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The Works of Edgar Allan Poe

Volume 2 of the Raven Edition

April, 2000  [Etext #2148]


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[Redactor's Note--There are some Greek letters in this volume
(_Silence--A Fable_, the introduction, and two words in _The
Assignation_) which may not display correctly in the ISO character
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Contents

VOLUME II

The Purloined Letter
The Thousand-and-Second Tale of Scheherezade
A Descent into the Maelström
Von Kempelen and his Discovery
Mesmeric Revelation
The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar
The Black Cat
The Fall of the House of Usher
Silence -- a Fable
The Masque of the Red Death
The Cask of Amontillado
The Imp of the Perverse
The Island of the Fay
The Assignation
The Pit and the Pendulum
The Premature Burial
The Domain of Arnheim
Landor's Cottage
William Wilson
The Tell-Tale Heart
Berenice
Eleonora

{Notes}

======
======

THE PURLOINED LETTER

Nil sapientiae odiosius acumine nimio.

                                _Seneca_.

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

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

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

"That is another of your odd notions," said the Prefect, who had a
fashion of calling every thing

"odd" that was beyond his comprehension, and thus lived amid an
absolute legion of "oddities."

"Very true," said Dupin, as he supplied his visiter with a pipe, and
rolled towards him a comfortable chair.

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

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

"Simple and odd," said Dupin.

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

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

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

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

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

"A little too self-evident."

"Ha! ha! ha - ha! ha! ha! - ho! ho! ho!" roared our visiter,
profoundly amused, "oh, Dupin, you will be the death of me yet!"

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

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

"Proceed," said I.

"Or not," said Dupin.

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

"How is this known?" asked Dupin.

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

"Be a little more explicit," I said.

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

"Still I do not quite understand," said Dupin.

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

"But this ascendancy," I interposed, "would depend upon the robber's
knowledge of the loser's knowledge of the robber. Who would dare -"

"The thief," said G., "is the Minister D--, who dares all things,
those unbecoming as well as those becoming a man. The method of the
theft was not less ingenious than bold. The document in question - a
letter, to be frank - had been received by the personage robbed while
alone in the royal boudoir. During its perusal she was suddenly
interrupted by the entrance of the other exalted personage from whom
especially it was her wish to conceal it. After a hurried and vain
endeavor to thrust it in a drawer, she was forced to place it, open
as it was, upon a table. The address, however, was uppermost, and,
the contents thus unexposed, the letter escaped notice. At this
juncture enters the Minister D--. His lynx eye immediately perceives

the paper, recognises the handwriting of the address, observes the
confusion of the personage addressed, and fathoms her secret. After
some business transactions, hurried through in his ordinary manner,
he produces a letter somewhat similar to the one in question, opens
it, pretends to read it, and then places it in close juxtaposition to
the other. Again he converses, for some fifteen minutes, upon the
public affairs. At length, in taking leave, he takes also from the
table the letter to which he had no claim. Its rightful owner saw,
but, of course, dared not call attention to the act, in the presence
of the third personage who stood at her elbow. The minister decamped;
leaving his own letter - one of no importance - upon the table."

"Here, then," said Dupin to me, "you have precisely what you demand
to make the ascendancy complete - the robber's knowledge of the
loser's knowledge of the robber."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Its susceptibility of being produced?" said I.

"That is to say, of being destroyed," said Dupin.

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

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

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

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

"True," said Dupin, after a long and thoughtful whiff from

his meerschaum, "although I have been guilty of certain doggrel
myself."

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

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

"Why so?"

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

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

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

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

"Certainly not; but we did better - we examined the rungs of every
chair in the hotel, and, indeed the jointings of every description of
furniture, by the aid of a most powerful microscope. Had there been
any traces of recent disturbance we should not

have failed to detect it instantly. A single grain of gimlet-dust,
for example, would have been as obvious as an apple. Any disorder in
the glueing - any unusual gaping in the joints - would have sufficed
to insure detection."

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

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

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

"We had; but the reward offered is prodigious!"

"You include the grounds about the houses?"

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

"You looked among D--'s papers, of course, and into the books of the
library?"

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

"You explored the floors beneath the carpets?"

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

"And the paper on the walls?"

"Yes."

"You looked into the cellars?"

"We did."

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

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

"To make a thorough re-search of the premises."

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

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

"Oh yes!" - And here the Prefect, producing a memorandum-book
proceeded to read aloud a minute account of the internal, and
especially of the external appearance of the missing document. Soon
after finishing the perusal of this description, he took his
departure, more entirely depressed in spirits than I had ever known
the good gentleman before. In about a month afterwards he paid us
another visit, and found us occupied very nearly as before. He took a
pipe and a chair and entered into some ordinary conversation. At
length I said, -

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

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

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

"Why, a very great deal - a very liberal reward - I don't like to say
how much, precisely; but one thing I will say, that I wouldn't mind
giving my individual check for fifty thousand francs to any one who
could obtain me that letter. The fact is, it is becoming of more and
more importance every day; and the reward has been lately doubled. If
it were trebled, however, I could do no more than I have done."

"Why, yes," said Dupin, drawlingly, between the whiffs of his
meerschaum, "I really - think, G--, you have not exerted yourself -
to the utmost in this matter. You might - do a little more, I think,
eh?"

"How? - in what way?'

"Why - puff, puff - you might - puff, puff - employ counsel in the
matter, eh? - puff, puff, puff. Do you remember the story they tell
of Abernethy?"

"No; hang Abernethy!"

"To be sure! hang him and welcome. But, once upon a time, a certain
rich miser conceived the design of spunging upon this Abernethy for a
medical opinion. Getting up, for this purpose, an ordinary
conversation in a private company, he insinuated his case to the
physician, as that of an imaginary individual.

" 'We will suppose,' said the miser, 'that his symptoms are such and
such; now, doctor, what would you have directed him to take?'

" 'Take!' said Abernethy, 'why, take advice, to be sure.' "

"But," said the Prefect, a little discomposed, "I am perfectly
willing to take advice, and to pay for it. I would really give fifty
thousand francs to any one who would aid me in the matter."

"In that case," replied Dupin, opening a drawer, and producing a
check-book, "you may as well fill me up a check for the amount
mentioned. When you have signed it, I will hand you the letter."

I was astounded. The Prefect appeared absolutely thunder-stricken.
For some minutes he remained speechless and motionless, looking
incredulously at my friend with open mouth, and eyes that seemed
starting from their sockets; then, apparently recovering himself in
some measure, he seized a pen, and after several pauses and vacant
stares, finally filled up and signed a check for fifty thousand
francs, and handed it across the table to Dupin. The latter examined
it carefully and deposited it in his pocket-book; then, unlocking an
escritoire, took thence a letter and gave it to the Prefect. This
functionary grasped it in a perfect agony of joy, opened it with a
trembling hand, cast a rapid glance at its contents, and then,
scrambling and struggling to the door, rushed at length
unceremoniously from the room and from the house, without having
uttered a syllable since Dupin had requested him to fill up the
check.

When he had gone, my friend entered into some explanations.

"The Parisian police," he said, "are exceedingly able in their way.
They are persevering, ingenious, cunning, and thoroughly versed in
the knowledge which their duties seem chiefly to demand. Thus, when
G-- detailed to us his made of searching the premises at the Hotel
D--, I felt entire confidence in his having made a satisfactory
investigation - so far as his labors extended."

"So far as his labors extended?" said I.

"Yes," said Dupin. "The measures adopted were not only the best of
their kind, but carried out to absolute perfection. Had the letter
been deposited within the range of their search, these fellows would,
beyond a question, have found it."

I merely laughed - but he seemed quite serious in all that he said.

"The measures, then," he continued, " were good in their kind, and
well executed; their defect lay in their being inapplicable to the
case, and to the man. A certain set of highly ingenious resources
are, with the Prefect, a sort of Procrustean bed, to which he
forcibly adapts his designs. But he perpetually errs by being too
deep or too shallow, for the matter in hand; and many a schoolboy is
a better reasoner than he. I knew one about eight years of age, whose
success at guessing in the game of 'even and odd' attracted universal
admiration. This game is simple, and is played with marbles. One
player holds in his hand a number of these toys, and demands of
another whether that number is even or odd. If the guess is right,
the guesser wins one; if wrong, he loses one. The boy to whom I
allude won all the marbles of the school. Of course he had some
principle of guessing; and this lay in mere observation and
admeasurement of the astuteness of his opponents. For example, an
arrant simpleton is his opponent, and, holding up his closed hand,
asks, 'are they even or odd?' Our schoolboy replies, 'odd,' and
loses; but upon the second trial he wins, for he then says to
himself, 'the simpleton had them even upon the first trial, and his
amount of cunning is just sufficient to make him have them odd upon
the second; I will therefore guess odd;' - he guesses odd, and wins.
Now, with a simpleton a degree above the first, he would have
reasoned thus: 'This fellow finds that in the first instance I
guessed odd, and, in the second, he will propose to himself, upon the
first impulse, a simple variation from even to odd, as did the first
simpleton; but then a second thought will suggest that this is too
simple a variation, and finally he will decide upon putting it even
as before. I will therefore guess even;' - he guesses even, and wins.
Now this mode of reasoning in the schoolboy, whom his fellows termed
'lucky,' - what, in its last analysis, is it?"

"It is merely," I said, "an identification of the reasoner's
intellect with that of his opponent."

"It is," said Dupin; "and, upon inquiring, of the boy by what means
he effected the thoroughidentification in which his success
consisted, I received answer as follows: 'When I wish to find out how
wise, or how stupid, or how good, or how wicked is any one, or what
are his thoughts at the moment, I fashion the expression of my face,
as accurately as possible, in accordance with the expression of his,
and then wait to see what thoughts or sentiments arise in my mind or
heart, as if to match or correspond with the expression.' This
response of the schoolboy lies at the bottom of all the spurious
profundity which has been attributed to Rochefoucault, to La Bougive,
to Machiavelli, and to Campanella."

"And the identification," I said, "of the reasoner's intellect with
that of his opponent, depends, if I understand you aright, upon the
accuracy with which the opponent's intellect is admeasured."

"For its practical value it depends upon this," replied Dupin; "and
the Prefect and his cohort fail so frequently, first, by default of
this identification, and, secondly, by ill-admeasurement, or rather
through non-admeasurement, of the intellect with which they are
engaged. They consider only their own ideas of ingenuity; and, in
searching for anything hidden, advert only to the modes in which they
would have hidden it. They are right in this much - that their own
ingenuity is a faithful representative of that of the mass; but when
the cunning of the individual felon is diverse in character from
their own, the felon foils them, of course. This always happens when
it is above their own, and very usually when it is below. They have
no variation of principle in their investigations; at best, when
urged by some unusual emergency - by some extraordinary reward - they
extend or exaggerate their old modes of practice, without touching
their principles. What, for example, in this case of D--, has been
done to vary the principle of action? What is all this boring, and
probing, and sounding, and scrutinizing with the microscope and
dividing the surface of the building into registered square inches -
what is it all but an exaggeration of the application of the one
principle or set of principles of search, which are based upon the
one set of notions regarding human ingenuity, to which the Prefect,
in the long routine of his duty, has been accustomed? Do you not see
he has taken it for granted that all men proceed to conceal a letter,
- not exactly in a gimlet hole bored in a chair-leg - but, at least,
in someout-of-the-way hole or corner suggested by the same tenor of
thought which would urge a man to secrete a letter in a gimlet-hole
bored in a chair-leg? And do you not see also, that such recherchés
nooks for concealment are adapted only for ordinary occasions, and
would be adopted only by ordinary intellects; for, in all cases of
concealment, a disposal of the article concealed - a disposal of it
in this recherché manner, - is, in the very first instance,
presumable and presumed; and thus its discovery depends, not at all
upon the acumen, but altogether upon the mere care, patience, and
determination of the seekers; and where the case is of importance -
or, what amounts to the same thing in the policial eyes, when the
reward is of magnitude, - the qualities in question have never been
known to fail. You will now understand what I meant in suggesting
that, had the purloined letter been hidden any where within the
limits of the Prefect's examination - in other words, had the
principle of its concealment been comprehended within the principles
of the Prefect - its discovery would have been a matter altogether
beyond question. This functionary, however, has been thoroughly
mystified; and the remote source of his defeat lies in the
supposition that the Minister is a fool, because he has acquired
renown as a poet. All fools are poets; this the Prefect feels; and he
is merely guilty of a non distributio medii in thence inferring that
all poets are fools."

"But is this really the poet?" I asked. "There are two brothers, I
know; and both have attained reputation in letters. The Minister I
believe has written learnedly on the Differential Calculus. He is a
mathematician, and no poet."

"You are mistaken; I know him well; he is both. As poet and
mathematician, he would reason well; as mere mathematician, he could
not have reasoned at all, and thus would have been at the mercy of
the Prefect."

"You surprise me," I said, "by these opinions, which have been
contradicted by the voice of the world. You do not mean to set at
naught the well-digested idea of centuries. The mathematical reason
has long been regarded as the reason par excellence."

" 'Il y a à parièr,' " replied Dupin, quoting from Chamfort, " 'que
toute idée publique, toute convention reçue est une sottise, car elle
a convenue au plus grand nombre.' The mathematicians, I grant you,
have done their best to promulgate the popular error to which you
allude, and which is none the less an error for its promulgation as
truth. With an art worthy a better cause, for example, they have
insinuated the term 'analysis' into application to algebra. The
French are the originators of this particular deception; but if a
term is of any importance - if words derive any value from
applicability - then 'analysis' conveys 'algebra' about as much as,
in Latin, 'ambitus' implies 'ambition,' 'religio' 'religion,' or
'homines honesti,' a set of honorablemen."

"You have a quarrel on hand, I see," said I, "with some of the
algebraists of Paris; but proceed."

"I dispute the availability, and thus the value, of that reason which
is cultivated in any especial form other than the abstractly logical.
I dispute, in particular, the reason educed by mathematical study.
The mathematics are the science of form and quantity; mathematical
reasoning is merely logic applied to observation upon form and
quantity. The great error lies in supposing that even the truths of
what is called pure algebra, are abstract or general truths. And this
error is so egregious that I am confounded at the universality with
which it has been received. Mathematical axioms are notaxioms of
general truth. What is true of relation - of form and quantity - is
often grossly false in regard to morals, for example. In this latter
science it is very usually untrue that the aggregated parts are equal
to the whole. In chemistry also the axiom fails. In the consideration
of motive it fails; for two motives, each of a given value, have not,
necessarily, a value when united, equal to the sum of their values
apart. There are numerous other mathematical truths which are only
truths within the limits of relation. But the mathematician argues,
from his finite truths, through habit, as if they were of an
absolutely general applicability - as the world indeed imagines them
to be. Bryant, in his very learned 'Mythology,' mentions an analogous
source of error, when he says that 'although the Pagan fables are not
believed, yet we forget ourselves continually, and make inferences
from them as existing realities.' With the algebraists, however, who
are Pagans themselves, the 'Pagan fables' are believed, and the
inferences are made, not so much through lapse of memory, as through
an unaccountable addling of the brains. In short, I never yet
encountered the mere mathematician who could be trusted out of equal
roots, or one who did not clandestinely hold it as a point of his
faith that x2+px was absolutely and unconditionally equal to q. Say
to one of these gentlemen, by way of experiment, if you please, that
you believe occasions may occur where x2+px is not altogether equal
to q, and, having made him understand what you mean, get out of his
reach as speedily as convenient, for, beyond doubt, he will endeavor
to knock you down.

"I mean to say," continued Dupin, while I merely laughed at his last
observations, "that if the Minister had been no more than a
mathematician, the Prefect would have been under no necessity of
giving me this check. I know him, however, as both mathematician and
poet, and my measures were adapted to his capacity, with reference to
the circumstances by which he was surrounded. I knew him as a
courtier, too, and as a bold intriguant. Such a man, I considered,
could not fail to be aware of the ordinary policial modes of action.
He could not have failed to anticipate - and events have proved that
he did not fail to anticipate - the waylayings to which he was
subjected. He must have foreseen, I reflected, the secret
investigations of his premises. His frequent absences from home at
night, which were hailed by the Prefect as certain aids to his
success, I regarded only as ruses, to afford opportunity for thorough
search to the police, and thus the sooner to impress them with the
conviction to which G--, in fact, did finally arrive - the conviction
that the letter was not upon the premises. I felt, also, that the
whole train of thought, which I was at some pains in detailing to you
just now, concerning the invariable principle of policial action in
searches for articles concealed - I felt that this whole train of
thought would necessarily pass through the mind of the Minister. It
would imperatively lead him to despise all the ordinary nooks of
concealment. He could not, I reflected, be so weak as not to see that
the most intricate and remote recess of his hotel would be as open as
his commonest closets to the eyes, to the probes, to the gimlets, and
to the microscopes of the Prefect. I saw, in fine, that he would be
driven, as a matter of course, to simplicity, if not deliberately
induced to it as a matter of choice. You will remember, perhaps, how
desperately the Prefect laughed when I suggested, upon our first
interview, that it was just possible this mystery troubled him so
much on account of its being so very self-evident."

"Yes," said I, "I remember his merriment well. I really thought he
would have fallen into convulsions."

"The material world," continued Dupin, "abounds with very strict
analogies to the immaterial; and thus some color of truth has been
given to the rhetorical dogma, that metaphor, or simile, may be made
to strengthen an argument, as well as to embellish a description. The
principle of the vis inertiæ, for example, seems to be identical in
physics and metaphysics. It is not more true in the former, that a
large body is with more difficulty set in motion than a smaller one,
and that its subsequent momentum is commensurate with this
difficulty, than it is, in the latter, that intellects of the vaster
capacity, while more forcible, more constant, and more eventful in
their movements than those of inferior grade, are yet the less
readily moved, and more embarrassed and full of hesitation in the
first few steps of their progress. Again: have you ever noticed which
of the street signs, over the shop- doors, are the most attractive of
attention?"

"I have never given the matter a thought," I said.

"There is a game of puzzles," he resumed, "which is played upon a
map. One party playing requires another to find a given word - the
name of town, river, state or empire - any word, in short, upon the
motley and perplexed surface of the chart. A novice in the game
generally seeks to embarrass his opponents by giving them the most
minutely lettered names; but the adept selects such words as stretch,
in large characters, from one end of the chart to the other. These,
like the over-largely lettered signs and placards of the street,
escape observation by dint of being excessively obvious; and here the
physical oversight is precisely analogous with the moral
inapprehension by which the intellect suffers to pass unnoticed those
considerations which are too obtrusively and too palpably
self-evident. But this is a point, it appears, somewhat above or
beneath the understanding of the Prefect. He never once thought it
probable, or possible, that the Minister had deposited the letter
immediately beneath the nose of the whole world, by way of best
preventing any portion of that world from perceiving it.

"But the more I reflected upon the daring, dashing, and
discriminating ingenuity of D--; upon the fact that the document must
always have been at hand, if he intended to use it to good purpose;
and upon the decisive evidence, obtained by the Prefect, that it was
not hidden within the limits of that dignitary's ordinary search -
the more satisfied I became that, to conceal this letter, the
Minister had resorted to the comprehensive and sagacious expedient of
not attempting to conceal it at all.

"Full of these ideas, I prepared myself with a pair of green
spectacles, and called one fine morning, quite by accident, at the
Ministerial hotel. I found D-- at home, yawning, lounging, and
dawdling, as usual, and pretending to be in the last extremity of
ennui. He is, perhaps, the most really energetic human being now
alive - but that is only when nobody sees him.

