time entombed.
VI.
And travellers now within that valley,
Through the red-litten windows, see
Vast forms that move fantastically
To a discordant melody;
While, like a rapid ghastly river,
Through the pale door,
A hideous throng rush out forever,
And laugh--but smile no more.
I well remember that suggestions arising from this ballad led us into
a train of thought wherein there became manifest an opinion of Usher’s
which I mention not so much on account of its novelty (for other
men[41] I have thought thus) as on account of the pertinacity with
which he maintained it. This opinion, in its general form, was that of
the sentience of all vegetable things. But, in his disordered fancy,
the idea had assumed a more daring character, and trespassed, under
certain conditions, upon the kingdom of inorganization. I lack words
to express the full extent or the earnest _abandon_ of his persuasion.
The belief, however, was connected (as I have previously hinted) with
the gray stones of the home of his forefathers. The conditions of
the sentience had been here, he imagined, fulfilled in the method of
collocation of these stones--in the order of their arrangement, as
well as in that of the many _fungi_ which overspread them, and of the
decayed trees which stood around--above all, in the long undisturbed
endurance of this arrangement, and in its reduplication in the still
waters of the tarn. Its evidence--the evidence of the sentience--was to
be seen, he said, (and I here started as he spoke), in the gradual yet
certain condensation of an atmosphere of their own about the waters and
the walls. The result was discoverable, he added, in that silent, yet
importunate and terrible influence which for centuries had moulded the
destinies of his family, and which made _him_ what I now saw him--what
he was. Such opinions need no comment, and I will make none.
Our books--the books, which, for years, had formed no small portion of
the mental existence of the invalid--were, as might be supposed, in
strict keeping with this character of phantasm. We pored together over
such works as the _Ververt et Chartreuse_ of Gresset; the _Belphegor_
of Machiavelli; the _Heaven and Hell_ of Swedenborg; the _Subterranean
Voyage of Nicholas Klimm_ by Holberg; the _Chiromancy_ of Robert
Flud, of Jean D’Indaginé, and of De la Chambre; the _Journey into the
Blue Distance_ of Tieck; and the _City of the Sun_ of Campanella.
One favorite volume was a small octavo edition of the _Directorium
Inquisitorium_, by the Dominican Eymeric de Gironne; and there were
passages in Pomponius Mela, about the old African Satyrs and Œgipans,
over which Usher would sit dreaming for hours. His chief delight,
however, was found in the perusal of an exceedingly rare and curious
book in quarto Gothic--the manual of a forgotten church--the _Vigiliæ
Mortuorum secundum Chorum Ecclesiæ Maguntinæ_.
I could not help thinking of the wild ritual of this work, and of its
probable influence upon the hypochondriac, when, one evening, having
informed me abruptly that the lady Madeline was no more, he stated
his intention of preserving her corpse for a fortnight (previously to
its final interment) in one of the numerous vaults within the main
walls of the building. The worldly reason, however, assigned for
this singular proceeding was one which I did not feel at liberty to
dispute. The brother had been led to his resolution, so he told me, by
consideration of the unusual character of the malady of the deceased,
of certain obtrusive and eager inquiries on the part of her medical
men, and of the remote and exposed situation of the burial-ground of
the family. I will not deny that when I called to mind the sinister
countenance of the person whom I met upon the staircase, on the day of
my arrival at the house, I had no desire to oppose what I regarded as
at best but a harmless, and by no means an unnatural, precaution.
At the request of Usher, I personally aided him in the arrangements
for the temporary entombment. The body having been encoffined, we two
alone bore it to its rest. The vault in which we placed it (and which
had been so long unopened that our torches, half smothered in its
oppressive atmosphere, gave us little opportunity for investigation)
was small, damp, and entirely without means of admission for light;
lying, at great depth, immediately beneath that portion of the building
in which was my own sleeping apartment. It had been used, apparently,
in remote feudal times, for the worst purposes of a donjon-keep,
and, in later days, as a place of deposit for powder, or some other
highly combustible substance, as a portion of its floor, and the
whole interior of a long archway through which we reached it, were
carefully sheathed with copper. The door, of massive iron, had been,
also, similarly protected. Its immense weight caused an unusually sharp
grating sound, as it moved upon its hinges.
Having deposited our mournful burden upon tressels within this region
of horror, we partially turned aside the yet unscrewed lid of the
coffin, and looked upon the face of the tenant. A striking similitude
between the brother and sister now first arrested my attention; and
Usher, divining, perhaps, my thoughts, murmured out some few words from
which I learned that the deceased and himself had been twins, and that
sympathies of a scarcely intelligible nature had always existed between
them. Our glances, however, rested not long upon the dead--for we could
not regard her unawed. The disease which had thus entombed the lady in
the maturity of youth, had left, as usual in all maladies of a strictly
cataleptical character, the mockery of a faint blush upon the bosom and
the face, and that suspiciously lingering smile upon the lip which is
so terrible in death. We replaced and screwed down the lid, and, having
secured the door of iron, made our way, with toil, into the scarcely
less gloomy apartments of the upper portion of the house.
And now, some days of bitter grief having elapsed, an observable
change came over the features of the mental disorder of my friend. His
ordinary manner had vanished. His ordinary occupations were neglected
or forgotten. He roamed from chamber to chamber with hurried, unequal,
and objectless step. The pallor of his countenance had assumed, if
possible, a more ghastly hue--but the luminousness of his eye had
utterly gone out. The once occasional huskiness of his tone was heard
no more; and a tremulous quaver, as if of extreme terror, habitually
characterized his utterance. There were times, indeed, when I thought
his unceasingly agitated mind was laboring with some oppressive secret,
to divulge which he struggled for the necessary courage. At times,
again, I was obliged to resolve all into the mere inexplicable vagaries
of madness; for I beheld him gazing upon vacancy for long hours, in
an attitude of the profoundest attention, as if listening to some
imaginary sound. It was no wonder that his condition terrified--that it
infected me. I felt creeping upon me, by slow yet certain degrees, the
wild influence of his own fantastic yet impressive superstitions.
It was, especially, upon retiring to bed late in the night of the
seventh or eighth day after the placing of the lady Madeline within
the donjon, that I experienced the full power of such feelings. Sleep
came not near my couch, while the hours waned and waned away. I
struggled to reason off the nervousness which had dominion over me. I
endeavored to believe that much, if not all of what I felt, was due to
the bewildering influence of the gloomy furniture of the room--of the
dark and tattered draperies, which, tortured into motion by the breath
of a rising tempest, swayed fitfully to and fro upon the walls, and
rustled uneasily about the decorations of the bed. But my efforts were
fruitless. An irrepressible tremor gradually pervaded my frame; and, at
length, there sat upon my very heart an incubus of utterly causeless
alarm. Shaking this off with a gasp and a struggle, I uplifted myself
upon the pillows, and, peering earnestly within the intense darkness
of the chamber, harkened--I know not why, except that an instinctive
spirit prompted me--to certain low and indefinite sounds which came,
through the pauses of the storm, at long intervals, I knew not whence.
Overpowered by an intense sentiment of horror, unaccountable yet
unendurable, I threw on my clothes with haste (for I felt that I should
sleep no more during the night), and endeavored to arouse myself from
the pitiable condition into which I had fallen, by pacing rapidly to
and fro through the apartment.
I had taken but few turns in this manner, when a light step on an
adjoining staircase arrested my attention. I presently recognized it as
that of Usher. In an instant afterward he rapped, with a gentle touch,
at my door, and entered, bearing a lamp. His countenance was, as usual,
cadaverously wan--but, moreover, there was a species of mad hilarity in
his eyes--and evidently restrained hysteria in his whole demeanor. His
air appalled me--but anything was preferable to the solitude which I
had so long endured, and I even welcomed his presence as a relief.
“And you have not seen it?” he said abruptly, after having stared about
him for some moments in silence--“you have not then seen it?--but stay!
you shall.” Thus speaking, and having carefully shaded his lamp, he
hurried to one of the casements, and threw it freely open to the storm.
The impetuous fury of the entering gust nearly lifted us from our
feet. It was, indeed, a tempestuous yet sternly beautiful night, and
one wildly singular in its terror and its beauty. A whirlwind had
apparently collected its force in our vicinity; for there were frequent
and violent alterations in the direction of the wind; and the exceeding
density of the clouds (which hung so low as to press upon the turrets
of the house) did not prevent our perceiving the life-like velocity
with which they flew careering from all points against each other,
without passing away into the distance. I say that even their exceeding
density did not prevent our perceiving this--yet we had no glimpse of
the moon or stars--nor was there any flashing forth of the lightning.
But the under surfaces of the huge masses of agitated vapor, as well
as all terrestrial objects immediately around us, were glowing in the
unnatural light of a faintly luminous and distinctly visible gaseous
exhalation which hung about and enshrouded the mansion.
“You must not--you shall not behold this!” said I, shudderingly, to
Usher, as I led him, with a gentle violence, from the window to a seat.
“These appearances, which bewilder you, are merely electrical phenomena
not uncommon--or it may be that they have their ghastly origin in
the rank miasma of the tarn. Let us close this casement--the air is
chilling and dangerous to your frame. Here is one of your favorite
romances. I will read, and you shall listen;--and so we will pass away
this terrible night together.”
The antique volume which I had taken up was the _Mad Trist_ of Sir
Launcelot Canning; but I had called it a favorite of Usher’s more
in sad jest than in earnest; for, in truth, there is little in its
uncouth and unimaginative prolixity which could have had interest for
the lofty and spiritual ideality of my friend. It was, however, the
only book immediately at hand; and I indulged a vague hope that the
excitement which now agitated the hypochondriac, might find relief
(for the history of mental disorder is full of similar anomalies) even
in the extremeness of the folly which I should read. Could I have
judged, indeed, by the wild, overstrained air of vivacity with which he
harkened, or apparently harkened, to the words of the tale, I might
well have congratulated myself upon the success of my design.
I had arrived at that well-known portion of the story where Ethelred,
the hero of the _Trist_, having sought in vain for peaceable admission
into the dwelling of the hermit, proceeds to make good an entrance by
force. Here, it will be remembered, the words of the narrative run thus:
“And Ethelred, who was by nature of a doughty heart, and who was now
mighty withal, on account of the powerfulness of the wine which he
had drunken, waited no longer to hold parley with the hermit, who, in
sooth, was of an obstinate and maliceful turn; but, feeling the rain
upon his shoulders, and fearing the rising of the tempest, uplifted his
mace outright, and, with blows, made quickly room in the plankings of
the door for his gauntleted hand; and now pulling therewith sturdily,
he so cracked, and ripped, and tore all asunder, that the noise of the
dry and hollow-sounding wood alarummed and reverberated throughout the
forest.”
At the termination of this sentence I started, and for a moment paused;
for it appeared to me (although I at once concluded that my excited
fancy had deceived me)--it appeared to me that, from some very remote
portion of the mansion, there came, indistinctly, to my ears what
might have been, in its exact similarity of character, the echo (but
a stifled and dull one certainly) of the very cracking and ripping
sound which Sir Launcelot had so particularly described. It was, beyond
doubt, the coincidence alone which had arrested my attention; for,
amid the rattling of the sashes of the casements, and the ordinary
commingled noises of the still increasing storm, the sound, in itself,
had nothing, surely, which should have interested or disturbed me. I
continued the story:
“But the good champion Ethelred, now entering within the door, was sore
enraged and amazed to perceive no signal of the maliceful hermit; but,
in the stead thereof, a dragon of a scaly and prodigious demeanor, and
of a fiery tongue, which sate in guard before a palace of gold, with a
floor of silver; and upon the wall there hung a shield of shining brass
with this legend enwritten--
Who entereth herein, a conqueror hath bin;
Who slayeth the dragon, the shield he shall win;
And Ethelred uplifted his mace, and struck upon the head of the dragon,
which fell before him, and gave up his pesty breath, with a shriek so
horrid and harsh, and withal so piercing, that Ethelred had fain to
close his ears with his hands against the dreadful noise of it, the
like whereof was never before heard.”
Here again I paused abruptly, and now with a feeling of wild
amazement--for there could be no doubt whatever that, in this instance,
I did actually hear (although from what direction it proceeded I
found it impossible to say) a low and apparently distant, but harsh,
protracted, and most unusual screaming or grating sound--the exact
counterpart of what my fancy had already conjured up for the dragon’s
unnatural shriek as described by the romancer.
Oppressed, as I certainly was, upon the occurrence of this second and
most extraordinary coincidence, by a thousand conflicting sensations,
in which wonder and extreme terror were predominant, I still retained
sufficient presence of mind to avoid exciting, by any observation,
the sensitive nervousness of my companion. I was by no means certain
that he had noticed the sounds in question; although, assuredly, a
strange alteration had, during the last few minutes, taken place
in his demeanor. From a position fronting my own, he had gradually
brought round his chair, so as to sit with his face to the door of the
chamber; and thus I could but partially perceive his features, although
I saw that his lips trembled as if he were murmuring inaudibly. His
head had dropped upon his breast--yet I knew that he was not asleep,
from the wide and rigid opening of the eye as I caught a glance of it
in profile. The motion of his body, too, was at variance with this
idea--for he rocked from side to side with a gentle yet constant and
uniform sway. Having rapidly taken notice of all this, I resumed the
narrative of Sir Launcelot, which thus proceeded:
“And now the champion, having escaped from the terrible fury of the
dragon, bethinking himself of the brazen shield, and of the breaking up
of the enchantment which was upon it, removed the carcass from out of
the way before him, and approached valorously over the silver pavement
of the castle to where the shield was upon the wall; which in sooth
tarried not for his full coming, but fell down at his feet upon the
silver floor, with a mighty great and terrible ringing sound.”
No sooner had these syllables passed my lips, than--as if a shield
of brass had indeed, at the moment, fallen heavily upon a floor of
silver--I became aware of a distinct, hollow, metallic and clangorous,
yet apparently muffled reverberation. Completely unnerved, I leaped to
my feet; but the measured rocking movement of Usher was undisturbed.
I rushed to the chair in which he sat. His eyes were bent fixedly
before him, and throughout his whole countenance there reigned a stony
rigidity. But, as I placed my hand upon his shoulder, there came a
strong shudder over his whole person; a sickly smile quivered about his
lips; and I saw that he spoke in a low, hurried, and gibbering murmur,
as if unconscious of my presence. Bending closely over him, I at length
drank in the hideous import of his words.
“Not hear it?--yes, I hear it, and _have_ heard it.
Long--long--long--many minutes, many hours, many days, have I heard
it--yet I dared not--oh pity me, miserable wretch that I am!--I
dared not--I _dared_ not speak! _We have put her living in the
tomb!_ Said I not that my senses were acute? I _now_ tell you that
I heard her first feeble movements in the hollow coffin. I heard
them--many, many days ago--yet I dared not--_I dared not speak!_ And
now--to-night--Ethelred--ha! ha!--the breaking of the hermit’s door,
and the death-cry of the dragon, and the clangor of the shield!--say,
rather, the rending of her coffin, and the grating of the iron hinges
of her prison, and her struggles within the coppered archway of the
vault! Oh whither shall I fly? Will she not be here anon? Is she not
hurrying to upbraid me for my haste? Have I not heard her footstep
on the stair? Do I not distinguish that heavy and horrible beating
of her heart? Madman!”--here he sprang furiously to his feet, and
shrieked out his syllables, as if in the effort he were giving up his
soul--“_Madman! I tell you that she now stands without the door!_”
As if in the superhuman energy of his utterance there had been found
the potency of a spell--the huge antique pannels to which the speaker
pointed threw slowly back, upon the instant, their ponderous and ebony
jaws. It was the work of the rushing gust--but then without those doors
there _did_ stand the lofty and enshrouded figure of the lady Madeline
of Usher. There was blood upon her white robes, and the evidence
of some bitter struggle upon every portion of her emaciated frame.
For a moment she remained trembling and reeling to and fro upon the
threshold--then, with a low, moaning cry, fell heavily inward upon the
person of her brother, and in her violent and now final death-agonies,
bore him to the floor a corpse, and a victim to the terrors he had
anticipated.
From that chamber, and from that mansion, I fled aghast. The storm
was still abroad in all its wrath as I found myself crossing the old
causeway. Suddenly there shot along the path a wild light, and I turned
to see whence a gleam so unusual could have issued; for the vast house
and its shadows were alone behind me. The radiance was that of the
full, setting, and blood-red moon, which now shone vividly through
that once barely-discernible fissure, of which I have before spoken as
extending from the roof of the building, in a zigzag direction, to the
base. While I gazed, this fissure rapidly widened--there came a fierce
breath of the whirlwind--the entire orb of the satellite burst at
once upon my sight--my brain reeled as I saw the mighty walls rushing
asunder--there was a long tumultuous shouting sound like the voice of a
thousand waters--and the deep and dank tarn at my feet closed sullenly
and silently over the fragments of the “_House of Usher_.”
NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS
1806–1867
Town talk sums up much of Willis, both what he was and what he wrote.
He lived in the public eye; he wrote of the hour, for the hour.
Naturally, therefore, his work was dying while he was yet alive. Now he
is hardly more than a name. Of Andover and Yale what little impress he
received was soon rubbed away by a life in which the daily cultivation
of eminent society was industriously made to yield the daily crop of
journalism. Indeed, a man so quick to take every new impression was
hardly the man to bear the marks of many old ones. And of course the
happy fluency that gave him even in youth a current popularity could
dispense with that other and more deliberate merit of form. Form, since
he had no native sense of it, and could get on swimmingly without it,
he never seriously pursued. Few story-writers have spoiled so many good
plots. Not only is he chatty, digressive, episodic, but he rarely has
any clear solution and he never culminates. Such merit as _The Inlet of
Peach Blossoms_ has in this aspect is quite exceptional. Piquant, even
vivid sometimes, in sketchy description, he has no composition. This,
doubtless, is why of the hundred tales that pleased his public not one
is read by ours.
_Pencillings by the Way_ were supplied from Paris and London in
the early ’30’s to the New York _Mirror_, and in collective form
entertained both Britons and Americans. The characteristic title would
serve as well for his subsequent collections. A list is appended to the
biography in the American Men of Letters series by Professor Beers,
who has also edited a volume of selections. A New York editor for many
years, Willis touched at so many points the literary life of his time
that this biography has been made admirably significant of its main
social aspects. In fact, the life of Willis has more enduring interest
than his works.
THE INLET OF PEACH BLOSSOMS
[_From “Dashes at Life with a Free Pencil,” 1845. The story was
first published between 1840 and 1845, probably in the “New Mirror”
of New York._]
The Emperor Yuentsoong, of the dynasty Chow, was the most magnificent
of the long-descended succession of Chinese sovereigns. On his first
accession to the throne, his character was so little understood, that
a conspiracy was set on foot among the yellow-caps, or eunuchs, to
put out his eyes, and place upon the throne the rebel Szema, in whose
warlike hands, they asserted, the empire would more properly maintain
its ancient glory. The gravity and reserve which these myrmidons of
the palace had construed into stupidity and fear, soon assumed another
complexion, however. The eunuchs silently disappeared; the mandarins
and princes whom they had seduced from their allegiance were made loyal
subjects by a generous pardon; and, in a few days after the period
fixed upon for the consummation of the plot, Yuentsoong set forth in
complete armor at the head of his troops to give battle to the rebel in
the mountains.
In Chinese annals this first enterprise of the youthful Yuentsoong is
recorded with great pomp and particularity. Szema was a Tartar prince
of uncommon ability, young, like the emperor, and, during the few last
imbecile years of the old sovereign, he had gathered strength in his
rebellion, till now he was at the head of ninety thousand men, all
soldiers of repute and tried valor. The historian has, unfortunately,
dimmed the emperor’s fame to European eyes by attributing his wonderful
achievements in this expedition to his superiority in arts of magic.
As this account of his exploits is only prefatory to our tale, we
will simply give the reader an idea of the style of the historian
by translating literally a passage or two of his description of the
battle:--
“Szema now took refuge within a cleft of the mountain, and Yuentsoong,
upon his swift steed, outstripping the body-guard in his ardor, dashed
amid the paralyzed troops with poised spear, his eyes fixed only on
the rebel. There was a silence of an instant, broken only by the
rattling hoofs of the intruder; and then, with dishevelled hair and
waving sword, Szema uttered a fearful imprecation. In a moment the wind
rushed, the air blackened, and, with the suddenness of a fallen rock, a
large cloud enveloped the rebel, and innumerable men and horses issued
out of it. Wings flapped against the eyes of the emperor’s horse,
hellish noises screamed in his ears, and, completely beyond control,
the animal turned and fled back through the narrow pass, bearing his
imperial master safe into the heart of his army.
“Yuentsoong, that night, commanded some of his most expert soldiers
to scale the beetling heights of the ravine, bearing upon their backs
the blood of swine, sheep, and dogs, with other impure things, and
these they were ordered to shower upon the combatants at the sound of
the imperial clarion. On the following morning, Szema came forth again
to offer battle, with flags displayed, drums beating, and shouts of
triumph and defiance. As on the day previous, the bold emperor divided,
in his impatience, rank after rank of his own soldiery, and, followed
closely by his body-guard, drove the rebel army once more into their
fastness. Szema sat upon his war-horse as before, intrenched amid
his officers and ranks of the tallest Tartar spearmen; and, as the
emperor contended hand to hand with one of the opposing rebels, the
magic imprecation was again uttered, the air again filled with cloudy
horsemen and chariots, and the mountain shaken with discordant thunder.
Backing his willing steed, the emperor blew a long sharp note upon
his silver clarion, and, in an instant, the sun broke through the
darkness, and the air seemed filled with paper men, horses of straw,
and phantoms dissolving into smoke. Yuentsoong and Szema now stood face
to face, with only mortal aid and weapons.”
The historian goes on to record that the two armies suspended
hostilities at the command of their leaders, and that, the emperor
and his rebel subject having engaged in single combat, Yuentsoong was
victorious, and returned to his capital with the formidable enemy whose
life he had spared, riding beside him like a brother. The conqueror’s
career, for several years after this, seems to have been a series of
exploits of personal valor; and the Tartar prince shared in all his
dangers and pleasures, his inseparable friend. It was during this
period of romantic friendship that the events occurred which have made
Yuentsoong one of the idols of Chinese poetry.
By the side of a lake in a distant province of the empire, stood one
of the imperial palaces of pleasure, seldom visited, and almost in
ruins. Hither, in one of his moody periods of repose from war, came
the conqueror Yuentsoong, for the first time in years separated from
his faithful Szema. In disguise, and with only one or two attendants,
he established himself in the long silent halls of his ancestor
Tsinchemong, and with his boat upon the lake, and his spear in the
forest, seemed to find all the amusement of which his melancholy
was susceptible. On a certain day in the latter part of April, the
emperor had set his sail to a fragrant south wind, and, reclining on
the cushions of his bark, watched the shore as it softly and silently
glided past, and, the lake being entirely encircled by the imperial
forest, he felt immersed in what he believed to be the solitude of a
deserted paradise. After skirting the fringed sheet of water in this
manner for several hours, he suddenly observed that he had shot through
a streak of peach-blossoms floating from the shore, and at the same
moment he became conscious that his boat was slightly headed off by a
current setting outward. Putting up his helm, he returned to the spot,
and beneath the drooping branches of some luxuriant willows, thus
early in leaf, he discovered the mouth of an inlet, which, but for the
floating blossoms it brought to the lake, would have escaped the notice
of the closest observer. The emperor now lowered his sail, unshipped
the slender mast, and betook him to the oars; and, as the current
was gentle, and the inlet wider within the mouth, he sped rapidly on
through what appeared to be but a lovely and luxuriant vale of the
forest. Still, those blushing betrayers of some flowering spot beyond
extended like a rosy clew before him; and with impulse of muscles
swelled and indurated in warlike exercise, the swift keel divided the
besprent mirror winding temptingly onward, and, for a long hour, the
royal oarsman untiringly threaded this sweet vein of the wilderness.
Resting a moment on his oars while the slender bark still kept her way,
he turned his head toward what seemed to be an opening in the forest on
the left, and in the same instant the boat ran head on, to the shore,
the inlet at this point almost doubling on its course. Beyond, by
the humming of bees and the singing of birds, there should be a spot
more open than the tangled wilderness he had passed; and, disengaging
his prow from the alders, he shoved the boat again into the stream,
and pulled round a high rock, by which the inlet seemed to have been
compelled to curve its channel. The edge of a bright green meadow now
stole into the perspective, and, still widening with his approach,
disclosed a slightly rising terrace clustered with shrubs, and studded
here and there with vases; and farther on, upon the same side of the
stream, a skirting edge of peach-trees loaded with the gay blossoms
which had guided him thither.
Astonished at these signs of habitation in what was well understood to
be a privileged wilderness, Yuentsoong kept his boat in mid-stream, and
with his eyes vigilantly on the alert, slowly made headway against the
current. A few strokes with his oars, however, traced another curve of
the inlet, and brought into view a grove of ancient trees scattered
over a gently ascending lawn, beyond which, hidden from the river
till now by the projecting shoulder of a mound, lay a small pavilion
with gilded pillars glittering like fairy work in the sun. The emperor
fastened his boat to a tree leaning over the water, and with his short
spear in his hand, bounded upon the shore, and took his way toward
the shining structure, his heart beating with a feeling of wonder and
interest altogether new. On a nearer approach, the bases of the pillars
seemed decayed by time, and the gilding weather-stained and tarnished;
but the trellised porticoes on the southern aspect were laden with
flowering shrubs in vases of porcelain, and caged birds sang between
the pointed arches, and there were manifest signs of luxurious taste,
elegance, and care.
A moment with an indefinable timidity the emperor paused before
stepping from the greensward upon the marble floor of the pavilion, and
in that moment a curtain was withdrawn from the door, and a female,
with step suddenly arrested by the sight of the stranger, stood
motionless before him. Ravished with her extraordinary beauty, and
awe-struck with the suddenness of the apparition and the novelty of the
adventure, the emperor’s tongue cleaved to his mouth, and ere he could
summon resolution, even for a gesture of courtesy, the fair creature
had fled within, and the curtain closed the entrance as before.
Wishing to recover his composure, so strangely troubled, and taking
it for granted that some other inmate of the house would soon appear,
Yuentsoong turned his steps aside to the grove; and with his head
bowed, and his spear in the hollow of his arm, tried to recall more
vividly the features of the vision he had seen. He had walked but a few
paces when there came toward him from the upper skirt of the grove, a
man of unusual stature and erectness, with white hair unbraided on his
shoulders, and every sign of age except infirmity of step and mien. The
emperor’s habitual dignity had now rallied, and on his first salutation
the countenance of the old man softened, and he quickened his pace to
meet and give him welcome.
“You are noble?” he said with confident inquiry.
Yuentsoong colored slightly.
“I am,” he replied, “Lew-melin, a prince of the empire.”
“And by what accident here?”
Yuentsoong explained the clew of the peach-blossoms, and represented
himself as exiled for a time to the deserted palace upon the lakes.
“I have a daughter,” said the old man abruptly, “who has never looked
on human face save mine.”
“Pardon me,” replied his visitor, “I have thoughtlessly intruded on her
sight, and a face more heavenly fair”--
The emperor hesitated, but the old man smiled encouragingly.
“It is time,” he said, “that I should provide a younger defender
for my bright Teh-leen, and Heaven has sent you in the season of
peach-blossoms with provident kindness.[42] You have frankly revealed
to me your name and rank. Before I offer you the hospitality of my
roof, I must tell you mine. I am Choo-tseen, the outlaw, once of your
own rank, and the general of the Celestial army.”
The emperor started, remembering that this celebrated rebel was the
terror of his father’s throne.
“You have heard my history,” the old man continued. “I had been,
before my rebellion, in charge of the imperial palace on the lake.
Anticipating an evil day, I secretly prepared this retreat for my
family; and when my soldiers deserted me at the battle of Ke-chow, and
a price was set upon my head, hither I fled with my women and children;
and the last alive is my beautiful Teh-leen. With this brief outline
of my life, you are at liberty to leave me as you came, or to enter my
house on the condition that you become the protector of my child.”
The emperor eagerly turned toward the pavilion, and, with a step as
light as his own, the erect and stately outlaw hastened to lift the
curtain before him. Leaving his guest for a moment in the outer
apartment, he entered to an inner chamber in search of his daughter,
whom he brought, panting with fear, and blushing with surprise and
delight, to her future lover and protector. A portion of an historical
tale so delicate as the description of the heroine is not work for
imitators, however, and we must copy strictly the portrait of the
matchless Teh-leen, as drawn by Le-pih, the Anacreon of Chinese poetry
and the contemporary and favorite of Yuentsoong.
“Teh-leen was born while the morning star shone upon the bosom of her
mother. Her eye was like the unblemished blue lily, and its light
like the white gem unfractured. The plum-blossom is most fragrant
when the cold has penetrated its stem, and the mother of Teh-leen had
known sorrow. The head of her child drooped in thought, like a violet
overladen with dew. Bewildering was Teh-leen. Her mouth’s corners were
dimpled, yet pensive. The arch of her brows was like the vein in the
tulip’s heart, and the lashes shaded the blushes on her cheek. With the
delicacy of a pale rose, her complexion put to shame the floating light
of day. Her waist, like a thread in fineness, seemed ready to break,
yet was it straight and erect, and feared not the fanning breeze; and
her shadowy grace was as difficult to delineate as the form of the
white bird rising from the ground by moonlight. The natural gloss of
her hair resembled the uncertain sheen of calm water, yet without the
false aid of unguents. The native intelligence of her mind seemed to
have gained strength by retirement; and he who beheld her thought not
of her as human. Of rare beauty, of rarer intellect, was Teh-leen, and
her heart responded to the poet’s lute.”
We have not space, nor could we, without copying directly from the
admired Le-pih, venture to describe the bringing of Teh-leen to court,
and her surprise at finding herself the favorite of the emperor. It
is a romantic circumstance, besides, which has had its parallels in
other countries. But the sad sequel to the loves of poor Teh-leen is
but recorded in the cold page of history; and if the poet, who wound
up the climax of her perfections with her susceptibility to his lute,
embalmed her sorrows in verse, he was probably too politic to bring it
ever to light. Pass we to these neglected and unadorned passages of her
history.
Yuentsoong’s nature was passionately devoted and confiding; and, like
two brothers with one favorite sister, lived together Teh-leen, Szema,
and the emperor. The Tartar prince, if his heart knew a mistress
before the arrival of Teh-leen at the palace, owned afterward no
other than her; and, fearless of check or suspicion from the noble
confidence and generous friendship of Yuentsoong, he seemed to live
but for her service, and to have neither energies nor ambition except
for the winning of her smiles. Szema was of great personal beauty,
frank when it did not serve him to be wily, bold in his pleasures,
and of manners almost femininely soft and voluptuous. He was renowned
as a soldier, and, for Teh-leen, he became a poet and master of the
lute; and, like all men formed for ensnaring the heart of women, he
seemed to forget himself in the absorbing devotion of his idolatry.
His friend the emperor was of another mould. Yuentsoong’s heart had
three chambers,--love, friendship, and glory. Teh-leen was but a third
in his existence, yet he loved her,--the sequel will show how well.
In person, he was less beautiful than majestic, of large stature,
and with a brow and lip naturally stern and lofty. He seldom smiled,
even upon Teh-leen, whom he would watch for hours in pensive and
absorbed delight; but his smile, when it did awake, broke over his sad
countenance like morning. All men loved and honored Yuentsoong; and all
men, except only the emperor, looked on Szema with antipathy. To such
natures as the former, women give all honor and approbation; but, for
such as the latter, they reserve their weakness!
Wrapt up in his friend and mistress, and reserved in his intercourse
with his counsellors, Yuentsoong knew not that, throughout the imperial
city, Szema was called “the _kieu_,” or robber-bird, and his fair
Teh-leen openly charged with dishonor. Going out alone to hunt, as
was his custom, and having left his signet with Szema, to pass and
repass through the private apartments at his pleasure, his horse fell
with him unaccountably in the open field. Somewhat superstitious, and
remembering that good spirits sometimes “knit the grass” when other
obstacles fail to bar our way into danger, the emperor drew rein,
and returned to his palace. It was an hour after noon, and, having
dismissed his attendants at the city gate, he entered by a postern to
the imperial garden, and bethought himself of the concealed couch in
a cool grot by a fountain (a favorite retreat, sacred to himself and
Teh-leen), where he fancied it would be refreshing to sleep away the
sultriness of the remaining hours till evening. Sitting down by the
side of the murmuring fount, he bathed his feet, and left his slippers
on the lip of the basin to be unencumbered in his repose within, and
so, with unechoing step, entered the resounding grotto. Alas! there
slumbered the faithless friend with the guilty Teh-leen upon his bosom!
Grief struck through the noble heart of the emperor like a sword in
cold blood. With a word he could consign to torture and death the
robber of his honor, but there was agony in his bosom deeper than
revenge. He turned silently away, recalling his horse and huntsmen,
and, outstripping all, plunged on through the forest till night
gathered around him.