"To be even with him, I complained of my weak eyes, and lamented the
necessity of the spectacles, under cover of which I cautiously and
thoroughly surveyed the whole apartment, while seemingly intent only
upon the conversation of my host.

"I paid especial attention to a large writing-table near which he
sat, and upon which lay confusedly, some miscellaneous letters and
other papers, with one or two musical instruments and a few books.
Here, however, after a long and very deliberate scrutiny, I saw
nothing to excite particular suspicion.

"At length my eyes, in going the circuit of the room, fell upon a
trumpery fillagree card-rack of pasteboard, that hung dangling by a
dirty blue ribbon, from a little brass knob just beneath the middle
of the mantel-piece. In this rack, which had three or four
compartments, were five or six visiting cards and a solitary letter.
This last was much soiled and crumpled. It was torn nearly in two,
across the middle - as if a design, in the first instance, to tear it
entirely up as worthless, had been altered, or stayed, in the second.
It had a large black seal, bearing the D-- cipher very conspicuously,
and was addressed, in a diminutive female hand, to D--, the minister,
himself. It was thrust carelessly, and even, as it seemed,
contemptuously, into one of the uppermost divisions of the rack.

"No sooner had I glanced at this letter, than I concluded it to be
that of which I was in search. To be sure, it was, to all appearance,
radically different from the one of which the Prefect had read us so
minute a description. Here the seal was large and black, with the D--
cipher; there it was small and red, with the ducal arms of the S--
family. Here, the address, to the Minister, diminutive and feminine;
there the superscription, to a certain royal personage, was markedly
bold and decided; the size alone formed a point of correspondence.
But, then, the radicalness of these differences, which was excessive;
the dirt; the soiled and torn condition of the paper, so inconsistent
with the true methodical habits of D--, and so suggestive of a design
to delude the beholder into an idea of the worthlessness of the
document; these things, together with the hyper-obtrusive situation
of this document, full in the view of every visiter, and thus exactly
in accordance with the conclusions to which I had previously arrived;
these things, I say, were strongly corroborative of suspicion, in one
who came with the intention to suspect.

"I protracted my visit as long as possible, and, while I maintained a
most animated discussion with the Minister upon a topic which I knew
well had never failed to interest and excite him, I kept my attention
really riveted upon the letter. In this examination, I committed to
memory its external appearance and arrangement in the rack; and also
fell, at length, upon a discovery which set at rest whatever trivial
doubt I might have entertained. In scrutinizing the edges of the
paper, I observed them to be more chafed than seemed necessary. They
presented the broken appearance which is manifested when a stiff
paper, having been once folded and pressed with a folder, is refolded
in a reversed direction, in the same creases or edges which had
formed the original fold. This discovery was sufficient. It was clear
to me that the letter had been turned, as a glove, inside out,
re-directed, and re-sealed. I bade the Minister good morning, and
took my departure at once, leaving a gold snuff-box upon the table.

"The next morning I called for the snuff-box, when we resumed, quite
eagerly, the conversation of the preceding day. While thus engaged,
however, a loud report, as if of a pistol, was heard immediately
beneath the windows of the hotel, and was succeeded by a series of
fearful screams, and the shoutings of a terrified mob. D-- rushed to
a casement, threw it open, and looked out. In the meantime, I stepped
to the card-rack took the letter, put it in my pocket, and replaced
it by a fac-simile, (so far as regards externals,) which I had
carefully prepared at my lodgings - imitating the D-- cipher, very
readily, by means of a seal formed of bread.

"The disturbance in the street had been occasioned by the frantic
behavior of a man with a musket. He had fired it among a crowd of
women and children. It proved, however, to have been without ball,
and the fellow was suffered to go his way as a lunatic or a drunkard.
When he had gone, D-- came from the window, whither I had followed
him immediately upon securing the object in view. Soon afterwards I
bade him farewell. The pretended lunatic was a man in my own pay."

"But what purpose had you," I asked, "in replacing the letter by a
fac-simile? Would it not have been better, at the first visit, to
have seized it openly, and departed?"

"D--," replied Dupin, "is a desperate man, and a man of nerve. His
hotel, too, is not without attendants devoted to his interests. Had I
made the wild attempt you suggest, I might never have left the
Ministerial presence alive. The good people of Paris might have heard
of me no more. But I had an object apart from these considerations.
You know my political prepossessions. In this matter, I act as a
partisan of the lady concerned. For eighteen months the Minister has
had her in his power. She has now him in hers - since, being unaware
that the letter is not in his possession, he will proceed with his
exactions as if it was. Thus will he inevitably commit himself, at
once, to his political destruction. His downfall, too, will not be
more precipitate than awkward. It is all very well to talk about the
facilis descensus Averni; but in all kinds of climbing, as Catalani
said of singing, it is far more easy to get up than to come down. In
the present instance I have no sympathy - at least no pity - for him
who descends. He is that monstrum horrendum, an unprincipled man of
genius. I confess, however, that I should like very well to know the
precise character of his thoughts, when, being defied by her whom the
Prefect terms 'a certain personage' he is reduced to opening the
letter which I left for him in the card-rack."

"How? did you put any thing particular in it?"

"Why - it did not seem altogether right to leave the interior blank -
that would have been insulting. D--, at Vienna once, did me an evil
turn, which I told him, quite good-humoredly, that I should remember.
So, as I knew he would feel some curiosity in regard to the identity
of the person who had outwitted him, I thought it a pity not to give
him a clue. He is well acquainted with my MS., and I just copied into
the middle of the blank sheet the words -

" '-- -- Un dessein si funeste, S'il n'est digne d'Atrée, est digne
de Thyeste.

They are to be found in Crebillon's 'Atrée.' "

~~~ End of Text ~~~

======

THE THOUSAND-AND-SECOND TALE OF SCHEHERAZADE

                     Truth is stranger than fiction.

                              OLD SAYING.

HAVING had occasion, lately, in the course of some Oriental
investigations, to consult the Tellmenow Isitsoornot, a work which
(like the Zohar of Simeon Jochaides) is scarcely known at all, even
in Europe; and which has never been quoted, to my knowledge, by any
American -- if we except, perhaps, the author of the "Curiosities of
American Literature"; -- having had occasion, I say, to turn over
some pages of the first -- mentioned very remarkable work, I was not
a little astonished to discover that the literary world has hitherto
been strangely in error respecting the fate of the vizier's daughter,
Scheherazade, as that fate is depicted in the "Arabian Nights"; and
that the denouement there given, if not altogether inaccurate, as far
as it goes, is at least to blame in not having gone very much
farther.

For full information on this interesting topic, I must refer the
inquisitive reader to the "Isitsoornot" itself, but in the meantime,
I shall be pardoned for giving a summary of what I there discovered.

It will be remembered, that, in the usual version of the tales, a
certain monarch having good cause to be jealous of his queen, not
only puts her to death, but makes a vow, by his beard and the
prophet, to espouse each night the most beautiful maiden in his
dominions, and the next morning to deliver her up to the executioner.

Having fulfilled this vow for many years to the letter, and with a
religious punctuality and method that conferred great credit upon him
as a man of devout feeling and excellent sense, he was interrupted
one afternoon (no doubt at his prayers) by a visit from his grand
vizier, to whose daughter, it appears, there had occurred an idea.

Her name was Scheherazade, and her idea was, that she would either
redeem the land from the depopulating tax upon its beauty, or perish,
after the approved fashion of all heroines, in the attempt.

Accordingly, and although we do not find it to be leap-year (which
makes the sacrifice more meritorious), she deputes her father, the
grand vizier, to make an offer to the king of her hand. This hand the
king eagerly accepts -- (he had intended to take it at all events,
and had put off the matter from day to day, only through fear of the
vizier), -- but, in accepting it now, he gives all parties very
distinctly to understand, that, grand vizier or no grand vizier, he
has not the slightest design of giving up one iota of his vow or of
his privileges. When, therefore, the fair Scheherazade insisted upon
marrying the king, and did actually marry him despite her father's
excellent advice not to do any thing of the kind -- when she would
and did marry him, I say, will I, nill I, it was with her beautiful
black eyes as thoroughly open as the nature of the case would allow.

It seems, however, that this politic damsel (who had been reading
Machiavelli, beyond doubt), had a very ingenious little plot in her
mind. On the night of the wedding, she contrived, upon I forget what
specious pretence, to have her sister occupy a couch sufficiently
near that of the royal pair to admit of easy conversation from bed to
bed; and, a little before cock-crowing, she took care to awaken the
good monarch, her husband (who bore her none the worse will because
he intended to wring her neck on the morrow), -- she managed to
awaken him, I say, (although on account of a capital conscience and
an easy digestion, he slept well) by the profound interest of a story
(about a rat and a black cat, I think) which she was narrating (all
in an undertone, of course) to her sister. When the day broke, it so
happened that this history was not altogether finished, and that
Scheherazade, in the nature of things could not finish it just then,
since it was high time for her to get up and be bowstrung -- a thing
very little more pleasant than hanging, only a trifle more genteel.

The king's curiosity, however, prevailing, I am sorry to say, even
over his sound religious principles, induced him for this once to
postpone the fulfilment of his vow until next morning, for the
purpose and with the hope of hearing that night how it fared in the
end with the black cat (a black cat, I think it was) and the rat.

The night having arrived, however, the lady Scheherazade not only put
the finishing stroke to the black cat and the rat (the rat was blue)
but before she well knew what she was about, found herself deep in
the intricacies of a narration, having reference (if I am not
altogether mistaken) to a pink horse (with green wings) that went, in
a violent manner, by clockwork, and was wound up with an indigo key.
With this history the king was even more profoundly interested than
with the other -- and, as the day broke before its conclusion
(notwithstanding all the queen's endeavors to get through with it in
time for the bowstringing), there was again no resource but to
postpone that ceremony as before, for twenty-four hours. The next
night there happened a similar accident with a similar result; and
then the next -- and then again the next; so that, in the end, the
good monarch, having been unavoidably deprived of all opportunity to
keep his vow during a period of no less than one thousand and one
nights, either forgets it altogether by the expiration of this time,
or gets himself absolved of it in the regular way, or (what is more
probable) breaks it outright, as well as the head of his father
confessor. At all events, Scheherazade, who, being lineally descended
from Eve, fell heir, perhaps, to the whole seven baskets of talk,
which the latter lady, we all know, picked up from under the trees in
the garden of Eden-Scheherazade, I say, finally triumphed, and the
tariff upon beauty was repealed.

Now, this conclusion (which is that of the story as we have it upon
record) is, no doubt, excessively proper and pleasant -- but alas!
like a great many pleasant things, is more pleasant than true, and I
am indebted altogether to the "Isitsoornot" for the means of
correcting the error. "Le mieux," says a French proverb, "est
l'ennemi du bien," and, in mentioning that Scheherazade had inherited
the seven baskets of talk, I should have added that she put them out
at compound interest until they amounted to seventy-seven.

"My dear sister," said she, on the thousand-and-second night, (I
quote the language of the "Isitsoornot" at this point, verbatim) "my
dear sister," said she, "now that all this little difficulty about
the bowstring has blown over, and that this odious tax is so happily
repealed, I feel that I have been guilty of great indiscretion in
withholding from you and the king (who I am sorry to say, snores -- a
thing no gentleman would do) the full conclusion of Sinbad the
sailor. This person went through numerous other and more interesting
adventures than those which I related; but the truth is, I felt
sleepy on the particular night of their narration, and so was seduced
into cutting them short -- a grievous piece of misconduct, for which
I only trust that Allah will forgive me. But even yet it is not too
late to remedy my great neglect -- and as soon as I have given the
king a pinch or two in order to wake him up so far that he may stop
making that horrible noise, I will forthwith entertain you (and him
if he pleases) with the sequel of this very remarkable story.

Hereupon the sister of Scheherazade, as I have it from the
"Isitsoornot," expressed no very particular intensity of
gratification; but the king, having been sufficiently pinched, at
length ceased snoring, and finally said, "hum!" and then "hoo!" when
the queen, understanding these words (which are no doubt Arabic) to
signify that he was all attention, and would do his best not to snore
any more -- the queen, I say, having arranged these matters to her
satisfaction, re-entered thus, at once, into the history of Sinbad
the sailor:

"'At length, in my old age, [these are the words of Sinbad himself,
as retailed by Scheherazade] -- 'at length, in my old age, and after
enjoying many years of tranquillity at home, I became once more
possessed of a desire of visiting foreign countries; and one day,
without acquainting any of my family with my design, I packed up some
bundles of such merchandise as was most precious and least bulky,
and, engaged a porter to carry them, went with him down to the
sea-shore, to await the arrival of any chance vessel that might
convey me out of the kingdom into some region which I had not as yet
explored.

"'Having deposited the packages upon the sands, we sat down beneath
some trees, and looked out into the ocean in the hope of perceiving a
ship, but during several hours we saw none whatever. At length I
fancied that I could hear a singular buzzing or humming sound; and
the porter, after listening awhile, declared that he also could
distinguish it. Presently it grew louder, and then still louder, so
that we could have no doubt that the object which caused it was
approaching us. At length, on the edge of the horizon, we discovered
a black speck, which rapidly increased in size until we made it out
to be a vast monster, swimming with a great part of its body above
the surface of the sea. It came toward us with inconceivable
swiftness, throwing up huge waves of foam around its breast, and
illuminating all that part of the sea through which it passed, with a
long line of fire that extended far off into the distance.

"'As the thing drew near we saw it very distinctly. Its length was
equal to that of three of the loftiest trees that grow, and it was as
wide as the great hall of audience in your palace, O most sublime and
munificent of the Caliphs. Its body, which was unlike that of
ordinary fishes, was as solid as a rock, and of a jetty blackness
throughout all that portion of it which floated above the water, with
the exception of a narrow blood-red streak that completely begirdled
it. The belly, which floated beneath the surface, and of which we
could get only a glimpse now and then as the monster rose and fell
with the billows, was entirely covered with metallic scales, of a
color like that of the moon in misty weather. The back was flat and
nearly white, and from it there extended upwards of six spines, about
half the length of the whole body.

"'The horrible creature had no mouth that we could perceive, but, as
if to make up for this deficiency, it was provided with at least four
score of eyes, that protruded from their sockets like those of the
green dragon-fly, and were arranged all around the body in two rows,
one above the other, and parallel to the blood-red streak, which
seemed to answer the purpose of an eyebrow. Two or three of these
dreadful eyes were much larger than the others, and had the
appearance of solid gold.

"'Although this beast approached us, as I have before said, with the
greatest rapidity, it must have been moved altogether by necromancy-
for it had neither fins like a fish nor web-feet like a duck, nor
wings like the seashell which is blown along in the manner of a
vessel; nor yet did it writhe itself forward as do the eels. Its head
and its tail were shaped precisely alike, only, not far from the
latter, were two small holes that served for nostrils, and through
which the monster puffed out its thick breath with prodigious
violence, and with a shrieking, disagreeable noise.

"'Our terror at beholding this hideous thing was very great, but it
was even surpassed by our astonishment, when upon getting a nearer
look, we perceived upon the creature's back a vast number of animals
about the size and shape of men, and altogether much resembling them,
except that they wore no garments (as men do), being supplied (by
nature, no doubt) with an ugly uncomfortable covering, a good deal
like cloth, but fitting so tight to the skin, as to render the poor
wretches laughably awkward, and put them apparently to severe pain.
On the very tips of their heads were certain square-looking boxes,
which, at first sight, I thought might have been intended to answer
as turbans, but I soon discovered that they were excessively heavy
and solid, and I therefore concluded they were contrivances designed,
by their great weight, to keep the heads of the animals steady and
safe upon their shoulders. Around the necks of the creatures were
fastened black collars, (badges of servitude, no doubt,) such as we
keep on our dogs, only much wider and infinitely stiffer, so that it
was quite impossible for these poor victims to move their heads in
any direction without moving the body at the same time; and thus they
were doomed to perpetual contemplation of their noses -- a view
puggish and snubby in a wonderful, if not positively in an awful
degree.

"'When the monster had nearly reached the shore where we stood, it
suddenly pushed out one of its eyes to a great extent, and emitted
from it a terrible flash of fire, accompanied by a dense cloud of
smoke, and a noise that I can compare to nothing but thunder. As the
smoke cleared away, we saw one of the odd man-animals standing near
the head of the large beast with a trumpet in his hand, through which
(putting it to his mouth) he presently addressed us in loud, harsh,
and disagreeable accents, that, perhaps, we should have mistaken for
language, had they not come altogether through the nose.

"'Being thus evidently spoken to, I was at a loss how to reply, as I
could in no manner understand what was said; and in this difficulty I
turned to the porter, who was near swooning through affright, and
demanded of him his opinion as to what species of monster it was,
what it wanted, and what kind of creatures those were that so swarmed
upon its back. To this the porter replied, as well as he could for
trepidation, that he had once before heard of this sea-beast; that it
was a cruel demon, with bowels of sulphur and blood of fire, created
by evil genii as the means of inflicting misery upon mankind; that
the things upon its back were vermin, such as sometimes infest cats
and dogs, only a little larger and more savage; and that these vermin
had their uses, however evil -- for, through the torture they caused
the beast by their nibbling and stingings, it was goaded into that
degree of wrath which was requisite to make it roar and commit ill,
and so fulfil the vengeful and malicious designs of the wicked genii.

"This account determined me to take to my heels, and, without once
even looking behind me, I ran at full speed up into the hills, while
the porter ran equally fast, although nearly in an opposite
direction, so that, by these means, he finally made his escape with
my bundles, of which I have no doubt he took excellent care --
although this is a point I cannot determine, as I do not remember
that I ever beheld him again.

"'For myself, I was so hotly pursued by a swarm of the men-vermin
(who had come to the shore in boats) that I was very soon overtaken,
bound hand and foot, and conveyed to the beast, which immediately
swam out again into the middle of the sea.

"'I now bitterly repented my folly in quitting a comfortable home to
peril my life in such adventures as this; but regret being useless, I
made the best of my condition, and exerted myself to secure the
goodwill of the man-animal that owned the trumpet, and who appeared
to exercise authority over his fellows. I succeeded so well in this
endeavor that, in a few days, the creature bestowed upon me various
tokens of his favor, and in the end even went to the trouble of
teaching me the rudiments of what it was vain enough to denominate
its language; so that, at length, I was enabled to converse with it
readily, and came to make it comprehend the ardent desire I had of
seeing the world.

"'Washish squashish squeak, Sinbad, hey-diddle diddle, grunt unt
grumble, hiss, fiss, whiss,' said he to me, one day after dinner- but
I beg a thousand pardons, I had forgotten that your majesty is not
conversant with the dialect of the Cock-neighs (so the man-animals
were called; I presume because their language formed the connecting
link between that of the horse and that of the rooster). With your
permission, I will translate. 'Washish squashish,' and so forth: --
that is to say, 'I am happy to find, my dear Sinbad, that you are
really a very excellent fellow; we are now about doing a thing which
is called circumnavigating the globe; and since you are so desirous
of seeing the world, I will strain a point and give you a free
passage upon back of the beast.'"

When the Lady Scheherazade had proceeded thus far, relates the
"Isitsoornot," the king turned over from his left side to his right,
and said:

"It is, in fact, very surprising, my dear queen, that you omitted,
hitherto, these latter adventures of Sinbad. Do you know I think them
exceedingly entertaining and strange?"

The king having thus expressed himself, we are told, the fair
Scheherazade resumed her history in the following words:

"Sinbad went on in this manner with his narrative to the caliph- 'I
thanked the man-animal for its kindness, and soon found myself very
much at home on the beast, which swam at a prodigious rate through
the ocean; although the surface of the latter is, in that part of the
world, by no means flat, but round like a pomegranate, so that we
went -- so to say -- either up hill or down hill all the time.'

"That I think, was very singular," interrupted the king.

"Nevertheless, it is quite true," replied Scheherazade.

"I have my doubts," rejoined the king; "but, pray, be so good as to
go on with the story."

"I will," said the queen. "'The beast,' continued Sinbad to the
caliph, 'swam, as I have related, up hill and down hill until, at
length, we arrived at an island, many hundreds of miles in
circumference, but which, nevertheless, had been built in the middle
of the sea by a colony of little things like caterpillars'" {*1}

"Hum!" said the king.

"'Leaving this island,' said Sinbad -- (for Scheherazade, it must be
understood, took no notice of her husband's ill-mannered ejaculation)
'leaving this island, we came to another where the forests were of
solid stone, and so hard that they shivered to pieces the
finest-tempered axes with which we endeavoured to cut them down."'
{*2}

"Hum!" said the king, again; but Scheherazade, paying him no
attention, continued in the language of Sinbad.

"'Passing beyond this last island, we reached a country where there
was a cave that ran to the distance of thirty or forty miles within
the bowels of the earth, and that contained a greater number of far
more spacious and more magnificent palaces than are to be found in
all Damascus and Bagdad. From the roofs of these palaces there hung
myriads of gems, liked diamonds, but larger than men; and in among
the streets of towers and pyramids and temples, there flowed immense
rivers as black as ebony, and swarming with fish that had no eyes.'"
{*3}

"Hum!" said the king. "'We then swam into a region of the sea where
we found a lofty mountain, down whose sides there streamed torrents
of melted metal, some of which were twelve miles wide and sixty miles
long {*4}; while from an abyss on the summit, issued so vast a
quantity of ashes that the sun was entirely blotted out from the
heavens, and it became darker than the darkest midnight; so that when
we were even at the distance of a hundred and fifty miles from the
mountain, it was impossible to see the whitest object, however close
we held it to our eyes.'" {*5}

"Hum!" said the king.

"'After quitting this coast, the beast continued his voyage until we
met with a land in which the nature of things seemed reversed -- for
we here saw a great lake, at the bottom of which, more than a hundred
feet beneath the surface of the water, there flourished in full leaf
a forest of tall and luxuriant trees.'" {*6}

"Hoo!" said the king.

"Some hundred miles farther on brought us to a climate where the
atmosphere was so dense as to sustain iron or steel, just as our own
does feather.'" {*7)

"Fiddle de dee," said the king.

"Proceeding still in the same direction, we presently arrived at the
most magnificent region in the whole world. Through it there
meandered a glorious river for several thousands of miles. This river
was of unspeakable depth, and of a transparency richer than that of
amber. It was from three to six miles in width; and its banks which
arose on either side to twelve hundred feet in perpendicular height,
were crowned with ever-blossoming trees and perpetual sweet-scented
flowers, that made the whole territory one gorgeous garden; but the
name of this luxuriant land was the Kingdom of Horror, and to enter
it was inevitable death'" {*8}

"Humph!" said the king.

"'We left this kingdom in great haste, and, after some days, came to
another, where we were astonished to perceive myriads of monstrous
animals with horns resembling scythes upon their heads. These hideous
beasts dig for themselves vast caverns in the soil, of a funnel
shape, and line the sides of them with, rocks, so disposed one upon
the other that they fall instantly, when trodden upon by other
animals, thus precipitating them into the monster's dens, where their
blood is immediately sucked, and their carcasses afterwards hurled
contemptuously out to an immense distance from "the caverns of
death."'" {*9}

"Pooh!" said the king.

"'Continuing our progress, we perceived a district with vegetables
that grew not upon any soil but in the air. {*10} There were others
that sprang from the substance of other vegetables; {*11} others that
derived their substance from the bodies of living animals; {*12} and
then again, there were others that glowed all over with intense fire;
{*13} others that moved from place to place at pleasure, {*14} and
what was still more wonderful, we discovered flowers that lived and
breathed and moved their limbs at will and had, moreover, the
detestable passion of mankind for enslaving other creatures, and
confining them in horrid and solitary prisons until the fulfillment
of appointed tasks.'" {*15}

"Pshaw!" said the king.

"'Quitting this land, we soon arrived at another in which the bees
and the birds are mathematicians of such genius and erudition, that
they give daily instructions in the science of geometry to the wise
men of the empire. The king of the place having offered a reward for
the solution of two very difficult problems, they were solved upon
the spot -- the one by the bees, and the other by the birds; but the
king keeping their solution a secret, it was only after the most
profound researches and labor, and the writing of an infinity of big
books, during a long series of years, that the men-mathematicians at
length arrived at the identical solutions which had been given upon
the spot by the bees and by the birds.'" {*16}

"Oh my!" said the king.

"'We had scarcely lost sight of this empire when we found ourselves
close upon another, from whose shores there flew over our heads a
flock of fowls a mile in breadth, and two hundred and forty miles
long; so that, although they flew a mile during every minute, it
required no less than four hours for the whole flock to pass over us
-- in which there were several millions of millions of fowl.'" {*17}

"Oh fy!" said the king.

"'No sooner had we got rid of these birds, which occasioned us great
annoyance, than we were terrified by the appearance of a fowl of
another kind, and infinitely larger than even the rocs which I met in
my former voyages; for it was bigger than the biggest of the domes on
your seraglio, oh, most Munificent of Caliphs. This terrible fowl had
no head that we could perceive, but was fashioned entirely of belly,
which was of a prodigious fatness and roundness, of a soft-looking
substance, smooth, shining and striped with various colors. In its
talons, the monster was bearing away to his eyrie in the heavens, a
house from which it had knocked off the roof, and in the interior of
which we distinctly saw human beings, who, beyond doubt, were in a
state of frightful despair at the horrible fate which awaited them.
We shouted with all our might, in the hope of frightening the bird
into letting go of its prey, but it merely gave a snort or puff, as
if of rage and then let fall upon our heads a heavy sack which proved
to be filled with sand!'"

"Stuff!" said the king.

"'It was just after this adventure that we encountered a continent of
immense extent and prodigious solidity, but which, nevertheless, was
supported entirely upon the back of a sky-blue cow that had no fewer
than four hundred horns.'" {*18}

"That, now, I believe," said the king, "because I have read something
of the kind before, in a book."

"'We passed immediately beneath this continent, (swimming in between
the legs of the cow, and, after some hours, found ourselves in a
wonderful country indeed, which, I was informed by the man-animal,
was his own native land, inhabited by things of his own species. This
elevated the man-animal very much in my esteem, and in fact, I now
began to feel ashamed of the contemptuous familiarity with which I
had treated him; for I found that the man-animals in general were a
nation of the most powerful magicians, who lived with worms in their
brain, {*19} which, no doubt, served to stimulate them by their
painful writhings and wrigglings to the most miraculous efforts of
imagination!'"

"Nonsense!" said the king.

"'Among the magicians, were domesticated several animals of very
singular kinds; for example, there was a huge horse whose bones were
iron and whose blood was boiling water. In place of corn, he had
black stones for his usual food; and yet, in spite of so hard a diet,
he was so strong and swift that he would drag a load more weighty
than the grandest temple in this city, at a rate surpassing that of
the flight of most birds.'" {*20}

"Twattle!" said the king.

"'I saw, also, among these people a hen without feathers, but bigger
than a camel; instead of flesh and bone she had iron and brick; her
blood, like that of the horse, (to whom, in fact, she was nearly
related,) was boiling water; and like him she ate nothing but wood or
black stones. This hen brought forth very frequently, a hundred
chickens in the day; and, after birth, they took up their residence
for several weeks within the stomach of their mother.'" {*21}

"Fa! lal!" said the king.

"'One of this nation of mighty conjurors created a man out of brass
and wood, and leather, and endowed him with such ingenuity that he
would have beaten at chess, all the race of mankind with the
exception of the great Caliph, Haroun Alraschid. {*22} Another of
these magi constructed (of like material) a creature that put to
shame even the genius of him who made it; for so great were its
reasoning powers that, in a second, it performed calculations of so
vast an extent that they would have required the united labor of
fifty thousand fleshy men for a year. (*23} But a still more
wonderful conjuror fashioned for himself a mighty thing that was
neither man nor beast, but which had brains of lead, intermixed with
a black matter like pitch, and fingers that it employed with such
incredible speed and dexterity that it would have had no trouble in
writing out twenty thousand copies of the Koran in an hour, and this
with so exquisite a precision, that in all the copies there should
not be found one to vary from another by the breadth of the finest
hair. This thing was of prodigious strength, so that it erected or
overthrew the mightiest empires at a breath; but its powers were
exercised equally for evil and for good.'"

"Ridiculous!" said the king.

"'Among this nation of necromancers there was also one who had in his
veins the blood of the salamanders; for he made no scruple of sitting
down to smoke his chibouc in a red-hot oven until his dinner was
thoroughly roasted upon its floor. {*24} Another had the faculty of
converting the common metals into gold, without even looking at them
during the process. {*25} Another had such a delicacy of touch that
he made a wire so fine as to be invisible. {*26} Another had such
quickness of perception that he counted all the separate motions of
an elastic body, while it was springing backward and forward at the
rate of nine hundred millions of times in a second.'" {*27}

"Absurd!" said the king.

"'Another of these magicians, by means of a fluid that nobody ever
yet saw, could make the corpses of his friends brandish their arms,
kick out their legs, fight, or even get up and dance at his will.
{*28} Another had cultivated his voice to so great an extent that he
could have made himself heard from one end of the world to the other.
{*29} Another had so long an arm that he could sit down in Damascus
and indite a letter at Bagdad -- or indeed at any distance
whatsoever. {*30} Another commanded the lightning to come down to him
out of the heavens, and it came at his call; and served him for a
plaything when it came. Another took two loud sounds and out of them
made a silence. Another constructed a deep darkness out of two
brilliant lights. {*31} Another made ice in a red-hot furnace. {*32}
Another directed the sun to paint his portrait, and the sun did.
{*33} Another took this luminary with the moon and the planets, and
having first weighed them with scrupulous accuracy, probed into their
depths and found out the solidity of the substance of which they were
made. But the whole nation is, indeed, of so surprising a necromantic
ability, that not even their infants, nor their commonest cats and
dogs have any difficulty in seeing objects that do not exist at all,
or that for twenty millions of years before the birth of the nation
itself had been blotted out from the face of creation."' {*34}

Analogous experiments in respect to sound produce analogous results.

"Preposterous!" said the king.

"'The wives and daughters of these incomparably great and wise
magi,'" continued Scheherazade, without being in any manner disturbed
by these frequent and most ungentlemanly interruptions on the part of
her husband -- "'the wives and daughters of these eminent conjurers
are every thing that is accomplished and refined; and would be every
thing that is interesting and beautiful, but for an unhappy fatality
that besets them, and from which not even the miraculous powers of
their husbands and fathers has, hitherto, been adequate to save. Some
fatalities come in certain shapes, and some in others -- but this of
which I speak has come in the shape of a crotchet.'"

"A what?" said the king.

"'A crotchet'" said Scheherazade. "'One of the evil genii, who are
perpetually upon the watch to inflict ill, has put it into the heads
of these accomplished ladies that the thing which we describe as
personal beauty consists altogether in the protuberance of the region
which lies not very far below the small of the back. Perfection of
loveliness, they say, is in the direct ratio of the extent of this
lump. Having been long possessed of this idea, and bolsters being
cheap in that country, the days have long gone by since it was
possible to distinguish a woman from a dromedary-'"

"Stop!" said the king -- "I can't stand that, and I won't. You have
already given me a dreadful headache with your lies. The day, too, I
perceive, is beginning to break. How long have we been married? -- my
conscience is getting to be troublesome again. And then that
dromedary touch -- do you take me for a fool? Upon the whole, you
might as well get up and be throttled."

These words, as I learn from the "Isitsoornot," both grieved and
astonished Scheherazade; but, as she knew the king to be a man of
scrupulous integrity, and quite unlikely to forfeit his word, she
submitted to her fate with a good grace. She derived, however, great
consolation, (during the tightening of the bowstring,) from the
reflection that much of the history remained still untold, and that
the petulance of her brute of a husband had reaped for him a most
righteous reward, in depriving him of many inconceivable adventures.