Yuentsoong had been absent many days from his capital, and his subjects
were murmuring their fears for his safety, when a messenger arrived to
the counsellors informing them of the appointment of the captive Tartar
prince to the government of the province of Szechuen, the second honor
of the Celestial empire. A private order accompanied the announcement,
commanding the immediate departure of Szema for the scene of his new
authority. Inexplicable as was this riddle to the multitude, there were
those who read it truly by their knowledge of the magnanimous soul of
the emperor; and among these was the crafty object of his generosity.
Losing no time, he set forward with great pomp for Szechuen, and in
their joy to see him no more in the palace, the slighted princes of
the empire forgave his unmerited advancement. Yuentsoong returned to
his capital; but to the terror of his counsellors and people, his hair
was blanched white as the head of an old man! He was pale as well, but
he was cheerful and kind beyond his wont, and to Teh-leen untiring in
pensive and humble attentions. He pleaded only impaired health and
restless slumbers as an apology for nights of solitude. Once Teh-leen
penetrated to his lonely chamber, but by the dim night lamp she saw
that the scroll over the window[43] was changed, and instead of the
stimulus to glory which formerly hung in golden letters before his
eyes, there was a sentence written tremblingly in black:--
“The close wing of love covers the death-throb of honor.”
Six months from this period the capital was thrown into a tumult with
the intelligence that the province of Szechuen was in rebellion, and
Szema at the head of a numerous army on his way to seize the throne of
Yuentsoong. This last sting betrayed the serpent even to the forgiving
emperor, and tearing the reptile at last from his heart, he entered
with the spirit of other times into the warlike preparations. The
imperial army was in a few days on its march, and at Keo-yang the
opposing forces met and prepared for encounter.
With a dread of the popular feeling toward Teh-leen, Yuentsoong had
commanded for her a close litter, and she was borne after the imperial
standard in the centre of the army. On the eve before the battle, ere
the watch-fires were lit, the emperor came to her tent, set apart from
his own, and with the delicate care and kind gentleness from which
he never varied, inquired how her wants were supplied, and bade her
thus early farewell for the night; his own custom of passing among
his soldiers on the evening previous to an engagement, promising to
interfere with what was usually his last duty before retiring to his
couch. Teh-leen on this occasion seemed moved by some irrepressible
emotion, and as he rose to depart, she fell forward upon her face, and
bathed his feet with her tears. Attributing it to one of those excesses
of feeling to which all, but especially hearts ill at ease, are liable,
the noble monarch gently raised her, and with repeated efforts at
re-assurance, committed her to the hands of her women. His own heart
beat far from tranquilly, for, in the excess of his pity for her grief
he had unguardedly called her by one of the sweet names of their early
days of love,--strange word now upon his lip,--and it brought back,
spite of memory and truth, happiness that would not be forgotten!
It was past midnight, and the moon was riding high in heaven, when the
emperor, returning between the lengthening watch-fires, sought the
small lamp which, suspended like a star above his own tent, guided
him back from the irregular mazes of the camp. Paled by the intense
radiance of the moonlight, the small globe of alabaster at length
became apparent to his weary eye, and with one glance at the peaceful
beauty of the heavens, he parted the curtained door beneath it, and
stood within. The Chinese historian asserts that a bird, from whose
wing Teh-leen had once plucked an arrow, restoring it to liberty and
life, in grateful attachment to her destiny, removed the lamp from the
imperial tent, and suspended it over hers. The emperor stood beside
her couch. Startled at his inadvertent error, he turned to retire;
but the lifted curtain let in a flood of moonlight upon the sleeping
features of Teh-leen, and like dewdrops the undried tears glistened in
her silken lashes. A lamp burned faintly in the inner apartment of the
tent, and her attendants slept soundly. His soft heart gave way. Taking
up the lamp, he held it over his beautiful mistress, and once more
gazed passionately and unrestrainedly on her unparalleled beauty. The
past--the early past--was alone before him. He forgave her,--there, as
she slept, unconscious of the throbbing of his injured but noble heart
so close beside her,--he forgave her in the long silent abysses of his
soul! Unwilling to wake her from her tranquil slumber, but promising to
himself, from that hour, such sweets of confiding love as had well-nigh
been lost to him forever, he imprinted one kiss upon the parted lips of
Teh-leen, and sought his couch for slumber.
Ere daybreak the emperor was aroused by one of his attendants with news
too important for delay. Szema, the rebel, had been arrested in the
imperial camp, disguised, and on his way back to his own forces; and
like wildfire the information had spread among the soldiery, who, in
a state of mutinous excitement, were with difficulty restrained from
rushing upon the tent of Teh-leen. At the door of his tent, Yuentsoong
found messengers from the alarmed princes and officers of the different
commands, imploring immediate aid and the imperial presence to allay
the excitement; and while the emperor prepared to mount his horse, the
guard arrived with the Tartar prince, ignominiously tied, and bearing
marks of rough usage from his indignant captors.
“Loose him!” cried the emperor, in a voice of thunder.
The cords were severed, and with a glance whose ferocity expressed
no thanks, Szema reared himself up to his fullest height, and looked
scornfully around him. Daylight had now broke, and as the group stood
upon an eminence in sight of the whole army, shouts began to ascend,
and the armed multitude, breaking through all restraint, rolled in
toward the centre. Attracted by the commotion, Yuentsoong turned to
give some orders to those near him, when Szema suddenly sprang upon an
officer of the guard, wrenched his drawn sword from his grasp, and in
an instant was lost to sight in the tent of Teh-leen. A sharp scream,
a second of thought, and forth again rushed the desperate murderer,
with his sword flinging drops of blood, and ere a foot stirred in the
paralyzed group, the avenging cimeter of Yuentsoong had cleft him to
the chin.
A hush, as if the whole army was struck dumb by a bolt from heaven,
followed this rapid tragedy. Dropping the polluted sword from his hand,
the emperor, with uncertain step, and the pallor of death upon his
countenance, entered the fatal tent.
He came no more forth that day. The army was marshalled by the princes,
and the rebels were routed with great slaughter; but Yuentsoong never
more wielded sword. “He pined to death,” says the historian, “with the
wane of the same moon that shone upon the forgiveness of Teh-leen.”
CAROLINE MATILDA STANSBURY KIRKLAND
1801–1864
Mrs. Kirkland was recognised as one of the New York literary set during
the flourishing of Willis. Her marriage to Professor William Kirkland
(1827) took her to Central New York, and in 1839 to Michigan frontier.
The emigration produced immediately _A New Home--Who’ll Follow_ (New
York, 1839). “Miss Mitford’s charming sketches of village life,” she
says in her preface, “suggested the form.” It is the best of her books,
not only in its distinct historical value as a document of frontier
life, but also in its vivacity and keen intelligence of style. Of
structure there is very little, a mere series of descriptions, with
an occasional sketch in narrative. Returning to New York in 1842, she
opened a school for girls, wrote for the magazines, and published, as
a sequel to her first book, _Forest Life_ (New York and Boston, 1842).
Her tales, collected under the title _Western Clearings_ (New York,
1846), show the same qualities as her descriptions--racy dialect,
dashes of penetrative characterisation, quick suggestion of manners;
but their narrative consistency is not usually strong enough to hold
interest. She returned to her first form in _Holidays Abroad_ (1849).
After that the titles of her books suggest hack-work. Meantime Mr.
Kirkland had won his place as an editor. Poe included them both, the
husband perfunctorily, the wife cordially, among his _Literati_.
THE BEE-TREE
[_From “Western Clearings” 1846, a collection composed both of
contributions to magazines and annuals and of new matter. The
reprint below omits an explanatory introduction and an episodic
love-story which, besides being feeble, is rendered quite
superfluous by the dénouement._]
It was on one of the lovely mornings of our ever lovely autumn, so
early that the sun had scarcely touched the tops of the still verdant
forest, that Silas Ashburn and his eldest son sallied forth for a
day’s chopping on the newly-purchased land of a rich settler, who had
been but a few months among us. The tall form of the father, lean
and gaunt as the very image of Famine, derived little grace from the
rags which streamed from the elbows of his almost sleeveless coat, or
flapped round the tops of his heavy boots, as he strode across the long
causeway that formed the communication from his house to the dry land.
Poor Joe’s costume showed, if possible, a still greater need of the
aid of that useful implement, the needle. His mother is one who thinks
little of the ancient proverb that commends the stitch in time; and the
clothing under her care sometimes falls in pieces, seam by seam. For
want of this occasional aid is rendered more especially necessary by
the slightness of the original sewing; so that the brisk breeze of the
morning gave the poor boy no faint resemblance to a tall young aspen,
“With all its leaves fast fluttering, all at once.”
The little conversation which passed between the father and son was
such as necessarily makes up much of the talk of the poor.
“If we hadn’t had sich bad luck this summer,” said Mr. Ashburn, “losing
that heifer, and the pony, and them three hogs,--all in that plaguy
spring-hole, too,--I thought to have bought that timbered forty of
Dean. It would have squared out my farm jist about right.”
“The pony didn’t die in the spring-hole, father,” said Joe.
“No, he did not, but he got his death there, for all. He never stopped
shiverin’ from the time he fell in. _You_ thought he had the agur, but
I know’d well enough what ailded him; but I wasn’t agoin’ to let Dean
know, because he’d ha’ thought himself so blam’d cunning, after all
he’d said to me about that spring-hole. If the agur could kill, Joe,
we’d all ha’ been dead long ago.”
Joe sighed,--a sigh of assent. They walked on musingly.
“This is going to be a good job of Keene’s,” continued Mr. Ashburn,
turning to a brighter theme, as they crossed the road and struck into
the “timbered land,” on their way to the scene of the day’s operations.
“He has bought three eighties, all lying close together, and he’ll
want as much as one forty cleared right off; and I’ve a good notion
to take the fencin’ of it as well as the choppin’. He’s got plenty of
money, and they say he don’t shave quite so close as some. But I tell
you, Joe, if I do take the job, you must turn to like a catamount, for
I ain’t a-going to make a nigger o’ myself, and let my children do
nothing but eat.”
“Well, father,” responded Joe, whose pale face gave token of any thing
but high living, “I’ll do what I can; but you know I never work two
days at choppin’ but what I have the agur like sixty,--and a feller
can’t work when he’s got the agur.”
“Not while the fit’s on, to be sure,” said the father, “but I’ve worked
many an afternoon after my fit was over, when my head felt as big as a
half-bushel, and my hands would ha’ sizzed if I had put ’em in water.
Poor folks has got to work--but Joe! if there isn’t bees, by golley! I
wonder if anybody’s been a baitin’ for ’em? Stop! hush! watch which way
they go!”
And with breathless interest--forgetful of all troubles, past, present,
and future--they paused to observe the capricious wheelings and
flittings of the little cluster, as they tried every flower on which
the sun shone, or returned again and again to such as suited best their
discriminating taste. At length, after a weary while, one suddenly rose
into the air with a loud whizz, and after balancing a moment on a level
with the tree-tops, darted off, like a well-sent arrow, toward the
east, followed instantly by the whole busy company, till not a loiterer
remained.
“Well! if this isn’t luck!” exclaimed Ashburn, exultingly; “they make
right for Keene’s land! We’ll have ’em! go ahead, Joe, and keep your
eye on ’em!”
Joe obeyed so well in both points that he not only outran his father,
but very soon turned a summerset over a gnarled root or _grub_ which
lay in his path. This _faux pas_ nearly demolished one side of his
face, and what remained of his jacket sleeve, while his father, not
quite so heedless, escaped falling, but tore his boot almost off with
what he called “a contwisted stub of the toe.”
But these were trifling inconveniences, and only taught them to use a
little more caution in their eagerness. They followed on, unweariedly;
crossed several fences, and threaded much of Mr. Keene’s tract of
forest-land, scanning with practised eye every decayed tree, whether
standing or prostrate, until at length, in the side of a gigantic but
leafless oak, they espied, some forty feet from the ground, the “sweet
home” of the immense swarm whose scouts had betrayed their hiding-place.
“The Indians have been here;” said Ashburn; “you see they’ve felled
this saplin’ agin the bee-tree, so as they could climb up to the hole;
but the red devils have been disturbed afore they had time to dig it
out. If they’d had axes to cut down the big tree, they wouldn’t have
left a smitchin o’ honey, they’re such tarnal thieves!”
Mr. Ashburn’s ideas of morality were much shocked at the thought of the
dishonesty of the Indians, who, as is well known, have no rights of any
kind; but considering himself as first finder, the lawful proprietor
of this much-coveted treasure, gained too without the trouble of a
protracted search, or the usual amount of baiting, and burning of
honeycombs, he lost no time in taking possession after the established
mode.
To cut his initials with his axe on the trunk of the bee-tree, and
to make _blazes_ on several of the trees he had passed, detained him
but a few minutes; and with many a cautious noting of the surrounding
localities, and many a charge to Joe “not to say nothing to nobody,”
Silas turned his steps homeward, musing on the important fact that
he had had good luck for once, and planning important business quite
foreign to the day’s chopping.
Now it so happened that Mr. Keene, who is a restless old gentleman,
and, moreover, quite green in the dignity of a land-holder, thought
proper to turn his horse’s head, for this particular morning ride,
directly towards these same “three eighties,” on which he had engaged
Ashburn and his son to commence the important work of clearing. Mr.
Keene is low of stature, rather globular in contour, and exceedingly
parrot-nosed; wearing, moreover, a face red enough to lead one to
suppose he had made his money as a dealer in claret; but, in truth,
one of the kindest of men, in spite of a little quickness of temper.
He is profoundly versed in the art and mystery of store-keeping, and
as profoundly ignorant of all that must sooner or later be learned by
every resident land-owner of the western country.
Thus much being premised, we shall hardly wonder that our good old
friend felt exceedingly aggrieved at meeting Silas Ashburn and the
“lang-legged chiel” Joe, (who has grown longer with every shake of
ague,) on the way _from_ his tract, instead of _to_ it.
“What in the world’s the matter now!” began Mr. Keene, rather testily.
“Are you never going to begin that work?”
“I don’t know but I shall;” was the cool reply of Ashburn; “I can’t
begin it to-day, though.”
“And why not, pray, when I’ve been so long waiting?”
“Because, I’ve got something else that must be done first. You don’t
think your work is all the work there is in the world, do you?”
Mr. Keene was almost too angry to reply, but he made an effort to say,
“When am I to expect you, then?”
“Why, I guess we’ll come on in a day or two, and then I’ll bring both
the boys.”
So saying, and not dreaming of having been guilty of an incivility, Mr.
Ashburn passed on, intent only on his bee-tree.
Mr. Keene could not help looking after the ragged pair for a moment,
and he muttered angrily as he turned away, “Aye! pride and beggary go
together in this confounded new country! You feel very independent, no
doubt, but I’ll try if I can’t find somebody that wants money.”
And Mr. Keene’s pony, as if sympathizing with his master’s vexation,
started off at a sharp, passionate trot, which he has learned, no
doubt, under the habitual influence of the spicy temper of his rider.
To find labourers who wanted money, or who would own that they wanted
it, was at that time no easy task. Our poorer neighbours have been so
little accustomed to value household comforts, that the opportunity
to obtain them presents but feeble incitement to continuous industry.
However, it happened in this case that Mr. Keene’s star was in the
ascendant, and the woods resounded, ere long, under the sturdy strokes
of several choppers.
* * * * *
The Ashburns, in the mean time, set themselves busily at work to make
due preparations for the expedition which they had planned for the
following night. They felt, as does every one who finds a bee-tree
in this region, that the prize was their own--that nobody else had
the slightest claim to its rich stores; yet the gathering in of the
spoils was to be performed, according to the invariable custom where
the country is much settled, in the silence of night, and with every
precaution of secrecy. This seems inconsistent, yet such is the fact.
The remainder of the “lucky” day and the whole of the succeeding one
passed in scooping troughs for the reception of the honey,--tedious
work at best, but unusually so in this instance, because several of the
family were prostrate with the ague. Ashburn’s anxiety lest some of his
customary bad luck should intervene between discovery and possession,
made him more impatient and harsh than usual; and the interior of
that comfortless cabin would have presented to a chance visitor, who
knew not of the golden hopes which cheered its inmates, an aspect of
unmitigated wretchedness. Mrs. Ashburn sat almost in the fire, with a
tattered hood on her head and the relics of a bed-quilt wrapped about
her person; while the emaciated limbs of the baby on her lap,--two
years old, yet unweaned,--seemed almost to reach the floor, so
preternaturally were they lengthened by the stretches of a four months’
ague. Two of the boys lay in the trundle-bed, which was drawn as near
to the fire as possible; and every spare article of clothing that the
house afforded was thrown over them, in the vain attempt to warm their
shivering frames. “Stop your whimperin’, can’t ye!” said Ashburn, as he
hewed away with hatchet and jack-knife, “you’ll be hot enough before
long.” And when the fever came his words were more than verified.
Two nights had passed before the preparations were completed. Ashburn
and such of his boys as could work had laboured indefatigably at the
troughs; and Mrs. Ashburn had thrown away the milk, and the few other
stores which cumbered her small supply of household utensils, to free
as many as possible for the grand occasion. This third day had been
“well day” to most of the invalids, and after the moon had risen to
light them through the dense wood, the family set off, in high spirits,
on their long, dewy walk. They had passed the causeway and were turning
from the highway into the skirts of the forest, when they were accosted
by a stranger, a young man in a hunter’s dress, evidently a traveller,
and one who knew nothing of the place or its inhabitants, as Mr.
Ashburn ascertained, to his entire satisfaction, by the usual number
of queries. The stranger, a handsome youth of one or two and twenty,
had that frank, joyous air which takes so well with us Wolverines; and
after he had fully satisfied our bee-hunter’s curiosity, he seemed
disposed to ask some questions in his turn. One of the first of these
related to the moving cause of the procession and their voluminous
display of _containers_.
“Why, we’re goin’ straight to a bee-tree that I lit upon two or three
days ago, and if you’ve a mind to, you may go ’long, and welcome. It’s
a real peeler, I tell ye! There’s a hundred and fifty weight of honey
in it, if there’s a pound.”
The young traveller waited no second invitation. His light knapsack
being but small incumbrance, he took upon himself the weight of several
troughs that seemed too heavy for the weaker members of the expedition.
They walked on at a rapid and steady pace for a good half hour, over
paths that were none of the smoothest, and only here and there lighted
by the moonbeams. The mother and children were but ill fitted for the
exertion, but Aladdin, on his midnight way to the wondrous vault of
treasure, would as soon have thought of complaining of fatigue.
Who then shall describe the astonishment, the almost breathless rage
of Silas Ashburn,--the bitter disappointment of the rest,--when they
found, instead of the bee-tree, a great gap in the dense forest, and
the bright moon shining on the shattered fragments of the immense oak
that had contained their prize? The poor children, fainting with toil
now that the stimulus was gone, threw themselves on the ground; and
Mrs. Ashburn, seating her wasted form on a huge branch, burst into
tears.
“It’s all one!” exclaimed Ashburn, when at length he could find words;
“it’s all alike! this is just my luck! It ain’t none of my neighbour’s
work, though! They know better than to be so mean! It’s the rich! Them
that begrudges the poor man the breath of life!” And he cursed bitterly
and with clenched teeth, whoever had robbed him of his right.
“Don’t cry, Betsey,” he continued; “let’s go home. I’ll find out who
has done this, and I’ll let ’em know there’s law for the poor man as
well as the rich. Come along, young ’uns, and stop your blubberin’, and
let them splinters alone!” The poor little things were trying to gather
up some of the fragments to which the honey still adhered, but their
father was too angry to be kind.
“Was the tree on your own land?” now inquired the young stranger, who
had stood by in sympathizing silence during this scene.
“No! but that don’t make any difference. The man that found it first,
and marked it, had a right to it afore the President of the United
States, and that I’ll let ’em know, if it costs me my farm. It’s on
old Keene’s land, and I shouldn’t wonder if the old miser had done it
himself,--but I’ll let him know what’s the law in Michigan!”
“Mr. Keene a miser!” exclaimed the young stranger, rather hastily.
“Why, what do _you_ know about him?”
“O! nothing!--that is, nothing very particular--but I have heard him
well spoken of. What I was going to say was, that I fear you will not
find the law able to do anything for you. If the tree was on another
person’s property--”
“Property! that’s just so much as you know about it!” replied Ashburn,
angrily. “I tell ye I know the law well enough, and I know the honey
was mine--and old Keene shall know it too, if he’s the man that stole
it.”
The stranger politely forbore further reply, and the whole party walked
on in sad silence till they reached the village road, when the young
stranger left them with a kindly “good night!”
* * * * *
It was soon after an early breakfast on the morning which succeeded
poor Ashburn’s disappointment, that Mr. Keene, attended by his lovely
orphan niece, Clarissa Bensley, was engaged in his little court-yard,
tending with paternal care the brilliant array of autumnal flowers
which graced its narrow limits. Beds in size and shape nearly
resembling patty-pans, were filled to overflowing with dahlias,
china-asters and marigolds, while the walks which surrounded them,
daily “swept with a woman’s neatness,” set off to the best advantage
these resplendent children of Flora. A vine-hung porch that opened upon
the miniature Paradise was lined with bird-cages of all sizes, and on a
yard-square grass-plot stood the tin cage of a squirrel, almost too fat
to be lively.
After all was “perform’d to point,”--when no dahlia remained
unsupported,--no cluster of many-hued asters without its neat
hoop,--when no intrusive weed could be discerned, even through Mr.
Keene’s spectacles,--Clarissa took the opportunity to ask if she might
take the pony for a ride.
“To see those poor Ashburns, uncle.”
“They’re a lazy, impudent set, Clary.”
“But they are all sick, uncle; almost every one of the family down with
ague. Do let me go and carry them something. I hear they are completely
destitute of comforts.”
“And so they ought to be, my dear,” said Mr. Keene, who could not
forget what he considered Ashburn’s impertinence.
But his habitual kindness prevailed, and he concluded his remonstrance
by saddling the pony himself, arranging Clarissa’s riding-dress with
all the assiduity of a gallant cavalier, and giving into her hand,
with her neat silver-mounted whip, a little basket, well-crammed by
his wife’s kind care with delicacies for the invalids. No wonder that
he looked after her with pride as she rode off! There are few prettier
girls than the bright-eyed Clarissa.
* * * * *
“How are you this morning, Mrs. Ashburn?” asked the young visitant as
she entered the wretched den, her little basket on her arm, her sweet
face all flushed, and her eyes more than half suffused with tears.
“Law sakes alive!” was the reply. “I ain’t no how. I’m clear tuckered
out with these young ’uns. They’ve had the agur already this morning,
and they’re as cross as bear-cubs.”
“Ma!” screamed one, as if in confirmation of the maternal remark, “I
want some tea!”
“Tea! I ha’n’t got no tea, and you know that well enough!”
“Well, give me a piece o’ sweetcake then, and a pickle.”
“The sweetcake was gone long ago, and I ha’n’t nothing to make more--so
shut your head!” And as Clarissa whispered to the poor pallid child
that she would bring him some if he would be a good boy, and not tease
his mother, Mrs. Ashburn produced, from a barrel of similar delicacies,
a yellow cucumber, something less than a foot long, “pickled” in
whiskey and water--and this the child began devouring eagerly.
Miss Bensley now set out upon the table the varied contents of her
basket. “This honey,” she said, showing some as limpid as water,
“was found a day or two ago in uncle’s woods--wild honey--isn’t it
beautiful?”
Mrs. Ashburn fixed her eyes on it without speaking; but her husband,
who just then came in, did not command himself so far. “Where did you
say you got that honey?” he asked.
“In our woods,” repeated Clarissa; “I never saw such quantities; and a
good deal of it as clear and beautiful as this.”
“I thought as much!” said Ashburn angrily: “and now, Clary Bensley,”
he added, “you’ll just take that cursed honey back to your uncle, and
tell him to keep it, and eat it, and I hope it will choke him! and if I
live, I’ll make him rue the day he ever touched it.”
Miss Bensley gazed on him, lost in astonishment. She could think of
nothing but that he must have gone suddenly mad; and the idea made her
instinctively hasten her steps toward the pony.
“Well! if you won’t take it, I’ll send it after ye!” cried Ashburn,
who had lashed himself into a rage; and he hurled the little jar, with
all the force of his powerful arm, far down the path by which Clarissa
was about to depart, while his poor wife tried to restrain him with a
piteous “Oh, father! don’t! don’t!”
Then, recollecting himself a little,--for he is far from being
habitually brutal,--he made an awkward apology to the frightened girl.
“I ha’n’t nothing agin _you_, Miss Bensley; you’ve always been kind to
me and mine; but that old devil of an uncle of yours, that can’t bear
to let a poor man live,--I’ll larn him who he’s got to deal with! Tell
him to look out, for he’ll have reason!”
He held the pony while Clarissa mounted, as if to atone for his
rudeness to herself; but he ceased not to repeat his denunciations
against Mr. Keene as long as she was within hearing. As she paced over
the logs, Ashburn, his rage much cooled by this ebullition, stood
looking after her.
“I swan!” he exclaimed; “if there ain’t that very feller that went with
us to the bee-tree, leading Clary Bensley’s horse over the cross-way!”
* * * * *
Clarissa felt obliged to repeat to her uncle the rude threats which
had so much terrified her; and it needed but this to confirm Mr.
Keene’s suspicious dislike of Ashburn, whom he had already learned to
regard as one of the worst specimens of western character that had yet
crossed his path. He had often felt the vexations of his new position
to be almost intolerable, and was disposed to imagine himself the
predestined victim of all the ill-will and all the impositions of the
neighbourhood. It unfortunately happened, about this particular time,
that he had been more than usually visited with disasters which are
too common in a new country to be much regarded by those who know what
they mean. His fences had been thrown down, his corn-field robbed,
and even the lodging-place of the peacock forcibly attempted. But
from the moment he discovered that Ashburn had a grudge against him,
he thought neither of unruly oxen, mischievous boys, nor exasperated
neighbours; but concluded that the one unlucky house in the swamp was
the ever-welling foundation of all this bitterness. He had not yet been
long enough among us to discern how much our “bark is waur than our
bite.”
It was on a very raw and gusty evening, not long after, that Mr. Keene,
with his handkerchief carefully wrapped around his chin, sallied forth
after dark, on an expedition to the post-office. He was thinking how
vexatious it was--how like everything else in this disorganized, or
rather unorganized new country, that the weekly mail should not be
obliged to arrive at regular hours, and those early enough to allow
of one’s getting one’s letters before dark. As he proceeded he became
aware of the approach of two persons, and though it was too dark to
distinguish faces, he heard distinctly the dreaded tones of Silas
Ashburn.
“No! I found you were right enough there! I couldn’t get at him that
way; but I’ll pay him for it yet!”
He lost the reply of the other party in this iniquitous scheme, in the
rushing of the wild wind which hurried him on his course; but he had
heard enough! He made out to reach the office, and receiving his paper,
and hastening desperately homeward, had scarcely spirits even to read
the price-current, (though he did mechanically glance at the corner
of the “Trumpet of Commerce,”) before he retired to bed in meditative
sadness; feeling quite unable to await the striking of nine on the
kitchen clock, which, in all ordinary circumstances, “toll’d the hour
for retiring.”
Mr. Keene’s nerves had received a terrible shock on this fated
evening, and it is certain that for a man of sober imagination, his
dreams were terrific. He saw Ashburn, covered from crown to sole with
a buzzing shroud of bees, trampling on his flower-beds, tearing up
his honey-suckles root and branch, and letting his canaries and Java
sparrows out of their cages; and, as his eyes recoiled from this
horrible scene, they encountered the shambling form of Joe, who,
besides aiding and abetting in these enormities, was making awful
strides, axe in hand, toward the sanctuary of the pea-fowls.
He awoke with a cry of horror, and found his bed-room full of smoke.
Starting up in agonized alarm, he awoke Mrs. Keene, and half-dressed,
by the red light which glimmered around them, they rushed together
to Clarissa’s chamber. It was empty. To find the stairs was the next
thought; but at the very top they met the dreaded bee-finder armed with
a prodigious club!
“Oh mercy! don’t murder us!” shrieked Mrs. Keene, falling on her
knees; while her husband, whose capsicum was completely roused, began
pummelling Ashburn as high as he could reach, bestowing on him at
the same time, in no very choice terms, his candid opinion as to the
propriety of setting people’s houses on fire, by way of revenge.
“Why, you’re both as crazy as loons!” was Mr. Ashburn’s polite
exclamation, as he held off Mr. Keene at arm’s length. “I was comin’ up
o’ purpose to tell you that you needn’t be frightened. It’s only the
ruff o’ the shanty, there,--the kitchen, as you call it.”
“And what have you done with Clarissa?”--“Ay! where’s my niece?” cried
the distracted pair.
“Where is she? why, down stairs to be sure, takin’ care o’ the traps
they throw’d out o’ the shanty. I was out a ’coon-hunting, and see the
light, but I was so far off that they’d got it pretty well down before
I got here. That ’ere young spark of Clary’s worked like a beaver, I
tell ye!”
“You need not attempt,” solemnly began Mr. Keene, “you need not think
to make me believe, that you are not the man that set my house on fire.
I know your revengeful temper; I have heard of your threats, and you
shall answer for all, sir! before you’re a day older!”
Ashburn seemed struck dumb, between his involuntary respect for Mr.
Keene’s age and character, and the contemptuous anger with which his
accusations filled him. “Well! I swan!” said he after a pause; “but
here comes Clary; _she’s_ got common sense; ask her how the fire
happened.”
“It’s all over now, uncle,” she exclaimed, almost breathless, “it has
not done so _very_ much damage.”
“Damage!” said Mrs. Keene, dolefully; “we shall never get things clean
again while the world stands!”
“And where are my birds?” inquired the old gentleman.
“All safe--quite safe; we moved them into the parlour.”
“We! who, pray?”
“Oh! the neighbours came, you know, uncle; and--Mr. Ashburn--”
“Give the devil his due,” interposed Ashburn; “you know very well that
the whole concern would have gone if it hadn’t been for that young
feller.”
“What young fellow? where?”
“Why here,” said Silas, pulling forward our young stranger; “this here
chap.”
“Young man,” began Mr. Keene,--but at the moment, up came somebody with
a light, and while Clarissa retreated behind Mr. Ashburn, the stranger
was recognised by her aunt and uncle as Charles Darwin.
“Charles! what on earth brought you here?”
“Ask Clary,” said Ashburn, with grim jocoseness.
Mr. Keene turned mechanically to obey; but Clarissa had disappeared.
“Well! I guess I can tell you something about it, if nobody else
won’t,” said Ashburn; “I’m something of a Yankee, and it’s my notion
that there was some sparkin’ a goin’ on in your kitchin, and that
somehow or other the young folks managed to set it a-fire.”
The old folks looked more puzzled than ever. “_Do_ speak, Charles,”
said Mr. Keene; “what _does_ it all mean? Did you set my house on fire?”
“I’m afraid I must have had some hand in it, sir,” said Charles, whose
self-possession seemed quite to have deserted him.
“You!” exclaimed Mr. Keene; “and I’ve been laying it to this man!”
“Yes! you know’d I owed you a spite, on account o’ that plaguy
bee-tree,” said Ashburn; “a guilty conscience needs no accuser. But you
was much mistaken if you thought I was sich a bloody-minded villain as
to burn your gimcrackery for that! If I could have paid you for it,
fair and even, I’d ha’ done it with all my heart and soul. But I don’t
set men’s houses a-fire when I get mad at ’em.”
“But you threatened vengeance,” said Mr. Keene.
“So I did, but that was when I expected to get it by law, though; and
this here young man knows that, if he’d only speak.”
Thus adjured, Charles did speak, and so much to the purpose that
it did not take many minutes to convince Mr. Keene that Ashburn’s
evil-mindedness was bounded by the limits of the law, that precious
privilege of the Wolverine. But there was still the mystery of
Charles’s apparition, and in order to its full unravelment, the
blushing Clarissa had to be enticed from her hiding-place, and brought
to confession. And then it was made clear that she, with all her
innocent looks, was the moving cause of the mighty mischief. She it was
who encouraged Charles to believe that her uncle’s anger would not last
forever; and this had led Charles to venture into the neighbourhood;
and it was while consulting together, (on this particular point, of
course,) that they managed to set the kitchen curtain on fire.
These things occupied some time in explaining,--but they were at
length, by the aid of words and more eloquent blushes, made so clear,
that Mr. Keene concluded, not only to new roof the kitchen, but to add
a very pretty wing to one side of the house. And at the present time,
the steps of Charles Darwin, when he returns from a surveying tour,
seek the little gate as naturally as if he had never lived anywhere
else. And the sweet face of Clarissa is always there, ready to welcome
him, though she still finds plenty of time to keep in order the
complicated affairs of both uncle and aunt.