~~~ End of Text ~~~

======

A DESCENT INTO THE MAELSTRÖM.

    The ways of God in Nature, as in Providence, are not as _our_
ways ;  nor are the models that we frame any way commensurate to the
vastness, profundity, and unsearchableness of His works, _which have
a depth in them greater than the well of Democritus_. _Joseph
Glanville. _       .
   WE had now reached the summit of the loftiest crag. For some
minutes the old man seemed too much exhausted to speak.

    "Not long ago," said he at length, "and I could have guided you
on this route as well as the youngest of my sons ;  but, about three
years past, there happened to me an event such as never happened to
mortal man - or at least such as no man ever survived to tell of -
and the six hours of deadly terror which I then endured have broken
me up body and soul. You suppose me a _very_ old man - but I am not.
It took less than a single day to change these hairs from a jetty
black to white, to weaken my limbs, and to unstring my nerves, so
that I tremble at the least exertion, and am frightened at a shadow.
Do you know I can scarcely look over this little cliff without
getting giddy ?"

    The "little cliff," upon whose edge he had so carelessly thrown
himself down to rest that the weightier portion of his body hung over
it, while he was only kept from falling by the tenure of his elbow on
its extreme and slippery edge - this "little cliff" arose, a sheer
unobstructed precipice of black shining rock, some fifteen or sixteen
hundred feet from the world of crags beneath us. Nothing would have
tempted me to within half a dozen yards of its brink. In truth so
deeply was I excited by the perilous position of my companion, that I
fell at full length upon the ground, clung to the shrubs around me,
and dared not even glance upward at the sky - while I struggled in
vain to divest myself of the idea that the very foundations of the
mountain were in danger from the fury of the winds. It was long
before I could reason myself into sufficient courage to sit up and
look out into the distance.

    "You must get over these fancies," said the guide, "for I have
brought you here that you might have the best possible view of the
scene of that event I mentioned - and to tell you the whole story
with the spot just under your eye."

    "We are now," he continued, in that particularizing manner which
distinguished him - "we are now close upon the Norwegian coast - in
the sixty-eighth degree of latitude - in the great province of
Nordland - and in the dreary district of Lofoden. The mountain upon
whose top we sit is Helseggen, the Cloudy. Now raise yourself up a
little higher - hold on to the grass if you feel giddy - so - and
look out, beyond the belt of vapor beneath us, into the sea."

    I looked dizzily, and beheld a wide expanse of ocean, whose
waters wore so inky a hue as to bring at once to my mind the Nubian
geographer's account of the _Mare Tenebrarum_. A panorama more
deplorably desolate no human imagination can conceive. To the right
and left, as far as the eye could reach, there lay outstretched, like
ramparts of the world, lines of horridly black and beetling cliff,
whose character of gloom was but the more forcibly illustrated by the
surf which reared high up against its white and ghastly crest,
howling and shrieking forever. Just opposite the promontory upon
whose apex we were placed, and at a distance of some five or six
miles out at sea, there was visible a small, bleak-looking island ;
or, more properly, its position was discernible through the
wilderness of surge in which it was enveloped. About two miles nearer
the land, arose another of smaller size, hideously craggy and barren,
and encompassed at various intervals by a cluster of dark rocks.

    The appearance of the ocean, in the space between the more
distant island and the shore, had something very unusual about it.
Although, at the time, so strong a gale was blowing landward that a
brig in the remote offing lay to under a double-reefed trysail, and
constantly plunged her whole hull out of sight, still there was here
nothing like a regular swell, but only a short, quick, angry cross
dashing of water in every direction - as well in the teeth of the
wind as otherwise. Of foam there was little except in the immediate
vicinity of the rocks.

    "The island in the distance," resumed the old man, "is called by
the Norwegians Vurrgh. The one midway is Moskoe. That a mile to the
northward is Ambaaren. Yonder are Islesen, Hotholm, Keildhelm,
Suarven, and Buckholm. Farther off - between Moskoe and Vurrgh - are
Otterholm, Flimen, Sandflesen, and Stockholm. These are the true
names of the places - but why it has been thought necessary to name
them at all, is more than either you or I can understand. Do you hear
anything ? Do you see any change in the water ?"

    We had now been about ten minutes upon the top of Helseggen, to
which we had ascended from the interior of Lofoden, so that we had
caught no glimpse of the sea until it had burst upon us from the
summit. As the old man spoke, I became aware of a loud and gradually
increasing sound, like the moaning of a vast herd of buffaloes upon
an American prairie; and at the same moment I perceived that what
seamen term the _chopping_ character of the ocean beneath us, was
rapidly changing into a current which set to the eastward. Even while
I gazed, this current acquired a monstrous velocity. Each moment
added to its speed - to its headlong impetuosity. In five minutes the
whole sea, as far as Vurrgh, was lashed into ungovernable fury ;  but
it was between Moskoe and the coast that the main uproar held its
sway. Here the vast bed of the waters, seamed and scarred into a
thousand conflicting channels, burst suddenly into phrensied
convulsion - heaving, boiling, hissing - gyrating in gigantic and
innumerable vortices, and all whirling and plunging on to the
eastward with a rapidity which water never elsewhere assumes except
in precipitous descents.

    In a few minutes more, there came over the scene another radical
alteration. The general surface grew somewhat more smooth, and the
whirlpools, one by one, disappeared, while prodigious streaks of foam
became apparent where none had been seen before. These streaks, at
length, spreading out to a great distance, and entering into
combination, took unto themselves the gyratory motion of the subsided
vortices, and seemed to form the germ of another more vast. Suddenly
- very suddenly - this assumed a distinct and definite existence, in
a circle of more than a mile in diameter. The edge of the whirl was
represented by a broad belt of gleaming spray ;  but no particle of
this slipped into the mouth of the terrific funnel, whose interior,
as far as the eye could fathom it, was a smooth, shining, and
jet-black wall of water, inclined to the horizon at an angle of some
forty-five degrees, speeding dizzily round and round with a swaying
and sweltering motion, and sending forth to the winds an appalling
voice, half shriek, half roar, such as not even the mighty cataract
of Niagara ever lifts up in its agony to Heaven.

    The mountain trembled to its very base, and the rock rocked. I
threw myself upon my face, and clung to the scant herbage in an
excess of nervous agitation.

    "This," said I at length, to the old man - "this _can_ be nothing
else than the great whirlpool of the Maelström."

    "So it is sometimes termed," said he. "We Norwegians call it the
Moskoe-ström, from the island of Moskoe in the midway."

    The ordinary accounts of this vortex had by no means prepared me
for what I saw. That of Jonas Ramus, which is perhaps the most
circumstantial of any, cannot impart the faintest conception either
of the magnificence, or of the horror of the scene - or of the wild
bewildering sense of _the novel_ which confounds the beholder.  I am
not sure from what point of view the writer in question surveyed it,
nor at what time ;  but it could neither have been from the summit of
Helseggen, nor during a storm. There are some passages of his
description, nevertheless, which may be quoted for their details,
although their effect is exceedingly feeble in conveying an
impression of the spectacle.

    "Between Lofoden and Moskoe," he says, "the depth of the water is
between thirty-six and forty fathoms ;  but on the other side, toward
Ver (Vurrgh) this depth decreases so as not to afford a convenient
passage for a vessel, without the risk of splitting on the rocks,
which happens even in the calmest weather. When it is flood, the
stream runs up the country between Lofoden and Moskoe with a
boisterous rapidity ;  but the roar of its impetuous ebb to the sea
is scarce equalled by the loudest and most dreadful cataracts ;  the
noise being heard several leagues off, and the vortices or pits are
of such an extent and depth, that if a ship comes within its
attraction, it is inevitably absorbed and carried down to the bottom,
and there beat to pieces against the rocks ;  and when the water
relaxes, the fragments thereof are thrown up again. But these
intervals of tranquility are only at the turn of the ebb and flood,
and in calm weather, and last but a quarter of an hour, its violence
gradually returning. When the stream is most boisterous, and its fury
heightened by a storm, it is dangerous to come within a Norway mile
of it. Boats, yachts, and ships have been carried away by not
guarding against it before they were within its reach. It likewise
happens frequently, that whales come too near the stream, and are
overpowered by its violence; and then it is impossible to describe
their howlings and bellowings in their fruitless struggles to
disengage themselves. A bear once, attempting to swim from Lofoden to
Moskoe, was caught by the stream and borne down, while he roared
terribly, so as to be heard on shore. Large stocks of firs and pine
trees, after being absorbed by the current, rise again broken and
torn to such a degree as if bristles grew upon them. This plainly
shows the bottom to consist of craggy rocks, among which they are
whirled to and fro. This stream is regulated by the flux and reflux
of the sea - it being constantly high and low water every six hours.
In the year 1645, early in the morning of Sexagesima Sunday, it raged
with such noise and impetuosity that the very stones of the houses on
the coast fell to the ground."

    In regard to the depth of the water, I could not see how this
could have been ascertained at all in the immediate vicinity of the
vortex. The "forty fathoms" must have reference only to portions of
the channel close upon the shore either of Moskoe or Lofoden.  The
depth in the centre of the Moskoe-ström must be immeasurably greater
;  and no better proof of this fact is necessary than can be obtained
from even the sidelong glance into the abyss of the whirl which may
be had from the highest crag of Helseggen. Looking down from this
pinnacle upon the howling Phlegethon below, I could not help smiling
at the simplicity with which the honest Jonas Ramus records, as a
matter difficult of belief, the anecdotes of the whales and the
bears; for it appeared to me, in fact, a self-evident thing, that the
largest ship of the line in existence, coming within the influence of
that deadly attraction, could resist it as little as a feather the
hurricane, and must disappear bodily and at once.

    The attempts to account for the phenomenon - some of which, I
remember, seemed to me sufficiently plausible in perusal - now wore a
very different and unsatisfactory aspect. The idea generally received
is that this, as well as three smaller vortices among the Ferroe
islands, "have no other cause than the collision of waves rising and
falling, at flux and reflux, against a ridge of rocks and shelves,
which confines the water so that it precipitates itself like a
cataract ;  and thus the higher the flood rises, the deeper must the
fall be, and the natural result of all is a whirlpool or vortex, the
prodigious suction of which is sufficiently known by lesser
experiments." - These are the words of the Encyclopædia Britannica.
Kircher and others imagine that in the centre of the channel of the
Maelström is an abyss penetrating the globe, and issuing in some very
remote part - the Gulf of Bothnia being somewhat decidedly named in
one instance. This opinion, idle in itself, was the one to which, as
I gazed, my imagination most readily assented ;  and, mentioning it
to the guide, I was rather surprised to hear him say that, although
it was the view almost universally entertained of the subject by the
Norwegians, it nevertheless was not his own. As to the former notion
he confessed his inability to comprehend it ;  and here I agreed with
him - for, however conclusive on paper, it becomes altogether
unintelligible, and even absurd, amid the thunder of the abyss.

    "You have had a good look at the whirl now," said the old man,
"and if you will creep round this crag, so as to get in its lee, and
deaden the roar of the water, I will tell you a story that will
convince you I ought to know something of the Moskoe-ström."

    I placed myself as desired, and he proceeded.

    "Myself and my two brothers once owned a schooner-rigged smack of
about seventy tons burthen, with which we were in the habit of
fishing among the islands beyond Moskoe, nearly to Vurrgh. In all
violent eddies at sea there is good fishing, at proper opportunities,
if one has only the courage to attempt it ;  but among the whole of
the Lofoden coastmen, we three were the only ones who made a regular
business of going out to the islands, as I tell you. The usual
grounds are a great way lower down to the southward. There fish can
be got at all hours, without much risk, and therefore these places
are preferred. The choice spots over here among the rocks, however,
not only yield the finest variety, but in far greater abundance ;  so
that we often got in a single day, what the more timid of the craft
could not scrape together in a week. In fact, we made it a matter of
desperate speculation - the risk of life standing instead of labor,
and courage answering for capital.

    "We kept the smack in a cove about five miles higher up the coast
than this ;  and it was our practice, in fine weather, to take
advantage of the fifteen minutes' slack to push across the main
channel of the Moskoe-ström, far above the pool, and then drop down
upon anchorage somewhere near Otterholm, or Sandflesen, where the
eddies are not so violent as elsewhere. Here we used to remain until
nearly time for slack-water again, when we weighed and made for home.
We never set out upon this expedition without a steady side wind for
going and coming - one that we felt sure would not fail us before our
return - and we seldom made a mis-calculation upon this point. Twice,
during six years, we were forced to stay all night at anchor on
account of a dead calm, which is a rare thing indeed just about here
;  and once we had to remain on the grounds nearly a week, starving
to death, owing to a gale which blew up shortly after our arrival,
and made the channel too boisterous to be thought of. Upon this
occasion we should have been driven out to sea in spite of
everything, (for the whirlpools threw us round and round so
violently, that, at length, we fouled our anchor and dragged it) if
it had not been that we drifted into one of the innumerable cross
currents - here to-day and gone to-morrow - which drove us under the
lee of Flimen, where, by good luck, we brought up.

    "I could not tell you the twentieth part of the difficulties we
encountered 'on the grounds' - it is a bad spot to be in, even in
good weather - but we made shift always to run the gauntlet of the
Moskoe-ström itself without accident ;  although at times my heart
has been in my mouth when we happened to be a minute or so behind or
before the slack. The wind sometimes was not as strong as we thought
it at starting, and then we made rather less way than we could wish,
while the current rendered the smack unmanageable. My eldest brother
had a son eighteen years old, and I had two stout boys of my own.
These would have been of great assistance at such times, in using the
sweeps, as well as afterward in fishing - but, somehow, although we
ran the risk ourselves, we had not the heart to let the young ones
get into the danger - for, after all is said and done, it _was_ a
horrible danger, and that is the truth.

    "It is now within a few days of three years since what I am going
to tell you occurred. It was on the tenth day of July, 18-, a day
which the people of this part of the world will never forget - for it
was one in which blew the most terrible hurricane that ever came out
of the heavens. And yet all the morning, and indeed until late in the
afternoon, there was a gentle and steady breeze from the south-west,
while the sun shone brightly, so that the oldest seaman among us
could not have foreseen what was to follow.

    "The three of us - my two brothers and myself - had crossed over
to the islands about two o'clock P. M., and had soon nearly loaded
the smack with fine fish, which, we all remarked, were more plenty
that day than we had ever known them. It was just seven, _by my
watch_, when we weighed and started for home, so as to make the worst
of the Ström at slack water, which we knew would be at eight.

    "We set out with a fresh wind on our starboard quarter, and for
some time spanked along at a great rate, never dreaming of danger,
for indeed we saw not the slightest reason to apprehend it. All at
once we were taken aback by a breeze from over Helseggen. This was
most unusual - something that had never happened to us before - and I
began to feel a little uneasy, without exactly knowing why. We put
the boat on the wind, but could make no headway at all for the
eddies, and I was upon the point of proposing to return to the
anchorage, when, looking astern, we saw the whole horizon covered
with a singular copper-colored cloud that rose with the most amazing
velocity.

    "In the meantime the breeze that had headed us off fell away, and
we were dead becalmed, drifting about in every direction. This state
of things, however, did not last long enough to give us time to think
about it. In less than a minute the storm was upon us - in less than
two the sky was entirely overcast - and what with this and the
driving spray, it became suddenly so dark that we could not see each
other in the smack.

    "Such a hurricane as then blew it is folly to attempt describing.
The oldest seaman in Norway never experienced any thing like it. We
had let our sails go by the run before it cleverly took us ;  but, at
the first puff, both our masts went by the board as if they had been
sawed off - the mainmast taking with it my youngest brother, who had
lashed himself to it for safety.

    "Our boat was the lightest feather of a thing that ever sat upon
water. It had a complete flush deck, with only a small hatch near the
bow, and this hatch it had always been our custom to batten down when
about to cross the Ström, by way of precaution against the chopping
seas. But for this circumstance we should have foundered at once -
for we lay entirely buried for some moments. How my elder brother
escaped destruction I cannot say, for I never had an opportunity of
ascertaining. For my part, as soon as I had let the foresail run, I
threw myself flat on deck, with my feet against the narrow gunwale of
the bow, and with my hands grasping a ring-bolt near the foot of the
fore-mast. It was mere instinct that prompted me to do this - which
was undoubtedly the very best thing I could have done - for I was too
much flurried to think.

    "For some moments we were completely deluged, as I say, and all
this time I held my breath, and clung to the bolt. When I could stand
it no longer I raised myself upon my knees, still keeping hold with
my hands, and thus got my head clear. Presently our little boat gave
herself a shake, just as a dog does in coming out of the water, and
thus rid herself, in some measure, of the seas. I was now trying to
get the better of the stupor that had come over me, and to collect my
senses so as to see what was to be done, when I felt somebody grasp
my arm. It was my elder brother, and my heart leaped for joy, for I
had made sure that he was overboard - but the next moment all this
joy was turned into horror - for he put his mouth close to my ear,
and screamed out the word '_Moskoe-ström ! _'

    "No one ever will know what my feelings were at that moment. I
shook from head to foot as if I had had the most violent fit of the
ague. I knew what he meant by that one word well enough - I knew what
he wished to make me understand. With the wind that now drove us on,
we were bound for the whirl of the Ström, and nothing could save us !

    "You perceive that in crossing the Ström _channel_, we always
went a long way up above the whirl, even in the calmest weather, and
then had to wait and watch carefully for the slack - but now we were
driving right upon the pool itself, and in such a hurricane as this !
 'To be sure,' I thought, 'we shall get there just about the slack -
there is some little hope in that' - but in the next moment I cursed
myself for being so great a fool as to dream of hope at all. I knew
very well that we were doomed, had we been ten times a ninety-gun
ship.

    "By this time the first fury of the tempest had spent itself, or
perhaps we did not feel it so much, as we scudded before it, but at
all events the seas, which at first had been kept down by the wind,
and lay flat and frothing, now got up into absolute mountains. A
singular change, too, had come over the heavens. Around in every
direction it was still as black as pitch, but nearly overhead there
burst out, all at once, a circular rift of clear sky - as clear as I
ever saw - and of a deep bright blue - and through it there blazed
forth the full moon with a lustre that I never before knew her to
wear. She lit up every thing about us with the greatest distinctness
- but, oh God, what a scene it was to light up !

    "I now made one or two attempts to speak to my brother - but, in
some manner which I could not understand, the din had so increased
that I could not make him hear a single word, although I screamed at
the top of my voice in his ear. Presently he shook his head, looking
as pale as death, and held up one of his finger, as if to say
_'listen ! '_

    "At first I could not make out what he meant - but soon a hideous
thought flashed upon me. I dragged my watch from its fob. It was not
going. I glanced at its face by the moonlight, and then burst into
tears as I flung it far away into the ocean. _It had run down at
seven o'clock !  We were behind the time of the slack, and the whirl
of the Ström was in full fury !_

    "When a boat is well built, properly trimmed, and not deep laden,
the waves in a strong gale, when she is going large, seem always to
slip from beneath her - which appears very strange to a landsman -
and this is what is called _riding_, in sea phrase. Well, so far we
had ridden the swells very cleverly ;  but presently a gigantic sea
happened to take us right under the counter, and bore us with it as
it rose - up - up - as if into the sky. I would not have believed
that any wave could rise so high. And then down we came with a sweep,
a slide, and a plunge, that made me feel sick and dizzy, as if I was
falling from some lofty mountain-top in a dream. But while we were up
I had thrown a quick glance around - and that one glance was all
sufficient. I saw our exact position in an instant. The Moskoe-Ström
whirlpool was about a quarter of a mile dead ahead - but no more like
the every-day Moskoe-Ström, than the whirl as you now see it is like
a mill-race. If I had not known where we were, and what we had to
expect, I should not have recognised the place at all. As it was, I
involuntarily closed my eyes in horror. The lids clenched themselves
together as if in a spasm.

    "It could not have been more than two minutes afterward until we
suddenly felt the waves subside, and were enveloped in foam. The boat
made a sharp half turn to larboard, and then shot off in its new
direction like a thunderbolt. At the same moment the roaring noise of
the water was completely drowned in a kind of shrill shriek - such a
sound as you might imagine given out by the waste-pipes of many
thousand steam-vessels, letting off their steam all together. We were
now in the belt of surf that always surrounds the whirl ;  and I
thought, of course, that another moment would plunge us into the
abyss - down which we could only see indistinctly on account of the
amazing velocity with which we wore borne along. The boat did not
seem to sink into the water at all, but to skim like an air-bubble
upon the surface of the surge. Her starboard side was next the whirl,
and on the larboard arose the world of ocean we had left. It stood
like a huge writhing wall between us and the horizon.

    "It may appear strange, but now, when we were in the very jaws of
the gulf, I felt more composed than when we were only approaching it.
Having made up my mind to hope no more, I got rid of a great deal of
that terror which unmanned me at first. I suppose it was despair that
strung my nerves.

    "It may look like boasting - but what I tell you is truth - I
began to reflect how magnificent a thing it was to die in such a
manner, and how foolish it was in me to think of so paltry a
consideration as my own individual life, in view of so wonderful a
manifestation of God's power. I do believe that I blushed with shame
when this idea crossed my mind. After a little while I became
possessed with the keenest curiosity about the whirl itself. I
positively felt a _wish_ to explore its depths, even at the sacrifice
I was going to make ;  and my principal grief was that I should never
be able to tell my old companions on shore about the mysteries I
should see. These, no doubt, were singular fancies to occupy a man's
mind in such extremity - and I have often thought since, that the
revolutions of the boat around the pool might have rendered me a
little light-headed.

    "There was another circumstance which tended to restore my
self-possession ;  and this was the cessation of the wind, which
could not reach us in our present situation - for, as you saw
yourself, the belt of surf is considerably lower than the general bed
of the ocean, and this latter now towered above us, a high, black,
mountainous ridge. If you have never been at sea in a heavy gale, you
can form no idea of the confusion of mind occasioned by the wind and
spray together. They blind, deafen, and strangle you, and take away
all power of action or reflection. But we were now, in a great
measure, rid of these annoyances - just us death-condemned felons in
prison are allowed petty indulgences, forbidden them while their doom
is yet uncertain.

    "How often we made the circuit of the belt it is impossible to
say. We careered round and round for perhaps an hour, flying rather
than floating, getting gradually more and more into the middle of the
surge, and then nearer and nearer to its horrible inner edge. All
this time I had never let go of the ring-bolt. My brother was at the
stern, holding on to a small empty water-cask which had been securely
lashed under the coop of the counter, and was the only thing on deck
that had not been swept overboard when the gale first took us. As we
approached the brink of the pit he let go his hold upon this, and
made for the ring, from which, in the agony of his terror, he
endeavored to force my hands, as it was not large enough to afford us
both a secure grasp. I never felt deeper grief than when I saw him
attempt this act - although I knew he was a madman when he did it - a
raving maniac through sheer fright. I did not care, however, to
contest the point with him. I knew it could make no difference
whether either of us held on at all ;  so I let him have the bolt,
and went astern to the cask. This there was no great difficulty in
doing ;  for the smack flew round steadily enough, and upon an even
keel - only swaying to and fro, with the immense sweeps and swelters
of the whirl. Scarcely had I secured myself in my new position, when
we gave a wild lurch to starboard, and rushed headlong into the
abyss. I muttered a hurried prayer to God, and thought all was over.

    "As I felt the sickening sweep of the descent, I had
instinctively tightened my hold upon the barrel, and closed my eyes.
For some seconds I dared not open them - while I expected instant
destruction, and wondered that I was not already in my
death-struggles with the water. But moment after moment elapsed. I
still lived. The sense of falling had ceased ;  and the motion of the
vessel seemed much as it had been before, while in the belt of foam,
with the exception that she now lay more along. I took courage, and
looked once again upon the scene.

    "Never shall I forget the sensations of awe, horror, and
admiration with which I gazed about me. The boat appeared to be
hanging, as if by magic, midway down, upon the interior surface of a
funnel vast in circumference, prodigious in depth, and whose
perfectly smooth sides might have been mistaken for ebony, but for
the bewildering rapidity with which they spun around, and for the
gleaming and ghastly radiance they shot forth, as the rays of the
full moon, from that circular rift amid the clouds which I have
already described, streamed in a flood of golden glory along the
black walls, and far away down into the inmost recesses of the abyss.

    "At first I was too much confused to observe anything accurately.
The general burst of terrific grandeur was all that I beheld. When I
recovered myself a little, however, my gaze fell instinctively
downward. In this direction I was able to obtain an unobstructed
view, from the manner in which the smack hung on the inclined surface
of the pool. She was quite upon an even keel - that is to say, her
deck lay in a plane parallel with that of the water - but this latter
sloped at an angle of more than forty-five degrees, so that we seemed
to be lying upon our beam-ends. I could not help observing,
nevertheless, that I had scarcely more difficulty in maintaining my
hold and footing in this situation, than if we had been upon a dead
level ;  and this, I suppose, was owing to the speed at which we
revolved.

    "The rays of the moon seemed to search the very bottom of the
profound gulf ;  but still I could make out nothing distinctly, on
account of a thick mist in which everything there was enveloped, and
over which there hung a magnificent rainbow, like that narrow and
tottering bridge which Mussulmen say is the only pathway between Time
and Eternity. This mist, or spray, was no doubt occasioned by the
clashing of the great walls of the funnel, as they all met together
at the bottom - but the yell that went up to the Heavens from out of
that mist, I dare not attempt to describe.

    "Our first slide into the abyss itself, from the belt of foam
above, had carried us a great distance down the slope ;  but our
farther descent was by no means proportionate. Round and round we
swept - not with any uniform movement - but in dizzying swings and
jerks, that sent us sometimes only a few hundred yards - sometimes
nearly the complete circuit of the whirl. Our progress downward, at
each revolution, was slow, but very perceptible.

    "Looking about me upon the wide waste of liquid ebony on which we
were thus borne, I perceived that our boat was not the only object in
the embrace of the whirl. Both above and below us were visible
fragments of vessels, large masses of building timber and trunks of
trees, with many smaller articles, such as pieces of house furniture,
broken boxes, barrels and staves. I have already described the
unnatural curiosity which had taken the place of my original terrors.
It appeared to grow upon me as I drew nearer and nearer to my
dreadful doom. I now began to watch, with a strange interest, the
numerous things that floated in our company. I _must_ have been
delirious - for I even sought _amusement_ in speculating upon the
relative velocities of their several descents toward the foam below.
'This fir tree,' I found myself at one time saying, 'will certainly
be the next thing that takes the awful plunge and disappears,' - and
then I was disappointed to find that the wreck of a Dutch merchant
ship overtook it and went down before. At length, after making
several guesses of this nature, and being deceived in all - this fact
- the fact of my invariable miscalculation - set me upon a train of
reflection that made my limbs again tremble, and my heart beat
heavily once more.