Mr. Keene has done his very best to atone for his injurious estimate
of Wolverine honour, by giving constant employment to Ashburn and
his sons, and owning himself always the obliged party, without which
concession all he could do would avail nothing. And Mrs. Keene and
Clarissa have been unwearied in their kind attentions to the family,
supplying them with so many comforts that most of them have got rid of
the ague, in spite of themselves. The house has assumed so cheerful an
appearance that I could scarcely recognise it for the same squalid den
it had often made my heart ache to look upon. As I was returning from
my last visit there, I encountered Mr. Ashburn, and remarked to him how
very comfortable they seemed.
“Yes,” he replied; “I’ve had pretty good luck lately; but I’m a goin’
to pull up stakes and move to Wisconsin. I think I can do better,
further West.”
FITZ-JAMES O’BRIEN
1828–1862
The facts of O’Brien’s life have never been set in order. Even the date
of his birth in County Limerick is uncertain. His untimely death was at
Cumberland, Virginia, from wounds in the Federal service early in the
Civil War. The clearest impression of the man may be had from William
Winter’s introduction to a collection of his verse and prose, published
in Boston, 1881. He seems very like the Thackeray Irishman--generous,
impulsive, extravagant with money and words. In the geniality that
deserved their warm affection his somewhat Bohemian companions found a
touch of genius; but the demands of a spendthrift life hand-to-mouth,
and the facility with which these demands could be met, both made
against the realisation of this higher promise. That it remained only
a promise may be ascribed also to his dying at thirty-four. Youth is
evident especially in that his prose is imitative. Poe is suggested
almost immediately; and there is often an undertone of Dickens, the
Dickens of the Christmas stories. In other aspects, too, O’Brien’s
writing is the work, not of a craftsman, but of a brilliant amateur.
The fancies that he threw upon the periodical press are never quite
achieved. Considered as materials, these fancies vary in value all the
way from the conceptions of _The Diamond Lens_ and _The Wondersmith_,
which are not far from pure imagination, to _Tommatoo_ and _My Wife’s
Tempter_, which are mere melodrama. But whatever their potential value,
O’Brien’s hand was not steady enough to bring it out. The main scene
of _The Diamond Lens_, the microscopic vision, is as delicate as it is
original, and as vivid as it is delicate; but the preparation for it
is fumbling, and the solution unsatisfying. The tale printed below is
exceptionally compact in structure and careful in detail. The obvious
general resemblance to Poe’s tales of physical horror should not
obscure certain original merits. The note of realism, for instance,
is not merely Poe’s verisimilitude; it expresses a differentiation of
character more like that of Kipling’s similar study, _The End of the
Passage_. Prof. Brander Matthews (_Philosophy of the Short-Story_, page
68) points out the similarity in conception of Maupassant’s _Le Horla_.
Writing much prose and verse for many magazines now long passed away,
and a play or two for Wallack, O’Brien found his steadiest employment
with the Harpers between 1853 and 1858, and his most congenial life
with the younger journalists and artists of New York.
WHAT WAS IT? A MYSTERY
[_From “Harper’s Monthly Magazine,” March, 1859; volume xviii, page
504. The signature is Harry Escott_]
It is, I confess, with considerable diffidence that I approach the
strange narrative which I am about to relate. The events which I
purpose detailing are of so extraordinary and unheard-of a character
that I am quite prepared to meet with an unusual amount of incredulity
and scorn. I accept all such beforehand. I have, I trust, the literary
courage to face unbelief. I have, after mature consideration, resolved
to narrate, in as simple and straightforward a manner as I can compass,
some facts that passed under my observation in the month of July last,
and which, in the annals of the mysteries of physical science, are
wholly unparalleled.
I live at No. -- Twenty-sixth Street, in this city. The house is in
some respects a curious one. It has enjoyed for the last two years
the reputation of being haunted. It is a large and stately residence,
surrounded by what was once a garden, but which is now only a green
enclosure used for bleaching clothes. The dry basin of what has been
a fountain, and a few fruit-trees, ragged and unpruned, indicate that
this spot, in past days, was a pleasant, shady retreat, filled with
fruits and flowers and the sweet murmur of waters.
The house is very spacious. A hall of noble size leads to a vast spiral
staircase winding through its centre, while the various apartments are
of imposing dimensions. It was built some fifteen or twenty years
since by Mr. A----, the well-known New York merchant, who five years
ago threw the commercial world into convulsions by a stupendous bank
fraud. Mr. A----, as every one knows, escaped to Europe, and died not
long after of a broken heart. Almost immediately after the news of
his decease reached this country, and was verified, the report spread
in Twenty-sixth Street that No. -- was haunted. Legal measures had
dispossessed the widow of its former owner, and it was inhabited merely
by a care-taker and his wife, placed there by the house-agent into
whose hands it had passed for purposes of renting or sale. These people
declared that they were troubled with unnatural noises. Doors were
opened without any visible agency. The remnants of furniture scattered
through the various rooms were, during the night, piled one upon the
other by unknown hands. Invisible feet passed up and down the stairs
in broad daylight, accompanied by the rustle of unseen silk dresses,
and the gliding of viewless hands along the massive balusters. The
care-taker and his wife declared they would live there no longer. The
house-agent laughed, dismissed them, and put others in their place.
The noises and supernatural manifestations continued. The neighborhood
caught up the story, and the house remained untenanted for three years.
Several persons negotiated for it; but somehow, always before the
bargain was closed, they heard the unpleasant rumors, and declined to
treat any further.
It was in this state of things that my landlady--who at that time kept
a boarding-house in Bleecker Street, and who wished to move farther up
town--conceived the bold idea of renting No. -- Twenty-sixth Street.
Happening to have in her house rather a plucky and philosophical set of
boarders, she laid her scheme before us, stating candidly everything
she had heard respecting the ghostly qualities of the establishment
to which she wished to remove us. With the exception of two timid
persons,--a sea-captain and a returned Californian, who immediately
gave notice that they would leave,--all of Mrs. Moffat’s guests
declared that they would accompany her in her chivalric incursion into
the abode of spirits.
Our removal was effected in the month of May, and we were all charmed
with our new residence. The portion of Twenty-sixth Street where our
house is situated--between Seventh and Eighth Avenues--is one of the
pleasantest localities in New York. The gardens back of the houses,
running down nearly to the Hudson, form, in the summer time, a perfect
avenue of verdure. The air is pure and invigorating, sweeping, as it
does, straight across the river from the Weehawken heights, and even
the ragged garden which surrounded the house on two sides, although
displaying on washing days rather too much clothes-line, still gave us
a piece of green sward to look at, and a cool retreat in the summer
evenings, where we smoked our cigars in the dusk, and watched the
fire-flies flashing their dark-lanterns in the long grass.
Of course we had no sooner established ourselves at No. -- than we
began to expect the ghosts. We absolutely awaited their advent with
eagerness. Our dinner conversation was supernatural. One of the
boarders, who had purchased Mrs. Crowe’s “Night Side of Nature” for
his own private delectation, was regarded as a public enemy by the
entire household for not having bought twenty copies. The man led
a life of supreme wretchedness while he was reading this volume. A
system of espionage was established, of which he was the victim. If
he incautiously laid the book down for an instant and left the room,
it was immediately seized and read aloud in secret places to a select
few. I found myself a person of immense importance, it having leaked
out that I was tolerably well versed in the history of supernaturalism,
and had once written a story, entitled “The Pot of Tulips,” for
_Harper’s Monthly_, the foundation of which was a ghost. If a table or
a wainscot panel happened to warp when we were assembled in the large
drawing-room, there was an instant silence, and every one was prepared
for an immediate clanking of chains and a spectral form.
After a month of psychological excitement, it was with the utmost
dissatisfaction that we were forced to acknowledge that nothing in the
remotest degree approaching the supernatural had manifested itself.
Once the black butler asseverated that his candle had been blown out by
some invisible agency while he was undressing himself for the night;
but as I had more than once discovered this colored gentleman in a
condition when one candle must have appeared to him like two, I thought
it possible that, by going a step farther in his potations, he might
have reversed this phenomenon, and seen no candle at all where he ought
to have beheld one.
Things were in this state when an incident took place so awful and
inexplicable in its character that my reason fairly reels at the bare
memory of the occurrence. It was the tenth of July. After dinner was
over I repaired, with my friend Dr. Hammond, to the garden to smoke my
evening pipe. Independent of certain mental sympathies which existed
between the Doctor and myself, we were linked together by a secret
vice. We both smoked opium. We knew each other’s secret, and respected
it. We enjoyed together that wonderful expansion of thought, that
marvellous intensifying of the perceptive faculties, that boundless
feeling of existence when we seem to have points of contact with the
whole universe,--in short, that unimaginable spiritual bliss, which I
would not surrender for a throne, and which I hope you, reader, will
never--never taste.
Those hours of opium happiness which the Doctor and I spent together in
secret were regulated with a scientific accuracy. We did not blindly
smoke the drug of Paradise, and leave our dreams to chance. While
smoking, we carefully steered our conversation through the brightest
and calmest channels of thought. We talked of the East, and endeavored
to recall the magical panorama of its glowing scenery. We criticised
the most sensuous poets, those who painted life ruddy with health,
brimming with passion, happy in the possession of youth and strength
and beauty. If we talked of Shakespeare’s “Tempest,” we lingered over
Ariel, and avoided Caliban. Like the Gebers, we turned our faces to the
east, and saw only the sunny side of the world.
This skilful coloring of our train of thought produced in our
subsequent visions a corresponding tone. The splendors of Arabian
fairy-land dyed our dreams. We paced that narrow strip of grass with
the tread and port of kings. The song of the _rana arborea_, while he
clung to the bark of the ragged plum-tree, sounded like the strains of
divine orchestras. Houses, walls, and streets melted like rainclouds,
and vistas of unimaginable glory stretched away before us. It was a
rapturous companionship. We enjoyed the vast delight more perfectly
because, even in our most ecstatic moments, we were conscious of each
other’s presence. Our pleasures, while individual, were still twin,
vibrating and moving in musical accord.
On the evening in question, the tenth of July, the Doctor and myself
found ourselves in an unusually metaphysical mood. We lit our large
meerschaums, filled with fine Turkish tobacco, in the core of which
burned a little black nut of opium, that, like the nut in the fairy
tale, held within its narrow limits wonders beyond the reach of kings;
we paced to and fro, conversing. A strange perversity dominated the
currents of our thought. They would _not_ flow through the sun-lit
channels into which we strove to divert them. For some unaccountable
reason they constantly diverged into dark and lonesome beds, where a
continual gloom brooded. It was in vain that, after our old fashion,
we flung ourselves on the shores of the East, and talked of its
gay bazaars, of the splendors of the time of Haroun, of harems and
golden palaces. Black afreets continually arose from the depths of
our talk, and expanded, like the one the fisherman released from
the copper vessel, until they blotted everything bright from our
vision. Insensibly, we yielded to the occult force that swayed us,
and indulged in gloomy speculation. We had talked some time upon the
proneness of the human mind to mysticism, and the almost universal
love of the Terrible, when Hammond suddenly said to me, “What do you
consider to be the greatest element of Terror?”
The question, I own, puzzled me. That many things were terrible, I
knew. Stumbling over a corpse in the dark; beholding, as I once did,
a woman floating down a deep and rapid river, with wildly-lifted
arms, and awful, upturned face, uttering, as she sank, shrieks that
rent one’s heart, while we, the spectators, stood frozen at a window
which overhung the river at a height of sixty feet, unable to make the
slightest effort to save her, but dumbly watching her last supreme
agony and her disappearance. A shattered wreck, with no life visible,
encountered floating listlessly on the ocean, is a terrible object, for
it suggests a huge terror, the proportions of which are vailed. But
it now struck me for the first time that there must be one great and
ruling embodiment of fear, a King of Terrors to which all others must
succumb. What might it be? To what train of circumstances would it owe
its existence?
“I confess, Hammond,” I replied to my friend, “I never considered the
subject before. That there must be one Something more terrible than any
other thing, I feel. I cannot attempt, however, even the most vague
definition.”
“I am somewhat like you, Harry,” he answered. “I feel my capacity to
experience a terror greater than anything yet conceived by the human
mind;--something combining in fearful and unnatural amalgamation
hitherto supposed incompatible elements. The calling of the voices in
Brockden Brown’s novel of ‘Wieland’ is awful; so is the picture of the
Dweller of the Threshold, in Bulwer’s ‘Zanoni’; but,” he added, shaking
his head gloomily, “there is something more horrible still than these.”
“Look here, Hammond,” I rejoined, “let us drop this kind of talk, for
Heaven’s sake! We shall suffer for it, depend on it.”
“I don’t know what’s the matter with me to-night,” he replied, “but my
brain is running upon all sorts of weird and awful thoughts. I feel as
if I could write a story like Hoffman, to-night, if I were only master
of a literary style.”
“Well, if we are going to be Hoffmanesque in our talk, I’m off to bed.
Opium and nightmares should never be brought together. How sultry it
is! Good-night, Hammond.”
“Good-night, Harry. Pleasant dreams to you.”
“To you, gloomy wretch, afreets, ghouls, and enchanters.”
We parted, and each sought his respective chamber. I undressed quickly
and got into bed, taking with me, according to my usual custom, a book,
over which I generally read myself to sleep. I opened the volume as
soon as I had laid my head upon the pillow, and instantly flung it to
the other side of the room. It was Goudon’s “History of Monsters”--a
curious French work, which I had lately imported from Paris, but which,
in the state of mind I had then reached, was anything but an agreeable
companion. I resolved to go to sleep at once; so, turning down my gas
until nothing but a little blue point of light glimmered on the top of
the tube, I composed myself to rest.
The room was in total darkness. The atom of gas that still remained
lighted did not illuminate a distance of three inches round the burner.
I desperately drew my arm across my eyes, as if to shut out even the
darkness, and tried to think of nothing. It was in vain. The confounded
themes touched on by Hammond in the garden kept obtruding themselves
on my brain. I battled against them. I erected ramparts of would-be
blankness of intellect to keep them out. They still crowded upon me.
While I was lying still as a corpse, hoping that by a perfect physical
inaction I should hasten mental repose, an awful incident occurred. A
Something dropped, as it seemed, from the ceiling, plumb upon my chest,
and the next instant I felt two bony hands encircling my throat,
endeavoring to choke me.
I am no coward, and am possessed of considerable physical strength.
The suddenness of the attack, instead of stunning me, strung every
nerve to its highest tension. My body acted from instinct, before my
brain had time to realize the terrors of my position. In an instant
I wound two muscular arms around the creature, and squeezed it, with
all the strength of despair, against my chest. In a few seconds the
bony hands that had fastened on my throat loosened their hold, and
I was free to breathe once more. Then commenced a struggle of awful
intensity. Immersed in the most profound darkness, totally ignorant of
the nature of the Thing by which I was so suddenly attacked, finding
my grasp slipping every moment, by reason, it seemed to me, of the
entire nakedness of my assailant, bitten with sharp teeth in the
shoulder, neck, and chest, having every moment to protect my throat
against a pair of sinewy, agile hands, which my utmost efforts could
not confine--these were a combination of circumstances to combat which
required all the strength and skill and courage that I possessed.
At last, after a silent, deadly, exhausting struggle, I got my
assailant under by a series of incredible efforts of strength. Once
pinned, with my knee on what I made out to be its chest, I knew that
I was victor. I rested for a moment to breathe. I heard the creature
beneath me panting in the darkness, and felt the violent throbbing of a
heart. It was apparently as exhausted as I was; that was one comfort.
At this moment I remembered that I usually placed under my pillow,
before going to bed, a large yellow silk pocket-handkerchief, for use
during the night. I felt for it instantly; it was there. In a few
seconds more I had, after a fashion, pinioned the creature’s arms.
I now felt tolerably secure. There was nothing more to be done but to
turn on the gas, and, having first seen what my midnight assailant
was like, arouse the household. I will confess to being actuated by
a certain pride in not giving the alarm before; I wished to make the
capture alone and unaided.
Never losing my hold for an instant, I slipped from the bed to the
floor, dragging my captive with me. I had but a few steps to make to
reach the gas-burner; these I made with the greatest caution, holding
the creature in a grip like a vice. At last I got within arm’s-length
of the tiny speck of blue light which told me where the gas-burner lay.
Quick as lightning I released my grasp with one hand and let on the
full flood of light. Then I turned to look at my captive.
I cannot even attempt to give any definition of my sensations the
instant after I turned on the gas. I suppose I must have shrieked
with terror, for in less than a minute afterward my room was crowded
with the inmates of the house. I shudder now as I think of that awful
moment. _I saw nothing!_ Yes; I had one arm firmly clasped round a
breathing, panting, corporeal shape, my other hand gripped with all its
strength a throat as warm, and apparently fleshly, as my own; and yet,
with this living substance in my grasp, with its body pressed against
my own, and all in the bright glare of a large jet of gas, I absolutely
beheld nothing! Not even an outline,--a vapor!
I do not, even at this hour, realize the situation in which I found
myself. I cannot recall the astounding incident thoroughly. Imagination
in vain tries to compass the awful paradox.
It breathed. I felt its warm breath upon my cheek. It struggled
fiercely. It had hands. They clutched me. Its skin was smooth, like my
own. There it lay, pressed close up against me, solid as stone,--and
yet utterly invisible!
I wonder that I did not faint or go mad on the instant. Some wonderful
instinct must have sustained me; for, absolutely, in place of loosening
my hold on the terrible Enigma, I seemed to gain an additional strength
in my moment of horror, and tightened my grasp with such wonderful
force that I felt the creature shivering with agony.
Just then Hammond entered my room at the head of the household. As soon
as he beheld my face--which, I suppose, must have been an awful sight
to look at--he hastened forward, crying, “Great heaven, Harry! what has
happened?”
“Hammond! Hammond!” I cried, “come here. Oh! this is awful! I have been
attacked in bed by something or other, which I have hold of; but I
can’t see it--I can’t see it!”
Hammond, doubtless struck by the unfeigned horror expressed in my
countenance, made one or two steps forward with an anxious yet puzzled
expression. A very audible titter burst from the remainder of my
visitors. This suppressed laughter made me furious. To laugh at a human
being in my position! It was the worst species of cruelty. _Now_, I
can understand why the appearance of a man struggling violently, as it
would seem, with an airy nothing, and calling for assistance against a
vision, should have appeared ludicrous. _Then_, so great was my rage
against the mocking crowd that had I the power I would have stricken
them dead where they stood.
“Hammond! Hammond!” I cried again, despairingly, “for God’s sake come
to me. I can hold the--the Thing but a short while longer. It is
overpowering me. Help me! Help me!”
“Harry,” whispered Hammond, approaching me, “you have been smoking too
much opium.”
“I swear to you, Hammond, that this is no vision,” I answered, in the
same low tone. “Don’t you see how it shakes my whole frame with its
struggles? If you don’t believe me, convince yourself. Feel it,--touch
it.”
Hammond advanced and laid his hand in the spot I indicated. A wild cry
of horror burst from him. He had felt it!
In a moment he had discovered somewhere in my room a long piece of
cord, and was the next instant winding it and knotting it about the
body of the unseen being that I clasped in my arms.
“Harry,” he said, in a hoarse, agitated voice, for, though he preserved
his presence of mind, he was deeply moved, “Harry, it’s all safe now.
You may let go, old fellow, if you’re tired. The Thing can’t move.”
I was utterly exhausted, and I gladly loosed my hold.
Hammond stood holding the ends of the cord that bound the Invisible,
twisted round his hand, while before him, self-supporting as it were,
he beheld a rope laced and interlaced, and stretching tightly round a
vacant space. I never saw a man look so thoroughly stricken with awe.
Nevertheless his face expressed all the courage and determination which
I knew him to possess. His lips, although white, were set firmly, and
one could perceive at a glance that, although stricken with fear, he
was not daunted.
The confusion that ensued among the guests of the house who were
witnesses of this extraordinary scene between Hammond and myself--who
beheld the pantomime of binding this struggling Something,--who beheld
me almost sinking from physical exhaustion when my task of jailer was
over--the confusion and terror that took possession of the bystanders,
when they saw all this, was beyond description. The weaker ones fled
from the apartment. The few who remained clustered near the door,
and could not be induced to approach Hammond and his Charge. Still
incredulity broke out through their terror. They had not the courage to
satisfy themselves, and yet they doubted. It was in vain that I begged
of some of the men to come near and convince themselves by touch of
the existence in that room of a living being which was invisible. They
were incredulous, but did not dare to undeceive themselves. How could
a solid, living, breathing body be invisible, they asked. My reply was
this. I gave a sign to Hammond, and both of us--conquering our fearful
repugnance to touch the invisible creature--lifted it from the ground,
manacled as it was, and took it to my bed. Its weight was about that of
a boy of fourteen.
“Now, my friends,” I said, as Hammond and myself held the creature
suspended over the bed, “I can give you self-evident proof that here is
a solid, ponderable body which, nevertheless, you cannot see. Be good
enough to watch the surface of the bed attentively.”
I was astonished at my own courage in treating this strange event so
calmly; but I had recovered from my first terror, and felt a sort of
scientific pride in the affair which dominated every other feeling.
The eyes of the bystanders were immediately fixed on my bed. At a given
signal Hammond and I let the creature fall. There was the dull sound of
a heavy body alighting on a soft mass. The timbers of the bed creaked.
A deep impression marked itself distinctly on the pillow, and on the
bed itself. The crowd who witnessed this gave a sort of low, universal
cry, and rushed from the room. Hammond and I were left alone with our
Mystery.
We remained silent for some time, listening to the low, irregular
breathing of the creature on the bed, and watching the rustle of the
bed-clothes as it impotently struggled to free itself from confinement.
Then Hammond spoke.
“Harry, this is awful.”
“Ay, awful.”
“But not unaccountable.”
“Not unaccountable! What do you mean? Such a thing has never occurred
since the birth of the world. I know not what to think, Hammond. God
grant that I am not mad, and that this is not an insane fantasy!”
“Let us reason a little, Harry. Here is a solid body which we touch,
but which we cannot see. The fact is so unusual that it strikes us
with terror. Is there no parallel, though, for such a phenomenon?
Take a piece of pure glass. It is tangible and transparent. A certain
chemical coarseness is all that prevents its being so entirely
transparent as to be totally invisible. It is not _theoretically
impossible_, mind you, to make a glass which shall not reflect a single
ray of light--a glass so pure and homogeneous in its atoms that the
rays from the sun shall pass through it as they do through the air,
refracted but not reflected. We do not see the air, and yet we feel it.”
“That’s all very well, Hammond, but these are inanimate substances.
Glass does not breathe, air does not breathe. _This_ thing has a heart
that palpitates,--a will that moves it,--lungs that play, and inspire
and respire.”
“You forget the strange phenomena of which we have so often heard of
late,” answered the Doctor, gravely. “At the meetings called ‘spirit
circles,’ invisible hands have been thrust into the hands of those
persons round the table--warm, fleshly hands that seemed to pulsate
with mortal life.”
“What? Do you think, then, that this thing is--”
“I don’t know what it is,” was the solemn reply; “but please the gods I
will, with your assistance, thoroughly investigate it.”
We watched together, smoking many pipes, all night long, by the bedside
of the unearthly being that tossed and panted until it was apparently
wearied out. Then we learned by the low, regular breathing that it
slept.
The next morning the house was all astir. The boarders congregated on
the landing outside my room, and Hammond and myself were lions. We had
to answer a thousand questions as to the state of our extraordinary
prisoner, for as yet not one person in the house except ourselves could
be induced to set foot in the apartment.
The creature was awake. This was evidenced by the convulsive manner in
which the bed-clothes were moved in its efforts to escape. There was
something truly terrible in beholding, as it were, those second-hand
indications of the terrible writhings and agonized struggles for
liberty which themselves were invisible.
Hammond and myself had racked our brains during the long night to
discover some means by which we might realize the shape and general
appearance of the Enigma. As well as we could make out by passing our
hands over the creature’s form, its outlines and lineaments were human.
There was a mouth; a round, smooth head without hair; a nose, which,
however, was little elevated above the cheeks; and its hands and feet
felt like those of a boy. At first we thought of placing the being on a
smooth surface and tracing its outline with chalk, as shoemakers trace
the outline of the foot. This plan was given up as being of no value.
Such an outline would give not the slightest idea of its conformation.
A happy thought struck me. We would take a cast of it in plaster
of Paris. This would give us the solid figure, and satisfy all our
wishes. But how to do it? The movements of the creature would disturb
the setting of the plastic covering, and distort the mould. Another
thought. Why not give it chloroform? It had respiratory organs--that
was evident by its breathing. Once reduced to a state of insensibility,
we could do with it what we would. Doctor X---- was sent for; and after
the worthy physician had recovered from the first shock of amazement,
he proceeded to administer the chloroform. In three minutes afterward
we were enabled to remove the fetters from the creature’s body, and
a well-known modeler of this city was busily engaged in covering the
invisible form with the moist clay. In five minutes more we had a
mould, and before evening a rough _fac-simile_ of the Mystery. It was
shaped like a man,--distorted, uncouth, and horrible, but still a
man. It was small, not over four feet and some inches in height, and
its limbs revealed a muscular development that was unparalleled. Its
face surpassed in hideousness anything I had ever seen. Gustave Doré,
or Callot, or Tony Johannot, never conceived anything so horrible.
There is a face in one of the latter’s illustrations to “_Un Voyage
où il vous plaira_,” which somewhat approaches the countenance of
this creature, but does not equal it. It was the physiognomy of what I
should have fancied a ghoul to be. It looked as if it was capable of
feeding on human flesh.
Having satisfied our curiosity, and bound every one in the house to
secrecy, it became a question, what was to be done with our Enigma? It
was impossible that we should keep such a horror in our house; it was
equally impossible that such an awful being should be let loose upon
the world. I confess that I would have gladly voted for the creature’s
destruction. But who would shoulder the responsibility? Who would
undertake the execution of this horrible semblance of a human being?
Day after day this question was deliberated gravely. The boarders all
left the house. Mrs. Moffat was in despair, and threatened Hammond
and myself with all sorts of legal penalties if we did not remove the
Horror. Our answer was, “We will go if you like, but we decline taking
this creature with us. Remove it yourself if you please. It appeared
in your house. On you the responsibility rests.” To this there was, of
course, no answer. Mrs. Moffat could not obtain for love or money a
person who would even approach the Mystery.
The most singular part of the transaction was that we were entirely
ignorant of what the creature habitually fed on. Everything in the way
of nutriment that we could think of was placed before it, but was never
touched. It was awful to stand by, day after day, and see the clothes
toss, and hear the hard breathing, and know that it was starving.
Ten, twelve days, a fortnight passed, and it still lived. The
pulsations of the heart, however, were daily growing fainter, and had
now nearly ceased altogether. It was evident that the creature was
dying for want of sustenance. While this terrible life-struggle was
going on, I felt miserable. I could not sleep of nights. Horrible
as the creature was, it was pitiful to think of the pangs it was
suffering.
At last it died. Hammond and I found it cold and stiff one morning
in the bed. The heart had ceased to beat, the lungs to inspire. We
hastened to bury it in the garden. It was a strange funeral, the
dropping of that viewless corpse into the damp hole. The cast of its
form I gave to Doctor X----, who keeps it in his museum in Tenth Street.
As I am on the eve of a long journey from which I may not return, I
have drawn up this narrative of an event the most singular that has
ever come to my knowledge.
NOTE.
[It is rumored that the proprietors of a well-known museum in
this city have made arrangements with Dr. X---- to exhibit to the
public the singular cast which Mr. Escott deposited with him. So
extraordinary a history cannot fail to attract universal attention.]
FRANCIS BRET HARTE
1839–1902
Bret Harte will always be associated with the California of the
“forty-niners.” Gold digger, teacher, express messenger by turns,
he was setting up his own sketches among the compositors of the San
Francisco _Golden Era_ while still in his ’teens. The sketches brought
him into the editorial room, and then to his own chair of the _Weekly
Californian_, where he vindicated his title by the clever _Condensed
Novels_. A secretaryship in the United States Branch Mint gave him
leisure to gain wide popularity in verse. On this he mounted to his
height. The year 1868 is cardinal in his life and in the history
of American literature; for in that year was founded _The Overland
Monthly_; and the young man of the hour was made its editor. Its second
number (August, 1868) contained the most widely known, perhaps, of all
American short stories, _The Luck of Roaring Camp_. The three years
of his editorship include his most popular work, and perhaps his most
enduring. He made the whole country laugh and weep by his verse, he
established a magazine of solid merit, and he gave new life to the
short story.
To this growth his removal to the East in 1871 put a period. Continuing
his production pretty steadily on the Atlantic seaboard, in his
consulships at Crefeld (1878) and at Glasgow (1880), and finally during
seventeen years in London (1885–1902), he hardly advanced in art. That
his art survived the transplanting is sufficiently proved by the long
list of his books; but it did not thrive. His constant recurrence to
the old themes suggests that he missed the strong western soil.
The familiar tale reprinted here is typical of Bret Harte’s field,
geographical and artistic. His local color no longer keeps the
separate value attached to it alike by many of his admirers and by
himself. The California of his stories, sometimes drawn to the life,
as in _Johnson’s Old Woman_, is often that California, made of stock
desperadoes, stage-drivers, and gulches, which is the delight of
melodrama. Melodramatic Harte is incorrigibly. _Mrs. Skaggs_ is the
Dumas adventuress; and the people of her story can hardly be seen
off the boards. _The Iliad of Sandy Bar_ shows that cheap shifting
from farce humor to false pathos which catches the throats of the
gallery. Though in fact he had the knowledge of actual contact, he saw
California as his master Dickens saw London, through a haze of romance.
The stories of both are woven from the suggestions of actual places;
but in the weaving the actuality has faded.
Rather Bret Harte’s best stories prevail by something not extraneous,
by focusing the primary emotions on a single imaginative situation.
_Poker Flat_ is almost allegory--the gambler, the thief, the harlot,
the innocents, not so artificially grouped as in Hawthorne’s
_Seven Vagabonds_, but quite as artfully. It is convincing, not as
a transcript of pioneer society, but as a unified conception of
unhindered human emotions. The same is true of the famous _Luck of
Roaring Camp_, of _Tennessee’s Partner_, and of his best work in
general. For all its scientific aloofness and worship of fact, is _La
maison Tellier_ ultimately as human as _The Outcasts of Poker Flat_?
THE OUTCASTS OF POKER FLAT
[_From “The Overland Monthly,” January, 1869; copyright, 1871,
by Fields, Osgood & Co.; 1899, by Bret Harte; reprinted here
by special arrangement with Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co.,
authorized publishers of all Bret Harte’s works_]
As Mr. John Oakhurst, gambler, stepped into the main street of Poker
Flat on the morning of the twenty-third of November, 1850, he was
conscious of a change in its moral atmosphere since the preceding
night. Two or three men, conversing earnestly together, ceased as he
approached, and exchanged significant glances. There was a Sabbath lull
in the air, which, in a settlement unused to Sabbath influences, looked
ominous.
Mr. Oakhurst’s calm, handsome face betrayed small concern of these
indications. Whether he was conscious of any predisposing cause, was
another question. “I reckon they’re after somebody,” he reflected;
“likely it’s me.” He returned to his pocket the handkerchief with which
he had been whipping away the red dust of Poker Flat from his neat
boots, and quietly discharged his mind of any further conjecture.
In point of fact, Poker Flat was “after somebody.” It had lately
suffered the loss of several thousand dollars, two valuable horses, and
a prominent citizen. It was experiencing a spasm of virtuous reaction,
quite as lawless and ungovernable as any of the acts that had provoked
it. A secret committee had determined to rid the town of all improper
persons. This was done permanently in regard of two men who were then
hanging from the boughs of a sycamore in the gulch, and temporarily in
the banishment of certain other objectionable characters. I regret to
say that some of these were ladies. It is but due to the sex, however,
to state that their impropriety was professional, and it was only in
such easily established standards of evil that Poker Flat ventured to
sit in judgment.
Mr. Oakhurst was right in supposing that he was included in this
category. A few of the committee had urged hanging him as a possible
example, and a sure method of reimbursing themselves from his pockets
of the sums he had won from them. “It’s agin justice,” said Jim
Wheeler, “to let this yer young man from Roaring Camp--an entire
stranger--carry away our money.” But a crude sentiment of equity
residing in the breasts of those who had been fortunate enough to win
from Mr. Oakhurst overruled this narrower local prejudice.
Mr. Oakhurst received his sentence with philosophic calmness, none the
less coolly that he was aware of the hesitation of his judges. He was
too much of a gambler not to accept Fate. With him life was at best an
uncertain game, and he recognized the usual percentage in favor of the
dealer.
A body of armed men accompanied the deported wickedness of Poker Flat
to the outskirts of the settlement. Besides Mr. Oakhurst, who was
known to be a coolly desperate man, and for whose intimidation the
armed escort was intended, the expatriated party consisted of a young
woman familiarly known as “The Duchess”; another, who had gained the
infelicitous title of “Mother Shipton”; and “Uncle Billy,” a suspected
sluice-robber and confirmed drunkard. The cavalcade provoked no
comments from the spectators, nor was any word uttered by the escort.