    "It was not a new terror that thus affected me, but the dawn of a
more exciting _hope_. This hope arose partly from memory, and partly
from present observation. I called to mind the great variety of
buoyant matter that strewed the coast of Lofoden, having been
absorbed and then thrown forth by the Moskoe-ström. By far the
greater number of the articles were shattered in the most
extraordinary way - so chafed and roughened as to have the appearance
of being stuck full of splinters - but then I distinctly recollected
that there were _some_ of them which were not disfigured at all. Now
I could not account for this difference except by supposing that the
roughened fragments were the only ones which had been _completely
absorbed_ - that the others had entered the whirl at so late a period
of the tide, or, for some reason, had descended so slowly after
entering, that they did not reach the bottom before the turn of the
flood came, or of the ebb, as the case might be. I conceived it
possible, in either instance, that they might thus be whirled up
again to the level of the ocean, without undergoing the fate of those
which had been drawn in more early, or absorbed more rapidly. I made,
also, three important observations. The first was, that, as a general
rule, the larger the bodies were, the more rapid their descent - the
second, that, between two masses of equal extent, the one spherical,
and the other _of any other shape_, the superiority in speed of
descent was with the sphere - the third, that, between two masses of
equal size, the one cylindrical, and the other of any other shape,
the cylinder was absorbed the more slowly. Since my escape, I have
had several conversations on this subject with an old school-master
of the district ;  and it was from him that I learned the use of the
words 'cylinder' and 'sphere.' He explained to me - although I have
forgotten the explanation - how what I observed was, in fact, the
natural consequence of the forms of the floating fragments - and
showed me how it happened that a cylinder, swimming in a vortex,
offered more resistance to its suction, and was drawn in with greater
difficulty than an equally bulky body, of any form whatever. {*1}

    "There was one startling circumstance which went a great way in
enforcing these observations, and rendering me anxious to turn them
to account, and this was that, at every revolution, we passed
something like a barrel, or else the yard or the mast of a vessel,
while many of these things, which had been on our level when I first
opened my eyes upon the wonders of the whirlpool, were now high up
above us, and seemed to have moved but little from their original
station.

    "I no longer hesitated what to do. I resolved to lash myself
securely to the water cask upon which I now held, to cut it loose
from the counter, and to throw myself with it into the water. I
attracted my brother's attention by signs, pointed to the floating
barrels that came near us, and did everything in my power to make him
understand what I was about to do. I thought at length that he
comprehended my design - but, whether this was the case or not, he
shook his head despairingly, and refused to move from his station by
the ring-bolt. It was impossible to reach him; the emergency admitted
of no delay ;  and so, with a bitter struggle, I resigned him to his
fate, fastened myself to the cask by means of the lashings which
secured it to the counter, and precipitated myself with it into the
sea, without another moment's hesitation.

    "The result was precisely what I had hoped it might be. As it is
myself who now tell you this tale - as you see that I _did_ escape -
and as you are already in possession of the mode in which this escape
was effected, and must therefore anticipate all that I have farther
to say - I will bring my story quickly to conclusion. It might have
been an hour, or thereabout, after my quitting the smack, when,
having descended to a vast distance beneath me, it made three or four
wild gyrations in rapid succession, and, bearing my loved brother
with it, plunged headlong, at once and forever, into the chaos of
foam below. The barrel to which I was attached sunk very little
farther than half the distance between the bottom of the gulf and the
spot at which I leaped overboard, before a great change took place in
the character of the whirlpool. The slope of the sides of the vast
funnel became momently less and less steep. The gyrations of the
whirl grew, gradually, less and less violent. By degrees, the froth
and the rainbow disappeared, and the bottom of the gulf seemed slowly
to uprise. The sky was clear, the winds had gone down, and the full
moon was setting radiantly in the west, when I found myself on the
surface of the ocean, in full view of the shores of Lofoden, and
above the spot where the pool of the Moskoe-ström _had been_. It was
the hour of the slack - but the sea still heaved in mountainous waves
from the effects of the hurricane. I was borne violently into the
channel of the Ström, and in a few minutes was hurried down the coast
into the 'grounds' of the fishermen. A boat picked me up - exhausted
from fatigue - and (now that the danger was removed) speechless from
the memory of its horror. Those who drew me on board were my old
mates and daily companions - but they knew me no more than they would
have known a traveller from the spirit-land. My hair which had been
raven-black the day before, was as white as you see it now. They say
too that the whole expression of my countenance had changed. I told
them my story - they did not believe it. I now tell it to _you_ - and
I can scarcely expect you to put more faith in it than did the merry
fishermen of Lofoden."

~~~ End of Text ~~~

======

VON KEMPELEN AND HIS DISCOVERY

AFTER THE very minute and elaborate paper by Arago, to say nothing of
the summary in 'Silliman's Journal,' with the detailed statement just
published by Lieutenant Maury, it will not be supposed, of course,
that in offering a few hurried remarks in reference to Von Kempelen's
discovery, I have any design to look at the subject in a scientific
point of view. My object is simply, in the first place, to say a few
words of Von Kempelen himself (with whom, some years ago, I had the
honor of a slight personal acquaintance), since every thing which
concerns him must necessarily, at this moment, be of interest; and,
in the second place, to look in a general way, and speculatively, at
the results of the discovery.

It may be as well, however, to premise the cursory observations which
I have to offer, by denying, very decidedly, what seems to be a
general impression (gleaned, as usual in a case of this kind, from
the newspapers), viz.: that this discovery, astounding as it
unquestionably is, is unanticipated.

By reference to the 'Diary of Sir Humphrey Davy' (Cottle and Munroe,
London, pp. 150), it will be seen at pp. 53 and 82, that this
illustrious chemist had not only conceived the idea now in question,
but had actually made no inconsiderable progress, experimentally, in
the very identical analysis now so triumphantly brought to an issue
by Von Kempelen, who although he makes not the slightest allusion to
it, is, without doubt (I say it unhesitatingly, and can prove it, if
required), indebted to the 'Diary' for at least the first hint of his
own undertaking.

The paragraph from the 'Courier and Enquirer,' which is now going the
rounds of the press, and which purports to claim the invention for a
Mr. Kissam, of Brunswick, Maine, appears to me, I confess, a little
apocryphal, for several reasons; although there is nothing either
impossible or very improbable in the statement made. I need not go
into details. My opinion of the paragraph is founded principally upon
its manner. It does not look true. Persons who are narrating facts,
are seldom so particular as Mr. Kissam seems to be, about day and
date and precise location. Besides, if Mr. Kissam actually did come
upon the discovery he says he did, at the period designated -- nearly
eight years ago -- how happens it that he took no steps, on the
instant, to reap the immense benefits which the merest bumpkin must
have known would have resulted to him individually, if not to the
world at large, from the discovery? It seems to me quite incredible
that any man of common understanding could have discovered what Mr.
Kissam says he did, and yet have subsequently acted so like a baby --
so like an owl -- as Mr. Kissam admits that he did. By-the-way, who
is Mr. Kissam? and is not the whole paragraph in the 'Courier and
Enquirer' a fabrication got up to 'make a talk'? It must be confessed
that it has an amazingly moon-hoaxy-air. Very little dependence is to
be placed upon it, in my humble opinion; and if I were not well
aware, from experience, how very easily men of science are mystified,
on points out of their usual range of inquiry, I should be profoundly
astonished at finding so eminent a chemist as Professor Draper,
discussing Mr. Kissam's (or is it Mr. Quizzem's?) pretensions to the
discovery, in so serious a tone.

But to return to the 'Diary' of Sir Humphrey Davy. This pamphlet was
not designed for the public eye, even upon the decease of the writer,
as any person at all conversant with authorship may satisfy himself
at once by the slightest inspection of the style. At page 13, for
example, near the middle, we read, in reference to his researches
about the protoxide of azote: 'In less than half a minute the
respiration being continued, diminished gradually and were succeeded
by analogous to gentle pressure on all the muscles.' That the
respiration was not 'diminished,' is not only clear by the subsequent
context, but by the use of the plural, 'were.' The sentence, no
doubt, was thus intended: 'In less than half a minute, the
respiration [being continued, these feelings] diminished gradually,
and were succeeded by [a sensation] analogous to gentle pressure on
all the muscles.' A hundred similar instances go to show that the MS.
so inconsiderately published, was merely a rough note-book, meant
only for the writer's own eye, but an inspection of the pamphlet will
convince almost any thinking person of the truth of my suggestion.
The fact is, Sir Humphrey Davy was about the last man in the world to
commit himself on scientific topics. Not only had he a more than
ordinary dislike to quackery, but he was morbidly afraid of appearing
empirical; so that, however fully he might have been convinced that
he was on the right track in the matter now in question, he would
never have spoken out, until he had every thing ready for the most
practical demonstration. I verily believe that his last moments would
have been rendered wretched, could he have suspected that his wishes
in regard to burning this 'Diary' (full of crude speculations) would
have been unattended to; as, it seems, they were. I say 'his wishes,'
for that he meant to include this note-book among the miscellaneous
papers directed 'to be burnt,' I think there can be no manner of
doubt. Whether it escaped the flames by good fortune or by bad, yet
remains to be seen. That the passages quoted above, with the other
similar ones referred to, gave Von Kempelen the hint, I do not in the
slightest degree question; but I repeat, it yet remains to be seen
whether this momentous discovery itself (momentous under any
circumstances) will be of service or disservice to mankind at large.
That Von Kempelen and his immediate friends will reap a rich harvest,
it would be folly to doubt for a moment. They will scarcely be so
weak as not to 'realize,' in time, by large purchases of houses and
land, with other property of intrinsic value.

In the brief account of Von Kempelen which appeared in the 'Home
Journal,' and has since been extensively copied, several
misapprehensions of the German original seem to have been made by the
translator, who professes to have taken the passage from a late
number of the Presburg 'Schnellpost.' 'Viele' has evidently been
misconceived (as it often is), and what the translator renders by
'sorrows,' is probably 'lieden,' which, in its true version,
'sufferings,' would give a totally different complexion to the whole
account; but, of course, much of this is merely guess, on my part.

Von Kempelen, however, is by no means 'a misanthrope,' in appearance,
at least, whatever he may be in fact. My acquaintance with him was
casual altogether; and I am scarcely warranted in saying that I know
him at all; but to have seen and conversed with a man of so
prodigious a notoriety as he has attained, or will attain in a few
days, is not a small matter, as times go.

'The Literary World' speaks of him, confidently, as a native of
Presburg (misled, perhaps, by the account in 'The Home Journal') but
I am pleased in being able to state positively, since I have it from
his own lips, that he was born in Utica, in the State of New York,
although both his parents, I believe, are of Presburg descent. The
family is connected, in some way, with Maelzel, of
Automaton-chess-player memory. In person, he is short and stout, with
large, fat, blue eyes, sandy hair and whiskers, a wide but pleasing
mouth, fine teeth, and I think a Roman nose. There is some defect in
one of his feet. His address is frank, and his whole manner
noticeable for bonhomie. Altogether, he looks, speaks, and acts as
little like 'a misanthrope' as any man I ever saw. We were
fellow-sojouners for a week about six years ago, at Earl's Hotel, in
Providence, Rhode Island; and I presume that I conversed with him, at
various times, for some three or four hours altogether. His principal
topics were those of the day, and nothing that fell from him led me
to suspect his scientific attainments. He left the hotel before me,
intending to go to New York, and thence to Bremen; it was in the
latter city that his great discovery was first made public; or,
rather, it was there that he was first suspected of having made it.
This is about all that I personally know of the now immortal Von
Kempelen; but I have thought that even these few details would have
interest for the public.

There can be little question that most of the marvellous rumors
afloat about this affair are pure inventions, entitled to about as
much credit as the story of Aladdin's lamp; and yet, in a case of
this kind, as in the case of the discoveries in California, it is
clear that the truth may be stranger than fiction. The following
anecdote, at least, is so well authenticated, that we may receive it
implicitly.

Von Kempelen had never been even tolerably well off during his
residence at Bremen; and often, it was well known, he had been put to
extreme shifts in order to raise trifling sums. When the great
excitement occurred about the forgery on the house of Gutsmuth & Co.,
suspicion was directed toward Von Kempelen, on account of his having
purchased a considerable property in Gasperitch Lane, and his
refusing, when questioned, to explain how he became possessed of the
purchase money. He was at length arrested, but nothing decisive
appearing against him, was in the end set at liberty. The police,
however, kept a strict watch upon his movements, and thus discovered
that he left home frequently, taking always the same road, and
invariably giving his watchers the slip in the neighborhood of that
labyrinth of narrow and crooked passages known by the flash name of
the 'Dondergat.' Finally, by dint of great perseverance, they traced
him to a garret in an old house of seven stories, in an alley called
Flatzplatz, -- and, coming upon him suddenly, found him, as they
imagined, in the midst of his counterfeiting operations. His
agitation is represented as so excessive that the officers had not
the slightest doubt of his guilt. After hand-cuffing him, they
searched his room, or rather rooms, for it appears he occupied all
the mansarde.

Opening into the garret where they caught him, was a closet, ten feet
by eight, fitted up with some chemical apparatus, of which the object
has not yet been ascertained. In one corner of the closet was a very
small furnace, with a glowing fire in it, and on the fire a kind of
duplicate crucible -- two crucibles connected by a tube. One of these
crucibles was nearly full of lead in a state of fusion, but not
reaching up to the aperture of the tube, which was close to the brim.
The other crucible had some liquid in it, which, as the officers
entered, seemed to be furiously dissipating in vapor. They relate
that, on finding himself taken, Kempelen seized the crucibles with
both hands (which were encased in gloves that afterwards turned out
to be asbestic), and threw the contents on the tiled floor. It was
now that they hand-cuffed him; and before proceeding to ransack the
premises they searched his person, but nothing unusual was found
about him, excepting a paper parcel, in his coat-pocket, containing
what was afterward ascertained to be a mixture of antimony and some
unknown substance, in nearly, but not quite, equal proportions. All
attempts at analyzing the unknown substance have, so far, failed, but
that it will ultimately be analyzed, is not to be doubted.

Passing out of the closet with their prisoner, the officers went
through a sort of ante-chamber, in which nothing material was found,
to the chemist's sleeping-room. They here rummaged some drawers and
boxes, but discovered only a few papers, of no importance, and some
good coin, silver and gold. At length, looking under the bed, they
saw a large, common hair trunk, without hinges, hasp, or lock, and
with the top lying carelessly across the bottom portion. Upon
attempting to draw this trunk out from under the bed, they found
that, with their united strength (there were three of them, all
powerful men), they 'could not stir it one inch.' Much astonished at
this, one of them crawled under the bed, and looking into the trunk,
said:

'No wonder we couldn't move it -- why it's full to the brim of old
bits of brass!'

Putting his feet, now, against the wall so as to get a good purchase,
and pushing with all his force, while his companions pulled with an
theirs, the trunk, with much difficulty, was slid out from under the
bed, and its contents examined. The supposed brass with which it was
filled was all in small, smooth pieces, varying from the size of a
pea to that of a dollar; but the pieces were irregular in shape,
although more or less flat-looking, upon the whole, 'very much as
lead looks when thrown upon the ground in a molten state, and there
suffered to grow cool.' Now, not one of these officers for a moment
suspected this metal to be any thing but brass. The idea of its being
gold never entered their brains, of course; how could such a wild
fancy have entered it? And their astonishment may be well conceived,
when the next day it became known, all over Bremen, that the 'lot of
brass' which they had carted so contemptuously to the police office,
without putting themselves to the trouble of pocketing the smallest
scrap, was not only gold -- real gold -- but gold far finer than any
employed in coinage-gold, in fact, absolutely pure, virgin, without
the slightest appreciable alloy.

I need not go over the details of Von Kempelen's confession (as far
as it went) and release, for these are familiar to the public. That
he has actually realized, in spirit and in effect, if not to the
letter, the old chimaera of the philosopher's stone, no sane person
is at liberty to doubt. The opinions of Arago are, of course,
entitled to the greatest consideration; but he is by no means
infallible; and what he says of bismuth, in his report to the
Academy, must be taken cum grano salis. The simple truth is, that up
to this period all analysis has failed; and until Von Kempelen
chooses to let us have the key to his own published enigma, it is
more than probable that the matter will remain, for years, in statu
quo. All that as yet can fairly be said to be known is, that 'Pure
gold can be made at will, and very readily from lead in connection
with certain other substances, in kind and in proportions, unknown.'

Speculation, of course, is busy as to the immediate and ultimate
results of this discovery -- a discovery which few thinking persons
will hesitate in referring to an increased interest in the matter of
gold generally, by the late developments in California; and this
reflection brings us inevitably to another -- the exceeding
inopportuneness of Von Kempelen's analysis. If many were prevented
from adventuring to California, by the mere apprehension that gold
would so materially diminish in value, on account of its
plentifulness in the mines there, as to render the speculation of
going so far in search of it a doubtful one -- what impression will
be wrought now, upon the minds of those about to emigrate, and
especially upon the minds of those actually in the mineral region, by
the announcement of this astounding discovery of Von Kempelen? a
discovery which declares, in so many words, that beyond its intrinsic
worth for manufacturing purposes (whatever that worth may be), gold
now is, or at least soon will be (for it cannot be supposed that Von
Kempelen can long retain his secret), of no greater value than lead,
and of far inferior value to silver. It is, indeed, exceedingly
difficult to speculate prospectively upon the consequences of the
discovery, but one thing may be positively maintained -- that the
announcement of the discovery six months ago would have had material
influence in regard to the settlement of California.

In Europe, as yet, the most noticeable results have been a rise of
two hundred per cent. in the price of lead, and nearly twenty-five
per cent. that of silver.

~~~ End of Text ~~~

======

MESMERIC REVELATION

     WHATEVER doubt may still envelop the _rationale_ of mesmerism,
its startling _facts_ are now almost universally admitted.  Of these
latter, those who doubt, are your mere doubters by profession - an
unprofitable and disreputable tribe.  There can be no more absolute
waste of time than the attempt to _prove_, at the present day, that
man, by mere exercise of will, can so impress his fellow, as to cast
him into an abnormal condition, of which the phenomena resemble very
closely those of _death_, or at least resemble them more nearly than
they do the phenomena of any other normal condition within our
cognizance ;  that, while in this state, the person so impressed
employs only with effort, and then feebly, the external organs of
sense, yet perceives, with keenly refined perception, and through
channels supposed unknown, matters beyond the scope of the physical
organs ;  that, moreover, his intellectual faculties are wonderfully
exalted and invigorated ;  that his sympathies with the person so
impressing him are profound ;  and, finally, that his susceptibility
to the impression increases with its frequency, while, in the same
proportion, the peculiar phenomena elicited are more extended and
more _pronounced_.

     I say that these - which are the laws of mesmerism in its
general features - it would be supererogation to demonstrate ;  nor
shall I inflict upon my readers so needless a demonstration ;
to-day.  My purpose at present is a very different one indeed.  I am
impelled, even in the teeth of a world of prejudice, to detail
without comment the very remarkable substance of a colloquy,
occurring between a sleep-waker and myself.

     I had been long in the habit of mesmerizing the person in
question, (Mr. Vankirk,) and the usual acute susceptibility and
exaltation of the mesmeric perception had supervened. For many months
he had been laboring under confirmed phthisis, the more distressing
effects of which had been relieved by my manipulations ;  and on the
night of Wednesday, the fifteenth instant, I was summoned to his
bedside.

     The invalid was suffering with acute pain in the region of the
heart, and breathed with great difficulty, having all the ordinary
symptoms of asthma.  In spasms such as these he had usually found
relief from the application of mustard to the nervous centres, but
to-night this had been attempted in vain.

     As I entered his room he greeted me with a cheerful smile, and
although evidently in much bodily pain, appeared to be, mentally,
quite at ease.

     "I sent for you to-night," he said, "not so much to administer
to my bodily ailment, as to satisfy me concerning certain psychal
impressions which, of late, have occasioned me much anxiety and
surprise.  I need not tell you how sceptical I have hitherto been on
the topic of the soul's immortality.  I cannot deny that there has
always existed, as if in that very soul which I have been denying, a
vague half-sentiment of its own existence.  But this half-sentiment
at no time amounted to conviction. With it my reason had nothing to
do.  All attempts at logical inquiry resulted, indeed, in leaving me
more sceptical than before.  I had been advised to study Cousin.  I
studied him in his own works as well as in those of his European and
American echoes.  The 'Charles Elwood' of Mr. Brownson, for example,
was placed in my hands.  I read it with profound attention.
Throughout I found it logical, but the portions which were not
_merely_ logical were unhappily the initial arguments of the
disbelieving hero of the book.  In his summing up it seemed evident
to me that the reasoner had not even succeeded in convincing himself.
 His end had plainly forgotten his beginning, like the government of
Trinculo.  In short, I was not long in perceiving that if man is to
be intellectually convinced of his own immortality, he will never be
so convinced by the mere abstractions which have been so long the
fashion of the moralists of England, of France, and of Germany.
Abstractions may amuse and exercise, but take no hold on the mind.
Here upon earth, at least, philosophy, I am persuaded, will always in
vain call upon us to look upon qualities as things.  The will may
assent - the soul - the intellect, never.

     "I repeat, then, that I only half felt, and never intellectually
believed.  But latterly there has been a certain deepening of the
feeling, until it has come so nearly to resemble the acquiescence of
reason, that I find it difficult to distinguish between the two.  I
am enabled, too, plainly to trace this effect to the mesmeric
influence.  I cannot better explain my meaning than by the hypothesis
that the mesmeric exaltation enables me to perceive a train of
ratiocination which, in my abnormal existence, convinces, but which,
in full accordance with the mesmeric phenomena, does not extend,
except through its _effect_, into my normal condition. In
sleep-waking, the reasoning and its conclusion - the cause and its
effect - are present together.  In my natural state, the cause
vanishing, the effect only, and perhaps only partially, remains.

     "These considerations have led me to think that some good
results might ensue from a series of well-directed questions
propounded to me while mesmerized.  You have often observed the
profound self-cognizance evinced by the sleep-waker - the extensive
knowledge he displays upon all points relating to the mesmeric
condition itself ;  and from this self-cognizance may be deduced
hints for the proper conduct of a catechism."

     I consented of course to make this experiment.  A few passes
threw Mr. Vankirk into the mesmeric sleep.  His breathing became
immediately more easy, and he seemed to suffer no physical
uneasiness. The following conversation then ensued: - V. in the
dialogue representing the patient, and P. myself.

   _  P._ Are you asleep ?

    _ V._ Yes - no   I would rather sleep more soundly.

    _P._  [_After a few more passes._] Do you sleep now ?

    _V._  Yes.

    _P._  How do you think your present illness will result ?

    _V._  [_After a long hesitation and speaking as if with effort_.]
I must die.

    _P._  Does the idea of death afflict you ?

    _V._  [_Very quickly_.] No - no !

    _P._  Are you pleased with the prospect ?

    _V._  If I were awake I should like to die, but now it is no
matter.  The mesmeric condition is so near death as to content me.

    _P._  I wish you would explain yourself, Mr. Vankirk.

    _V._  I am willing to do so, but it requires more effort than I
feel able to make.  You do not question me properly.

    _P._  What then shall I ask ?

    _V._  You must begin at the beginning.

    _P._  The beginning !  but where is the beginning ?

    _V._  You know that the beginning is GOD.  [_This was said in a
low, fluctuating tone, and with every sign of the most profound
veneration_.]

    _P._  What then is God ?

    _V._  [_Hesitating for many minutes._] I cannot tell.

    _P._  Is not God spirit ?

    _V._  While I was awake I knew what you meant by "spirit," but
now it seems only a word - such for instance as truth, beauty - a
quality, I mean.

    _P._  Is not God immaterial ?

    _V._  There is no immateriality - it is a mere word.  That which
is not matter, is not at all - unless qualities are things.

    _P._  Is God, then, material ?

    _V._  No.  [_This reply startled me very much._]

    _P._  What then is he ?

    _V._  [_After a long pause, and mutteringly._] I see - but it is
a thing difficult to tell.  [_Another long pause._] He is not spirit,
for he exists. Nor is he matter, as _you understand it_.  But there
are _gradations_ of matter of which man knows nothing ;  the grosser
impelling the finer, the finer pervading the grosser.  The
atmosphere, for example, impels the electric principle, while the
electric principle permeates the atmosphere.  These gradations of
matter increase in rarity or fineness, until we arrive at a matter
_unparticled_ - without particles - indivisible - _one_ and here the
law of impulsion and permeation is modified.  The ultimate, or
unparticled matter, not only permeates all things but impels all
things - and thus _is_ all things within itself.  This matter is God.
 What men attempt to embody in the word "thought," is this matter in
motion.

    _P._  The metaphysicians maintain that all action is reducible to
motion and thinking, and that the latter is the origin of the former.

    _V._  Yes ;  and I now see the confusion of idea.  Motion is the
action of _mind_ - not of _thinking_.  The unparticled matter, or
God, in quiescence, is (as nearly as we can conceive it) what men
call mind.  And the power of self-movement (equivalent in effect to
human volition) is, in the unparticled matter, the result of its
unity and omniprevalence ;  _how_ I know not, and now clearly see
that I shall never know.  But the unparticled matter, set in motion
by a law, or quality, existing within itself, is thinking.

    _P._  Can you give me no more precise idea of what you term the
unparticled matter ?

    _V._  The matters of which man is cognizant, escape the senses in
gradation. We have, for example, a metal, a piece of wood, a drop of
water, the atmosphere, a gas, caloric, electricity, the luminiferous
ether.  Now we call all these things matter, and embrace all matter
in one general definition ;   but in spite of this, there can be no
two ideas more essentially distinct than that which we attach to a
metal, and that which we attach to the luminiferous ether.  When we
reach the latter, we feel an almost irresistible inclination to class
it with spirit, or with nihility.  The only consideration which
restrains us is our conception of its atomic constitution ;  and
here, even, we have to seek aid from our notion of an atom, as
something possessing in infinite minuteness, solidity, palpability,
weight.  Destroy the idea of the atomic constitution and we should no
longer be able to regard the ether as an entity, or at least as
matter.  For want of a better word we might term it spirit.  Take,
now, a step beyond the luminiferous ether - conceive a matter as much
more rare than the ether, as this ether is more rare than the metal,
and we arrive at once (in spite of all the school dogmas) at a unique
mass - an unparticled matter.  For although we may admit infinite
littleness in the atoms themselves, the infinitude of littleness in
the spaces between them is an absurdity.  There will be a point -
there will be a degree of rarity, at which, if the atoms are
sufficiently numerous, the interspaces must vanish, and the mass
absolutely coalesce.  But the consideration of the atomic
constitution being now taken away, the nature of the mass inevitably
glides into what we conceive of spirit. It is clear, however, that it
is as fully matter as before.  The truth is, it is impossible to
conceive spirit, since it is impossible to imagine what is not.  When
we flatter ourselves that we have formed its conception, we have
merely deceived our understanding by the consideration of infinitely
rarified matter.

    _P._  There seems to me an insurmountable objection to the idea
of absolute coalescence ;  - and that is the very slight resistance
experienced by the heavenly bodies in their revolutions through space
- a resistance now ascertained, it is true, to exist in _some_
degree, but which is, nevertheless, so slight as to have been quite
overlooked by the sagacity even of Newton.  We know that the
resistance of bodies is, chiefly, in proportion to their density.
Absolute coalescence is absolute density.  Where there are no
interspaces, there can be no yielding.  An ether, absolutely dense,
would put an infinitely more effectual stop to the progress of a star
than would an ether of adamant or of iron.

    _V._  Your objection is answered with an ease which is nearly in
the ratio of its apparent unanswerability.  - As regards the progress
of the star, it can make no difference whether the star passes
through the ether _or the ether through it_.  There is no
astronomical error more unaccountable than that which reconciles the
known retardation of the comets with the idea of their passage
through an ether: for, however rare this ether be supposed, it would
put a stop to all sidereal revolution in a very far briefer period
than has been admitted by those astronomers who have endeavored to
slur over a point which they found it impossible to comprehend.  The
retardation actually experienced is, on the other hand, about that
which might be expected from the _friction_ of the ether in the
instantaneous passage through the orb.  In the one case, the
retarding force is momentary and complete within itself - in the
other it is endlessly accumulative.

    _P._  But in all this - in this identification of mere matter
with God - is there nothing of irreverence ?  [_I was forced to
repeat this question before the sleep-waker fully comprehended my
meaning_.]

    _V._  Can you say _why_ matter should be less reverenced than
mind ?  But you forget that the matter of which I speak is, in all
respects, the very "mind" or "spirit" of the schools, so far as
regards its high capacities, and is, moreover, the "matter" of these
schools at the same time.  God, with all the powers attributed to
spirit, is but the perfection of matter.

    _P._  You assert, then, that the unparticled matter, in motion,
is thought ?

    _V._  In general, this motion is the universal thought of the
universal mind.  This thought creates.  All created things are but
the thoughts of God.

    _P._  You say, "in general."

    _V._  Yes.  The universal mind is God.  For new individualities,
_matter_ is necessary.

    _P._  But you now speak of "mind" and "matter" as do the
metaphysicians.

    _V._  Yes - to avoid confusion.  When I say "mind," I mean the
unparticled or ultimate matter ;  by "matter," I intend all else.

    _P._  You were saying that "for new individualities matter is
necessary."

    _V._  Yes ;  for mind, existing unincorporate, is merely God.  To
create individual, thinking beings, it was necessary to incarnate
portions of the divine mind. Thus man is individualized.  Divested of
corporate investiture, he were God.  Now, the particular motion of
the incarnated portions of the unparticled matter is the thought of
man ;  as the motion of the whole is that of God.

    _P._  You say that divested of the body man will be God ?

    _V._  [_After much hesitation._] I could not have said this ;  it
is an absurdity.

    _P._  [_Referring to my notes._] You _did_ say that "divested of
corporate investiture man were God."

    _V._  And this is true.  Man thus divested _would be_ God - would
be unindividualized. But he can never be thus divested - at least
never _will be_ - else we must imagine an action of God returning
upon itself - a purposeless and futile action.  Man is a creature.
Creatures are thoughts of God.  It is the nature of thought to be
irrevocable.

    _P._  I do not comprehend.  You say that man will never put off
the body ?

    _V._  I say that he will never be bodiless.

    _P._  Explain.

    _V._  There are two bodies - the rudimental and the complete ;
corresponding with the two conditions of the worm and the butterfly.
What we call "death," is but the painful metamorphosis.  Our present
incarnation is progressive, preparatory, temporary.  Our future is
perfected, ultimate, immortal.  The ultimate life is the full design.

    _P._  But of the worm's metamorphosis we are palpably cognizant.

    _V._  _We_, certainly - but not the worm.  The matter of which
our rudimental body is composed, is within the ken of the organs of
that body ;  or, more distinctly, our rudimental organs are adapted
to the matter of which is formed the rudimental body ;  but not to
that of which the ultimate is composed. The ultimate body thus
escapes our rudimental senses, and we perceive only the shell which
falls, in decaying, from the inner form ;  not that inner form itself
;  but this inner form, as well as the shell, is appreciable by those
who have already acquired the ultimate life.

    _P._  You have often said that the mesmeric state very nearly
resembles death.  How is this ?

    _V._  When I say that it resembles death, I mean that it
resembles the ultimate life ;  for when I am entranced the senses of
my rudimental life are in abeyance, and I perceive external things
directly, without organs, through a medium which I shall employ in
the ultimate, unorganized life.

    _P._  Unorganized ?

    _V._  Yes ;   organs are contrivances by which the individual is
brought into sensible relation with particular classes and forms of
matter, to the exclusion of other classes and forms.  The organs of
man are adapted to his rudimental condition, and to that only ;   his
ultimate condition, being unorganized, is of unlimited comprehension
in all points but one - the nature of the volition of God - that is
to say, the motion of the unparticled matter. You will have a
distinct idea of the ultimate body by conceiving it to be entire
brain.  This it is _not_ ;   but a conception of this nature will
bring you near a comprehension of what it _is_.  A luminous body
imparts vibration to the luminiferous ether.  The vibrations generate
similar ones within the retina ;  these again communicate similar
ones to the optic nerve.  The nerve conveys similar ones to the brain
;  the brain, also, similar ones to the unparticled matter which
permeates it.  The motion of this latter is thought, of which
perception is the first undulation.  This is the mode by which the
mind of the rudimental life communicates with the external world ;
and this external world is, to the rudimental life, limited, through
the idiosyncrasy of its organs.  But in the ultimate, unorganized
life, the external world reaches the whole body, (which is of a
substance having affinity to brain, as I have said,) with no other
intervention than that of an infinitely rarer ether than even the
luminiferous ;  and to this ether - in unison with it - the whole
body vibrates, setting in motion the unparticled matter which
permeates it.  It is to the absence of idiosyncratic organs,
therefore, that we must attribute the nearly unlimited perception of
the ultimate life.  To rudimental beings, organs are the cages
necessary to confine them until fledged.

    _P._  You speak of rudimental "beings." Are there other
rudimental thinking beings than man ?

    _V._  The multitudinous conglomeration of rare matter into
nebulæ, planets, suns, and other bodies which are neither nebulæ,
suns, nor planets, is for the sole purpose of supplying _pabulum_ for
the idiosyncrasy of the organs of an infinity of rudimental beings.
But for the necessity of the rudimental, prior to the ultimate life,
there would have been no bodies such as these. Each of these is
tenanted by a distinct variety of organic, rudimental, thinking
creatures.  In all, the organs vary with the features of the place
tenanted.  At death, or metamorphosis, these creatures, enjoying the
ultimate life - immortality - and cognizant of all secrets but _the
one_, act all things and pass everywhere by mere volition: -
indwelling, not the stars, which to us seem the sole palpabilities,
and for the accommodation of which we blindly deem space created -
but that SPACE itself - that infinity of which the truly substantive
vastness swallows up the star-shadows -- blotting them out as
non-entities from the perception of the angels.

    _P._  You say that "but for the _necessity_ of the rudimental
life" there would have been no stars.  But why this necessity ?

    _V._  In the inorganic life, as well as in the inorganic matter
generally, there is nothing to impede the action of one simple
_unique_ law - the Divine Volition.  With the view of producing
impediment, the organic life and matter, (complex, substantial, and
law-encumbered,) were contrived.

    _P._  But again - why need this impediment have been produced ?

    _V._  The result of law inviolate is perfection - right -
negative happiness. The result of law violate is imperfection, wrong,
positive pain.  Through the impediments afforded by the number,
complexity, and substantiality of the laws of organic life and
matter, the violation of law is rendered, to a certain extent,
practicable.  Thus pain, which in the inorganic life is impossible,
is possible in the organic.

    _P._  But to what good end is pain thus rendered possible ?

    _V._  All things are either good or bad by comparison.  A
sufficient analysis will show that pleasure, in all cases, is but the
contrast of pain.  _Positive_ pleasure is a mere idea.  To be happy
at any one point we must have suffered at the same.  Never to suffer
would have been never to have been blessed. But it has been shown
that, in the inorganic life, pain cannot be thus the necessity for
the organic.  The pain of the primitive life of Earth, is the sole
basis of the bliss of the ultimate life in Heaven.

    _P._  Still, there is one of your expressions which I find it
impossible to comprehend - "the truly _substantive_ vastness of
infinity."

    _V._  This, probably, is because you have no sufficiently generic
conception of the term "_substance_" itself.  We must not regard it
as a quality, but as a sentiment: - it is the perception, in thinking
beings, of the adaptation of matter to their organization.  There are
many things on the Earth, which would be nihility to the inhabitants
of Venus - many things visible and tangible in Venus, which we could
not be brought to appreciate as existing at all.  But to the
inorganic beings - to the angels - the whole of the unparticled
matter is substanceethat is to say, the whole of what we term "space"
is to them the truest substantiality ;  - the stars, meantime,
through what we consider their materiality, escaping the angelic
sense, just in proportion as the unparticled matter, through what we
consider its immateriality, eludes the organic.