Only, when the gulch which marked the uttermost limit of Poker Flat was
reached, the leader spoke briefly and to the point. The exiles were
forbidden to return at the peril of their lives.
As the escort disappeared, their pent-up feelings found vent in a few
hysterical tears from “The Duchess,” some bad language from Mother
Shipton, and a Parthian volley of expletives from Uncle Billy. The
philosophic Oakhurst alone remained silent. He listened calmly to
Mother Shipton’s desire to cut somebody’s heart out, to the repeated
statements of “The Duchess” that she would die in the road, and to
the alarming oaths that seemed to be bumped out of Uncle Billy as he
rode forward. With the easy good-humor characteristic of his class, he
insisted upon exchanging his own riding-horse, “Five Spot,” for the
sorry mule which the Duchess rode. But even this act did not draw the
party into any closer sympathy. The young woman reädjusted her somewhat
draggled plumes with a feeble, faded coquetry; Mother Shipton eyed the
possessor of “Five Spot” with malevolence, and Uncle Billy included the
whole party in one sweeping anathema.
The road to Sandy Bar--a camp that, not having as yet experienced the
regenerating influences of Poker Flat, consequently seemed to offer
some invitation to the emigrants--lay over a steep mountain range. It
was distant a day’s severe journey. In that advanced season, the party
soon passed out of the moist, temperate regions of the foot-hills
into the dry, cold, bracing air of the Sierras. The trail was narrow
and difficult. At noon the Duchess, rolling out of her saddle upon
the ground, declared her intention of going no farther, and the party
halted.
The spot was singularly wild and impressive. A wooded amphitheatre,
surrounded on three sides by precipitous cliffs of naked granite,
sloped gently toward the crest of another precipice that overlooked
the valley. It was undoubtedly the most suitable spot for a camp, had
camping been advisable. But Mr. Oakhurst knew that scarcely half the
journey to Sandy Bar was accomplished, and the party were not equipped
or provisioned for delay. This fact he pointed out to his companions
curtly, with a philosophic commentary on the folly of “throwing up
their hand before the game was played out.” But they were furnished
with liquor, which in this emergency stood them in place of food, fuel,
rest, and prescience. In spite of his remonstrances, it was not long
before they were more or less under its influence. Uncle Billy passed
rapidly from a bellicose state into one of stupor, the Duchess became
maudlin, and Mother Shipton snored. Mr. Oakhurst alone remained erect,
leaning against a rock, calmly surveying them.
Mr. Oakhurst did not drink. It interfered with a profession which
required coolness, impassiveness, and presence of mind, and, in his
own language, he “couldn’t afford it.” As he gazed at his recumbent
fellow-exiles, the loneliness begotten of his pariah-trade, his habits
of life, his very vices, for the first time seriously oppressed him.
He bestirred himself in dusting his black clothes, washing his hands
and face, and other acts characteristic of his studiously neat habits,
and for a moment forgot his annoyance. The thought of deserting his
weaker and more pitiable companions never perhaps occurred to him.
Yet he could not help feeling the want of that excitement which,
singularly enough, was most conducive to that calm equanimity for which
he was notorious. He looked at the gloomy walls that rose a thousand
feet sheer above the circling pines around him; at the sky, ominously
clouded; at the valley below, already deepening into shadow. And, doing
so, suddenly he heard his own name called.
A horseman slowly ascended the trail. In the fresh, open face of the
new-comer Mr. Oakhurst recognized Tom Simson, otherwise known as
“The Innocent” of Sandy Bar. He had met him some months before over
a “little game,” and had, with perfect equanimity, won the entire
fortune--amounting to some forty dollars--of that guileless youth.
After the game was finished, Mr. Oakhurst drew the youthful speculator
behind the door and thus addressed him: “Tommy, you’re a good little
man, but you can’t gamble worth a cent. Don’t try it over again.” He
then handed him his money back, pushed him gently from the room, and so
made a devoted slave of Tom Simson.
There was a remembrance of this in his boyish and enthusiastic greeting
of Mr. Oakhurst. He had started, he said, to go to Poker Flat to seek
his fortune. “Alone?” No, not exactly alone; in fact--a giggle--he had
run away with Piney Woods. Didn’t Mr. Oakhurst remember Piney? She
that used to wait on the table at the Temperance House? They had been
engaged a long time, but old Jake Woods had objected, and so they had
run away, and were going to Poker Flat to be married, and here they
were. And they were tired out, and how lucky it was they had found a
place to camp and company. All this the Innocent delivered rapidly,
while Piney--a stout, comely damsel of fifteen--emerged from behind the
pine-tree, where she had been blushing unseen, and rode to the side of
her lover.
Mr. Oakhurst seldom troubled himself with sentiment, still less
with propriety; but he had a vague idea that the situation was not
felicitous. He retained, however, his presence of mind sufficiently to
kick Uncle Billy, who was about to say something, and Uncle Billy was
sober enough to recognize in Mr. Oakhurst’s kick a superior power that
would not bear trifling. He then endeavored to dissuade Tom Simson from
delaying further, but in vain. He even pointed out the fact that there
was no provision, nor means of making a camp. But, unluckily, “The
Innocent” met this objection by assuring the party that he was provided
with an extra mule loaded with provisions, and by the discovery of a
rude attempt at a log-house near the trail. “Piney can stay with Mrs.
Oakhurst,” said the Innocent, pointing to the Duchess, “and I can shift
for myself.”
Nothing but Mr. Oakhurst’s admonishing foot saved Uncle Billy from
bursting into a roar of laughter. As it was, he felt compelled to
retire up the cañon until he could recover his gravity. There he
confided the joke to the tall pine trees, with many slaps of his
leg, contortions of his face, and the usual profanity. But when
he returned to the party, he found them seated by a fire--for the
air had grown strangely chill and the sky overcast--in apparently
amicable conversation. Piney was actually talking in an impulsive,
girlish fashion to the Duchess, who was listening with an interest and
animation she had not shown for many days. The Innocent was holding
forth, apparently with equal effect, to Mr. Oakhurst and Mother
Shipton, who was actually relaxing into amiability. “Is this yer a
d--d picnic?” said Uncle Billy, with inward scorn, as he surveyed the
sylvan group, the glancing fire-light, and the tethered animals in the
foreground. Suddenly an idea mingled with the alcoholic fumes that
disturbed his brain. It was apparently of a jocular nature, for he felt
impelled to slap his leg again and cram his fist into his mouth.
As the shadows crept slowly up the mountain, a slight breeze rocked
the tops of the pine-trees, and moaned through their long and gloomy
aisles. The ruined cabin, patched and covered with pine boughs, was set
apart for the ladies. As the lovers parted, they unaffectedly exchanged
a kiss, so honest and sincere that it might have been heard above the
swaying pines. The frail Duchess and the malevolent Mother Shipton were
probably too stunned to remark upon this last evidence of simplicity,
and so turned without a word to the hut. The fire was replenished, the
men lay down before the door, and in a few minutes were asleep.
Mr. Oakhurst was a light sleeper. Toward morning he awoke benumbed and
cold. As he stirred the dying fire, the wind, which was now blowing
strongly, brought to his cheek that which caused the blood to leave
it,--snow!
He started to his feet with the intention of awakening the sleepers,
for there was no time to lose. But turning to where Uncle Billy had
been lying, he found him gone. A suspicion leaped to his brain and
a curse to his lips. He ran to the spot where the mules had been
tethered; they were no longer there. The tracks were already rapidly
disappearing in the snow.
The momentary excitement brought Mr. Oakhurst back to the fire with
his usual calm. He did not waken the sleepers. The Innocent slumbered
peacefully, with a smile on his good-humored, freckled face; the virgin
Piney slept beside her frailer sisters as sweetly as though attended
by celestial guardians, and Mr. Oakhurst, drawing his blanket over his
shoulders, stroked his mustachios and waited for the dawn. It came
slowly in a whirling mist of snow-flakes, that dazzled and confused the
eye. What could be seen of the landscape appeared magically changed.
He looked over the valley, and summed up the present and future in two
words,--“Snowed in!”
A careful inventory of the provisions, which, fortunately for the
party, had been stored within the hut, and so escaped the felonious
fingers of Uncle Billy, disclosed the fact that with care and prudence
they might last ten days longer. “That is,” said Mr. Oakhurst,
_sotto voce_ to the Innocent, “if you’re willing to board us. If you
ain’t--and perhaps you’d better not--you can wait till Uncle Billy
gets back with provisions.” For some occult reason, Mr. Oakhurst could
not bring himself to disclose Uncle Billy’s rascality, and so offered
the hypothesis that he had wandered from the camp and had accidentally
stampeded the animals. He dropped a warning to the Duchess and Mother
Shipton, who of course knew the facts of their associate’s defection.
“They’ll find out the truth about us _all_, when they find out
anything,” he added, significantly, “and there’s no good frightening
them now.”
Tom Simson not only put all his worldly store at the disposal of Mr.
Oakhurst, but seemed to enjoy the prospect of their enforced seclusion.
“We’ll have a good camp for a week, and then the snow’ll melt, and
we’ll all go back together.” The cheerful gayety of the young man and
Mr. Oakhurst’s calm infected the others. The Innocent, with the aid
of pine boughs, extemporized a thatch for the roofless cabin, and the
Duchess directed Piney in the reärrangement of the interior with a
taste and tact that opened the blue eyes of that provincial maiden
to their fullest extent. “I reckon now you’re used to fine things at
Poker Flat,” said Piney. The Duchess turned away sharply to conceal
something that reddened her cheek through its professional tint, and
Mother Shipton requested Piney not to “chatter.” But when Mr. Oakhurst
returned from a weary search for the trail, he heard the sound of
happy laughter echoed from the rocks. He stopped in some alarm, and
his thoughts first naturally reverted to the whiskey, which he had
prudently _cachéd_. “And yet it don’t somehow sound like whiskey,”
said the gambler. It was not until he caught sight of the blazing fire
through the still blinding storm, and the group around it, that he
settled to the conviction that it was “square fun.”
Whether Mr. Oakhurst had _cachéd_ his cards with the whiskey as
something debarred the free access of the community, I cannot say.
It was certain that, in Mother Shipton’s words, he “didn’t say cards
once” during that evening. Haply the time was beguiled by an accordeon,
produced somewhat ostentatiously by Tom Simson, from his pack.
Notwithstanding some difficulties attending the manipulation of this
instrument, Piney Woods managed to pluck several reluctant melodies
from its keys, to an accompaniment by the Innocent on a pair of bone
castinets. But the crowning festivity of the evening was reached in
a rude camp-meeting hymn, which the lovers, joining hands, sang with
great earnestness and vociferation. I fear that a certain defiant
tone and Covenanter’s swing to its chorus, rather than any devotional
quality, caused it speedily to infect the others, who at last joined in
the refrain:
“I’m proud to live in the service of the Lord,
And I’m bound to die in His army.”
The pines rocked, the storm eddied and whirled above the miserable
group, and the flames of their altar leaped heavenward, as if in token
of the vow.
At midnight the storm abated, the rolling clouds parted, and the
stars glittered keenly above the sleeping camp. Mr. Oakhurst, whose
professional habits had enabled him to live on the smallest possible
amount of sleep, in dividing the watch with Tom Simson, somehow
managed to take upon himself the greater part of that duty. He excused
himself to the Innocent, by saying that he had “often been a week
without sleep.” “Doing what?” asked Tom. “Poker!” replied Oakhurst,
sententiously; “when a man gets a streak of luck,--nigger-luck,--he
don’t get tired. The luck gives in first. Luck,” continued the gambler,
reflectively, “is a mighty queer thing. All you know about it for
certain is that it’s bound to change. And it’s finding out when it’s
going to change that makes you. We’ve had a streak of bad luck since
we left Poker Flat--you come along, and slap you get into it, too. If
you can hold your cards right along you’re all right. For,” added the
gambler, with cheerful irrelevance,
“‘I’m proud to live in the service of the Lord,
And I’m bound to die in His army.’”
The third day came, and the sun, looking through the white-curtained
valley, saw the outcasts divide their slowly decreasing store of
provisions for the morning meal. It was one of the peculiarities of
that mountain climate that its rays diffused a kindly warmth over
the wintry landscape, as if in regretful commiseration of the past.
But it revealed drift on drift of snow piled high around the hut; a
hopeless, uncharted, trackless sea of white lying below the rocky
shores to which the castaways still clung. Through the marvellously
clear air, the smoke of the pastoral village of Poker Flat rose miles
away. Mother Shipton saw it, and from a remote pinnacle of her rocky
fastness, hurled in that direction a final malediction. It was her last
vituperative attempt, and perhaps for that reason was invested with a
certain degree of sublimity. It did her good, she privately informed
the Duchess. “Just you go out there and cuss, and see.” She then set
herself to the task of amusing “the child,” as she and the Duchess were
pleased to call Piney. Piney was no chicken, but it was a soothing and
ingenious theory of the pair thus to account for the fact that she
didn’t swear and wasn’t improper.
When night crept up again through the gorges, the reedy notes of the
accordeon rose and fell in fitful spasms and long-drawn gasps by the
flickering camp-fire. But music failed to fill entirely the aching
void left by insufficient food, and a new diversion was proposed by
Piney--story-telling. Neither Mr. Oakhurst nor his female companions
caring to relate their personal experiences, this plan would have
failed, too, but for The Innocent. Some months before he had chanced
upon a stray copy of Mr. Pope’s ingenious translation of the Iliad. He
now proposed to narrate the principal incidents of that poem--having
thoroughly mastered the argument and fairly forgotten the words--in
the current vernacular of Sandy Bar. And so for the rest of that
night the Homeric demigods again walked the earth. Trojan bully and
wily Greek wrestled in the winds, and the great pines in the cañon
seemed to bow to the wrath of the son of Peleus. Mr. Oakhurst listened
with quiet satisfaction. Most especially was he interested in the
fate of “Ash-heels,” as the Innocent persisted in denominating the
“swift-footed Achilles.”
So with small food and much of Homer and the accordeon, a week passed
over the heads of the outcasts. The sun again forsook them, and again
from leaden skies the snow-flakes were sifted over the land. Day by day
closer around them drew the snowy circle, until at last they looked
from their prison over drifted walls of dazzling white, that towered
twenty feet above their heads. It became more and more difficult to
replenish their fires, even from the fallen trees beside them, now
half-hidden in the drifts. And yet no one complained. The lovers turned
from the dreary prospect and looked into each other’s eyes, and were
happy. Mr. Oakhurst settled himself coolly to the losing game before
him. The Duchess, more cheerful than she had been, assumed the care of
Piney. Only Mother Shipton--once the strongest of the party--seemed
to sicken and fade. At midnight on the tenth day she called Oakhurst
to her side. “I’m going,” she said, in a voice of querulous weakness,
“but don’t say anything about it. Don’t waken the kids. Take the bundle
from under my head and open it.” Mr. Oakhurst did so. It contained
Mother Shipton’s rations for the last week, untouched. “Give ’em to
the child,” she said, pointing to the sleeping Piney. “You’ve starved
yourself,” said the gambler. “That’s what they call it,” said the
woman, querulously, as she lay down again, and, turning her face to the
wall, passed quietly away.
The accordeon and the bones were put aside that day, and Homer was
forgotten. When the body of Mother Shipton had been committed to the
snow, Mr. Oakhurst took The Innocent aside, and showed him a pair of
snow-shoes, which he had fashioned from the old pack-saddle. “There’s
one chance in a hundred to save her yet,” he said, pointing to Piney;
“but it’s there,” he added, pointing toward Poker Flat. “If you can
reach there in two days she’s safe.” “And you?” asked Tom Simson. “I’ll
stay here,” was the curt reply.
The lovers parted with a long embrace. “You are not going, too?” said
the Duchess, as she saw Mr. Oakhurst apparently waiting to accompany
him. “As far as the cañon,” he replied. He turned suddenly, and kissed
the Duchess, leaving her pallid face aflame, and her trembling limbs
rigid with amazement.
Night came, but not Mr. Oakhurst. It brought the storm again and the
whirling snow. Then the Duchess, feeding the fire, found that some
one had quietly piled beside the hut enough fuel to last a few days
longer. The tears rose to her eyes, but she hid them from Piney.
The women slept but little. In the morning, looking into each other’s
faces, they read their fate. Neither spoke; but Piney, accepting the
position of the stronger, drew near and placed her arm around the
Duchess’s waist. They kept this attitude for the rest of the day. That
night the storm reached its greatest fury, and, rending asunder the
protecting pines, invaded the very hut.
Toward morning they found themselves unable to feed the fire, which
gradually died away. As the embers slowly blackened, the Duchess
crept closer to Piney, and broke the silence of many hours: “Piney,
can you pray?” “No, dear,” said Piney, simply. The Duchess, without
knowing exactly why, felt relieved, and, putting her head upon Piney’s
shoulder, spoke no more. And so reclining, the younger and purer
pillowing the head of her soiled sister upon her virgin breast, they
fell asleep.
The wind lulled as if it feared to waken them. Feathery drifts of snow,
shaken from the long pine boughs, flew like white-winged birds, and
settled about them as they slept. The moon through the rifted clouds
looked down upon what had been the camp. But all human stain, all trace
of earthly travail, was hidden beneath the spotless mantle mercifully
flung from above.
They slept all that day and the next, nor did they waken when voices
and footsteps broke the silence of the camp. And when pitying fingers
brushed the snow from their wan faces, you could scarcely have told
from the equal peace that dwelt upon them, which was she that had
sinned. Even the Law of Poker Flat recognized this, and turned away,
leaving them still locked in each other’s arms.
But at the head of the gulch, on one of the largest pine trees, they
found the deuce of clubs pinned to the bark with a bowie knife. It bore
the following, written in pencil, in a firm hand:
†
BENEATH THIS TREE
LIES THE BODY
OF
JOHN OAKHURST,
WHO STRUCK A STREAK OF BAD LUCK
ON THE 23D OF NOVEMBER, 1850,
AND
HANDED IN HIS CHECKS
ON THE 7TH DECEMBER, 1850.
†
And pulseless and cold, with a Derringer by his side and a bullet in
his heart, though still calm as in life, beneath the snow lay he who
was at once the strongest and yet the weakest of the outcasts of Poker
Flat.
ALBERT FALVEY WEBSTER
1848–1876
Readers of “Appleton’s Journal” in the early ’70’s must have looked
forward from week to week to the stories of Albert Webster. For,
often as he wrote, he always had a story to tell. It might be merely
a romance of incident; it was usually a situation of very human
significance; it always showed narrative instinct. With this native
sense he was experimenting variously toward his art, while through his
investigations of prisons, courts, and medical advice he was developing
a serious and definite philosophy of life. But his own life was doomed.
The quest of health, very like Stevenson’s, may be read in the titles
of his descriptive essays during 1875 and 1876: _Spring Days in Aiken_,
_From New York to Aspinwall_, _The Isthmus and Panama_, _Up the Mexican
Coast_, _Winter Days in California_, etc. On the steamer from San
Francisco to Honolulu he died, and was buried in the Pacific. He was
betrothed to Una, eldest daughter of Hawthorne.
Of his many stories perhaps the most striking is _An Operation in
Money_ (“Appleton’s Journal,” September 27, 1873, volume x, page 387);
the nicest in adjustment, _Miss Eunice’s Glove_, printed below. _The
Daphne_ (“Appleton’s Journal,” 1873, volume x, page 290) and _A Fool’s
Moustache_ (ibid., 1874, volume xii, page 259) read as if sketched for
the stage. How he kept at his work appears pathetically in his leaving
behind a tale laid at Santa Barbara and published after his death, _The
Owner of “Lara”_ (ibid., 1877, new series, volume ii, page 350).
MISS EUNICE’S GLOVE
[_From the “Atlantic Monthly,” July, 1873_]
I
For a long time blithe and fragile Miss Eunice, demure, correct in
deportment, and yet not wholly without enthusiasm, thought that day
the unluckiest in her life on which she first took into her hands that
unobtrusive yet dramatic book, “Miss Crofutt’s Missionary Labors in the
English Prisons.”
It came to her notice by mere accident, not by favor of proselyting
friends; and such was its singular material, that she at once
devoured it with avidity. As its title suggests, it was the history
of the ameliorating endeavors of a woman in criminal society, and it
contained, perforce, a large amount of tragic and pathetic incident.
But this last was so blended and involved with what Miss Eunice would
have skipped as commonplace, that she was led to digest the whole
volume,--statistics, philosophy, comments, and all. She studied the
analysis of the atmosphere of cells, the properties and waste of
wheaten flour, the cost of clothing to the general government, the whys
and wherefores of crime and evil-doing; and it was not long before
there was generated within her bosom a fine and healthy ardor to
emulate this practical and courageous pattern.
She was profoundly moved by the tales of missionary labors proper.
She was filled with joy to read that Miss Crofutt and her lieutenants
sometimes cracked and broke away the formidable husks which enveloped
divine kernels in the hearts of some of the wretches, and she
frequently wept at the stories of victories gained over monsters whose
defences of silence and stolidity had suddenly fallen into ruin above
the slow but persistent sapping of constant kindness. Acute tinglings
and chilling thrills would pervade her entire body when she read that
on Christmas every wretch seemed to become for that day, at least, a
gracious man; that the sight of a few penny tapers, or the possession
of a handful of sweet stuff, or a spray of holly, or a hot-house bloom,
would appear to convert the worst of them into children. Her heart
would swell to learn how they acted during the one poor hour of yearly
freedom in the prison-yards; that they swelled their chests; that they
ran; that they took long strides; that the singers anxiously tried
their voices, now grown husky; that the athletes wrestled only to find
their limbs stiff and their arts forgotten; that the gentlest of them
lifted their faces to the broad sky and spent the sixty minutes in a
dreadful gazing at the clouds.
The pretty student gradually became possessed with a rage. She desired
to convert some one, to recover some estray, to reform some wretch.
She regretted that she lived in America, and not in England, where the
most perfect rascals were to be found; she was sorry that the gloomy,
sin-saturated prisons which were the scenes of Miss Crofutt’s labors
must always be beyond her ken.
There was no crime in the family or the neighborhood against which she
might strive; no one whom she knew was even austere; she had never met
a brute; all her rascals were newspaper rascals. For aught she knew,
this tranquillity and good-will might go on forever, without affording
her an opportunity. She must be denied the smallest contact with these
frightful faces and figures, these bars and cages, these deformities
of the mind and heart, these curiosities of conscience, shyness,
skill, and daring; all these dramas of reclamation, all these scenes
of fervent gratitude, thankfulness, and intoxicating liberty,--all or
any of these things must never come to be the lot of her eyes; and she
gave herself up to the most poignant regret.
But one day she was astonished to discover that all of these delights
lay within half an hour’s journey of her home; and moreover, that
there was approaching an hour which was annually set apart for the
indulgence of the inmates of the prison in question. She did not stop
to ask herself, as she might well have done, how it was that she had so
completely ignored this particular institution, which was one of the
largest and best conducted in the country, especially when her desire
to visit one was so keen; but she straightway set about preparing for
her intended visit in a manner which she fancied Miss Crofutt would
have approved, had she been present.
She resolved, in the most radical sense of the word, to be
alive. She jotted on some ivory tablets, with a gold pencil, a
number of hints to assist her in her observations. For example:
“Phrenological development; size of cells; ounces of solid and
liquid; tissue-producing food; were mirrors allowed? if so, what
was the effect? jimmy and skeleton-key, character of; canary birds:
query, would not their admission into every cell animate in the human
prisoners a similar buoyancy? to urge upon the turnkeys the use of the
Spanish garrote in place of the present distressing gallows; to find
the proportion of Orthodox and Unitarian prisoners to those of other
persuasions.” But besides these and fifty other similar memoranda, the
enthusiast cast about her for something practical to do.
She hit upon the capital idea of flowers. She at once ordered from a
gardener of taste two hundred bouquets, or rather nosegays, which she
intended for distribution among the prisoners she was about to visit,
and she called upon her father for the money.
Then she began to prepare her mind. She wished to define the plan from
which she was to make her contemplations. She settled that she would be
grave and gentle. She would be exquisitely careful not to hold herself
too much aloof, and yet not to step beyond the bounds of that sweet
reserve that she conceived must have been at once Miss Crofutt’s sword
and buckler.
Her object was to awaken in the most abandoned criminals a realization
that the world, in its most benignant phase, was still open to them;
that society, having obtained a requital for their wickedness, was
ready to embrace them again on proof of their repentance.
She determined to select at the outset two or three of the most
remarkable monsters, and turn the full head of her persuasions
exclusively upon them, instead of sprinkling (as it were) the whole
community with her grace. She would arouse at first a very few, and
then a few more, and a few more, and so on _ad infinitum_.
It was on a hot July morning that she journeyed on foot over the bridge
which led to the prison, and there walked a man behind her carrying the
flowers.
Her eyes were cast down, this being the position most significant of
her spirit. Her pace was equal, firm, and rapid; she made herself
oblivious of the bustle of the streets, and she repented that her
vanity had permitted her to wear white and lavender, these making a
combination in her dress which she had been told became her well. She
had no right to embellish herself. Was she going to the races, or a
match, or a kettle-drum, that she must dandify herself with particular
shades of color? She stopped short, blushing. Would Miss Cro----.
But there was no help for it now. It was too late to turn back. She
proceeded, feeling that the odds were against her.
She approached her destination in such a way that the prison came into
view suddenly. She paused with a feeling of terror. The enormous gray
building rose far above a lofty white wall of stone, and a sense of
its prodigious strength and awful gloom overwhelmed her. On the top of
the wall, holding by an iron railing, there stood a man with a rifle
trailing behind him. He was looking down into the yard inside. His
attitude of watchfulness, his weapon, the unseen thing that was being
thus fiercely guarded, provoked in her such a revulsion that she came
to a standstill.
What in the name of mercy had she come here for? She began to tremble.
The man with the flowers came up to her and halted. From the prison
there came at this instant the loud clang of a bell, and succeeding
this a prolonged and resonant murmur which seemed to increase. Miss
Eunice looked hastily around her. There were several people who must
have heard the same sounds that reached her ears, but they were not
alarmed. In fact, one or two of them seemed to be going to the prison
direct. The courage of our philanthropist began to revive. A woman in a
brick house opposite suddenly pulled up a window-curtain and fixed an
amused and inquisitive look upon her.
This would have sent her into a thrice-heated furnace. “Come, if you
please,” she commanded the man, and she marched upon the jail.
She entered at first a series of neat offices in a wing of the
structure, and then she came to a small door made of black bars of
iron. A man stood on the farther side of this, with a bunch of large
keys. When he saw Miss Eunice he unlocked and opened the door, and she
passed through.
She found that she had entered a vast, cool, and lofty cage, one
hundred feet in diameter; it had an iron floor, and there were several
people strolling about here and there. Through several grated apertures
the sunlight streamed with strong effect, and a soft breeze swept
around the cavernous apartment.
Without the cage, before her and on either hand, were three more wings
of the building, and in these were the prisoners’ corridors.
At the moment she entered, the men were leaving their cells, and
mounting the stone stairs in regular order, on their way to the
chapel above. The noisy files went up and down and to the right and
to the left, shuffling and scraping and making a great tumult. The
men were dressed in blue, and were seen indistinctly through the
lofty gratings. From above and below and all around her there came
the metallic snapping of bolts and the rattle of moving bars; and so
significant was everything of savage repression and impending violence,
that Miss Eunice was compelled to say faintly to herself, “I am afraid
it will take a little time to get used to all this.”
She rested upon one of the seats in the rotunda while the chapel
services were being conducted, and she thus had an opportunity to
regain a portion of her lost heart. She felt wonderfully dwarfed and
belittled, and her plan of recovering souls had, in some way or other,
lost much of its feasibility. A glance at her bright flowers revived
her a little, as did also a surprising, long-drawn roar from over her
head, to the tune of “America.” The prisoners were singing.
Miss Eunice was not alone in her intended work, for there were several
other ladies, also with supplies of flowers, who with her awaited until
the prisoners should descend into the yard and be let loose before
presenting them with what they had brought. Their common purpose made
them acquainted, and by the aid of chat and sympathy they fortified
each other.
Half an hour later the five hundred men descended from the chapel to
the yard, rushing out upon its bare broad surface as you have seen a
burst of water suddenly irrigate a road-bed. A hoarse and tremendous
shout at once filled the air, and echoed against the walls like the
threat of a volcano. Some of the wretches waltzed and spun around like
dervishes, some threw somersaults, some folded their arms gravely and
marched up and down, some fraternized, some walked away pondering, some
took off their tall caps and sat down in the shade, some looked towards
the rotunda with expectation, and there were those who looked towards
it with contempt.
There led from the rotunda to the yard a flight of steps. Miss Eunice
descended these steps with a quaking heart, and a turnkey shouted to
the prisoners over her head that she and others had flowers for them.
No sooner had the words left his lips, than the men rushed up pell-mell.
This was a crucial moment.
There thronged upon Miss Eunice an army of men who were being punished
for all the crimes in the calendar. Each individual here had been caged
because he was either a highwayman, or a forger, or a burglar, or a
ruffian, or a thief, or a murderer. The unclean and frightful tide
bore down upon our terrified missionary, shrieking and whooping. Every
prisoner thrust out his hand over the head of the one in front of him,
and the foremost plucked at her dress.
She had need of courage. A sense of danger and contamination impelled
her to fly, but a gleam of reason in the midst of her distraction
enabled her to stand her ground. She forced herself to smile, though
she knew her face had grown pale.
She placed a bunch of flowers into an immense hand which projected from
a coarse blue sleeve in front of her; the owner of the hand was pushed
away so quickly by those who came after him that Miss Eunice failed to
see his face. Her tortured ear caught a rough “Thank y’, miss!” The
spirit of Miss Crofutt revived in a flash, and her disciple thereafter
possessed no lack of nerve.
She plied the crowd with flowers as long as they lasted, and a jaunty
self-possession enabled her finally to gaze without flinching at the
mass of depraved and wicked faces with which she was surrounded.
Instead of retaining her position upon the steps, she gradually
descended into the yard, as did several other visitors. She began to
feel at home; she found her tongue, and her color came back again. She
felt a warm pride in noticing with what care and respect the prisoners
treated her gifts; they carried them about with great tenderness, and
some compared them with those of their friends.
Presently she began to recall her plans. It occurred to her to select
her two or three villains. For one, she immediately pitched upon a
lean-faced wretch in front of her. He seemed to be old, for his back
was bent and he leaned upon a cane. His features were large, and
they bore an expression of profound gloom. His head was sunk upon
his breast, his lofty conical cap was pulled over his ears, and his
shapeless uniform seemed to weigh him down, so infirm was he.
Miss Eunice spoke to him. He did not hear; she spoke again. He glanced
at her like a flash, but without moving; this was at once followed by
a scrutinizing look. He raised his head, and then he turned toward her
gravely.
The solemnity of his demeanor nearly threw Miss Eunice off her balance,
but she mastered herself by beginning to talk rapidly. The prisoner
leaned over a little to hear better. Another came up, and two or three
turned around to look. She bethought herself of an incident related
in Miss Crofutt’s book, and she essayed its recital. It concerned a
lawyer who was once pleading in a French criminal court in behalf
of a man whose crime had been committed under the influence of dire
want. In his plea he described the case of another whom he knew who
had been punished with a just but short imprisonment instead of a long
one, which the judge had been at liberty to impose, but from which he
humanely refrained. Miss Eunice happily remembered the words of the
lawyer: “That man suffered like the wrong-doer that he was. He knew his
punishment was just. Therefore there lived perpetually in his breast an
impulse toward a better life which was not suppressed and stifled by
the five years he passed within the walls of the jail. He came forth
and began to labor. He toiled hard. He struggled against averted faces
and cold words, and he began to rise. He secreted nothing, faltered at
nothing, and never stumbled. He succeeded; men took off their hats to
him once more; he became wealthy, honorable, God-fearing. I, gentlemen,
am that man, that criminal.” As she quoted this last declaration, Miss
Eunice erected herself with burning eyes and touched herself proudly
upon the breast. A flush crept into her cheeks, and her nostrils
dilated, and she grew tall.
She came back to earth again, and found herself surrounded with the
prisoners. She was a little startled.
“Ah, that was good!” ejaculated the old man upon whom she had fixed her
eyes. Miss Eunice felt an inexpressible sense of delight.
Murmurs of approbation came from all of her listeners, especially from
one on her right hand. She looked around at him pleasantly.
But the smile faded from her lips on beholding him. He was extremely
tall and very powerful. He overshadowed her. His face was large,
ugly, and forbidding; his gray hair and beard were cropped close, his
eyebrows met at the bridge of his nose and overhung his large eyes like
a screen. His lips were very wide, and, being turned downwards at the
corners, they gave him a dolorous expression. His lower jaw was square
and protruding, and a pair of prodigious white ears projected from
beneath his sugar-loaf cap. He seemed to take his cue from the old man,
for he repeated his sentiment.
“Yes,” said he, with a voice which broke alternately into a roar and a
whisper, “that was a good story.”
“Y-yes,” faltered Miss Eunice, “and it has the merit of being t-rue.”
He replied with a nod, and looked absently over her head while he
rubbed the nap upon his chin with his hand. Miss Eunice discovered that
his knee touched the skirt of her dress, and she was about to move in
order to destroy this contact, when she remembered that Miss Crofutt
would probably have cherished the accident as a promoter of a valuable
personal influence, so she allowed it to remain. The lean-faced man was
not to be mentioned in the same breath with this one, therefore she
adopted the superior villain out of hand.
She began to approach him. She asked him where he lived, meaning to
discover whence he had come. He replied in the same mixture of roar
and whisper, “Six undered un one, North Wing.”
Miss Eunice grew scarlet. Presently she recovered sufficiently to
pursue some inquiries respecting the rules and customs of the prison.
She did not feel that she was interesting her friend, yet it seemed
clear that he did not wish to go away. His answers were curt, yet he
swept his cap off his head, implying by the act a certain reverence,
which Miss Eunice’s vanity permitted her to exult at. Therefore she
became more loquacious than ever. Some men came up to speak with the
prisoner, but he shook them off, and remained in an attitude of strict
attention, with his chin on his hand, looking now at the sky, now at
the ground, and now at Miss Eunice.
In handling the flowers her gloves had been stained, and she now
held them in her fingers, nervously twisting them as she talked. In
the course of time she grew short of subjects, and, as her listener
suggested nothing, several lapses occurred; in one of them she absently
spread her gloves out in her palms, meanwhile wondering how the English
girl acted under similar circumstances.
Suddenly a large hand slowly interposed itself between her eyes and her
gloves, and then withdrew, taking one of the soiled trifles with it.
She was surprised, but the surprise was pleasurable. She said nothing
at first. The prisoner gravely spread his prize out upon his own palm,
and after looking at it carefully, he rolled it up into a tight ball
and thrust it deep in an inner pocket.
This act made the philanthropist aware that she had made progress. She
rose insensibly to the elevation of patron, and she made promises to
come frequently and visit her ward and to look in upon him when he was
at work; while saying this she withdrew a little from the shade his
huge figure had supplied her with.
He thrust his hands into his pockets, but he hastily took them out
again. Still he said nothing and hung his head. It was while she was
in the mood of a conqueror that Miss Eunice went away. She felt a touch
of repugnance at stepping from before his eyes a free woman, therefore
she took pains to go when she thought he was not looking.
She pointed him out to a turnkey, who told her he was expiating the
sins of assault and burglarious entry. Outwardly Miss Eunice looked
grieved, but within she exulted that he was so emphatically a rascal.
When she emerged from the cool, shadowy, and frowning prison into the
gay sunlight, she experienced a sense of bewilderment. The significance
of a lock and a bar seemed greater on quitting them than it had when
she had perceived them first. The drama of imprisonment and punishment
oppressed her spirit with tenfold gloom now that she gazed upon the
brilliancy and freedom of the outer world. That she and everybody
around her were permitted to walk here and there at will, without
question and limit, generated within her an indefinite feeling of
gratitude; and the noise, the colors, the creaking wagons, the myriad
voices, the splendid variety and change of all things excited a
profound but at the same time a mournful satisfaction.
Midway in her return journey she was shrieked at from a carriage, which
at once approached the sidewalk. Within it were four gay maidens bound
to the Navy-Yard, from whence they were to sail, with a large party of
people of nice assortment, in an experimental steamer, which was to be
made to go with kerosene lamps, in some way. They seized upon her hands
and cajoled her. Wouldn’t she go? They were to sail down among the
islands (provided the oil made the wheels and things go round), they
were to lunch at Fort Warren, dine at Fort Independence, and dance at
Fort Winthrop. Come, please go. Oh, do! The Germanians were to furnish
the music.
Miss Eunice sighed, but shook her head. She had not yet got the air of
the prison out of her lungs, nor the figure of her robber out of her
eyes, nor the sense of horror and repulsion out of her sympathies.
At another time she would have gone to the ends of the earth with such
a happy crew, but now she only shook her head again and was resolute.
No one could wring a reason from her, and the wondering quartet drove
away.
II
Before the day went, Miss Eunice awoke to the disagreeable fact that
her plans had become shrunken and contracted, that a certain something
had curdled her spontaneity, and that her ardor had flown out at some
crevice and had left her with the dry husk of an intent.
She exerted herself to glow a little, but she failed. She talked
well at the tea-table, but she did not tell about the glove. This
matter plagued her. She ran over in her mind the various doings of
Miss Crofutt, and she could not conceal from herself that that lady
had never given a glove to one of her wretches; no, nor had she ever
permitted the smallest approach to familiarity.
Miss Eunice wept a little. She was on the eve of despairing.
In the silence of the night the idea presented itself to her with a
disagreeable baldness. There was a thief over yonder that possessed a
confidence with her.
They had found it necessary to shut this man up in iron and stone, and
to guard him with a rifle with a large leaden ball in it.
This villain was a convict. That was a terrible word, one that made her
blood chill.
She, the admired of hundreds and the beloved of a family, had done a
secret and shameful thing of which she dared not tell. In these solemn
hours the madness of her act appalled her.
She asked herself what might not the fellow do with the glove? Surely
he would exhibit it among his brutal companions, and perhaps allow it
to pass to and fro among them. They would laugh and joke with him, and
he would laugh and joke in return, and no doubt he would kiss it to
their great delight. Again, he might go to her friends, and, by working
upon their fears and by threatening an exposure of her, extort large
sums of money from them. Again, might he not harass her by constantly
appearing to her at all times and all places and making all sorts of
claims and demands? Again, might he not, with terrible ingenuity,
use it in connection with some false key or some jack-in-the-box,
or some dark-lantern, or something, in order to effect his escape;
or might he not tell the story times without count to some wretched
curiosity-hunters who would advertise her folly all over the country,
to her perpetual misery?
She became harnessed to this train of thought. She could not escape
from it. She reversed the relation that she had hoped to hold toward
such a man, and she stood in his shadow, and not he in hers.
In consequence of these ever-present fears and sensations, there
was one day, not very far in the future, that she came to have an
intolerable dread of. This day was the one on which the sentence of the
man was to expire. She felt that he would surely search for her; and
that he would find her there could be no manner of doubt, for, in her
surplus of confidence, she had told him her full name, inasmuch as he
had told her his.
When she contemplated this new source of terror, her peace of mind
fled directly. So did her plans for philanthropic labor. Not a shred
remained. The anxiety began to tell upon her, and she took to peering
out of a certain shaded window that commanded the square in front of
her house. It was not long before she remembered that for good behavior
certain days were deducted from the convicts’ terms of imprisonment.
Therefore, her ruffian might be released at a moment not anticipated by
her. He might, in fact, be discharged on any day. He might be on his
way towards her even now.
She was not very far from right, for suddenly the man did appear.
He one day turned the corner, as she was looking out at the window
fearing that she should see him, and came in a diagonal direction
across the hot, flagged square.
Miss Eunice’s pulse leaped into the hundreds. She glued her eyes upon
him. There was no mistake. There was the red face, the evil eyes, the
large mouth, the gray hair, and the massive frame.
What should she do? Should she hide? Should she raise the sash and
shriek to the police? Should she arm herself with a knife? or--what?
In the name of mercy, what? She glared into the street. He came on
steadily, and she lost him, for he passed beneath her. In a moment she
heard the jangle of the bell. She was petrified. She heard his heavy
step below. He had gone into the little reception room beside the door.
He crossed to a sofa opposite the mantel. She then heard him get up and
go to a window, then he walked about, and then sat down; probably upon
a red leather seat beside the window.
Meanwhile the servant was coming to announce him. From some impulse,
which was a strange and sudden one, she eluded the maid, and rushed
headlong upon her danger. She never remembered her descent of the
stairs. She awoke to cool contemplation of matters only to find herself
entering the room.
Had she made a mistake, after all? It was a question that was asked and
answered in a flash. This man was pretty erect and self-assured, but
she discerned in an instant that there was needed but the blue woollen
jacket and the tall cap to make him the wretch of a month before.
He said nothing. Neither did she. He stood up and occupied himself
by twisting a button upon his waistcoat. She, fearing a threat or a
demand, stood bridling to receive it. She looked at him from top to toe
with parted lips.
He glanced at her. She stepped back. He put the rim of his cap in his
mouth and bit it once or twice, and then looked out at the window.
Still neither spoke. A voice at this instant seemed impossible.
He glanced again like a flash. She shrank, and put her hands upon the
bolt. Presently he began to stir. He put out one foot, and gradually
moved forward. He made another step. He was going away. He had almost
reached the door, when Miss Eunice articulated, in a confused whisper,
“My--my glove; I wish you would give me my glove.”
He stopped, fixed his eyes upon her, and after passing his fingers up
and down upon the outside of his coat, said, with deliberation, in a
husky voice, “No, mum. I’m goin’ fur to keep it as long as I live, if
it takes two thousand years.”
“Keep it!” she stammered.
“Keep it,” he replied.
He gave her an untranslatable look. It neither frightened her nor
permitted her to demand the glove more emphatically. She felt her
cheeks and temples and her hands grow cold, and midway in the process
of fainting she saw him disappear. He vanquished quietly. Deliberation
and respect characterized his movements, and there was not so much as a
jar of the outer door.
Poor philanthropist!
This incident nearly sent her to a sick-bed. She fully expected that
her secret would appear in the newspapers in full, and she lived in
dread of the onslaught of an angry and outraged society.
The more she reflected upon what her possibilities had been and how
she had misused them, the iller and the more distressed she got. She
grew thin and spare of flesh. Her friends became frightened. They began
to dose her and to coddle her. She looked at them with eyes full of
supreme melancholy, and she frequently wept upon their shoulders.
In spite of her precautions, however, a thunderbolt slipped in.
One day her father read at the table an item that met his eye. He
repeated it aloud, on account of the peculiar statement in the last
line:--
“Detained on suspicion.--A rough-looking fellow, who gave the name
of Gorman, was arrested on the high-road to Tuxbridge Springs for
suspected complicity in some recent robberies in the neighborhood.
He was fortunately able to give a pretty clear account of his late
whereabouts, and he was permitted to depart with a caution from the
justice. Nothing was found upon him but a few coppers and an old kid
glove wrapped in a bit of paper.”
Miss Eunice’s soup spilled. This was too much, and she fainted this
time in right good earnest; and she straightway became an invalid of
the settled type. They put her to bed. The doctor told her plainly that
he knew she had a secret, but she looked at him so imploringly that he
refrained from telling his fancies; but he ordered an immediate change
of air. It was settled at once that she should go to the “Springs”--to
Tuxbridge Springs. The doctor knew there were young people there, also
plenty of dancing. So she journeyed thither with her pa and her ma and
with pillows and servants.
They were shown to their rooms, and strong porters followed with the
luggage. One of them had her huge trunk upon his shoulder. He put it
carefully upon the floor, and by so doing he disclosed the ex-prisoner
to Miss Eunice and Miss Eunice to himself. He was astonished, but
he remained silent. But she must needs be frightened and fall into
another fit of trembling. After an awkward moment he went away, while
she called to her father and begged piteously to be taken away from
Tuxbridge Springs instantly. There was no appeal. She hated, _hated_,
HATED Tuxbridge Springs, and she should die if she were forced to
remain. She rained tears. She would give no reason, but she could not
stay. No, millions on millions could not persuade her; go she must.
There was no alternative. The party quitted the place within the hour,
bag and baggage. Miss Eunice’s father was perplexed and angry, and her
mother would have been angry also if she had dared.
They went to other springs and stayed a month, but the patient’s fright
increased each day, and so did her fever. She was full of distractions.
In her dreams everybody laughed at her as the one who had flirted with
a convict. She would ever be pursued with the tale of her foolishness
and stupidity. Should she ever recover her self-respect and confidence?
She had become radically selfish. She forgot the old ideas of
noble-heartedness and self-denial, and her temper had become weak and
childish. She did not meet her puzzle face to face, but she ran away
from it with her hands over her ears. Miss Crofutt stared at her, and
therefore she threw Miss Crofutt’s book into the fire.
After two days of unceasing debate, she called her parents, and with
the greatest agitation told them _all_.
It so happened, in this case, that events, to use a railroad phrase,
made connection.
No sooner had Miss Eunice told her story than the man came again. This
time he was accompanied by a woman.
“Only get my glove away from him,” sobbed the unhappy one, “that is all
I ask!” This was a fine admission! It was thought proper to bring an
officer, and so a strong one was sent for.
Meanwhile the couple had been admitted to the parlor. Miss Eunice’s
father stationed the officer at one door, while he, with a pistol,
stood at the other. Then Miss Eunice went into the apartment. She
was wasted, weak, and nervous. The two villains got up as she came
in, and bowed. She began to tremble as usual, and laid hold upon the
mantelpiece. “How much do you want?” she gasped.
The man gave the woman a push with his forefinger. She stepped forward
quickly with her crest up. Her eyes turned, and she fixed a vixenish
look upon Miss Eunice. She suddenly shot her hand out from beneath her
shawl and extended it at full length. Across it lay Miss Eunice’s
glove, very much soiled.
“Was that thing ever yours?” demanded the woman, shrilly.
“Y-yes,” said Miss Eunice, faintly.
The woman seemed (if the apt word is to be excused) staggered. She
withdrew her hand, and looked the glove over. The man shook his head,
and began to laugh behind his hat.
“And did you ever give it to him?” pursued the woman, pointing over her
shoulder with her thumb.
Miss Eunice nodded.
“Of your own free will?”
After a moment of silence she ejaculated, in a whisper, “Yes.”
“Now wait,” said the man, coming to the front; “’nough has been said by
you.” He then addressed himself to Miss Eunice with the remains of his
laugh still illuminating his face.
“This is my wife’s sister, and she’s one of the jealous kind. I love
my wife” (here he became grave), “and I never showed her any kind of
slight that I know of. I’ve always been fair to her, and she’s always
been fair to me. Plain sailin’ so far; I never kep’ anything from
her--but this.” He reached out and took the glove from the woman, and
spread it out upon his own palm, as Miss Eunice had seen him do once
before. He looked at it thoughtfully. “I wouldn’t tell her about this;
no, never. She was never very particular to ask me; that’s where her
trust in me came in. She knowed I was above doing anything out of the
way--that is--I mean--” He stammered and blushed, and then rushed on
volubly. “But her sister here thought I paid too much attention to
it; she thought I looked at it too much, and kep’ it secret. So she
nagged and nagged, and kept the pitch boilin’ until I had to let it
out: I told ’em” (Miss Eunice shivered). “‘No,’ says she, my wife’s
sister, ‘that won’t do, Gorman. That’s chaff, and I’m too old a bird.’
Ther’fore I fetched her straight to you, so she could put the question
direct.”
He stopped a moment as if in doubt how to go on. Miss Eunice began
to open her eyes, and she released the mantel. The man resumed with
something like impressiveness:
“When you last held that,” said he, slowly, balancing the glove in his
hand, “I was a wicked man with bad intentions through and through. When
I first held it I became an honest man, with good intentions.”
A burning blush of shame covered Miss Eunice’s face and neck.
“An’ as I kep’ it my intentions went on improvin’ and improvin’,
till I made up my mind to behave myself in future, forever. Do you
understand?--forever. No backslidin’, no hitchin’, no slippin’-up. I
take occasion to say, miss, that I was beset time and again; that the
instant I set my foot outside them prison-gates, over there, my old
chums got round me; but I shook my head. ‘No,’ says I, ‘I won’t go back
on the glove.’”
Miss Eunice hung her head. The two had exchanged places, she thought;
she was the criminal and he the judge.
“An’ what is more,” continued he, with the same weight in his tone,
“I not only kep’ sight of the glove, but I kep’ sight of the generous
sperrit that gave it. I didn’t let _that_ go. I never forgot what you
meant. I knowed--I knowed,” repeated he, lifting his forefinger,--“I
knowed a time would come when there wouldn’t be any enthoosiasm, any
‘hurrah,’ and then perhaps you’d be sorry you was so kind to me; an’
the time did come.”
Miss Eunice buried her face in her hands and wept aloud.
“But did I quit the glove? No, mum. I held on to it. It was what I
fought by. I wasn’t going to give it up, because it was asked for.
All the police-officers in the city couldn’t have took it from me. I
put it deep into my pocket and I walked out. It was differcult, miss.
But I come through. The glove did it. It helped me stand out against
temptation when it was strong. If I looked at it, I remembered that
once there was a pure heart that pitied me. It cheered me up. After a
while I kinder got out of the mud. Then I got work. The glove again.
Then a girl that knowed me before I took to bad ways married me, and
no questions asked. Then I just took the glove into a dark corner and
blessed it.”
Miss Eunice was belittled.
A noise was heard in the hall-way. Miss Eunice’s father and the
policeman were going away.
The awkwardness of the succeeding silence was relieved by the moving of
the man and the woman. They had done their errand, and were going.
Said Miss Eunice, with the faint idea of making a practical apology to
her visitor, “I shall go to the prison once a week after this, I think.”
“Then may God bless ye, miss,” said the man. He came back with tears in
his eyes and took her proffered hand for an instant. Then he and his
wife’s sister went away.
Miss Eunice’s remaining spark of charity at once crackled and burst
into a flame. There is sure to be a little something that is bad in
everybody’s philanthropy when it is first put to use; it requires to be
filed down like a faulty casting before it will run without danger to
anybody. Samaritanism that goes off with half a charge is sure to do
great mischief somewhere; but Miss Eunice’s, now properly corrected,
henceforth shot off at the proper end, and inevitably hit the mark. She
purchased a new Crofutt.
BAYARD TAYLOR
1825–1878
Bayard Taylor, in the ’60’s and ’70’s, was among the best known of our
men of letters. Typical American in enterprise and resource, he gave
most of his life to foreign lands and letters. _Views Afoot_ (1846),
which has sent across the Atlantic hundreds of young Americans like him
in large ambition and small purse, was the first of a series extending
through his life. For a really Viking spirit of travel urged him over
the habitable globe, from Africa to Iceland, from California to Japan.
The store of observations first made newspaper correspondence. His
profession was journalism. Some of the material was subsequently cast
in lectures; most of it appeared finally in books. Thus his trip across
the world (1851–1853) to join Perry furnished, first, copy for the New
York “Tribune,” then many popular lectures, and finally _The Lands of
the Saracen_ (1854) and _A Visit to India, China and Japan_ (1855). His
wide knowledge of foreign societies and his intimate acquaintance with
Germany brought him naturally into public life as minister to Berlin
(1877–1878).
Admirable journalist, Taylor was not content with journalism. In 1863
at Gotha, where he had found a wife in 1857, he was deep in the study
of Goethe. From 1868–1870, after intervening travels, he gave himself
to the translation of “Faust.” Lecturing then at Cornell as Professor
of German Literature, he went back to Germany to pursue Goethe
still further at Weimar. So his knowledge of Scandinavia was of the
literature as well as of the land.
His great ambition, and doubtless his measure of success, was poetry.
From his youthful ventures in Philadelphia almost to the day of his
death he published verse; and the recognition of the public appears
in the choice of him to read the Harvard Φ Β Κ poem in 1850 and the
National Ode at the Centennial Exposition of 1876. Since his death
this part of his work has been so far slighted that there is some
need of recalling his consistently high aim and the technical mastery
evinced by performances so widely different as the delicious parodies
of _The Echo Club_ and the noble rendering of “Faust.” No criticism of
Taylor as a poet should obscure the fact that his “Faust” takes rank
with the few great verse translations.
Taylor’s versatility achieved also a lesser, but still a considerable,
success in novels and tales. The interest aroused by the lively opening
of _Who Was She?_ is sustained with no little art. Perhaps the import
would be more poignant if it were less dangerously near to abstract
proposition; but it is very human.
WHO WAS SHE?
[_From the “Atlantic Monthly” September, 1874_]
Come, now, there may as well be an end of this! Every time I meet your
eyes squarely, I detect the question just slipping out of them. If
you had spoken it, or even boldly looked it; if you had shown in your
motions the least sign of a fussy or fidgety concern on my account;
if this were not the evening of my birthday, and you the only friend
who remembered it; if confession were not good for the soul, though
harder than sin to some people, of whom I am one,--well, if all reasons
were not at this instant converged into a focus, and burning me rather
violently, in that region where the seat of emotion is supposed to lie,
I should keep my trouble to myself.
Yes, I have fifty times had it on my mind to tell you the whole story.
But who can be certain that his best friend will not smile--or, what
is worse, cherish a kind of charitable pity ever afterwards--when
the external forms of a very serious kind of passion seem trivial,
fantastic, foolish? And the worst of all is that the heroic part which
I imagined I was playing proves to have been almost the reverse. The
only comfort which I can find in my humiliation is that I am capable of
feeling it. There isn’t a bit of a paradox in this, as you will see;
but I only mention it, now, to prepare you for, maybe, a little morbid
sensitiveness of my moral nerves.
The documents are all in this portfolio, under my elbow. I had just
read them again completely through, when you were announced. You may
examine them as you like, afterwards: for the present, fill your glass,
take another Cabaña, and keep silent until my “ghastly tale” has
reached its most lamentable conclusion.
The beginning of it was at Wampsocket Springs, three years ago last
summer. I suppose most unmarried men who have reached, or passed, the
age of thirty--and I was then thirty-three--experience a milder return
of their adolescent warmth, a kind of fainter second spring, since
the first has not fulfilled its promise. Of course, I wasn’t clearly
conscious of this at the time: who is? But I had had my youthful
passion and my tragic disappointment, as you know: I had looked far
enough into what Thackeray used to call the cryptic mysteries, to save
me from the Scylla of dissipation, and yet preserved enough of natural
nature to keep me out of the Pharisaic Charybdis. My devotion to my
legal studies had already brought me a mild distinction; the paternal
legacy was a good nest-egg for the incubation of wealth,--in short, I
was a fair, respectable “party,” desirable to the humbler mammas, and
not to be despised by the haughty exclusives.
The fashionable hotel at the Springs holds three hundred, and it
was packed. I had meant to lounge there for a fortnight and then
finish my holidays at Long Branch; but eighty, at least, out of
the three hundred, were young and moved lightly in muslin. With my
years and experience I felt so safe, that to walk, talk, or dance
with them became simply a luxury, such as I had never--at least so
freely--possessed before. My name and standing, known to some families,
were agreeably exaggerated to the others, and I enjoyed that supreme
satisfaction which a man always feels when he discovers, or imagines,
that he is popular in society. There is a kind of premonitory apology
implied in my saying this, I am aware. You must remember that I am
culprit, and culprit’s counsel, at the same time.
You have never been at Wampsocket? Well, the hills sweep around in
a crescent, on the northern side, and four or five radiating glens,
descending from them, unite just above the village. The central one,
leading to a water-fall (called “Minne-hehe” by the irreverent young
people, because there is so little of it), is the fashionable drive
and promenade; but the second ravine on the left, steep, crooked, and
cumbered with bowlders which have tumbled from somewhere and lodged in
the most extraordinary groupings, became my favorite walk of a morning.
There was a footpath in it, well-trodden at first, but gradually fading
out as it became more like a ladder than a path, and I soon discovered
that no other city feet than mine were likely to scale a certain rough
slope which seemed the end of the ravine. With the aid of the tough
laurel-stems I climbed to the top, passed through a cleft as narrow as
a doorway, and presently found myself in a little upper dell, as wild
and sweet and strange as one of the pictures that haunts us on the
brink of sleep.
There was a pond--no, rather a bowl--of water in the centre; hardly
twenty yards across, yet the sky in it was so pure and far down that
the circle of rocks and summer foliage inclosing it seemed like a
little planetary ring, floating off alone through space. I can’t
explain the charm of the spot, nor the selfishness which instantly
suggested that I should keep the discovery to myself. Ten years
earlier, I should have looked around for some fair spirit to be my
“minister,” but now--
One forenoon--I think it was the third or fourth time I had visited the
place--I was startled to find the dint of a heel in the earth, half-way
up the slope. There had been rain during the night and the earth was
still moist and soft. It was the mark of a woman’s boot, only to be
distinguished from that of a walking-stick by its semicircular form. A
little higher, I found the outline of a foot, not so small as to awake
an ecstasy, but with a suggestion of lightness, elasticity, and grace.
If hands were thrust through holes in a board-fence, and nothing of the
attached bodies seen, I can easily imagine that some would attract and
others repel us: with footprints the impression is weaker, of course,
but we cannot escape it. I am not sure whether I wanted to find the
unknown wearer of the boot within my precious personal solitude: I was
afraid I should see her, while passing through the rocky crevice, and
yet was disappointed when I found no one.
But on the flat, warm rock overhanging the tarn--my special throne--lay
some withering wild-flowers, and a book! I looked up and down, right
and left: there was not the slightest sign of another human life than
mine. Then I lay down for a quarter of an hour, and listened: there
were only the noises of bird and squirrel, as before. At last, I took
up the book, the flat breadth of which suggested only sketches. There
were, indeed, some tolerable studies of rocks and trees on the first
pages; a few not very striking caricatures, which seemed to have been
commenced as portraits, but recalled no faces I knew; then a number of
fragmentary notes, written in pencil. I found no name, from first to
last; only, under the sketches, a monogram so complicated and laborious
that the initials could hardly be discovered unless one already knew
them.
The writing was a woman’s, but it had surely taken its character
from certain features of her own: it was clear, firm, individual. It
had nothing of that air of general debility which usually marks the
manuscript of young ladies, yet its firmness was far removed from the
stiff, conventional slope which all Englishwomen seem to acquire in
youth and retain through life. I don’t see how any man in my situation
could have helped reading a few lines--if only for the sake of
restoring lost property. But I was drawn on, and on, and finished by
reading all: thence, since no further harm could be done, I re-read,
pondering over certain passages until they stayed with me. Here they
are, as I set them down, that evening, on the back of a legal blank.
“It makes a great deal of difference whether we wear social forms as
bracelets or handcuffs.”
“Can we not still be wholly our independent selves, even while doing,
in the main, as others do? I know two who are so; but they are
married.”
“The men who admire these bold, dashing young girls treat them like
weaker copies of themselves. And yet they boast of what they call
‘experience!’”
“I wonder if any one felt the exquisite beauty of the noon as I did,
to-day? A faint appreciation of sunsets and storms is taught us in
youth, and kept alive by novels and flirtations; but the broad,
imperial splendor of this summer noon!--and myself standing alone in
it,--yes, utterly alone!”
“The men I seek _must_ exist: where are they? How make an acquaintance,
when one obsequiously bows himself away, as I advance? The fault is
surely not all on my side.”
There was much more, intimate enough to inspire me with a keen interest
in the writer, yet not sufficiently so to make my perusal a painful
indiscretion. I yielded to the impulse of the moment, took out my
pencil, and wrote a dozen lines on one of the blank pages. They ran
something in this wise:--
“IGNOTUS IGNOTÆ!--You have bestowed without intending it, and I
have taken without your knowledge. Do not regret the accident which
has enriched another. This concealed idyl of the hills was mine,
as I supposed, but I acknowledge your equal right to it. Shall we
share the possession, or will you banish me?”
There was a frank advance, tempered by a proper caution, I fancied, in
the words I wrote. It was evident that she was unmarried, but outside
of that certainty there lay a vast range of possibilities, some of them
alarming enough. However, if any nearer acquaintance should arise out
of the incident, the next step must be taken by her. Was I one of the
men she sought? I almost imagined so--certainly hoped so.
I laid the book on the rock, as I had found it, bestowed another keen
scrutiny on the lonely landscape, and then descended the ravine. That
evening, I went early to the ladies’ parlor, chatted more than usual
with the various damsels whom I knew, and watched with a new interest
those whom I knew not. My mind, involuntarily, had already created
a picture of the unknown. She might be twenty-five, I thought: a
reflective habit of mind would hardly be developed before that age.
Tall and stately, of course; distinctly proud in her bearing, and
somewhat reserved in her manners. Why she should have large dark eyes,
with long dark lashes, I could not tell; but so I seemed to see her.
Quite forgetting that I was (or had meant to be) _Ignotus_, I found
myself staring rather significantly at one or the other of the young
ladies, in whom I discovered some slight general resemblance to the
imaginary character. My fancies, I must confess, played strange pranks
with me. They had been kept in a coop so many years, that now, when
I suddenly turned them loose, their rickety attempts at flight quite
bewildered me.
No! there was no use in expecting a sudden discovery. I went to the
glen betimes, next morning: the book was gone, and so were the faded
flowers, but some of the latter were scattered over the top of another
rock, a few yards from mine. Ha! this means that I am not to withdraw,
I said to myself: she makes room for me! But how to surprise her?--for
by this time I was fully resolved to make her acquaintance, even though
she might turn out to be forty, scraggy and sandy-haired.
I knew no other way so likely as that of visiting the glen at all times
of the day. I even went so far as to write a line of greeting, with a
regret that our visits had not yet coincided, and laid it under a stone
on the top of _her_ rock. The note disappeared, but there was no answer
in its place. Then I suddenly remembered her fondness for the noon
hours, at which time she was “utterly alone.” The hotel _table d’hôte_
was at one o’clock: her family, doubtless, dined later, in their own
rooms. Why, this gave me, at least, her place in society! The question
of age, to be sure, remained unsettled; but all else was safe.
The next day I took a late and large breakfast, and sacrificed my
dinner. Before noon the guests had all straggled back to the hotel from
glen and grove and lane, so bright and hot was the sunshine. Indeed, I
could hardly have supported the reverberation of heat from the sides of
the ravine, but for a fixed belief that I should be successful. While
crossing the narrow meadow upon which it opened, I caught a glimpse of
something white among the thickets higher up. A moment later, it had
vanished, and I quickened my pace, feeling the beginning of an absurd
nervous excitement in my limbs. At the next turn, there it was again!
but only for another moment. I paused, exulting, and wiped my drenched
forehead. “She cannot escape me!” I murmured between the deep draughts
of cooler air I inhaled in the shadow of a rock.
A few hundred steps more brought me to the foot of the steep ascent,
where I had counted on overtaking her. I was too late for that, but
the dry, baked soil had surely been crumbled and dislodged, here and
there, by a rapid foot. I followed, in reckless haste, snatching at the
laurel-branches right and left, and paying little heed to my footing.
About one third of the way up I slipped, fell, caught a bush which
snapped at the root, slid, whirled over, and before I fairly knew what
had happened, I was lying doubled up at the bottom of the slope.
I rose, made two steps forward, and then sat down with a groan of
pain; my left ankle was badly sprained, in addition to various
minor scratches and bruises. There was a revulsion of feeling, of
course,--instant, complete, and hideous. I fairly hated the Unknown.
“Fool that I was!” I exclaimed, in the theatrical manner, dashing the
palm of my hand softly against my brow: “lured to this by the fair
traitress! But, no!--not fair: she shows the artfulness of faded,
desperate spinsterhood; she is all compact of enamel, ‘liquid bloom of
youth’ and hair-dye!”
There was a fierce comfort in this thought, but it couldn’t help me
out of the scrape. I dared not sit still, lest a sunstroke should
be added, and there was no resource but to hop or crawl down the
rugged path, in the hope of finding a forked sapling from which I
could extemporize a crutch. With endless pain and trouble I reached a
thicket, and was feebly working on a branch with my pen-knife, when the
sound of a heavy footstep surprised me.
A brown harvest-hand, in straw hat and shirt-sleeves, presently
appeared. He grinned when he saw me, and the thick snub of his nose
would have seemed like a sneer at any other time.
“Are you the gentleman that got hurt?” he asked. “Is it pretty
tolerable bad?”
“Who said I was hurt?” I cried, in astonishment.
“One of your town-women from the hotel--I reckon she was. I was binding
oats, in the field over the ridge; but I haven’t lost no time in comin’
here.”
While I was stupidly staring at this announcement, he whipped out a big
clasp knife, and in a few minutes fashioned me a practicable crutch.
Then, taking me by the other arm, he set me in motion towards the
village.
Grateful as I was for the man’s help, he aggravated me by his
ignorance. When I asked if he knew the lady, he answered: “It’s more’n
likely _you_ know her better.” But where did she come from? Down from
the hill, he guessed, but it might ha’ been up the road. How did she
look? was she old or young? what was the color of her eyes? of her
hair? There, now, I was too much for him. When a woman kept one o’
them speckled veils over her face, turned her head away, and held her
parasol between, how were you to know her from Adam? I declare to you,
I couldn’t arrive at one positive particular. Even when he affirmed
that she was tall, he added, the next instant: “Now I come to think on
it, she stepped mighty quick; so I guess she must ha’ been short.”
By the time we reached the hotel, I was in a state of fever; opiates
and lotions had their will of me for the rest of the day. I was glad
to escape the worry of questions, and the conventional sympathy
expressed in inflections of the voice which are meant to soothe, and
only exasperate. The next morning, as I lay upon my sofa, restful,
patient, and properly cheerful, the waiter entered with a bouquet of
wild flowers.
“Who sent them?” I asked.