  As the sleep-waker pronounced these latter words, in a feeble tone,
I observed on his countenance a singular expression, which somewhat
alarmed me, and induced me to awake him at once.  No sooner had I
done this, than, with a bright smile irradiating all his features, he
fell back upon his pillow and expired.  I noticed that in less than a
minute afterward his corpse had all the stern rigidity of stone.  His
brow was of the coldness of ice.  Thus, ordinarily, should it have
appeared, only after long pressure from Azrael's hand.  Had the
sleep-waker, indeed, during the latter portion of his discourse, been
addressing me from out the region of the shadows ?



~~~ End of Text ~~~

======

THE FACTS IN THE CASE OF M. VALDEMAR

OF course I shall not pretend to consider it any matter for wonder,
that the extraordinary case of M. Valdemar has excited discussion. It
would have been a miracle had it not-especially under the
circumstances. Through the desire of all parties concerned, to keep
the affair from the public, at least for the present, or until we had
farther opportunities for investigation -- through our endeavors to
effect this -- a garbled or exaggerated account made its way into
society, and became the source of many unpleasant misrepresentations,
and, very naturally, of a great deal of disbelief.

It is now rendered necessary that I give the facts -- as far as I
comprehend them myself. They are, succinctly, these:

My attention, for the last three years, had been repeatedly drawn to
the subject of Mesmerism; and, about nine months ago it occurred to
me, quite suddenly, that in the series of experiments made hitherto,
there had been a very remarkable and most unaccountable omission: --
no person had as yet been mesmerized in articulo mortis. It remained
to be seen, first, whether, in such condition, there existed in the
patient any susceptibility to the magnetic influence; secondly,
whether, if any existed, it was impaired or increased by the
condition; thirdly, to what extent, or for how long a period, the
encroachments of Death might be arrested by the process. There were
other points to be ascertained, but these most excited my curiosity
-- the last in especial, from the immensely important character of
its consequences.

In looking around me for some subject by whose means I might test
these particulars, I was brought to think of my friend, M. Ernest
Valdemar, the well-known compiler of the "Bibliotheca Forensica," and
author (under the nom de plume of Issachar Marx) of the Polish
versions of "Wallenstein" and "Gargantua." M. Valdemar, who has
resided principally at Harlaem, N.Y., since the year 1839, is (or
was) particularly noticeable for the extreme spareness of his person
-- his lower limbs much resembling those of John Randolph; and, also,
for the whiteness of his whiskers, in violent contrast to the
blackness of his hair -- the latter, in consequence, being very
generally mistaken for a wig. His temperament was markedly nervous,
and rendered him a good subject for mesmeric experiment. On two or
three occasions I had put him to sleep with little difficulty, but
was disappointed in other results which his peculiar constitution had
naturally led me to anticipate. His will was at no period positively,
or thoroughly, under my control, and in regard to clairvoyance, I
could accomplish with him nothing to be relied upon. I always
attributed my failure at these points to the disordered state of his
health. For some months previous to my becoming acquainted with him,
his physicians had declared him in a confirmed phthisis. It was his
custom, indeed, to speak calmly of his approaching dissolution, as of
a matter neither to be avoided nor regretted.

When the ideas to which I have alluded first occurred to me, it was
of course very natural that I should think of M. Valdemar. I knew the
steady philosophy of the man too well to apprehend any scruples from
him; and he had no relatives in America who would be likely to
interfere. I spoke to him frankly upon the subject; and, to my
surprise, his interest seemed vividly excited. I say to my surprise,
for, although he had always yielded his person freely to my
experiments, he had never before given me any tokens of sympathy with
what I did. His disease was if that character which would admit of
exact calculation in respect to the epoch of its termination in
death; and it was finally arranged between us that he would send for
me about twenty-four hours before the period announced by his
physicians as that of his decease.

It is now rather more than seven months since I received, from M.
Valdemar himself, the subjoined note:

My DEAR P -- ,

You may as well come now. D -- and F -- are agreed that I cannot hold
out beyond to-morrow midnight; and I think they have hit the time
very nearly.

VALDEMAR

I received this note within half an hour after it was written, and in
fifteen minutes more I was in the dying man's chamber. I had not seen
him for ten days, and was appalled by the fearful alteration which
the brief interval had wrought in him. His face wore a leaden hue;
the eyes were utterly lustreless; and the emaciation was so extreme
that the skin had been broken through by the cheek-bones. His
expectoration was excessive. The pulse was barely perceptible. He
retained, nevertheless, in a very remarkable manner, both his mental
power and a certain degree of physical strength. He spoke with
distinctness -- took some palliative medicines without aid -- and,
when I entered the room, was occupied in penciling memoranda in a
pocket-book. He was propped up in the bed by pillows. Doctors D --
and F -- were in attendance.

After pressing Valdemar's hand, I took these gentlemen aside, and
obtained from them a minute account of the patient's condition. The
left lung had been for eighteen months in a semi-osseous or
cartilaginous state, and was, of course, entirely useless for all
purposes of vitality. The right, in its upper portion, was also
partially, if not thoroughly, ossified, while the lower region was
merely a mass of purulent tubercles, running one into another.
Several extensive perforations existed; and, at one point, permanent
adhesion to the ribs had taken place. These appearances in the right
lobe were of comparatively recent date. The ossification had
proceeded with very unusual rapidity; no sign of it had discovered a
month before, and the adhesion had only been observed during the
three previous days. Independently of the phthisis, the patient was
suspected of aneurism of the aorta; but on this point the osseous
symptoms rendered an exact diagnosis impossible. It was the opinion
of both physicians that M. Valdemar would die about midnight on the
morrow (Sunday). It was then seven o'clock on Saturday evening.

On quitting the invalid's bed-side to hold conversation with myself,
Doctors D -- and F -- had bidden him a final farewell. It had not
been their intention to return; but, at my request, they agreed to
look in upon the patient about ten the next night.

When they had gone, I spoke freely with M. Valdemar on the subject of
his approaching dissolution, as well as, more particularly, of the
experiment proposed. He still professed himself quite willing and
even anxious to have it made, and urged me to commence it at once. A
male and a female nurse were in attendance; but I did not feel myself
altogether at liberty to engage in a task of this character with no
more reliable witnesses than these people, in case of sudden
accident, might prove. I therefore postponed operations until about
eight the next night, when the arrival of a medical student with whom
I had some acquaintance, (Mr. Theodore L -- l,) relieved me from
farther embarrassment. It had been my design, originally, to wait for
the physicians; but I was induced to proceed, first, by the urgent
entreaties of M. Valdemar, and secondly, by my conviction that I had
not a moment to lose, as he was evidently sinking fast.

Mr. L -- l was so kind as to accede to my desire that he would take
notes of all that occurred, and it is from his memoranda that what I
now have to relate is, for the most part, either condensed or copied
verbatim.

It wanted about five minutes of eight when, taking the patient's
hand, I begged him to state, as distinctly as he could, to Mr. L --
l, whether he (M. Valdemar) was entirely willing that I should make
the experiment of mesmerizing him in his then condition.

He replied feebly, yet quite audibly, "Yes, I wish to be "I fear you
have mesmerized" -- adding immediately afterwards, deferred it too
long."

While he spoke thus, I commenced the passes which I had already found
most effectual in subduing him. He was evidently influenced with the
first lateral stroke of my hand across his forehead; but although I
exerted all my powers, no farther perceptible effect was induced
until some minutes after ten o'clock, when Doctors D -- and F --
called, according to appointment. I explained to them, in a few
words, what I designed, and as they opposed no objection, saying that
the patient was already in the death agony, I proceeded without
hesitation -- exchanging, however, the lateral passes for downward
ones, and directing my gaze entirely into the right eye of the
sufferer.

By this time his pulse was imperceptible and his breathing was
stertorous, and at intervals of half a minute.

This condition was nearly unaltered for a quarter of an hour. At the
expiration of this period, however, a natural although a very deep
sigh escaped the bosom of the dying man, and the stertorous breathing
ceased -- that is to say, its stertorousness was no longer apparent;
the intervals were undiminished. The patient's extremities were of an
icy coldness.

At five minutes before eleven I perceived unequivocal signs of the
mesmeric influence. The glassy roll of the eye was changed for that
expression of uneasy inward examination which is never seen except in
cases of sleep-waking, and which it is quite impossible to mistake.
With a few rapid lateral passes I made the lids quiver, as in
incipient sleep, and with a few more I closed them altogether. I was
not satisfied, however, with this, but continued the manipulations
vigorously, and with the fullest exertion of the will, until I had
completely stiffened the limbs of the slumberer, after placing them
in a seemingly easy position. The legs were at full length; the arms
were nearly so, and reposed on the bed at a moderate distance from
the loin. The head was very slightly elevated.

When I had accomplished this, it was fully midnight, and I requested
the gentlemen present to examine M. Valdemar's condition. After a few
experiments, they admitted him to be an unusually perfect state of
mesmeric trance. The curiosity of both the physicians was greatly
excited. Dr. D -- resolved at once to remain with the patient all
night, while Dr. F -- took leave with a promise to return at
daybreak. Mr. L -- l and the nurses remained.

We left M. Valdemar entirely undisturbed until about three o'clock in
the morning, when I approached him and found him in precisely the
same condition as when Dr. F -- went away -- that is to say, he lay
in the same position; the pulse was imperceptible; the breathing was
gentle (scarcely noticeable, unless through the application of a
mirror to the lips); the eyes were closed naturally; and the limbs
were as rigid and as cold as marble. Still, the general appearance
was certainly not that of death.

As I approached M. Valdemar I made a kind of half effort to influence
his right arm into pursuit of my own, as I passed the latter gently
to and fro above his person. In such experiments with this patient
had never perfectly succeeded before, and assuredly I had little
thought of succeeding now; but to my astonishment, his arm very
readily, although feebly, followed every direction I assigned it with
mine. I determined to hazard a few words of conversation.

"M. Valdemar," I said, "are you asleep?" He made no answer, but I
perceived a tremor about the lips, and was thus induced to repeat the
question, again and again. At its third repetition, his whole frame
was agitated by a very slight shivering; the eyelids unclosed
themselves so far as to display a white line of the ball; the lips
moved sluggishly, and from between them, in a barely audible whisper,
issued the words:

"Yes; -- asleep now. Do not wake me! -- let me die so!"

I here felt the limbs and found them as rigid as ever. The right arm,
as before, obeyed the direction of my hand. I questioned the
sleep-waker again:

"Do you still feel pain in the breast, M. Valdemar?"

The answer now was immediate, but even less audible than before: "No
pain -- I am dying."

I did not think it advisable to disturb him farther just then, and
nothing more was said or done until the arrival of Dr. F -- , who
came a little before sunrise, and expressed unbounded astonishment at
finding the patient still alive. After feeling the pulse and applying
a mirror to the lips, he requested me to speak to the sleep-waker
again. I did so, saying:

"M. Valdemar, do you still sleep?"

As before, some minutes elapsed ere a reply was made; and during the
interval the dying man seemed to be collecting his energies to speak.
At my fourth repetition of the question, he said very faintly, almost
inaudibly:

"Yes; still asleep -- dying."

It was now the opinion, or rather the wish, of the physicians, that
M. Valdemar should be suffered to remain undisturbed in his present
apparently tranquil condition, until death should supervene -- and
this, it was generally agreed, must now take place within a few
minutes. I concluded, however, to speak to him once more, and merely
repeated my previous question.

While I spoke, there came a marked change over the countenance of the
sleep-waker. The eyes rolled themselves slowly open, the pupils
disappearing upwardly; the skin generally assumed a cadaverous hue,
resembling not so much parchment as white paper; and the circular
hectic spots which, hitherto, had been strongly defined in the centre
of each cheek, went out at once. I use this expression, because the
suddenness of their departure put me in mind of nothing so much as
the extinguishment of a candle by a puff of the breath. The upper
lip, at the same time, writhed itself away from the teeth, which it
had previously covered completely; while the lower jaw fell with an
audible jerk, leaving the mouth widely extended, and disclosing in
full view the swollen and blackened tongue. I presume that no member
of the party then present had been unaccustomed to death-bed horrors;
but so hideous beyond conception was the appearance of M. Valdemar at
this moment, that there was a general shrinking back from the region
of the bed.

I now feel that I have reached a point of this narrative at which
every reader will be startled into positive disbelief. It is my
business, however, simply to proceed.

There was no longer the faintest sign of vitality in M. Valdemar; and
concluding him to be dead, we were consigning him to the charge of
the nurses, when a strong vibratory motion was observable in the
tongue. This continued for perhaps a minute. At the expiration of
this period, there issued from the distended and motionless jaws a
voice -- such as it would be madness in me to attempt describing.
There are, indeed, two or three epithets which might be considered as
applicable to it in part; I might say, for example, that the sound
was harsh, and broken and hollow; but the hideous whole is
indescribable, for the simple reason that no similar sounds have ever
jarred upon the ear of humanity. There were two particulars,
nevertheless, which I thought then, and still think, might fairly be
stated as characteristic of the intonation -- as well adapted to
convey some idea of its unearthly peculiarity. In the first place,
the voice seemed to reach our ears -- at least mine -- from a vast
distance, or from some deep cavern within the earth. In the second
place, it impressed me (I fear, indeed, that it will be impossible to
make myself comprehended) as gelatinous or glutinous matters impress
the sense of touch.

I have spoken both of "sound" and of "voice." I mean to say that the
sound was one of distinct -- of even wonderfully, thrillingly
distinct -- syllabification. M. Valdemar spoke -- obviously in reply
to the question I had propounded to him a few minutes before. I had
asked him, it will be remembered, if he still slept. He now said:

"Yes; -- no; -- I have been sleeping -- and now -- now -- I am dead.

No person present even affected to deny, or attempted to repress, the
unutterable, shuddering horror which these few words, thus uttered,
were so well calculated to convey. Mr. L -- l (the student) swooned.
The nurses immediately left the chamber, and could not be induced to
return. My own impressions I would not pretend to render intelligible
to the reader. For nearly an hour, we busied ourselves, silently --
without the utterance of a word -- in endeavors to revive Mr. L -- l.
When he came to himself, we addressed ourselves again to an
investigation of M. Valdemar's condition.

It remained in all respects as I have last described it, with the
exception that the mirror no longer afforded evidence of respiration.
An attempt to draw blood from the arm failed. I should mention, too,
that this limb was no farther subject to my will. I endeavored in
vain to make it follow the direction of my hand. The only real
indication, indeed, of the mesmeric influence, was now found in the
vibratory movement of the tongue, whenever I addressed M. Valdemar a
question. He seemed to be making an effort to reply, but had no
longer sufficient volition. To queries put to him by any other person
than myself he seemed utterly insensible -- although I endeavored to
place each member of the company in mesmeric rapport with him. I
believe that I have now related all that is necessary to an
understanding of the sleep-waker's state at this epoch. Other nurses
were procured; and at ten o'clock I left the house in company with
the two physicians and Mr. L -- l.

In the afternoon we all called again to see the patient. His
condition remained precisely the same. We had now some discussion as
to the propriety and feasibility of awakening him; but we had little
difficulty in agreeing that no good purpose would be served by so
doing. It was evident that, so far, death (or what is usually termed
death) had been arrested by the mesmeric process. It seemed clear to
us all that to awaken M. Valdemar would be merely to insure his
instant, or at least his speedy dissolution.

From this period until the close of last week -- an interval of
nearly seven months -- we continued to make daily calls at M.
Valdemar's house, accompanied, now and then, by medical and other
friends. All this time the sleeper-waker remained exactly as I have
last described him. The nurses' attentions were continual.

It was on Friday last that we finally resolved to make the experiment
of awakening or attempting to awaken him; and it is the (perhaps)
unfortunate result of this latter experiment which has given rise to
so much discussion in private circles -- to so much of what I cannot
help thinking unwarranted popular feeling.

For the purpose of relieving M. Valdemar from the mesmeric trance, I
made use of the customary passes. These, for a time, were
unsuccessful. The first indication of revival was afforded by a
partial descent of the iris. It was observed, as especially
remarkable, that this lowering of the pupil was accompanied by the
profuse out-flowing of a yellowish ichor (from beneath the lids) of a
pungent and highly offensive odor.

It was now suggested that I should attempt to influence the patient's
arm, as heretofore. I made the attempt and failed. Dr. F -- then
intimated a desire to have me put a question. I did so, as follows:

"M. Valdemar, can you explain to us what are your feelings or wishes
now?"

There was an instant return of the hectic circles on the cheeks; the
tongue quivered, or rather rolled violently in the mouth (although
the jaws and lips remained rigid as before;) and at length the same
hideous voice which I have already described, broke forth:

"For God's sake! -- quick! -- quick! -- put me to sleep -- or, quick!
-- waken me! -- quick! -- I say to you that I am dead!"

I was thoroughly unnerved, and for an instant remained undecided what
to do. At first I made an endeavor to re-compose the patient; but,
failing in this through total abeyance of the will, I retraced my
steps and as earnestly struggled to awaken him. In this attempt I
soon saw that I should be successful -- or at least I soon fancied
that my success would be complete -- and I am sure that all in the
room were prepared to see the patient awaken.

For what really occurred, however, it is quite impossible that any
human being could have been prepared.

As I rapidly made the mesmeric passes, amid ejaculations of "dead!
dead!" absolutely bursting from the tongue and not from the lips of
the sufferer, his whole frame at once -- within the space of a single
minute, or even less, shrunk -- crumbled -- absolutely rotted away
beneath my hands. Upon the bed, before that whole company, there lay
a nearly liquid mass of loathsome -- of detestable putridity.

~~~ End of Text ~~~

======

THE BLACK CAT.

    FOR the most wild, yet most homely narrative which I am about to
pen, I neither expect nor solicit belief. Mad indeed would I be to
expect it, in a case where my very senses reject their own evidence.
Yet, mad am I not - and very surely do I not dream. But to-morrow I
die, and to-day I would unburthen my soul. My immediate purpose is to
place before the world, plainly, succinctly, and without comment, a
series of mere household events. In their consequences, these events
have terrified - have tortured - have destroyed me. Yet I will not
attempt to expound them. To me, they have presented little but Horror
- to many they will seem less terrible than _barroques_. Hereafter,
perhaps, some intellect may be found which will reduce my phantasm to
the common-place - some intellect more calm, more logical, and far
less excitable than my own, which will perceive, in the circumstances
I detail with awe, nothing more than an ordinary succession of very
natural causes and effects.

    From my infancy I was noted for the docility and humanity of my
disposition. My tenderness of heart was even so conspicuous as to
make me the jest of my companions. I was especially fond of animals,
and was indulged by my parents with a great variety of pets. With
these I spent most of my time, and never was so happy as when feeding
and caressing them. This peculiarity of character grew with my
growth, and in my manhood, I derived from it one of my principal
sources of pleasure. To those who have cherished an affection for a
faithful and sagacious dog, I need hardly be at the trouble of
explaining the nature or the intensity of the gratification thus
derivable. There is something in the unselfish and self-sacrificing
love of a brute, which goes directly to the heart of him who has had
frequent occasion to test the paltry friendship and gossamer fidelity
of mere _Man_.

    I married early, and was happy to find in my wife a disposition
not uncongenial with my own. Observing my partiality for domestic
pets, she lost no opportunity of procuring those of the most
agreeable kind. We had birds, gold-fish, a fine dog, rabbits, a small
monkey, and _a cat_.

    This latter was a remarkably large and beautiful animal, entirely
black, and sagacious to an astonishing degree. In speaking of his
intelligence, my wife, who at heart was not a little tinctured with
superstition, made frequent allusion to the ancient popular notion,
which regarded all black cats as witches in disguise. Not that she
was ever _serious_ upon this point - and I mention the matter at all
for no better reason than that it happens, just now, to be
remembered.

    Pluto - this was the cat's name - was my favorite pet and
playmate. I alone fed him, and he attended me wherever I went about
the house. It was even with difficulty that I could prevent him from
following me through the streets.

    Our friendship lasted, in this manner, for several years, during
which my general temperament and character - through the
instrumentality of the Fiend Intemperance - had (I blush to confess
it) experienced a radical alteration for the worse. I grew, day by
day, more moody, more irritable, more regardless of the feelings of
others. I suffered myself to use intemperate language to my wife. At
length, I even offered her personal violence. My pets, of course,
were made to feel the change in my disposition. I not only neglected,
but ill-used them. For Pluto, however, I still retained sufficient
regard to restrain me from maltreating him, as I made no scruple of
maltreating the rabbits, the monkey, or even the dog, when by
accident, or through affection, they came in my way. But my disease
grew upon me - for what disease is like Alcohol! - and at length even
Pluto, who was now becoming old, and consequently somewhat peevish -
even Pluto began to experience the effects of my ill temper.

    One night, returning home, much intoxicated, from one of my
haunts about town, I fancied that the cat avoided my presence. I
seized him; when, in his fright at my violence, he inflicted a slight
wound upon my hand with his teeth. The fury of a demon instantly
possessed me. I knew myself no longer. My original soul seemed, at
once, to take its flight from my body and a more than fiendish
malevolence, gin-nurtured, thrilled every fibre of my frame. I took
from my waistcoat-pocket a pen-knife, opened it, grasped the poor
beast by the throat, and deliberately cut one of its eyes from the
socket! I blush, I burn, I shudder, while I pen the damnable
atrocity.

    When reason returned with the morning - when I had slept off the
fumes of the night's debauch - I experienced a sentiment half of
horror, half of remorse, for the crime of which I had been guilty;
but it was, at best, a feeble and equivocal feeling, and the soul
remained untouched. I again plunged into excess, and soon drowned in
wine all memory of the deed.