“I found them outside your door, sir. Maybe there’s a card; yes, here’s
a bit o’ paper.”
I opened the twisted slip he handed me, and read: “From your dell--and
mine.” I took the flowers; among them were two or three rare and
beautiful varieties, which I had only found in that one spot. Fool,
again! I noiselessly kissed, while pretending to smell them, had them
placed on a stand within reach, and fell into a state of quiet and
agreeable contemplation.
Tell me, yourself, whether any male human being is ever too old for
sentiment, provided that it strikes him at the right time and in the
right way! What did that bunch of wild flowers betoken? Knowledge,
first; then, sympathy; and finally, encouragement, at least. Of course
she had seen my accident, from above; of course she had sent the
harvest laborer to aid me home. It was quite natural she should imagine
some special, romantic interest in the lonely dell, on my part, and the
gift took additional value from her conjecture.
Four days afterwards, there was a hop in the large dining-room of
the hotel. Early in the morning, a fresh bouquet had been left at my
door. I was tired of my enforced idleness, eager to discover the fair
unknown, (she was again fair, to my fancy!) and I determined to go
down, believing that a cane and a crimson velvet slipper on the left
foot would provoke a glance of sympathy from certain eyes, and thus
enable me to detect them.
The fact was, the sympathy was much too general and effusive.
Everybody, it seemed, came to me with kindly greetings; seats were
vacated at my approach, even fat Mrs. Huxter insisting on my taking her
warm place, at the head of the room. But Bob Leroy,--you know him,--as
gallant a gentleman as ever lived, put me down at the right point, and
kept me there. He only meant to divert me, yet gave me the only place
where I could quietly inspect all the younger ladies, as dance or
supper brought them near.
One of the dances was an old-fashioned cotillon, and one of the
figures, the “coquette,” brought every one, in turn, before me. I
received a pleasant word or two from those whom I knew, and a long,
kind, silent glance from Miss May Danvers. Where had been my eyes? She
was tall, stately, twenty-five, had large dark eyes, and long dark
lashes! Again the changes of the dance brought her near me; I threw
(or strove to throw) unutterable meanings into my eyes, and cast them
upon hers. She seemed startled, looked suddenly away, looked back to
me, and--blushed. I knew her for what is called “a nice girl”--that is,
tolerably frank, gently feminine, and not dangerously intelligent. Was
it possible that I had overlooked so much character and intellect?
As the cotillon closed, she was again in my neighborhood, and her
partner led her in my direction. I was rising painfully from my
chair, when Bob Leroy pushed me down again, whisked another seat from
somewhere, planted it at my side, and there she was!
She knew who was her neighbor, I plainly saw; but instead of turning
towards me, she began to fan herself in a nervous way and to fidget
with the buttons of her gloves. I grew impatient.
“Miss Danvers!” I said, at last.
“Oh!” was all her answer, as she looked at me for a moment.
“Where are your thoughts?” I asked.
Then she turned, with wide, astonished eyes, coloring softly up to the
roots of her hair. My heart gave a sudden leap.
“How can you tell, if I cannot?” she asked.
“May I guess?”
She made a slight inclination of the head, saying nothing. I was then
quite sure.
“The second ravine, to the left of the main drive?”
This time she actually started; her color became deeper, and a leaf of
the ivory fan snapped between her fingers.
“Let there be no more a secret!” I exclaimed. “Your flowers have
brought me your messages; I knew I should find you”--
Full of certainty, I was speaking in a low, impassioned voice. She
cut me short by rising from her seat; I felt that she was both angry
and alarmed. Fisher, of Philadelphia, jostling right and left in his
haste, made his way towards her. She fairly snatched his arm, clung to
it with a warmth I had never seen expressed in a ball-room, and began
to whisper in his ear. It was not five minutes before he came to me,
alone, with a very stern face, bent down, and said:--
“If you have discovered our secret, you will keep silent. You are
certainly a gentleman.”
I bowed, coldly and savagely. There was a draft from the open window;
my ankle became suddenly weary and painful, and I went to bed. Can you
believe that I didn’t guess, immediately, what it all meant? In a vague
way, I fancied that I had been premature in my attempt to drop our
mutual incognito, and that Fisher, a rival lover, was jealous of me.
This was rather flattering than otherwise; but when I limped down to
the ladies’ parlor, the next day, no Miss Danvers was to be seen. I did
not venture to ask for her; it might seem importunate, and a woman of
so much hidden capacity was evidently not to be wooed in the ordinary
way.
So another night passed by; and then, with the morning, came a letter
which made me feel, at the same instant, like a fool and a hero. It had
been dropped in the Wampsocket post-office, was legibly addressed to me
and delivered with some other letters which had arrived by the night
mail. Here it is; listen!
“NOTO IGNOTA!--Haste is not a gift of the gods, and you have been
impatient, with the usual result. I was almost prepared for this,
and thus am not wholly disappointed. In a day or two more you will
discover your mistake, which, so far as I can learn, has done no
particular harm. If you wish to find _me_, there is only one way
to seek me; should I tell you what it is, I should run the risk
of losing you,--that is, I should preclude the manifestation of
a certain quality which I hope to find in the man who may--or,
rather, must--be my friend. This sounds enigmatical, yet you have
read enough of my nature, as written in those random notes in my
sketch-book, to guess, at least, how much I require. Only this let
me add: mere guessing is useless.
“Being unknown, I can write freely. If you find me, I shall be
justified; if not, I shall hardly need to blush, even to myself,
over a futile experiment.
“It is possible for me to learn enough of your life, henceforth, to
direct my relation towards you. This may be the end; if so, I shall
know it soon. I shall also know whether you continue to seek me.
Trusting in your honor as a man, I must ask you to trust in mine,
as a woman.”
I _did_ discover my mistake, as the Unknown promised. There had been
a secret betrothal between Fisher and Miss Danvers; and singularly
enough, the momentous question and answer had been given in the very
ravine leading to my upper dell! The two meant to keep the matter to
themselves, but therein, it seems, I thwarted them; there was a little
opposition on the part of their respective families, but all was
amicably settled before I left Wampsocket.
The letter made a very deep impression upon me. What was the one way
to find her? What could it be but the triumph that follows ambitious
toil,--the manifestation of all my best qualities, as a man? Be she
old or young, plain or beautiful, I reflected, hers is surely a nature
worth knowing, and its candid intelligence conceals no hazards for me.
I have sought her rashly, blundered, betrayed that I set her lower,
in my thoughts, than her actual self: let me now adopt the opposite
course, seek her openly no longer, go back to my tasks, and, following
my own aims vigorously and cheerfully, restore that respect which she
seemed to be on the point of losing. For, consciously or not, she had
communicated to me a doubt, implied in the very expression of her own
strength and pride. She had meant to address me as an equal, yet,
despite herself, took a stand a little above that which she accorded to
me.
I came back to New York earlier than usual, worked steadily at
my profession and with increasing success, and began to accept
opportunities (which I had previously declined) of making myself
personally known to the great, impressible, fickle, tyrannical public.
One or two of my speeches in the hall of the Cooper Institute, on
various occasions--as you may perhaps remember--gave me a good headway
with the party, and were the chief cause of my nomination for the State
office which I still hold. (There, on the table, lies a resignation,
written to-day, but not yet signed. We’ll talk of it, afterwards.)
Several months passed by, and no further letter reached me. I gave up
much of my time to society, moved familiarly in more than one province
of the kingdom here, and vastly extended my acquaintance, especially
among the women; but not one of them betrayed the mysterious something
or other--really I can’t explain precisely what it was!--which I was
looking for. In fact, the more I endeavored quietly to study the sex,
the more confused I became.
At last, I was subjected to the usual onslaught from the strong-minded.
A small but formidable committee entered my office one morning and
demanded a categorical declaration of my principles. What my views
on the subject were, I knew very well; they were clear and decided;
and yet, I hesitated to declare them! It wasn’t a temptation of Saint
Anthony--that is, turned the other way--and the belligerent attitude
of the dames did not alarm me in the least; but _she_! What was _her_
position? How could I best please her? It flashed upon my mind, while
Mrs. ---- was making her formal speech, that I had taken no step for
months without a vague, secret reference to _her_. So, I strove to be
courteous, friendly, and agreeably noncommittal; begged for further
documents, and promised to reply by letter, in a few days.
I was hardly surprised to find the well-known hand on the envelope of
a letter, shortly afterwards. I held it for a minute in my palm, with
an absurd hope that I might sympathetically feel its character, before
breaking the seal. Then I read it with a great sense of relief.
“I have never assumed to guide a man, except towards the full
exercise of his powers. It is not opinion in action, but opinion in
a state of idleness or indifference, which repels me. I am deeply
glad that you have gained so much since you left the country. If,
in shaping your course, you have thought of me, I will frankly
say that, _to that extent_, you have drawn nearer. Am I mistaken
in conjecturing that you wish to know my relation to the movement
concerning which you were recently interrogated? In this, as in
other instances which may come, I must beg you to consider me only
as a spectator. The more my own views may seem likely to sway your
action, the less I shall be inclined to declare them. If you find
this cold or unwomanly, remember that it is not easy!”
Yes! I felt that I had certainly drawn much nearer to her. And from
this time on, her imaginary face and form became other than they
were. She was twenty-eight--three years older; a very little above
the middle height, but not tall; serene, rather than stately, in her
movements; with a calm, almost grave face, relieved by the sweetness
of the full, firm lips; and finally eyes of pure, limpid gray, such as
we fancy belonged to the Venus of Milo. I found her, thus, much more
attractive than with the dark eyes and lashes,--but she did not make
her appearance in the circles which I frequented.
Another year slipped away. As an official personage, my importance
increased, but I was careful not to exaggerate it to myself. Many have
wondered (perhaps you among the rest) at my success, seeing that I
possess no remarkable abilities. If I have any secret, it is simply
this--doing faithfully, with all my might, whatever I undertake. Nine
tenths of our politicians become inflated and careless, after the
first few years, and are easily forgotten when they once lose place.
I am a little surprised, now, that I had so much patience with the
Unknown. I was too important, at least, to be played with; too mature
to be subjected to a longer test; too earnest, as I had proved, to be
doubted, or thrown aside without a further explanation.
Growing tired, at last, of silent waiting, I bethought me of
advertising. A carefully-written “Personal,” in which _Ignotus_
informed _Ignota_ of the necessity of his communicating with her,
appeared simultaneously in the Tribune, Herald, World, and Times. I
renewed the advertisement as the time expired without an answer, and I
think it was about the end of the third week before one came, through
the post, as before.
Ah, yes! I had forgotten. See! my advertisement is pasted on the note,
as a heading or motto for the manuscript lines. I don’t know why the
printed slip should give me a particular feeling of humiliation as I
look at it, but such is the fact. What she wrote is all I need read to
you:--
“I could not, at first, be certain that this was meant for me.
If I were to explain to you why I have not written for so long
a time, I might give you one of the few clews which I insist on
keeping in my own hands. In your public capacity, you have been
(so far as a woman may judge) upright, independent, wholly manly:
in your relations with other men I learn nothing of you that is
not honorable: towards women you are kind, chivalrous, no doubt,
overflowing with the _usual_ social refinements, but-- Here,
again, I run hard upon the absolute necessity of silence. The way
to me, if you care to traverse it, is so simple, so very simple!
Yet, after what I have written, I cannot even wave my hand in the
direction of it, without certain self-contempt. When I feel free to
tell you, we shall draw apart and remain unknown forever.
“You desire to write? I do not prohibit it. I have heretofore made
no arrangement for hearing from you, in turn, because I could not
discover that any advantage would accrue from it. But it seems only
fair, I confess, and you dare not think me capricious. So, three
days hence, at six o’clock in the evening, a trusty messenger of
mine will call at your door. If you have anything to give her for
me, the act of giving it must be the sign of a compact on your
part, that you will allow her to leave immediately, unquestioned
and unfollowed.”
You look puzzled, I see: you don’t catch the real drift of her words?
Well,--that’s a melancholy encouragement. Neither did I, at the
time: it was plain that I had disappointed her in some way, and my
intercourse with, or manner towards, women, had something to do with
it. In vain I ran over as much of my later social life as I could
recall. There had been no special attention, nothing to mislead a
susceptible heart; on the other side, certainly no rudeness, no want of
“chivalrous” (she used the word!) respect and attention. What, in the
name of all the gods, was the matter?
In spite of all my efforts to grow clearer, I was obliged to write
my letter in a rather muddled state of mind. I had _so_ much to say!
sixteen folio pages, I was sure, would only suffice for an introduction
to the case; yet, when the creamy vellum lay before me and the moist
pen drew my fingers towards it, I sat stock dumb for half an hour. I
wrote, finally, in a half-desperate mood, without regard to coherency
or logic. Here’s a rough draft of a part of the letter, and a single
passage from it will be enough:--
“I can conceive of no simpler way to you than the knowledge of your
name and address. I have drawn airy images of you, but they do not
become incarnate, and I am not sure that I should recognize you
in the brief moment of passing. Your nature is not of those which
are instantly legible. As an abstract power, it has wrought in
my life and it continually moves my heart with desires which are
unsatisfactory because so vague and ignorant. Let me offer you,
personally, my gratitude, my earnest friendship: you would laugh if
I were _now_ to offer more.”
Stay! here is another fragment, more reckless in tone:--
“I want to find the woman whom I can love--who can love me. But
this is a masquerade where the features are hidden, the voice
disguised, even the hands grotesquely gloved. Come! I will venture
more than I ever thought was possible to me. You shall know my
deepest nature as I myself seem to know it. Then, give me the
commonest chance of learning yours, through an intercourse which
shall leave both free, should we not feel the closing of the
inevitable bond!”
After I had written that, the pages filled rapidly. When the appointed
hour arrived, a bulky epistle, in a strong linen envelope, sealed with
five wax seals, was waiting on my table. Precisely at six there was an
announcement: the door opened, and a little outside, in the shadow, I
saw an old woman, in a threadbare dress of rusty black.
“Come in!” I said.
“The letter!” answered a husky voice. She stretched out a bony hand,
without moving a step.
“It is for a lady--very important business,” said I, taking up the
letter; “are you sure that there is no mistake?”
She drew her hand under the shawl, turned without a word, and moved
towards the hall door.
“Stop!” I cried: “I beg a thousand pardons! Take it--take it! You are
the right messenger!”
She clutched it, and was instantly gone.
Several days passed, and I gradually became so nervous and uneasy that
I was on the point of inserting another “Personal” in the daily papers,
when the answer arrived. It was brief and mysterious; you shall hear
the whole of it.
“I thank you. Your letter is a sacred confidence which I pray you
never to regret. You nature is sound and good. You ask no more
than is reasonable, and I have no real right to refuse. In the one
respect which I have hinted, _I_ may have been unskillful or too
narrowly cautious: I must have the certainty of this. Therefore, as
a generous favor, give me six months more! At the end of that time
I will write to you again. Have patience with these brief lines:
another word might be a word too much.”
You notice the change in her tone? The letter gave me the strongest
impression of a new, warm, almost anxious interest on her part. My
fancies, as first at Wampsocket, began to play all sorts of singular
pranks: sometimes she was rich and of an old family, sometimes
moderately poor and obscure, but always the same calm, reposeful
face and clear gray eyes. I ceased looking for her in society, quite
sure that I should not find her, and nursed a wild expectation of
suddenly meeting her, face to face, in the most unlikely places
and under startling circumstances. However, the end of it all was
patience,--patience for six months.
There’s not much more to tell; but this last letter is hard for me to
read. It came punctually, to a day. I knew it would, and at the last I
began to dread the time, as if a heavy note were falling due, and I had
no funds to meet it. My head was in a whirl when I broke the seal. The
fact in it stared at me blankly, at once, but it was a long time before
the words and sentences became intelligible.
“The stipulated time has come, and our hidden romance is at an end.
Had I taken this resolution a year ago, it would have saved me many
vain hopes, and you, perhaps, a little uncertainty. Forgive me,
first, if you can, and then hear the explanation!
“You wished for a personal interview: _you have had, not one, but
many_. We have met, in society, talked face to face, discussed
the weather, the opera, toilettes, Queechy, Aurora Floyd, Long
Branch and Newport, and exchanged a weary amount of fashionable
gossip; and you never guessed that I was governed by any deeper
interest! I have purposely uttered ridiculous platitudes, and
you were as smilingly courteous as if you enjoyed them: I have
let fall remarks whose hollowness and selfishness could not have
escaped you, and have waited in vain for a word of sharp, honest,
manly reproof. Your manner to me was unexceptionable, as it was to
all other women: but there lies the source of my disappointment,
of--yes,--of my sorrow!
“You appreciate, I cannot doubt, the qualities in woman which men
value in one another,--culture, independence of thought, a high and
earnest apprehension of life; but you know not how to seek them.
It is not true that a mature and unperverted woman is flattered by
receiving only the general obsequiousness which most men give to
the whole sex. In the man who contradicts and strives with her, she
discovers a truer interest, a nobler respect. The empty-headed,
spindle-shanked youths who dance admirably, understand something of
billiards, much less of horses, and still less of navigation, soon
grow inexpressibly wearisome to us; but the men who adopt their
social courtesy, never seeking to arouse, uplift, instruct us, are
a bitter disappointment.
“What would have been the end, had you really found me? Certainly
a sincere, satisfying friendship. No mysterious magnetic force has
drawn you to me or held you near me, nor has my experiment inspired
me with an interest which cannot be given up without a personal
pang. I am grieved, for the sake of all men and all women. Yet,
understand me! I mean no slightest reproach. I esteem and honor you
for what you are. Farewell!”
There! Nothing could be kinder in tone, nothing more humiliating in
substance. I was sore and offended for a few days; but I soon began to
see, and ever more and more clearly, that she was wholly right. I was
sure, also, that any further attempt to correspond with her would be
vain. It all comes of taking society just as we find it, and supposing
that conventional courtesy is the only safe ground on which men and
women can meet.
The fact is--there’s no use in hiding it from myself (and I see, by
your face, that the letter cuts into your own conscience)--she is a
free, courageous, independent character, and--I am not.
But who _was_ she?
HENRY CUYLER BUNNER
1855–1896
From early manhood until his death H. C. Bunner was the editor of
“Puck.” Those who appreciated the flavor of _Airs from Arcady_ and
_Rowen_, and who knew of “Puck” only that it was our most popular comic
weekly, felt here an incongruity. If they had followed the editorial
page, they would have found dignity no less than pungency, and might
have comprehended the man as more than a maker of delicate verses and
more than a humorist. In the ordinary sense he was hardly a humorist.
Humor was large in him, but all suffused with fancy. Loving New York
as Charles Lamb loved London, he was even more like Lamb in that his
quip habitually carried a sentiment springing from human sympathy.
This ultimate quality reconciled the others of a singularly original
composition.
His fiction shows all these traits, and also a nice sense of form. He
was a student of Boccaccio; he experimented with various adaptations,
as in _The Third Figure of the Cotillion_ with the method of Irving;
and, though his preference was for freer and more spontaneous
structure, he was keenly aware, as in the story below, of the value of
the unities.
THE LOVE-LETTERS OF SMITH
[_From “Short Sixes,” copyright, 1890, by Keppler and Schwarzmann;
reprinted here by their special permission_]
When the little seamstress had climbed to her room in the story over
the top story of the great brick tenement house in which she lived, she
was quite tired out. If you do not understand what a story over a top
story is, you must remember that there are no limits to human greed,
and hardly any to the height of tenement houses. When the man who owned
that seven-story tenement found that he could rent another floor, he
found no difficulty in persuading the guardians of our building laws to
let him clap another story on the roof, like a cabin on the deck of a
ship; and in the southeasterly of the four apartments on this floor the
little seamstress lived. You could just see the top of her window from
the street--the huge cornice that had capped the original front, and
that served as her window-sill now, quite hid all the lower part of the
story on top of the top-story.
The little seamstress was scarcely thirty years old, but she was
such an old-fashioned little body in so many of her looks and ways
that I had almost spelled her sempstress, after the fashion of our
grandmothers. She had been a comely body, too; and would have been
still, if she had not been thin and pale and anxious-eyed.
She was tired out to-night because she had been working hard all day
for a lady who lived far up in the “New Wards” beyond Harlem River,
and after the long journey home, she had to climb seven flights of
tenement-house stairs. She was too tired, both in body and in mind, to
cook the two little chops she had brought home. She would save them
for breakfast, she thought. So she made herself a cup of tea on the
miniature stove, and ate a slice of dry bread with it. It was too much
trouble to make toast.
But after dinner she watered her flowers. She was never too tired
for that: and the six pots of geraniums that caught the south sun
on the top of the cornice did their best to repay her. Then she sat
down in her rocking-chair by the window and looked out. Her eyry was
high above all the other buildings, and she could look across some
low roofs opposite, and see the further end of Tompkins Square, with
its sparse Spring green showing faintly through the dusk. The eternal
roar of the city floated up to her and vaguely troubled her. She was
a country girl, and although she had lived for ten years in New York,
she had never grown used to that ceaseless murmur. To-night she felt
the languor of the new season as well as the heaviness of physical
exhaustion. She was almost too tired to go to bed.
She thought of the hard day done and the hard day to be begun after the
night spent on the hard little bed. She thought of the peaceful days in
the country, when she taught school in the Massachusetts village where
she was born. She thought of a hundred small slights that she had to
bear from people better fed than bred. She thought of the sweet green
fields that she rarely saw nowadays. She thought of the long journey
forth and back that must begin and end her morrow’s work, and she
wondered if her employer would think to offer to pay her fare. Then she
pulled herself together. She must think of more agreeable things, or
she could not sleep. And as the only agreeable things she had to think
about were her flowers, she looked at the garden on top of the cornice.
A peculiar gritting noise made her look down, and she saw a cylindrical
object that glittered in the twilight, advancing in an irregular and
uncertain manner toward her flower-pots. Looking closer, she saw that
it was a pewter beer-mug, which somebody in the next apartment was
pushing with a two-foot rule. On top of the beer-mug was a piece of
paper, and on this paper was written, in a sprawling, half-formed hand:
_porter
pleas excuse the libberty And
drink it_
The seamstress started up in terror, and shut the window. She
remembered that there was a man in the next apartment. She had seen
him on the stairs, on Sundays. He seemed a grave, decent person;
but--he must be drunk. She sat down on her bed, all a-tremble. Then she
reasoned with herself. The man was drunk, that was all. He probably
would not annoy her further. And if he did, she had only to retreat
to Mrs. Mulvaney’s apartment in the rear, and Mr. Mulvaney, who was a
highly respectable man and worked in a boiler-shop, would protect her.
So, being a poor woman who had already had occasion to excuse--and
refuse--two or three “libberties” of like sort, she made up her mind to
go to bed like a reasonable seamstress, and she did. She was rewarded,
for when her light was out, she could see in the moonlight that the
two-foot rule appeared again, with one joint bent back, hitched itself
into the mug-handle, and withdrew the mug.
The next day was a hard one for the little seamstress, and she hardly
thought of the affair of the night before until the same hour had come
around again, and she sat once more by her window. Then she smiled at
the remembrance. “Poor fellow,” she said in her charitable heart, “I’ve
no doubt he’s _awfully_ ashamed of it now. Perhaps he was never tipsy
before. Perhaps he didn’t know there was a lone woman in here to be
frightened.”
Just then she heard a gritting sound. She looked down. The pewter pot
was in front of her, and the two-foot rule was slowly retiring. On the
pot was a piece of paper, and on the paper was:
_porter
good for the helth
it makes meet_
This time the little seamstress shut her window with a bang of
indignation. The color rose to her pale cheeks. She thought that she
would go down to see the janitor at once. Then she remembered the seven
flights of stairs; and she resolved to see the janitor in the morning.
Then she went to bed and saw the mug drawn back just as it had been
drawn back the night before.
The morning came, but, somehow, the seamstress did not care to complain
to the janitor. She hated to make trouble--and the janitor might
think--and--and--well, if the wretch did it again she would speak to
him herself, and that would settle it.
And so, on the next night, which was a Thursday, the little seamstress
sat down by her window, resolved to settle the matter. And she had not
sat there long, rocking in the creaking little rocking-chair which she
had brought with her from her old home, when the pewter pot hove in
sight, with a piece of paper on the top.
This time the legend read:
_Perhaps you are afrade i will
adress you
i am not that kind_
The seamstress did not quite know whether to laugh or to cry. But she
felt that the time had come for speech. She leaned out of her window
and addressed the twilight heaven.
“Mr.--Mr.--sir--I--will you _please_ put your head out of the window so
that I can speak to you?”
The silence of the other room was undisturbed. The seamstress drew
back, blushing. But before she could nerve herself for another attack,
a piece of paper appeared on the end of the two-foot rule.
_when i Say a thing i
mene it
i have Sed i would not
Adress you and i
Will not_
What was the little seamstress to do? She stood by the window and
thought hard about it. Should she complain to the janitor? But the
creature was perfectly respectful. No doubt he meant to be kind.
He certainly was kind, to waste these pots of porter on her. She
remembered the last time--and the first--that she had drunk porter.
It was at home, when she was a young girl, after she had had the
diphtheria. She remembered how good it was, and how it had given her
back her strength. And without one thought of what she was doing, she
lifted the pot of porter and took one little reminiscent sip--two
little reminiscent sips--and became aware of her utter fall and defeat.
She blushed now as she had never blushed before, put the pot down,
closed the window, and fled to her bed like a deer to the woods.
And when the porter arrived the next night, bearing the simple appeal:
_Dont be afrade of it
drink it all_
the little seamstress arose and grasped the pot firmly by the handle,
and poured its contents over the earth around her largest geranium. She
poured the contents out to the last drop, and then she dropped the pot,
and ran back and sat on her bed and cried, with her face hid in her
hands.
“Now,” she said to herself, “you’ve done it! And you’re just as nasty
and hard-hearted and suspicious and mean as--as pusley!”
And she wept to think of her hardness of heart. “He will never give me
a chance to say I am sorry,” she thought. And, really, she might have
spoken kindly to the poor man, and told him that she was much obliged
to him, but that he really mustn’t ask her to drink porter with him.
“But it’s all over and done now,” she said to herself as she sat at her
window on Saturday night. And then she looked at the cornice, and saw
the faithful little pewter pot travelling slowly toward her.
She was conquered. This act of Christian forbearance was too much for
her kindly spirit. She read the inscription on the paper:
_porter is good for Flours
but better for Fokes_
and she lifted the pot to her lips, which were not half so red as her
cheeks, and took a good, hearty, grateful draught.
She sipped in thoughtful silence after this first plunge, and presently
she was surprised to find the bottom of the pot in full view.
On the table at her side a few pearl buttons were screwed up in a bit
of white paper. She untwisted the paper and smoothed it out, and wrote
in a tremulous hand--she _could_ write a very neat hand--
_Thanks._
This she laid on the top of the pot, and in a moment the bent two-foot
rule appeared and drew the mail-carriage home. Then she sat still,
enjoying the warm glow of the porter, which seemed to have permeated
her entire being with a heat that was not at all like the unpleasant
and oppressive heat of the atmosphere, an atmosphere heavy with the
Spring damp. A gritting on the tin aroused her. A piece of paper lay
under her eyes.
_fine groing weather
Smith_
it said.
Now it is unlikely that in the whole round and range of conversational
commonplaces there was one other greeting that could have induced
the seamstress to continue the exchange of communications. But this
simple and homely phrase touched her country heart. What did “_groing
weather_” matter to the toilers in this waste of brick and mortar? This
stranger must be, like herself, a country-bred soul, longing for the
new green and the upturned brown mould of the country fields. She took
up the paper, and wrote under the first message:
_Fine_
But that seemed curt; _for_ she added: “_for_” what? She did not know.
At last in desperation she put down _potatos_. The piece of paper was
withdrawn and came back with an addition:
_Too mist for potatos._
And when the little seamstress had read this, and grasped the fact
that _m-i-s-t_ represented the writer’s pronunciation of “moist,”
she laughed softly to herself. A man whose mind, at such a time, was
seriously bent upon potatos, was not a man to be feared. She found a
half-sheet of notepaper, and wrote:
_I lived in a small village before I came to New York, but I am
afraid I do not know much about farming. Are you a farmer?_
The answer came:
_have ben most Every thing
farmed a Spel in Maine
Smith_
As she read this, the seamstress heard a church clock strike nine.
“Bless me, is it so late?” she cried, and she hurriedly penciled _Good
Night_, thrust the paper out, and closed the window. But a few minutes
later, passing by, she saw yet another bit of paper on the cornice,
fluttering in the evening breeze. It said only _good nite_, and after
a moment’s hesitation, the little seamstress took it in and gave it
shelter.
* * * * *
After this, they were the best of friends. Every evening the pot
appeared, and while the seamstress drank from it at her window, Mr.
Smith drank from its twin at his; and notes were exchanged as rapidly
as Mr. Smith’s early education permitted. They told each other their
histories, and Mr. Smith’s was one of travel and variety, which he
seemed to consider quite a matter of course. He had followed the
sea, he had farmed, he had been a logger and a hunter in the Maine
woods. Now he was foreman of an East River lumber yard, and he was
prospering. In a year or two he would have enough laid by to go home
to Bucksport and buy a share in a ship-building business. All this
dribbled out in the course of a jerky but variegated correspondence,
in which autobiographic details were mixed with reflections, moral and
philosophical.
A few samples will give an idea of Mr. Smith’s style:
_i was one trip to van demens
land_
To which the seamstress replied:
_It must have been very interesting._
But Mr. Smith disposed of this subject very briefly:
_it wornt_
Further he vouchsafed:
_i seen a Chinese cook in
hong kong could cook flap jacks
like your Mother_
_a mishnery that sells Rum
is the menest of Gods crechers_
_a bulfite is not what it is
cract up to Be_
_the dagos are wussen the
brutes_
_i am 6 1¾
but my Father was 6 foot 4_
The seamstress had taught school one Winter, and she could not refrain
from making an attempt to reform Mr. Smith’s orthography. One evening,
in answer to this communication:
_i killd a Bare in Maine 600
lbs waight_
she wrote:
_Isn’t it generally spelled Bear?_
but she gave up the attempt when he responded:
_a bare is a mene animle any
way you spel him_
The Spring wore on, and the Summer came, and still the evening drink
and the evening correspondence brightened the close of each day for
the little seamstress. And the draught of porter put her to sleep each
night, giving her a calmer rest than she had ever known during her stay
in the noisy city; and it began, moreover, to make a little “_meet_”
for her. And then the thought that she was going to have an hour of
pleasant companionship somehow gave her courage to cook and eat her
little dinner, however tired she was. The seamstress’s cheeks began to
blossom with the June roses.
And all this time Mr. Smith kept his vow of silence unbroken, though
the seamstress sometimes tempted him with little ejaculations and
exclamations to which he might have responded. He was silent and
invisible. Only the smoke of his pipe, and the clink of his mug as he
set it down on the cornice, told her that a living, material Smith was
her correspondent. They never met on the stairs, for their hours of
coming and going did not coincide. Once or twice they passed each other
in the street--but Mr. Smith looked straight ahead of him, about a foot
over her head. The little seamstress thought he was a very fine-looking
man, with his six feet one and three-quarters and his thick brown
beard. Most people would have called him plain.
Once she spoke to him. She was coming home one Summer evening, and a
gang of corner-loafers stopped her and demanded money to buy beer,
as is their custom. Before she had time to be frightened, Mr. Smith
appeared--whence, she knew not--scattered the gang like chaff, and,
collaring two of the human hyenas, kicked them, with deliberate,
ponderous, alternate kicks, until they writhed in ineffable agony.
When he let them crawl away, she turned to him and thanked him warmly,
looking very pretty now, with the color in her cheeks. But Mr. Smith
answered no word. He stared over her head, grew red in the face,
fidgeted nervously, but held his peace until his eyes fell on a rotund
Teuton, passing by.
“Say, Dutchy!” he roared.
The German stood aghast.
“I ain’t got nothing to write with!” thundered Mr. Smith, looking him
in the eye. And then the man of his word passed on his way.
And so the Summer went on, and the two correspondents chatted silently
from window to window, hid from sight of all the world below by the
friendly cornice. And they looked out over the roof, and saw the green
of Tompkins Square grow darker and dustier as the months went on.
Mr. Smith was given to Sunday trips into the suburbs, and he never came
back without a bunch of daisies or black-eyed Susans or, later, asters
or golden-rod for the little seamstress. Sometimes, with a sagacity
rare in his sex, he brought her a whole plant, with fresh loam for
potting.
He gave her also a reel in a bottle, which, he wrote, he had “_maid_”
himself, and some coral, and a dried flying-fish, that was somewhat
fearful to look upon, with its sword-like fins and its hollow eyes. At
first, she could not go to sleep with that flying-fish hanging on the
wall.
But he surprised the little seamstress very much one cool September
evening, when he shoved this letter along the cornice:
_Respected and Honored Madam_:
_Having long and vainly sought an opportunity to convey to you the
expression of my sentiments I now avail myself of the privilege
of epistolary communication to acquaint you with the fact that
the Emotions, which you have raised in my breast, are those which
should point to Connubial Love and Affection rather than to simple
Friendship. In short, Madam, I have the Honor to approach you with
a Proposal, the acceptance of which will fill me with ecstatic
Gratitude, and enable me to extend to you those Protecting Cares,
which the Matrimonial Bond makes at once the Duty and the Privilege
of him, who would, at no distant date, lead to the Hymeneal Altar
one whose charms and virtues should suffice to kindle its Flames,
without extraneous Aid_
_I remain, Dear Madam,
Your Humble Servant and
Ardent Adorer, I. Smith_
The little seamstress gazed at this letter a long time. Perhaps she was
wondering in what Ready Letter-Writer of the last century Mr. Smith
had found his form. Perhaps she was amazed at the results of his first
attempt at punctuation. Perhaps she was thinking of something else, for
there were tears in her eyes and a smile on her small mouth.
But it must have been a long time, and Mr. Smith must have grown
nervous, for presently another communication came along the line where
the top of the cornice was worn smooth. It read:
_If not understood will you
mary me_
The little seamstress seized a piece of paper and wrote:
_If I say Yes, will you speak to me?_
Then she rose and passed it out to him, leaning out of the window, and
their faces met.
HAROLD FREDERIC
1856–1898
Harold Frederic was bred and schooled, at college and at journalism,
in Central New York. His fictions were almost all written in London
during the later years of his correspondence with the “New York Times.”
The most popular of these, _The Damnation of Theron Ware_, shows him
stronger in the novel. His own fondness for his short stories is due in
part, doubtless, to their being closer to his native soil; but the one
reprinted below shows also a distinct appreciation of the form.
THE EVE OF THE FOURTH
[_From “In the Sixties,” copyright, 1893, 1894, 1897, by Charles
Scribner’s Sons, authorized publishers of Harold Frederic’s works;
reprinted here by special arrangement with them_]
It was well on toward evening before this Third of July all at once
made itself gloriously different from other days in my mind.
There was a very long afternoon, I remember, hot and overcast, with
continual threats of rain, which never came to anything. The other
boys were too excited about the morrow to care for present play. They
sat instead along the edge of the broad platform-stoop in front of
Delos Ingersoll’s grocery-store, their brown feet swinging at varying
heights above the sidewalk, and bragged about the manner in which they
contemplated celebrating the anniversary of their Independence. Most of
the elder lads were very independent indeed; they were already secure
in the parental permission to stay up all night, so that the Fourth
might be ushered in with its full quota of ceremonial. The smaller
urchins pretended that they also had this permission, or were sure
of getting it. Little Denny Cregan attracted admiring attention by
vowing that he should remain out, even if his father chased him with a
policeman all around the ward, and he had to go and live in a cave in
the gulf until he was grown up.
My inferiority to these companions of mine depressed me. They were
allowed to go without shoes and stockings; they wore loose and
comfortable old clothes, and were under no responsibility to keep them
dry or clean or whole; they had their pockets literally bulging now
with all sorts of portentous engines of noise and racket--huge brown
“double-enders,” bound with waxed cord; long, slim, vicious-looking
“nigger-chasers;” big “Union torpedoes,” covered with clay, which made
a report like a horse-pistol, and were invaluable for frightening
farmers’ horses; and so on through an extended catalogue of recondite
and sinister explosives upon which I looked with awe, as their owners
from time to time exhibited them with the proud simplicity of those
accustomed to greatness. Several of these boys also possessed toy
cannons, which would be brought forth at twilight. They spoke firmly of
ramming them to the muzzle with grass, to produce a greater noise--even
if it burst them and killed everybody.
By comparison, my lot was one of abasement. I was a solitary child, and
a victim to conventions. A blue necktie was daily pinned under my Byron
collar, and there were gilt buttons on my zouave jacket. When we were
away in the pasture playground near the gulf, and I ventured to take
off my foot-gear, every dry old thistle-point in the whole territory
seemed to arrange itself to be stepped upon by my whitened and tender
soles. I could not swim; so, while my lithe, bold comrades dived out of
sight under the deep water, and darted about chasing one another far
beyond their depth, I paddled ignobly around the “baby-hole” close to
the bank, in the warm and muddy shallows.
Especially apparent was my state of humiliation on this July afternoon.
I had no “double-enders,” nor might hope for any. The mere thought of
a private cannon seemed monstrous and unnatural to me. By some unknown
process of reasoning my mother had years before reached the theory that
a good boy ought to have two ten-cent packs of small fire-crackers on
the Fourth of July. Four or five succeeding anniversaries had hardened
this theory into an orthodox tenet of faith, with all its observances
rigidly fixed. The fire-crackers were bought for me overnight, and
placed on the hall table. Beside them lay a long rod of punk. When I
hastened down and out in the morning, with these ceremonial implements
in my hands, the hired girl would give me, in an old kettle, some
embers from the wood-fire in the summer kitchen. Thus furnished, I
went into the front yard, and in solemn solitude fired off these
crackers one by one. Those which, by reason of having lost their
tails, were only fit for “fizzes,” I saved till after breakfast. With
the exhaustion of these, I fell reluctantly back upon the public for
entertainment. I could see the soldiers, hear the band and the oration,
and in the evening, if it didn’t rain, enjoy the fireworks; but my
own contribution to the patriotic noise was always over before the
breakfast dishes had been washed.
My mother scorned the little paper torpedoes as flippant and wasteful
things. You merely threw one of them, and it went off, she said,
and there you were. I don’t know that I ever grasped this objection
in its entirety, but it impressed my whole childhood with its
unanswerableness. Years and years afterward, when my own children asked
for torpedoes, I found myself unconsciously advising against them on
quite the maternal lines. Nor was it easy to budge the good lady from
her position on the great two-packs issue. I seem to recall having
successfully undermined it once or twice, but two was the rule. When
I called her attention to the fact that our neighbor, Tom Hemingway,
thought nothing of exploding a whole pack at a time inside their
wash-boiler, she was not dazzled, but only replied: “Wilful waste makes
woful want.”
Of course the idea of the Hemingways ever knowing what want meant
was absurd. They lived a dozen doors or so from us, in a big white
house with stately white columns rising from veranda to gable across
the whole front, and a large garden, flowers and shrubs in front,
fruit-trees and vegetables behind. Squire Hemingway was the most
important man in our part of the town. I know now that he was never
anything more than United States Commissioner of Deeds, but in those
days, when he walked down the street with his gold-headed cane,
his blanket-shawl folded over his arm, and his severe, dignified,
close-shaven face held well up in the air, I seemed to behold a
companion of Presidents.
This great man had two sons. The elder of them, De Witt Hemingway, was
a man grown, and was at the front. I had seen him march away, over a
year before, with a bright drawn sword, at the side of his company. The
other son, Tom, was my senior by only a twelvemonth. He was by nature
proud, but often consented to consort with me when the selection of
other available associates was at low ebb.
It was to this Tom that I listened with most envious eagerness, in
front of the grocery-store, on the afternoon of which I speak. He did
not sit on the stoop with the others--no one expected quite that degree
of condescension--but leaned nonchalantly against a post, whittling
out a new ramrod for his cannon. He said that this year he was not
going to have any ordinary fire-crackers at all; they, he added with
a meaning glance at me, were only fit for girls. He might do a little
in “double-enders,” but his real point would be in “ringers”--an
incredible giant variety of cracker, Turkey-red like the other, but
in size almost a rolling-pin. Some of these he would fire off singly,
between volleys from his cannon. But a good many he intended to
explode, in bunches say of six, inside the tin wash-boiler, brought out
into the middle of the road for that purpose. It would doubtless blow
the old thing sky-high, but that didn’t matter. They could get a new
one.
Even as he spoke, the big bell in the tower of the town-hall burst
forth in a loud clangor of swift-repeated strokes. It was half a mile
away, but the moist air brought the urgent, clamorous sounds to our
ears as if the belfry had stood close above us. We sprang off the stoop
and stood poised, waiting to hear the number of the ward struck, and
ready to scamper off on the instant if the fire was anywhere in our
part of the town. But the excited peal went on and on, without a pause.
It became obvious that this meant something besides a fire. Perhaps
some of us wondered vaguely what that something might be, but as a body
our interest had lapsed. Billy Norris, who was the son of poor parents,
but could whip even Tom Hemingway, said he had been told that the
German boys on the other side of the gulf were coming over to “rush” us
on the following day, and that we ought all to collect nails to fire at
them from our cannon. This we pledged ourselves to do--the bell keeping
up its throbbing tumult ceaselessly.
Suddenly we saw the familiar figure of Johnson running up the street
toward us. What his first name was I never knew. To every one, little
or big, he was just Johnson. He and his family had moved into our town
after the war began; I fancy they moved away again before it ended.
I do not even know what he did for a living. But he seemed always
drunk, always turbulently good-natured, and always shouting out the
news at the top of his lungs. I cannot pretend to guess how he found
out everything as he did, or why, having found it out, he straightway
rushed homeward, scattering the intelligence as he ran. Most probably
Johnson was moulded by Nature as a town-crier, but was born by accident
some generations after the race of bellmen had disappeared. Our
neighborhood did not like him; our mothers did not know Mrs. Johnson,
and we boys behaved with snobbish roughness to his children. He seemed
not to mind this at all, but came up unwearyingly to shout out the
tidings of the day for our benefit.
“Vicksburg’s fell! Vicksburg’s fell!” was what we heard him yelling as
he approached.
Delos Ingersoll and his hired boy ran out of the grocery. Doors opened
along the street and heads were thrust inquiringly out.
“Vicksburg’s fell!” he kept hoarsely proclaiming, his arms waving in
the air, as he staggered along at a dog-trot past us, and went into the
saloon next to the grocery.
I cannot say how definite an idea these tidings conveyed to our boyish
minds. I have a notion that at the time I assumed that Vicksburg had
something to do with Gettysburg, where I knew, from the talk of my
elders, that an awful fight had been proceeding since the middle of the
week. Doubtless this confusion was aided by the fact that an hour or so
later, on that same wonderful day, the wire brought us word that this
terrible battle on Pennsylvanian soil had at last taken the form of a
Union victory. It is difficult now to see how we could have known both
these things on the Third of July--that is to say, before the people
actually concerned seemed to have been sure of them. Perhaps it was
only inspired guesswork, but I know that my town went wild over the
news, and that the clouds overhead cleared away as if by magic.
The sun did well to spread that summer sky at eventide with all the
pageantry of color the spectrum knows. It would have been preposterous
that such a day should slink off in dull, Quaker drabs. Men were
shouting in the streets now. The old cannon left over from the Mexican
war had been dragged out on to the rickety covered river-bridge, and
was frightening the fishes, and shaking the dry, worm-eaten rafters, as
fast as the swab and rammer could work. Our town bandsmen were playing
as they had never played before, down in the square in front of the
post-office. The management of the Universe could not hurl enough wild
fireworks into the exultant sunset to fit our mood.
The very air was filled with the scent of triumph--the spirit of
conquest. It seemed only natural that I should march off to my mother
and quite collectedly tell her that I desired to stay out all night
with the other boys. I had never dreamed of daring to prefer such a
request in other years. Now I was scarcely conscious of surprise when
she gave her permission, adding with a smile that I would be glad
enough to come in and go to bed before half the night was over.
I steeled my heart after supper with the proud resolve that if the
night turned out to be as protracted as one of those Lapland winter
nights we read about in the geography, I still would not surrender.
The boys outside were not so excited over the tidings of my
unlooked-for victory as I had expected them to be. They received the
news, in fact, with a rather mortifying stoicism. Tom Hemingway,
however, took enough interest in the affair to suggest that, instead
of spending my twenty cents in paltry fire-crackers, I might go down
town and buy another can of powder for his cannon. By doing so, he
pointed out, I would be a part-proprietor, as it were, of the night’s
performance, and would be entitled to occasionally touch the cannon
off. This generosity affected me, and I hastened down the long
hill-street to show myself worthy of it, repeating the instruction of
“Kentucky Bear-Hunter-coarse-grain” over and over again to myself as I
went.
Half-way on my journey I overtook a person whom, even in the gathering
twilight, I recognized as Miss Stratford, the school-teacher. She also
was walking down the hill and rapidly. It did not need the sight of a
letter in her hand to tell me that she was going to the post-office. In
those cruel war-days everybody went to the post-office. I myself went
regularly to get our mail, and to exchange shin-plasters for one-cent
stamps with which to buy yeast and other commodities that called for
minute fractional currency.
Although I was very fond of Miss Stratford--I still recall her gentle
eyes, and pretty, rounded, dark face, in its frame of long, black
curls, with tender liking--I now coldly resolved to hurry past,
pretending not to know her. It was a mean thing to do; Miss Stratford
had always been good to me, shining in that respect in brilliant
contrast to my other teachers, whom I hated bitterly. Still, the
“Kentucky Bear-Hunter-coarse-grain” was too important a matter to wait
upon any mere female friendships, and I quickened my pace into a trot,
hoping to scurry by unrecognized.
“Oh, Andrew! is that you?” I heard her call out as I ran past. For the
instant I thought of rushing on, quite as if I had not heard. Then I
stopped and walked beside her.
“I am going to stay up all night: mother says I may; and I am going to
fire off Tom Hemingway’s big cannon every fourth time, straight through
till breakfast time,” I announced to her loftily.
“Dear me! I ought to be proud to be seen walking with such an important
citizen,” she answered, with kindly playfulness. She added more
gravely, after a moment’s pause: “Then Tom is out playing with the
other boys, is he?”
“Why, of course!” I responded. “He always lets us stand around when he
fires off his cannon. He’s got some ‘ringers’ this year too.”
I heard Miss Stratford murmur an impulsive “Thank God!” under her
breath.
Full as the day had been of surprises, I could not help wondering that
the fact of Tom’s ringers should stir up such profound emotions in the
teacher’s breast. Since the subject so interested her, I went on with
a long catalogue of Tom’s other pyrotechnic possessions, and from that
to an account of his almost supernatural collection of postage-stamps.
In a few minutes more I am sure I should have revealed to her the great
secret of my life, which was my determination, in case I came to assume
the victorious rôle and rank of Napoleon, to immediately make Tom a
Marshal of the Empire.
But we had reached the post-office square. I had never before seen it
so full of people.
Even to my boyish eyes the tragic line of division which cleft this
crowd in twain was apparent. On one side, over by the Seminary, the
youngsters had lighted a bonfire, and were running about it--some of
the bolder ones jumping through it in frolicsome recklessness. Close
by stood the band, now valiantly thumping out “John Brown’s Body” upon
the noisy night air. It was quite dark by this time, but the musicians
knew the tune by heart. So did the throng about them, and sang it with
lusty fervor. The doors of the saloon toward the corner of the square
were flung wide open. Two black streams of men kept in motion under the
radiance of the big reflector-lamp over these doors--one going in, one
coming out. They slapped one another on the back as they passed, with
exultant screams and shouts. Every once in a while, when movement was
for the instant blocked, some voice lifted above the others would begin
a “Hip-hip-hip-hip--” and then would come a roar that fairly drowned
the music.
On the post-office side of the square there was no bonfire. No one
raised a cheer. A densely packed mass of men and women stood in
front of the big square stone building, with its closed doors, and
curtained windows upon which, from time to time, the shadow of some
passing clerk, bareheaded and hurried, would be momentarily thrown.
They waited in silence for the night mail to be sorted. If they spoke
to one another, it was in whispers--as if they had been standing with
uncovered heads at a funeral service in a graveyard. The dim light
reflected over from the bonfire, or down from the shaded windows of
the post-office, showed solemn, hard-lined, anxious faces. Their lips
scarcely moved when they muttered little low-toned remarks to their
neighbors. They spoke from the side of the mouth, and only on one
subject.
“He went all through Fredericksburg without a scratch--”
“He looks so much like me--General Palmer told my brother he’d have
known his hide in a tan-yard--”
“He’s been gone--let’s see--it was a year some time last April--”
“He was counting on a furlough the first of this month. I suppose
nobody got one as things turned out--”
“He said, ‘No; it ain’t my style. I’ll fight as much as you like, but I
won’t be nigger-waiter for no man, captain or no captain’--”
Thus I heard the scattered murmurs among the grown-up heads above me,
as we pushed into the outskirts of the throng, and stood there, waiting
for the rest. There was no sentence without a “he” in it. A stranger
might have fancied that they were all talking of one man. I knew
better. They were the fathers and mothers, the sisters, brothers, wives
of the men whose regiments had been in that horrible three days’ fight
at Gettysburg. Each was thinking and speaking of his own, and took it
for granted the others would understand. For that matter, they all
did understand. The town knew the name and family of every one of the
twelve-score sons she had in this battle.
It is not very clear to me now why people all went to the post-office
to wait for the evening papers that came in from the nearest big city.
Nowadays they would be brought in bulk and sold on the street before
the mail-bags had reached the post-office. Apparently that had not yet
been thought of in our slow old town.
The band across the square had started up afresh with “Annie
Lisle”--the sweet old refrain of “Wave willows, murmur waters,” comes
back to me now after a quarter-century of forgetfulness--when all at
once there was a sharp forward movement of the crowd. The doors had
been thrown open, and the hallway was on the instant filled with a
swarming multitude. The band had stopped as suddenly as it began, and
no more cheering was heard. We could see whole troops of dark forms
scudding toward us from the other side of the square.
“Run in for me--that’s a good boy--ask for Dr. Stratford’s mail,” the
teacher whispered, bending over me.
It seemed an age before I finally got back to her, with the paper in
its postmarked wrapper buttoned up inside my jacket. I had never been
in so fierce and determined a crowd before, and I emerged from it at
last, confused in wits and panting for breath. I was still looking
about through the gloom in a foolish way for Miss Stratford, when I
felt her hand laid sharply on my shoulder.
“Well--where is it?--did nothing come?” she asked, her voice trembling
with eagerness, and the eyes which I had thought so soft and dove-like
flashing down upon me as if she were Miss Pritchard, and I had been
caught chewing gum in school.
I drew the paper out from under my roundabout, and gave it to her. She
grasped it, and thrust a finger under the cover to tear it off. Then
she hesitated for a moment, and looked about her. “Come where there is
some light,” she said, and started up the street. Although she seemed
to have spoken more to herself than to me, I followed her in silence,
close to her side.
For a long way the sidewalk in front of every lighted store-window was
thronged with a group of people clustered tight about some one who had
a paper, and was reading from it aloud. Beside broken snatches of this
monologue, we caught, now groans of sorrow and horror, now exclamations
of proud approval, and even the beginnings of cheers, broken in upon by
a general “’Sh-h!” as we hurried past outside the curb.
It was under a lamp in the little park nearly half-way up the hill that
Miss Stratford stopped, and spread the paper open. I see her still,
white-faced, under the flickering gaslight, her black curls making
a strange dark bar between the pale-straw hat and the white of her
shoulder shawl and muslin dress, her hands trembling as they held up
the extended sheet. She scanned the columns swiftly, skimmingly for a
time, as I could see by the way she moved her round chin up and down.
Then she came to a part which called for closer reading. The paper
shook perceptibly now, as she bent her eyes upon it. Then all at once
it fell from her hands, and without a sound she walked away.
I picked the paper up and followed her along the gravelled path. It was
like pursuing a ghost, so weirdly white did her summer attire now look
to my frightened eyes, with such a swift and deathly silence did she
move. The path upon which we were described a circle touching the four
sides of the square. She did not quit it when the intersection with
our street was reached, but followed straight round again toward the
point where we had entered the park. This, too, in turn, she passed,
gliding noiselessly forward under the black arches of the overhanging
elms. The suggestion that she did not know she was going round and
round in a ring startled my brain. I would have run up to her now if I
had dared.
Suddenly she turned, and saw that I was behind her. She sank slowly
into one of the garden-seats, by the path, and held out for a moment
a hesitating hand toward me. I went up at this and looked into her
face. Shadowed as it was, the change I saw there chilled my blood. It
was like the face of some one I had never seen before, with fixed,
wide-open, staring eyes which seemed to look beyond me through the
darkness, upon some terrible sight no other could see.
“Go--run and tell--Tom--to go home! His brother--his brother has
been killed,” she said to me, choking over the words as if they hurt
her throat, and still with the same strange dry-eyed, far-away gaze
covering yet not seeing me.
I held out the paper for her to take, but she made no sign, and I
gingerly laid it on the seat beside her. I hung about for a minute or
two longer, imagining that she might have something else to say--but no
word came. Then, with a feebly inopportune “Well, good-by,” I started
off alone up the hill.
It was a distinct relief to find that my companions were congregated at
the lower end of the common, instead of their accustomed haunt farther
up near my home, for the walk had been a lonely one, and I was deeply
depressed by what had happened. Tom, it seems, had been called away
some quarter of an hour before. All the boys knew of the calamity which
had befallen the Hemingways. We talked about it, from time to time, as
we loaded and fired the cannon which Tom had obligingly turned over
to my friends. It had been out of deference to the feelings of the
stricken household that they had betaken themselves and their racket
off to the remote corner of the common. The solemnity of the occasion
silenced criticism upon my conduct in forgetting to buy the powder.
“There would be enough as long as it lasted,” Billy Norris said, with
philosophic decision.
We speculated upon the likelihood of De Witt Hemingway’s being given a
military funeral. These mournful pageants had by this time become such
familiar things to us that the prospect of one more had no element of
excitement in it, save as it involved a gloomy sort of distinction for
Tom. He would ride in the first mourning-carriage with his parents,
and this would associate us, as we walked along ahead of the band,
with the most intimate aspects of the demonstration. We regretted now
that the soldier company which we had so long projected remained still
unorganized. Had it been otherwise we would probably have been awarded
the right of the line in the procession. Some one suggested that it was
not too late--and we promptly bound ourselves to meet after breakfast
next day to organize and begin drilling. If we worked at this night
and day, and our parents instantaneously provided us with uniforms and
guns, we should be in time. It was also arranged that we should be
called the De Witt C. Hemingway Fire Zouaves, and that Billy Norris
should be side captain. The chief command would, of course, be reserved
for Tom. We would specially salute him as he rode past in the closed
carriage, and then fall in behind, forming his honorary escort.
None of us had known the dead officer closely, owing to his advanced
age. He was seven or eight years older than even Tom. But the more
elderly among our group had seen him play base-ball in the academy
nine, and our neighborhood was still alive with legends of his early
audacity and skill in collecting barrels and dry-goods boxes at night
for election bonfires. It was remembered that once he carried away a
whole front-stoop from the house of a little German tailor on one of
the back streets. As we stood around the heated cannon, in the great
black solitude of the common, our fancies pictured this redoubtable
young man once more among us--not in his blue uniform, with crimson
sash and sword laid by his side, and the gauntlets drawn over his
lifeless hands, but as a taller and glorified Tom, in a roundabout
jacket and copper-toed boots, giving the law on this his playground.
The very cannon at our feet had once been his. The night air became
peopled with ghosts of his contemporaries--handsome boys who had grown
up before us, and had gone away to lay down their lives in far-off
Virginia or Tennessee.
These heroic shades brought drowsiness in their train. We lapsed into
long silences, punctuated by yawns, when it was not our turn to ram and
touch off the cannon. Finally some of us stretched ourselves out on the
grass, in the warm darkness, to wait comfortably for this turn to come.
What did come instead was daybreak--finding Billy Norris and myself
alone constant to our all-night vow. We sat up and shivered as we
rubbed our eyes. The morning air had a chilling freshness that went
to my bones--and these, moreover, were filled with those novel aches
and stiffnesses which beds were invented to prevent. We stood up,
stretching out our arms, and gaping at the pearl-and-rose beginnings of
the sunrise in the eastern sky. The other boys had all gone home, and
taken the cannon with them. Only scraps of torn paper and tiny patches
of burnt grass marked the site of our celebration.
My first weak impulse was to march home without delay, and get into bed
as quickly as might be. But Billy Norris looked so finely resolute and
resourceful that I hesitated to suggest this, and said nothing, leaving
the initiative to him. One could see, by the most casual glance, that
he was superior to mere considerations of unseasonableness in hours.
I remembered now that he was one of that remarkable body of boys,
the paper-carriers, who rose when all others were asleep in their
warm nests, and trudged about long before breakfast distributing the
_Clarion_ among the well-to-do households. This fact had given him his
position in our neighborhood as quite the next in leadership to Tom
Hemingway.
He presently outlined his plans to me, after having tried the centre
of light on the horizon, where soon the sun would be, by an old brass
compass he had in his pocket--a process which enabled him, he said, to
tell pretty well what time it was. The paper wouldn’t be out for nearly
two hours yet--and if it were not for the fact of a great battle, there
would have been no paper at all on this glorious anniversary--but he
thought we would go down-town and see what was going on around about
the newspaper office. Forthwith we started. He cheered my faint spirits
by assuring me that I would soon cease to be sleepy, and would, in
fact, feel better than usual. I dragged my feet along at his side,
waiting for this revival to come, and meantime furtively yawning
against my sleeve.
Billy seemed to have dreamed a good deal, during our nap on the common,
about the De Witt C. Hemingway Fire Zouaves. At least he had now in
his head a marvellously elaborated system of organization, which he
unfolded as we went along. I felt that I had never before realized his
greatness, his born genius for command. His scheme halted nowhere. He
allotted offices with discriminating firmness; he treated the question
of uniforms and guns as a trivial detail which would settle itself;
he spoke with calm confidence of our offering our services to the
Republic in the autumn; his clear vision saw even the materials for a
fife-and-drum corps among the German boys in the back streets. It was
true that I appeared personally to play a meagre part in these great
projects; the most that was said about me was that I might make a fair
third-corporal. But Fate had thrown in my way such a wonderful chance
of becoming intimate with Billy that I made sure I should swiftly
advance in rank--the more so as I discerned in the background of his
thoughts, as it were, a grim determination to make short work of Tom
Hemingway’s aristocratic pretensions, once the funeral was over.
We were forced to make a detour of the park on our way down, because
Billy observed some half-dozen Irish boys at play with a cannon inside,
whom he knew to be hostile. If there had been only four, he said, he
would have gone in and routed them. He could whip any two of them, he
added, with one hand tied behind his back. I listened with admiration.
Billy was not tall, but he possessed great thickness of chest and
length of arm. His skin was so dark that we canvassed the theory from
time to time of his having Indian blood. He did not discourage this,
and he admitted himself that he was double-jointed.
The streets of the business part of the town, into which we now made
our way, were quite deserted. We went around into the yard behind the
printing-office, where the carrier-boys were wont to wait for the press
to get to work; and Billy displayed some impatience at discovering that
here too there was no one. It was now broad daylight, but through the
windows of the composing-room we could see some of the printers still
setting type by kerosene lamps.
We seated ourselves at the end of the yard on a big, flat, smooth-faced
stone, and Billy produced from his pocket a number of “em” quads, so
he called them, with which the carriers had learned from the printers’
boys to play a very beautiful game. You shook the pieces of metal in
your hands and threw them on the stone; your score depended upon the
number of nicked sides that were turned uppermost. We played this game
in the interest of good-fellowship for a little. Then Billy told me
that the carriers always played it for pennies, and that it was unmanly
for us to do otherwise. He had no pennies at that precise moment, but
would pay at the end of the week what he had lost; in the meantime
there was my twenty cents to go on with. After this Billy threw so many
nicks uppermost that my courage gave way, and I made an attempt to stop
the game; but a single remark from him as to the military destiny
which he was reserving for me, if I only displayed true soldierly nerve
and grit, sufficed to quiet me once more, and the play went on. I had
now only five cents left.
Suddenly a shadow interposed itself between the sunlight and the stone.
I looked up, to behold a small boy with bare arms and a blackened apron
standing over me, watching our game. There was a great deal of ink on
his face and hands, and a hardened, not to say rakish expression in his
eye.
“Why don’t you ‘jeff’ with somebody of your own size?” he demanded of
Billy after having looked me over critically.
He was not nearly so big as Billy, and I expected to see the latter
instantly rise and crush him, but Billy only laughed and said we were
playing for fun; he was going to give me all my money back. I was
rejoiced to hear this, but still felt surprised at the propitiatory
manner Billy adopted toward this diminutive inky boy. It was not the
demeanor befitting a side-captain--and what made it worse was that the
strange boy loftily declined to be cajoled by it. He sniffed when Billy
told him about the military company we were forming; he coldly shook
his head, with a curt “Nixie!” when invited to join it; and he laughed
aloud at hearing the name our organization was to bear.
“He ain’t dead at all--that De Witt Hemingway,” he said, with jeering
contempt.
“Hain’t he though!” exclaimed Billy. “The news come last night. Tom had
to go home--his mother sent for him--on account of it!”
“I’ll bet you a quarter he ain’t dead,” responded the practical inky
boy. “Money up, though!”
“I’ve only got fifteen cents. I’ll bet you that, though,” rejoined
Billy, producing my torn and dishevelled shin-plasters.
“All right! Wait here!” said the boy, running off to the building
and disappearing through the door. There was barely time for me to
learn from my companion that this printer’s apprentice was called
“the devil,” and could not only whistle between his teeth and crack
his fingers, but chew tobacco, when he reappeared, with a long narrow
strip of paper in his hand. This he held out for us to see, indicating
with an ebon forefinger the special paragraph we were to read. Billy
looked at it sharply, for several moments in silence. Then he said to
me: “What does it say there? I must ’a’ got some powder in my eyes last
night.”
I read this paragraph aloud, not without an unworthy feeling that the
inky boy would now respect me deeply:
“CORRECTION. Lieutenant De Witt C. Hemingway, of Company A, --th
New York, reported in earlier despatches among the killed, is
uninjured. The officer killed is Lieutenant Carl Heinninge, Company
F, same regiment.”
Billy’s face visibly lengthened as I read this out, and he felt us
both looking at him. He made a pretence of examining the slip of paper
again, but in a half-hearted way. Then he ruefully handed over the
fifteen cents and, rising from the stone, shook himself.
“Them Dutchmen never was no good!” was what he said.
The inky boy had put the money in the pocket under his apron, and
grinned now with as much enjoyment as dignity would permit him to show.
He did not seem to mind any longer the original source of his winnings,
and it was apparent that I could not with decency recall it to him.
Some odd impulse prompted me, however, to ask him if I might have the
paper he had in his hand. He was magnanimous enough to present me with
the proof-sheet on the spot. Then with another grin he turned and left
us.
Billy stood sullenly kicking with his bare toes into a sand-heap by the
stone. He would not answer me when I spoke to him. It flashed across my
perceptive faculties that he was not such a great man, after all, as
I had imagined. In another instant or two it had become quite clear to
me that I had no admiration for him whatever. Without a word I turned
on my heel and walked determinedly out of the yard and into the street,
homeward bent.
All at once I quickened my pace; something had occurred to me. The
purpose thus conceived grew so swiftly that soon I found myself
running. Up the hill I sped, and straight through the park. If the
Irish boys shouted after me I knew it not, but dashed on heedless of
all else save the one idea. I only halted, breathless and panting, when
I stood on Dr. Stratford’s doorstep, and heard the night-bell inside
jangling shrilly in response to my excited pull.
As I waited, I pictured to myself the old doctor as he would presently
come down, half-dressed and pulling on his coat as he advanced. He
would ask, eagerly, “Who is sick? Where am I to go?” and I would calmly
reply that he unduly alarmed himself, and that I had a message for his
daughter. He would, of course, ask me what it was, and I, politely but
firmly, would decline to explain to any one but the lady in person.
Just what might ensue was not clear--but I beheld myself throughout
commanding the situation, at once benevolent, polished, and inexorable.
The door opened with unlooked-for promptness, while my self-complacent
vision still hung in midair. Instead of the bald and spectacled old
doctor, there confronted me a white-faced, solemn-eyed lady in a black
dress, whom I did not seem to know. I stared at her, tongue-tied, till
she said, in a low, grave voice, “Well, Andrew, what is it?”
Then of course I saw that it was Miss Stratford, my teacher, the
person whom I had come to see. Some vague sense of what the sleepless
night had meant in this house came to me as I gazed confusedly at her
mourning, and heard the echo of her sad tones in my ears.
“Is some one ill?” she asked again.
“No; some one--some one is very well!” I managed to reply, lifting my
eyes again to her wan face. The spectacle of its drawn lines and pallor
all at once assailed my wearied and overtaxed nerves with crushing
weight. I felt myself beginning to whimper, and rushing tears scalded
my eyes. Something inside my breast seemed to be dragging me down
through the stoop.
I have now only the recollection of Miss Stratford’s kneeling by my
side, with a supporting arm around me, and of her thus unrolling and
reading the proof-paper I had in my hand. We were in the hall now,
instead of on the stoop, and there was a long silence. Then she put her
head on my shoulder and wept. I could hear and feel her sobs as if they
were my own.
“I--I didn’t think you’d cry--that you’d be so sorry,” I heard myself
saying, at last, in despondent self-defence.
Miss Stratford lifted her head and, still kneeling as she was, put a
finger under my chin to make me look her in her face. Lo! the eyes were
laughing through their tears; the whole countenance was radiant once
more with the light of happy youth and with that other glory which
youth knows only once.
“Why, Andrew, boy,” she said, trembling, smiling, sobbing, beaming all
at once, “didn’t you know that people cry for very joy sometimes?”
And as I shook my head she bent down and kissed me.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
[Since any list approaching a complete bibliography would be unduly
long, these suggestions are merely for the convenience of those
who, without special research, wish to read further and compare.
They remain after rejection of many essays that seem hardly to
advance the discussion.]
=Cairns, William B.=, _On the Development of American Literature
from 1815 to 1833_, with especial reference to periodicals;
Bulletin of the University of Wisconsin, Philology and
Literature Series, volume i, no. 1, pages 1–87.
=Canby, Henry Seidel=, _The Short Story_; Yale Studies in English,
xii (revised as introduction to _The Book of the Short Story_,
edited by Alexander Jessup and Henry Seidel Canby).
=Chassang, A.=, _Histoire du Roman ... dans l’Antiquité Grecque et
Latine_; Paris (2d ed.), 1862.
=Gilbert, E.=, _Le Roman en France pendant le xix^e Siècle_; Paris
(2d ed.), 1896.
=Hart, Walter Morris=, _The Evolution of the Short Story_; address
delivered before the Alumni Association of Haverford College,
June 12, 1901.
=Matthews, Brander=, _The Philosophy of the Short Story_; New
York, 1901. (This, the standard essay on the subject, is now
published separately, with notes and a few striking references.)
=Moland et d’Héricault=, _Nouvelles Françoises en Prose du
xiii^{me} Siècle_; Paris, 1856 (l’Empereur Constant, Amis
et Amile, le Roi Flore et la Belle Jehane, la Comtesse de
Ponthieu, Aucassin et Nicolette; introduction, notes).
=Morris, William=, _Old French Romances done into English by
William Morris_, with introduction by Joseph Jacobs; London,
1896 (translation of the same tales as in the preceding, except
Aucassin and Nicolette).
=Peck, Harry Thurston=, _Trimalchio’s Dinner_ by Petronius Arbiter,
translated from the original Latin, with an introduction and
bibliographical appendix; New York, 1898. (The introduction
discusses prose fiction in Greece and Rome.)
=Perry, Bliss=, _A Study of Prose Fiction_; Boston, 1902.
FOOTNOTES
[1] Donald G. Mitchell, _American Lands and Letters_.
[2] _Literary Papers of William Austin_, Boston, 1890, page 43.
[3] See Prof. William B. Cairns, _On the Development of American
Literature from 1815 to 1833, with especial reference to periodicals_;
Bulletin of the University of Wisconsin, Philology and Literature
Series, volume i, No. 1.
[4] For a pungent characterisation of the annuals, see Prof. Henry A.
Beers’s life of N. P. Willis (American Men of Letters), pages 77 and
following.
[5] Fromentin (_Un Été dans le Sahara_, page 59; _Une Année dans le
Sahel_, pages 215 and following) lays this down for painting.
[6] Bret Harte, _The Rise of the Short Story_, Cornhill Magazine, July,
1899.
[7] See Cairns, as above, page 64. The influence of the Spectator form
in France appears strikingly in _L’Hermite de la Chaussée d’Antin_, ou
observations sur les mœurs et les usages français au commencement du
xix^{me} siècle, par M. de Jouy, Paris (collective volumes), 1813.
[8] Cross, _Development of the English Novel_, pages 24, 25.
[9] For Irving’s own view of his tales, see a quotation from his
letters at page xix of Professor Brander Matthews’s edition of the
_Tales of a Traveller_.
[10] “A rivulet of story meandering through a broad meadow of
episode--a book of episodes with occasional digressions into the plot.”
Kennedy’s preface to _Swallow Barn_.
[11] This is the character of the tales of Mme. de Genlis, of which a
volume was published in New York, 1825: _New Moral Tales, selected and
translated from the French of Mme. de Genlis, by an American_.
[12] Nodier adopts the same setting for the same purpose (cf. _Les
Quatre Talismans_, 1838); but the habit is at least as old as Voltaire.
[13] So Godfrey Wallace’s _Esmeralda_, Atlantic Souvenir for 1829.
[14] Miss Sedgwick’s _Chivalric Sailor_ (1835) is essentially like our
current historical romances. A typical instance is Dana’s _Paul Felton_
(1822).
[15] This tendency was confirmed, of course, by the predominance of
Scott.
[16] Brander Matthews, _The Philosophy of the Short-Story_, page 15.
[17] _Poetics_, chapter x.
[18] Poe’s review of Hawthorne’s tales (1842) begins by remarking that
they are not all tales (Stedman and Woodberry edition of Poe, vol. vii,
page 28).
[19] Poe’s tales were translated into French, German, Italian, and
Spanish. He was reviewed in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_, Oct. 15, 1846
(new series, vol. xvi, page 341).
[20] See Aristotle’s _Poetics_, chapters vii and viii. The “classical”
French drama deduced from Aristotle’s general principle of unity of
action a strict system of practice. Of Poe’s adherence to this system a
good instance is _The Cask of Amontillado_.
[21] In a review of Mrs. Sigourney, Southern Literary Messenger, volume
ii, page 113 (January, 1836); quoted in Woodberry’s Life of Poe, page
94.
[22] In a review of Hawthorne, Graham’s Magazine, May, 1842; Stedman
and Woodberry’s edition of Poe, volume vii, page 30; quoted in the
appendix to Brander Matthews’s _Philosophy of the Short-Story_.
[23] A collection ascribed to Antonius Diogenes, compiled by Aristides
of Miletus, was translated into Latin by Cornelius Sisenna (119–67
B.C.). The translation is lost.
[24] The _Cena_ of Petronius has more consistency, is in form more like
the longer tales of antiquity.
[25] The object of Lucian is always satire. This, not any purely
narrative end, determines his method. But it is worth observing that
_The Ass_ is picaresque. For the rest, no single adventure of the
string is more than anecdote.
[26] The Greek title is ποιμενικά.
[27] _E. g._, the fifteenth idyl of Theocritus, and the opening of the
seventh oration of Dio Chrysostom. The latter, though brought in as
anecdote, has extraordinary ingenuity and finish of form.
[28] See the introduction by Joseph Jacobs to _Old French Romances done
into English by William Morris_.
[29] This, perhaps, is typically the _novella_; but Boccaccio
will not fix the term: “intendo di raccontare cento _novelle, o
favole o parabole o istorie, che dire le vogliamo_ ... nelle quali
_novelle_....”--_Preface to Decameron._
[30] For reference in more detailed study of mediæval forms, this
tentative classification of the _Decameron_ may be tabulated as
follows:--
_anecdote_ 55
(a) _simple anecdote_ 34
I, all but nov. 4; III, nov. 4; V, nov. 4; VI, entire;
VIII, all but nov. 7 & 8; IX, nov. 1 & 7–10.
(b) _anecdote more artistically elaborated_ 21
III, nov. 1, 2, 3, 5, 6; V, nov. 10; VII, entire;
VIII, nov. 7; IX, nov. 2–5.
_scenario or summary romance_ 40
II, nov. 3–10; III, nov. 7–10; IV, entire; V, all
but nov. 4 & 10; X, entire.
_approaching short story_ 3
I, nov. 4; II, nov. 1; VIII, nov. 8.
_short story_ 2
II, nov. 2; IX, nov. 6. ----
100
[31] E. Gilbert, _Le roman en France pendant le xix^e siècle_, page 65;
A. France, _La vie littéraire_, _I^{re} série_, page 47.
[32] Brander Matthews, _The Philosophy of the Short-Story_, page 65.
[33] _Colomba_ has one hundred and fifty pages.
[34] See an essay on _The Literary Influence of Sterne in France_,
Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, volume
xvii, pages 221–236.
[35] It would be interesting, for instance, to determine whether
Mérimée learned anything in form from Poushkin.
[36] Vide the excellent discourse of G. C. Verplanck, Esq., before the
New York Historical Society.
[37] Not in the first edition.
[38] In New Hampshire.
[39] In the original publication the name is Patience.
[40] [“In place of this clause the first edition has: “Her figure,
her air, her features,--all, in their very minutest development were
those--were identically (I can use no other sufficient term) were
identically those of the Roderick Usher who sat beside me. A feeling of
stupor,” etc.]
[41] Watson, Dr. Percival, Spallanzani, and especially the Bishop of
Llandaff. See Chemical Essays, vol. v.
[42] The season of peach-blossoms was the only season of marriage in
ancient China.
[43] The most common decorations of rooms, halls, and temples, in
China, are ornamental scrolls or labels of colored paper or wood,
painted and gilded, and hung over doors or windows, and inscribed with
a line or couplet conveying some allusion to the circumstances of the
inhabitant, or some pious or philosophical axiom. For instance, a
poetical one recorded by Dr. Morrison:--
“From the pine forest the azure dragon ascends to the milky way,”--
typical of the prosperous man arising to wealth and honors.
INDEX
[_Titles of books and periodicals are in quotation marks; titles of
separate stories, in italics_]
Addison, a model for Irving, 6
Aldrich, Thomas Bailey, 34
_Alice Doane’s Appeal_ (Hawthorne), 13
Allegory, 10, 14, 23, 230
_Ambitious Guest, The_ (Hawthorne), 14
American literature, brevity of, 1;
wherein American, 1–4, 8, 35;
American life in, 3–6, 11, 12
“American Monthly Magazine, The,” 113
_Amis and Amile_, 25
Anecdote, 10, 24, 26, 27, 29
Annuals, American, 2, 4, 5, 9–12, 18
Antonius Diogenes, 24
“Appleton’s Journal,” 245
Apuleius, 30
Aristides of Miletus, 24
Aristotle, “Poetics,” 13, 19, 20
_Arsène Guillot_ (Mérimée), 31
Artificiality in short story, 20, 32
“Ass, The,” of Lucian, 24
“Atlantic Monthly, The,” 247
“Atlantic Souvenir, The,” 2, 4, 5, 11
_Aucassin and Nicolette_, 25, 27, 31
Austin, William, 1, 10, 12, 59–95;
biographical and critical sketch, 59;
_Joseph Natterstrom_, 1, 10;
_Peter Rugg_, 10, 12, 60–95
Bacon, Delia, 11
Balzac, Honoré de, 32–33;
_El verdugo_, _Les proscrits_, _La messe de l’athée_, _Z. Marcas_,
32;
form in, 32–33
Bandello, 29
Beckwith, Hiram W., 97
_Bee-Tree, The_ (Kirkland), 195–210
Beers, Henry A., 2, 177
_Ben Hadar_ (Paulding), 10
_Berenice_ (Poe), 2, 3, 16, 18, 21, 22, 33
Blackwell, Robert, 97
Boccaccio, “The Decameron,” 26–28, 30
“Boston Book, The,” 61
Brunetière, Ferdinand, 26
_Buckthorne and His Friends_ (Irving), 8
Bunner, Henry Cuyler, 289–301;
biographical and critical note, 289;
_The Third Figure of the Cotillion_, 289;
_The Love Letters of Smith_, 291–301
Burton’s “Gentleman’s Magazine,” 154
Cable, George W., 5, 34;
_Posson Jone_, 34
Cairns, William B., 2, 6, 325
Canby, Henry Seidel, 325
_Carmen_ (Mérimée), 31
_Catholic, The_, 4
“Cena Trimalchionis,” of Petronius, 24
“Cent nouvelles nouvelles, Les,” 28, 30
Character, development of, 13, 26, 27
Chassang, A., 325
Chaucer, 25, 28;
_The Man of Law_, _The Pardoner_, _Troilus and Criseyde_, 25
_Chivalric Sailor, The_ (Sedgwick), 11
Clemens, Samuel L. (Mark Twain), 4, 34;
_The Jumping Frog_, 34
Climax (_see_ Culmination)
_Colomba_ (Mérimée), 31
_Combe à l’homme mort, La_ (Nodier), 29, 30
Compression of time, in short story, 8, 11, 12, 13, 19, 20, 27, 28,
33 (_see_ Unity)
“Condensed Novels” (Harte), 229
Consistency of form, 9, 23, 26–28, 31, 32, 33 (_see_ Unity)
_Conte_ and _nouvelle_, 30, 31, 33
“Contes de la Reine de Navarre” (_see_ “Heptameron”)
Cooper, James Fenimore, 1, 5
Cornelius Sisenna, 24
Culmination, in short story, 7, 8, 10, 20–22, 26–28, 31, 32, 33
_Damnation of Theron Ware, The_ (Frederic), 303
Dana, Richard Henry, _Paul Felton_, 11
_Daphne, The_ (Webster), 245
_Daphnis and Chloe_, 24–25
“Dashes at Life with a Free Pencil” (Willis), 178
Daudet, Alphonse, 30, 34
_David Swan_ (Hawthorne), 14
“Decameron, The,” 26–28
De Quincey, Thomas, 30
Descriptive sketches, 9, 12, 14, 31, 99, 113, 193
Dialogue and monologue, 19, 27
_Diamond Lens, The_ (O’Brien), 211
Dickens, Charles, influence of, on Bret Harte, 230;
on O’Brien, 211
Dio Chrysostom, 25
Directness of movement, 18, 19, 20, 26, 27
Documentary interest, in fiction, 3, 30
Dominant, use of a single detail as, 16, 21, 22
Drama, influence of, on novel and short story, 26, 34
Dumas, Alexandre, influence of, on Bret Harte, 230
Edgeworth, Maria, 26
_Emigrant’s Daughter, The_, 5
_End of the Passage, The_ (Kipling), 212
_Enlèvement de la redoute, Le_ (Mérimée), 31
_Esmeralda, The_ (Wallace), 11
Essay tendency in tales, 6, 7, 10, 14, 15, 18, 32
_Ethan Brand_ (Hawthorne), 13
_Eve of the Fourth, The_ (Frederic), 305–324
Exposition in tales (_see_ Essay tendency)
_Fall of the House of Usher, The_ (Poe), 18, 154–176
_Fancy’s Show Box_ (Hawthorne), 14
_Filleule du Seigneur, La_ (Nodier), 30
Flaubert, Gustave, 30
Flint, Timothy, 5
_Florus, King, and the Fair Jehane_, 25
_Fool’s Moustache, A_ (Webster), 245
“Forest Life” (Kirkland), 193
France, Anatole, 29
Frederic, Harold, 303–324;
biographical and critical note, 303;
“In the Sixties,” 303;
_The Eve of the Fourth_, 305–324;
_The Damnation of Theron Ware_, 303
Fromentin, Eugène, 3
Frontier, tales of the, 5, 10, 12, 97–127, 193–210, 229–243
Gautier, Théophile, 30, 33;
_Le nid de rossignols_, _La mort amoureuse_, 33;
preferred _nouvelle_ to _conte_, diffuseness, influence of Sterne,
tendency to mere description, likeness to Poe, 33
Genlis, Mme. de, moral tales of, 10
“Gentleman’s Magazine and American Monthly Review,” Burton’s, 154
_German Student, The_ (Irving), 8
Gift-books (_see_ Annuals)
Gilbert, E., 29, 325
Gilman, Mrs., 5
“Golden Era, The,” 229
Goldsmith, influence on Irving, 6
Gradation, 20–23, 32 (_see_ Sequence)
_Great Good Place, The_ (James), 34
_Great Stone Face, The_ (Hawthorne), 14
Hale, Mrs., 5
Hall, James, 5, 9, 11, 12, 97–112;
biographical and critical note, 97;
“The Illinois Intelligencer,” “The Illinois Magazine,” “The Western
Monthly Magazine,” “Letters from the West,” “Sketches of the
West,” “Notes on the Western States,” “The Wilderness and the
War Path,” 97;
“The Western Souvenir,” 5, 97;
_The Indian Hater_, _Pete Featherton_, 5;
_The Village Musician_, 9;
_The French Village_, 5, 9, 12, 99–112
Harmonisation, 16, 23
“Harper’s Monthly Magazine,” 212, 213
Hart, Walter Morris, 325
Harte, Francis Bret, 4, 229–243;
biographical and critical note, 229;
“Condensed Novels,” 229;
_The Luck of Roaring Camp_, 229, 230;
_Johnson’s Old Woman_, _Mrs. Skaggs’s Husbands_, _The Iliad of
Sandy Bar_, _Tennessee’s Partner_, 230;
_The Outcasts of Poker Flat_, 231–243;
influence of Dickens, 230;
of Dumas, 230;
tendency to melodrama, 230;
local truth, 229;
symbolism, 230
Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 2, 5, 9, 10, 12–15, 16, 18, 23, 30, 31, 32, 59,
129–142, 230;
bent not toward short story, 12–15, 31;
allegory, symbolism, 14, 23, 230;
vocabulary, 16;
tendency toward description, 14;
toward essay, 14, 15, 18, 30;
expository introductions, 18;
unity compared with Poe’s, 23;
likeness to Nodier, 30;
“Twice-Told Tales,” 131;
_The Gentle Boy_, 12;
_The Wives of the Dead_, 12, 13;
_Roger Malvin’s Burial_, _Alice Doane’s Appeal_, _Ethan Brand_, 13;
_The Scarlet Letter_, 13, 14;
_Sunday at Home_, _Sights from a Steeple_, _Main Street_, _The
Village Uncle_, _The Ambitious Guest_, _Fancy’s Show Box_,
_David Swan_, _The Snow Image_, _The Great Stone Face_, 14;
_The Marble Faun_, 15;
_The White Old Maid_, 13, 131–142;
_The Seven Vagabonds_, 230
“Heptameron, The,” of the Queen of Navarre, 29
_Hermit of the Prairies, The_, 5
“Hermite de la Chaussée d’Antin, Le,” 6
Higginson, Thomas Wentworth, 59
Historical tales, 4, 5, 9, 10, 11
Hoax-story, 10, 34
_Horla, Le_ (Maupassant), 212
_Iliad of Sandy Bar, The_ (Harte), 230
“Illinois Intelligencer, The,” 97
“Illinois Magazine, The,” 97
“In the Sixties” (Frederic), 305
_Indian Hater, The_ (Hall), 5
_Inlet of Peach Blossoms, The_ (Willis), 179–191
_Inroad of the Nabajo, The_ (Pike), 115–127
Intensity, in short story, 12, 22, 32, 34
Introductions to tales, 7, 10, 17, 18, 19, 31, 99, 195
Irving, Washington, 1, 4, 5, 6–9, 18, 29, 37–58, 143, 289;
looseness of form, 7, 8;
characterisation, 7;
unity of tone, 7;
influence of, 8, 9, 143, 289;
introductions, 18;
“The Sketch Book,” 7;
“Tales of a Traveller,” 8, 143;
_The Wife_, _The Widow and Her Son_, _The Pride of the Village_,
_The Spectre Bridegroom_, 7;
_Buckthorne and His Friends_, _The German Student_, 8;
_Philip of Pokanoket_, 9;
_Rip Van Winkle_, 7, 8, 37–58
Jacobs, Joseph, 25
James, Henry, 34
_Jean François-les-bas-bleus_ (Nodier), 30
_Johnson’s Old Woman_ (Harte), 230
_Joseph Natterstrom_ (Austin), 1, 10
Jouy, M. de, 6
_Jumping Frog, The_ (Mark Twain), 34
Keepsakes (_see_ Annuals)
Kennedy, John Pendleton, 5, 9;
“Swallow Barn,” 9
Kinetic narrative, and static, 22
_King Pest_ (Poe), 18, 22
Kipling, Rudyard, 34, 212;
_The End of the Passage_, 212
Kirkland, Mrs., 5, 6, 193–210;
biographical and critical note, 193;
“A New Home--Who’ll Follow,” “Forest Life,” “Western Clearings,”
193;
_The Bee-Tree_, 195–210
Kirkland, William, 193
Landor, Walter Savage, 30
“Letters from Arkansas” (Pike), 113
“Letters from the West” (Hall), 97
_Lidivine_ (Nodier), 30
_Ligeia_ (Poe), 16, 18
“Literati” (Poe), 193
Local color, 3–6, 9, 11, 12, 34, 97, 113, 193, 229, 303
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 143–151;
biographical and critical note, 143;
“Outre-Mer,” 143;
_The Notary of Périgueux_, 145–151
Longus, 24, 25
_Love Letters of Smith, The_ (Bunner), 291–301
Lucian, 24
_Luck of Roaring Camp, The_ (Harte), 229, 230
Magazines, American, 2–5, 9, 34 (and see separate titles)
_Main Street_ (Hawthorne), 14
_Maison Tellier, La_ (Maupassant), 230
_Man of Law, The_ (Chaucer), 25
_Marble Faun, The_ (Hawthorne), 15
Margaret of Angoulême, Queen of Navarre, the “Heptameron” of, 29
_Marjorie Daw_ (Aldrich), 34
_Mary Dyre_ (Sedgwick), 11
_Matron of Ephesus, The_ (Petronius), 24
Matthews, Brander, 8, 11, 22, 31, 212, 325;
edition of Irving’s “Tales of a Traveller,” 8;
“The Philosophy of the Short-Story,” 11, 22, 31, 212, 325
Maupassant, Guy de, 30, 34, 212, 230;
_La maison Tellier_, 230;
_Le Horla_, 212
Mediæval tales, 23–29, 31
Melodrama, tendency toward, in earlier American tales, 4, 5, 11;
in O’Brien, 211;
in Bret Harte, 230
Mérimée, Prosper, 30–34;
narrative conciseness, 31;
preferred _nouvelle_ to _conte_, 31, 34;
and Poe, 32;
_Carmen_, _Colomba_, _Arsène Guillot_, _L’enlèvement de la
redoute_, _Tamango_, _La vision de Charles XI_, _Le vase
étrusque_, 31;
_La Vénus d’Ille_, 31, 32
_Messe de l’athée, La_ (Balzac), 32
_Methodist’s Story, The_, 4
_Metzengerstein_ (Poe), 16, 18, 22
Milesian tales, 24
“Mirror, The New York,” 177, 178
_Miss Eunice’s Glove_ (Webster), 247–266
Mitchell, Donald G., 1
Mitford, Mary Russell, 193
Moland and d’Héricault, 325
Monologue, Poe’s, 19
Moral tales, 4, 9, 10, 14, 30;
allegory in, 10, 14;
of Mme. de Genlis, 10;
of Nodier, 10, 30;
oriental setting for, 10
_Morella_ (Poe), 16, 17, 18, 21, 22
Morris, William, 25, 326
_Morte Amoureuse, La_ (Gautier), 33
_Mrs. Skaggs’s Husbands_ (Harte), 230
Musset, Alfred de, 33
_My Wife’s Tempter_ (O’Brien), 211
Narantsauk, 4
Nationality in literature, 3–6, 11, 12
“New England Galaxy, The,” 61
“New England Magazine, The,” 2, 131
“New Home, A,--Who’ll Follow” (Kirkland), 193
“New York Mirror, The,” 177, 178
_Nid de rossignols, Le_ (Gautier), 33
Nodier, Charles, 10, 29, 30, 31;
preferred _nouvelle_ to _conte_, 30, 31;
similarity to Hawthorne, 30;
_Les quatre talismans_, 10;
_La combe à l’homme mort_, 29, 30;
_Smarra_, _Jean François-les-bas-bleus_, _Lidivine_, _La filleule
du Seigneur_, 30
“Notes on the Western States” (Hall), 97
_Nouvelle_, and _conte_, 30, 31, 33;
and _roman_, 31
Novel and short story, 8, 12, 13, 15, 21, 25, 26
Novelette, 31
_Novella_, 27, 30
O’Brien, Fitz-James, 211–228;
biographical and critical note, 211;
_The Diamond Lens_, _The Wondersmith_, _Tommatoo_, _My Wife’s
Tempter_, 211;
_What Was It?_, 213–228
_Operation in Money, An_ (Webster), 245
Oriental tales, 10, 25
_Outcasts of Poker Flat, The_ (Harte), 231–243
“Outre-Mer” (Longfellow), 143
“Overland Monthly, The,” 229, 231
_Owner of “Lara,” The_ (Webster), 245
_Pardoner, The_ (Chaucer), 25
Pastoral romance, 25
_Paul Felton_ (Dana), 11
Paulding, James K., _Ben Hadar_, 10
Peck, Harry Thurston, 326
“Pencillings by the Way” (Willis), 177
Periodicals (_see_ Annuals, Magazines)
Perry, Bliss, 326
_Pete Featherton_ (Hall), 5
_Peter Rugg, the Missing Man_ (Austin), 10, 12, 60–95
Petronius, “Cena Trimalchionis,” “Satyricon,” 24
_Philip of Pokanoket_ (Irving), 9
Picaresque story, 24
Pike, Albert, 12, 113–127;
biographical and critical note, 113;
“Prose Sketches and Poems,” 12, 115;
“Letters from Arkansas,” 113;
“Hymns to the Gods,” 113;
_The Inroad of the Nabajo_, 115–127
Plot (_see_ Compression, Culmination Novel, Short story, Time-lapse,
Unity)
Plots, simple or complex, 12, 13
Poe, Edgar Allan, 3, 4, 9, 12, 15–23, 32, 33, 153–176, 193, 211;
genius for form, 9, 16;
preoccupation with structure, 16;
review of Hawthorne, 14, 22;
characters, 16;
detective stories, 16, 20;
harmonisation, 16, 23;
refrain, 16, 17, 21;
vocabulary, 16, 17;
cadence, 16;
suppression of introductions, 18, 19;
simplification for directness, 19;
setting, 19;
habit of monologue, 19;
gradation, 20–23;
artificiality, 20, 32;
grotesque, 22;
kinetic narrative, and static, 22;
conception of unity, 22, 23;
application of Schlegel, 22;
review of Mrs. Sigourney, 22;
symbolism, 23;
and Hawthorne, 18, 20, 23;
and Mérimée, 32;
and Gautier, 33;
and O’Brien, 211;
“Literati,” 193;
_Berenice_, 2, 3, 16, 18, 21, 22, 33;
_Metzengerstein_, 16, 18, 22;
_Morella_, 16, 17, 18, 21, 22;
_Ligeia_, 16, 18;
_King Pest_, 18, 22;
_The Tell-Tale Heart_, 18;
_The Fall of the House of Usher_, 18, 154–176
“Poetics,” of Aristotle, 13, 19, 20
“Portfolio, The,” 97
_Posson Jone_ (Cable), 34
Poushkin, 34
Premonition, 21, 31
_Pride of the Village, The_ (Irving), 7
_Proscrits, Les_ (Balzac), 32
“Prose Sketches and Poems” (Pike), 12, 114
“Puck,” 289
_Quatre talismans, Les_ (Nodier), 10
_Reminiscence of Federalism, A_ (Sedgwick), 11
Richepin, 34
_Rip Van Winkle_ (Irving), 7, 8, 37–58
_Roger Malvin’s Burial_ (Hawthorne), 13
Romances, short, 4, 10, 11, 25, 27;
American, 4, 11;
summary or scenario, 10, 25;
pastoral, 25;
mediæval, 25–28, 29
Romanticism, 4, 7, 8, 11
“Satyricon” (Petronius), 24
_Scarlet Letter, The_ (Hawthorne), 13, 14
Scenario, or summary romance, 10, 13, 24, 26, 27
Schlegel, Poe’s application of, 22
Scott, Sir Walter, influence of, 11, 37
Sedgwick, Charlotte M., _A Reminiscence of Federalism_, _Mary Dyre_,
_The Chivalric Sailor_, 11
Sequence of incidents, 7, 8, 9, 10, 16, 20–23 (_see_ Gradation)
Setting, 16 (_see_ Local color)
_Seven Vagabonds, The_ (Hawthorne), 230
“Short Sixes” (Bunner), 291
Short story, in antiquity, 24, 25;
in middle age, 25–29;
in France, 29–35;
in America, 1–23, 34, 35;
in England, 33, 34;
in other countries, 34;
popularity of, 3, 34;
distinct from tale and novel, 2, 6, 7, 8, 11, 12, 13, 21, 23–27,
29–31;
unity of, 7, 8, 11–13, 15–23;
intensity of, 12, 13, 32 (_see_ Unity)
“Short-Story, The Philosophy of the” (Matthews), 11, 12, 31, 212, 325
_Sights from a Steeple_ (Hawthorne), 14
Simple plots and complex, 13–15, 25, 26
Simplification of narrative mechanism, 7, 8, 11, 12, 13, 17–20, 23
(_see_ Unity)
Singleness, 13, 15, 19, 31 (_see_ Unity)
Situation, a single, in short story, 12, 26, 27, 28, 31
“Sketch Book, The” (Irving), 7, 8, 37
“Sketches of the West” (Hall), 97
_Smarra_ (Nodier), 30
_Snow Image, The_ (Hawthorne), 14
“Southern Literary Messenger, The,” 2, 33
“Spectator, The,” 6, 7, 9;
influence on Irving, 6, 7;
on the British novel, 6;
in France, 6;
on J. P. Kennedy, 9;
in Virginia, 9
_Spectre Bridegroom, The_ (Irving), 7
Static narrative, and kinetic, 22
Sterne, Lawrence, influence on Gautier, 33
Stevenson, Robert Louis, 34
Stockton, Frank R., _The Wreck of the Thomas Hyke_, 34
_Sunday at Home_ (Hawthorne), 14
Suspense, 10, 16, 20
“Swallow Barn” (Kennedy), 9
Symbolism, 10, 14, 23, 230
Tale, a constant literary form, 25, 26;
distinct from short story (which see);
anecdote, 10, 24, 26, 29;
summary or fragmentary, 13, 15, 23, 24, 27;
moral, 4, 9, 10, 14, 30;
historical, 4, 5, 9, 10, 11;
yarn, 10, 34;
oriental, 10, 25
Tales, ancient, 23–25;
Milesian, 24;
mediæval, 25–29, 31;
modern French, 30;
American, before 1835, 1–12
“Tales of a Traveller” (Irving), 8, 143
_Tamango_ (Mérimée), 31
Taylor, Bayard, 267–287;
biographical and critical note, 267;
_Who Was She?_, 269–287
_Tell-Tale Heart, The_ (Poe), 18
_Tennessee’s Partner_ (Harte), 230
Theocritus, the fifteenth idyl of, 25
Thoreau, Henry David, 1
Time-lapse, management of, 8, 11, 12, 13, 19–21, 27–29, 31, 32
“Token, The,” 2, 5
_Tommatoo_ (O’Brien), 211
Totality of interest, Poe’s principle of, 22
_Troilus and Criseyde_ (Chaucer), 25
Unities, the classical, 19, 20, 34, 289
Unity, in short story, of purpose, 8, 16–23;
of tone, 7, 16–19, 22, 23;
of form, 7, 8, 10, 12, 13, 16–19, 22, 23, 25–29, 31–33, 59, 113,
143, 177, 193, 211, 230, 289;
of time, 8, 11, 12, 13, 19–21, 27–29, 31, 32;
of place, 12, 13, 19, 27, 29, 32;
by suppression, 19, 32;
and artificiality, 20, 32
_Vase étrusque, Le_ (Mérimée), 31
_Vénus d’Ille, La_ (Mérimée), 31
_Verdugo, El_ (Balzac), 32
_Village Uncle, The_ (Hawthorne), 14
_Vision de Charles XI, La_ (Mérimée), 31
Voltaire, 10
Wallace, Godfrey, _The Esmeralda_, 11
Webster, Albert Falvey, 245–266;
biographical and critical note, 245;
_An Operation in Money_, _The Daphne_, _A Fool’s Moustache_, _The
Owner of Lara_, 245;
_Miss Eunice’s Glove_, 247–266
“Weekly Californian, The,” (Harte), 229
“Western Clearings” (Kirkland), 193, 195
“Western Monthly Magazine, The” (Hall), 97
“Western Monthly Review, The,” 5
“Western Souvenir, The” (Hall), 5, 97, 99
_What Was It?_ (O’Brien), 213–228
_White Old Maid, The_ (Hawthorne), 13, 131–142
Whitman, Walt, 3
_Who Was She?_ (Taylor), 269–287
_Widow and Her Son, The_ (Irving), 7
_Wife, The_ (Irving), 7
“Wilderness and the War Path, The” (Hall), 97
Wilkins, Mary E., 11
Willis, Nathaniel Parker, 177–191, 193;
biographical and critical note, 177;
“Pencillings by the Way,” “Dashes at Life with a Free Pencil,” 177;
_The Inlet of Peach Blossoms_, 179–191
_Wives of the Dead, The_ (Hawthorne), 12, 13
_Wondersmith, The_ (O’Brien), 211
_Wreck of the Thomas Hyke, The_ (Stockton), 34
Yarn, 10, 34
_Z. Marcas_ (Balzac), 32
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Transcriber’s Notes
Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a
predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they
were not changed.
Simple typographical errors were corrected; unbalanced quotation
marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and otherwise left
unbalanced.
Footnotes, originally at the bottoms of the pages that referenced them,
have been collected, sequentially renumbered, and placed at the end of
the book.
The index was not checked for proper alphabetization or correct page
references.
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