    In the meantime the cat slowly recovered. The socket of the lost
eye presented, it is true, a frightful appearance, but he no longer
appeared to suffer any pain. He went about the house as usual, but,
as might be expected, fled in extreme terror at my approach. I had so
much of my old heart left, as to be at first grieved by this evident
dislike on the part of a creature which had once so loved me. But
this feeling soon gave place to irritation. And then came, as if to
my final and irrevocable overthrow, the spirit of PERVERSENESS. Of
this spirit philosophy takes no account. Yet I am not more sure that
my soul lives, than I am that perverseness is one of the primitive
impulses of the human heart - one of the indivisible primary
faculties, or sentiments, which give direction to the character of
Man. Who has not, a hundred times, found himself committing a vile or
a silly action, for no other reason than because he knows he should
not? Have we not a perpetual inclination, in the teeth of our best
judgment, to violate that which is _Law_, merely because we
understand it to be such? This spirit of perverseness, I say, came to
my final overthrow. It was this unfathomable longing of the soul _to
vex itself_ - to offer violence to its own nature - to do wrong for
the wrong's sake only - that urged me to continue and finally to
consummate the injury I had inflicted upon the unoffending brute. One
morning, in cool blood, I slipped a noose about its neck and hung it
to the limb of a tree; - hung it with the tears streaming from my
eyes, and with the bitterest remorse at my heart; - hung it _because_
I knew that it had loved me, and _because_ I felt it had given me no
reason of offence; - hung it _because_ I knew that in so doing I was
committing a sin - a deadly sin that would so jeopardize my immortal
soul as to place it - if such a thing wore possible - even beyond the
reach of the infinite mercy of the Most Merciful and Most Terrible
God.

    On the night of the day on which this cruel deed was done, I was
aroused from sleep by the cry of fire. The curtains of my bed were in
flames. The whole house was blazing. It was with great difficulty
that my wife, a servant, and myself, made our escape from the
conflagration. The destruction was complete. My entire worldly wealth
was swallowed up, and I resigned myself thenceforward to despair.

    I am above the weakness of seeking to establish a sequence of
cause and effect, between the disaster and the atrocity. But I am
detailing a chain of facts - and wish not to leave even a possible
link imperfect. On the day succeeding the fire, I visited the ruins.
The walls, with one exception, had fallen in. This exception was
found in a compartment wall, not very thick, which stood about the
middle of the house, and against which had rested the head of my bed.
The plastering had here, in great measure, resisted the action of the
fire - a fact which I attributed to its having been recently spread.
About this wall a dense crowd were collected, and many persons seemed
to be examining a particular portion of it with very minute and eager
attention. The words "strange!" "singular!" and other similar
expressions, excited my curiosity. I approached and saw, as if graven
in _bas relief_ upon the white surface, the figure of a gigantic
_cat_. The impression was given with an accuracy truly marvellous.
There was a rope about the animal's neck.

    When I first beheld this apparition - for I could scarcely regard
it as less - my wonder and my terror were extreme. But at length
reflection came to my aid. The cat, I remembered, had been hung in a
garden adjacent to the house. Upon the alarm of fire, this garden had
been immediately filled by the crowd - by some one of whom the animal
must have been cut from the tree and thrown, through an open window,
into my chamber. This had probably been done with the view of
arousing me from sleep. The falling of other walls had compressed the
victim of my cruelty into the substance of the freshly-spread
plaster; the lime of which, with the flames, and the _ammonia_ from
the carcass, had then accomplished the portraiture as I saw it.

    Although I thus readily accounted to my reason, if not altogether
to my conscience, for the startling fact just detailed, it did not
the less fail to make a deep impression upon my fancy. For months I
could not rid myself of the phantasm of the cat; and, during this
period, there came back into my spirit a half-sentiment that seemed,
but was not, remorse. I went so far as to regret the loss of the
animal, and to look about me, among the vile haunts which I now
habitually frequented, for another pet of the same species, and of
somewhat similar appearance, with which to supply its place.

    One night as I sat, half stupified, in a den of more than infamy,
my attention was suddenly drawn to some black object, reposing upon
the head of one of the immense hogsheads of Gin, or of Rum, which
constituted the chief furniture of the apartment. I had been looking
steadily at the top of this hogshead for some minutes, and what now
caused me surprise was the fact that I had not sooner perceived the
object thereupon. I approached it, and touched it with my hand. It
was a black cat - a very large one - fully as large as Pluto, and
closely resembling him in every respect but one. Pluto had not a
white hair upon any portion of his body; but this cat had a large,
although indefinite splotch of white, covering nearly the whole
region of the breast. Upon my touching him, he immediately arose,
purred loudly, rubbed against my hand, and appeared delighted with my
notice. This, then, was the very creature of which I was in search. I
at once offered to purchase it of the landlord; but this person made
no claim to it - knew nothing of it - had never seen it before.

    I continued my caresses, and, when I prepared to go home, the
animal evinced a disposition to accompany me. I permitted it to do
so; occasionally stooping and patting it as I proceeded. When it
reached the house it domesticated itself at once, and became
immediately a great favorite with my wife.

    For my own part, I soon found a dislike to it arising within me.
This was just the reverse of what I had anticipated; but - I know not
how or why it was - its evident fondness for myself rather disgusted
and annoyed. By slow degrees, these feelings of disgust and annoyance
rose into the bitterness of hatred. I avoided the creature; a certain
sense of shame, and the remembrance of my former deed of cruelty,
preventing me from physically abusing it. I did not, for some weeks,
strike, or otherwise violently ill use it; but gradually - very
gradually - I came to look upon it with unutterable loathing, and to
flee silently from its odious presence, as from the breath of a
pestilence.

What added, no doubt, to my hatred of the beast, was the discovery,
on the morning after I brought it home, that, like Pluto, it also had
been deprived of one of its eyes. This circumstance, however, only
endeared it to my wife, who, as I have already said, possessed, in a
high degree, that humanity of feeling which had once been my
distinguishing trait, and the source of many of my simplest and
purest pleasures.

With my aversion to this cat, however, its partiality for myself
seemed to increase. It followed my footsteps with a pertinacity which
it would be difficult to make the reader comprehend. Whenever I sat,
it would crouch beneath my chair, or spring upon my knees, covering
me with its loathsome caresses. If I arose to walk it would get
between my feet and thus nearly throw me down, or, fastening its long
and sharp claws in my dress, clamber, in this manner, to my breast.
At such times, although I longed to destroy it with a blow, I was yet
withheld from so doing, partly by a memory of my former crime, but
chiefly - let me confess it at once - by absolute dread of the beast.

    This dread was not exactly a dread of physical evil - and yet I
should be at a loss how otherwise to define it. I am almost ashamed
to own - yes, even in this felon's cell, I am almost ashamed to own -
that the terror and horror with which the animal inspired me, had
been heightened by one of the merest chimaeras it would be possible
to conceive. My wife had called my attention, more than once, to the
character of the mark of white hair, of which I have spoken, and
which constituted the sole visible difference between the strange
beast and the one I had destroyed. The reader will remember that this
mark, although large, had been originally very indefinite; but, by
slow degrees - degrees nearly imperceptible, and which for a long
time my Reason struggled to reject as fanciful - it had, at length,
assumed a rigorous distinctness of outline. It was now the
representation of an object that I shudder to name - and for this,
above all, I loathed, and dreaded, and would have rid myself of the
monster _had I dared_ - it was now, I say, the image of a hideous -
of a ghastly thing - of the GALLOWS ! - oh, mournful and terrible
engine of Horror and of Crime - of Agony and of Death !

    And now was I indeed wretched beyond the wretchedness of mere
Humanity. And _a brute beast _- whose fellow I had contemptuously
destroyed - _a brute beast_ to work out for _me_ - for me a man,
fashioned in the image of the High God - so much of insufferable wo!
Alas! neither by day nor by night knew I the blessing of Rest any
more! During the former the creature left me no moment alone; and, in
the latter, I started, hourly, from dreams of unutterable fear, to
find the hot breath of _the thing_ upon my face, and its vast weight
- an incarnate Night-Mare that I had no power to shake off -
incumbent eternally upon my _heart !_

    Beneath the pressure of torments such as these, the feeble
remnant of the good within me succumbed. Evil thoughts became my sole
intimates - the darkest and most evil of thoughts. The moodiness of
my usual temper increased to hatred of all things and of all mankind;
while, from the sudden, frequent, and ungovernable outbursts of a
fury to which I now blindly abandoned myself, my uncomplaining wife,
alas! was the most usual and the most patient of sufferers.

    One day she accompanied me, upon some household errand, into the
cellar of the old building which our poverty compelled us to inhabit.
The cat followed me down the steep stairs, and, nearly throwing me
headlong, exasperated me to madness. Uplifting an axe, and
forgetting, in my wrath, the childish dread which had hitherto stayed
my hand, I aimed a blow at the animal which, of course, would have
proved instantly fatal had it descended as I wished. But this blow
was arrested by the hand of my wife. Goaded, by the interference,
into a rage more than demoniacal, I withdrew my arm from her grasp
and buried the axe in her brain. She fell dead upon the spot, without
a groan.

    This hideous murder accomplished, I set myself forthwith, and
with entire deliberation, to the task of concealing the body. I knew
that I could not remove it from the house, either by day or by night,
without the risk of being observed by the neighbors. Many projects
entered my mind. At one period I thought of cutting the corpse into
minute fragments, and destroying them by fire. At another, I resolved
to dig a grave for it in the floor of the cellar. Again, I
deliberated about casting it in the well in the yard - about packing
it in a box, as if merchandize, with the usual arrangements, and so
getting a porter to take it from the house. Finally I hit upon what I
considered a far better expedient than either of these. I determined
to wall it up in the cellar - as the monks of the middle ages are
recorded to have walled up their victims.

    For a purpose such as this the cellar was well adapted. Its walls
were loosely constructed, and had lately been plastered throughout
with a rough plaster, which the dampness of the atmosphere had
prevented from hardening. Moreover, in one of the walls was a
projection, caused by a false chimney, or fireplace, that had been
filled up, and made to resemble the red of the cellar. I made no
doubt that I could readily displace the bricks at this point, insert
the corpse, and wall the whole up as before, so that no eye could
detect any thing suspicious. And in this calculation I was not
deceived. By means of a crow-bar I easily dislodged the bricks, and,
having carefully deposited the body against the inner wall, I propped
it in that position, while, with little trouble, I re-laid the whole
structure as it originally stood. Having procured mortar, sand, and
hair, with every possible precaution, I prepared a plaster which
could not be distinguished from the old, and with this I very
carefully went over the new brickwork. When I had finished, I felt
satisfied that all was right. The wall did not present the slightest
appearance of having been disturbed. The rubbish on the floor was
picked up with the minutest care. I looked around triumphantly, and
said to myself - "Here at least, then, my labor has not been in
vain."

    My next step was to look for the beast which had been the cause
of so much wretchedness; for I had, at length, firmly resolved to put
it to death. Had I been able to meet with it, at the moment, there
could have been no doubt of its fate; but it appeared that the crafty
animal had been alarmed at the violence of my previous anger, and
forebore to present itself in my present mood. It is impossible to
describe, or to imagine, the deep, the blissful sense of relief which
the absence of the detested creature occasioned in my bosom. It did
not make its appearance during the night - and thus for one night at
least, since its introduction into the house, I soundly and
tranquilly slept; aye, slept even with the burden of murder upon my
soul!

    The second and the third day passed, and still my tormentor came
not. Once again I breathed as a freeman. The monster, in terror, had
fled the premises forever! I should behold it no more! My happiness
was supreme! The guilt of my dark deed disturbed me but little. Some
few inquiries had been made, but these had been readily answered.
Even a search had been instituted - but of course nothing was to be
discovered. I looked upon my future felicity as secured.

    Upon the fourth day of the assassination, a party of the police
came, very unexpectedly, into the house, and proceeded again to make
rigorous investigation of the premises. Secure, however, in the
inscrutability of my place of concealment, I felt no embarrassment
whatever. The officers bade me accompany them in their search. They
left no nook or corner unexplored. At length, for the third or fourth
time, they descended into the cellar. I quivered not in a muscle. My
heart beat calmly as that of one who slumbers in innocence. I walked
the cellar from end to end. I folded my arms upon my bosom, and
roamed easily to and fro. The police were thoroughly satisfied and
prepared to depart. The glee at my heart was too strong to be
restrained. I burned to say if but one word, by way of triumph, and
to render doubly sure their assurance of my guiltlessness.

    "Gentlemen," I said at last, as the party ascended the steps, "I
delight to have allayed your suspicions. I wish you all health, and a
little more courtesy. By the bye, gentlemen, this - this is a very
well constructed house." [In the rabid desire to say something
easily, I scarcely knew what I uttered at all.] - "I may say an
_excellently_ well constructed house. These walls are you going,
gentlemen? - these walls are solidly put together;" and here, through
the mere phrenzy of bravado, I rapped heavily, with a cane which I
held in my hand, upon that very portion of the brick-work behind
which stood the corpse of the wife of my bosom.

    But may God shield and deliver me from the fangs of the
Arch-Fiend ! No sooner had the reverberation of my blows sunk into
silence, than I was answered by a voice from within the tomb! - by a
cry, at first muffled and broken, like the sobbing of a child, and
then quickly swelling into one long, loud, and continuous scream,
utterly anomalous and inhuman - a howl - a wailing shriek, half of
horror and half of triumph, such as might have arisen only out of
hell, conjointly from the throats of the dammed in their agony and of
the demons that exult in the damnation.

    Of my own thoughts it is folly to speak. Swooning, I staggered to
the opposite wall. For one instant the party upon the stairs remained
motionless, through extremity of terror and of awe. In the next, a
dozen stout arms were toiling at the wall. It fell bodily. The
corpse, already greatly decayed and clotted with gore, stood erect
before the eyes of the spectators. Upon its head, with red extended
mouth and solitary eye of fire, sat the hideous beast whose craft had
seduced me into murder, and whose informing voice had consigned me to
the hangman. I had walled the monster up within the tomb!

~~~ End of Text ~~~

======

THE FALL

OF

THE HOUSE OF USHER

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
everyday life - the hideous dropping off of the veil.  There was an
iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart - an unredeemed
dreariness of thought which no goading of the imagination could
torture into aught of the sublime.  What was it - I paused to think -
what was it that so unnerved me in the contemplation of the House of
Usher ?  It was a mystery all insoluble ;  nor could I grapple with
the shadowy fancies that crowded upon me as I pondered.  I was forced
to fall back upon the unsatisfactory conclusion, that while, beyond
doubt, there _are_ combinations of very simple natural objects which
have the power of thus affecting us, still the analysis of this power
lies among considerations beyond our depth. It was possible, I
reflected, that a mere different arrangement of the particulars of
the scene, of the details of the picture, would be sufficient to
modify, or perhaps to annihilate its capacity for sorrowful
impression ;  and, acting upon this idea, I reined my horse to the
precipitous brink of a black and lurid tarn that lay in unruffled
lustre by the dwelling, and gazed down - but with a shudder even more
thrilling than before - upon the remodelled and inverted images of
the gray sedge, and the ghastly tree-stems, and the vacant and
eye-like windows.

    Nevertheless, in this mansion of gloom I now proposed to myself a
sojourn of some weeks.  Its proprietor, Roderick Usher, had been one
of my boon companions in boyhood ;  but many years had elapsed since
our last meeting.  A letter, however, had lately reached me in a
distant part of the country - a letter from him - which, in its
wildly importunate nature, had admitted of no other than a personal
reply.  The MS.  gave evidence of nervous agitation.  The writer
spoke of acute bodily illness - of a mental disorder which oppressed
him - and of an earnest desire to see me, as his best, and indeed his
only personal friend, with a view of attempting, by the cheerfulness
of my society, some alleviation of his malady.  It was the manner in
which all this, and much more, was said - it was the apparent _heart_
that went with his request - which allowed me no room for hesitation;
and I accordingly obeyed forthwith what I still considered a very
singular summons.

    Although, as boys, we had been even intimate associates, yet I
really knew little of my friend.  His reserve had been always
excessive and habitual.  I was aware, however, that his very ancient
family had been noted, time out of mind, for a peculiar sensibility
of temperament, displaying itself, through long ages, in many works
of exalted art, and manifested, of late, in repeated deeds of
munificent yet unobtrusive charity, as well as in a passionate
devotion to the intricacies, perhaps even more than to the orthodox
and easily recognisable beauties, of musical science.  I had learned,
too, the very remarkable fact, that the stem of the Usher race, all
time-honored as it was, had put forth, at no period, any enduring
branch ;  in other words, that the entire family lay in the direct
line of descent, and had always, with very trifling and very
temporary variation, so lain.  It was this deficiency, I considered,
while running over in thought the perfect keeping of the character of
the premises with the accredited character of the people, and while
speculating upon the possible influence which the one, in the long
lapse of centuries, might have exercised upon the other - it was this
deficiency, perhaps, of collateral issue, and the consequent
undeviating transmission, from sire to son, of the patrimony with the
name, which had, at length, so identified the two as to merge the
original title of the estate in the quaint and equivocal appellation
of the "House of Usher" - an appellation which seemed to include, in
the minds of the peasantry who used it, both the family and the
family mansion.

    I have said that the sole effect of my somewhat childish
experiment - that of looking down within the tarn - had been to
deepen the first singular impression.  There can be no doubt that the
consciousness of the rapid increase of my superstition - for why
should I not so term it ?  - served mainly to accelerate the increase
itself.  Such, I have long known, is the paradoxical law of all
sentiments having terror as a basis.  And it might have been for this
reason only, that, when I again uplifted my eyes to the house itself,
from its image in the pool, there grew in my mind a strange fancy - a
fancy so ridiculous, indeed, that I but mention it to show the vivid
force of the sensations which oppressed me.  I had so worked upon my
imagination as really to believe that about the whole mansion and
domain there hung an atmosphere peculiar to themselves and their
immediate vicinity - an atmosphere which had no affinity with the air
of heaven, but which had reeked up from the decayed trees, and the
gray wall, and the silent tarn - a pestilent and mystic vapor, dull,
sluggish, faintly discernible, and leaden-hued.

    Shaking off from my spirit what _must_ have been a dream, I
scanned more narrowly the real aspect of the building. Its principal
feature seemed to be that of an excessive antiquity.  The
discoloration of ages had been great.  Minute fungi overspread the
whole exterior, hanging in a fine tangled web-work from the eaves.
Yet all this was apart from any extraordinary dilapidation. No
portion of the masonry had fallen ;  and there appeared to be a wild
inconsistency between its still perfect adaptation of parts, and the
crumbling condition of the individual stones.  In this there was much
that reminded me of the specious totality of old wood-work which has
rotted for long years in some neglected vault, with no disturbance
from the breath of the external air.  Beyond this indication of
extensive decay, however, the fabric gave little token of
instability.  Perhaps the eye of a scrutinizing observer might have
discovered a barely perceptible fissure, which, extending from the
roof of the building in front, made its way down the wall in a zigzag
direction, until it became lost in the sullen waters of the tarn.

    Noticing these things, I rode over a short causeway to the house.
 A servant in waiting took my horse, and I entered the Gothic archway
of the hall.  A valet, of stealthy step, thence conducted me, in
silence, through many dark and intricate passages in my progress to
the _studio_ of his master.  Much that I encountered on the way
contributed, I know not how, to heighten the vague sentiments of
which I have already spoken.  While the objects around me - while the
carvings of the ceilings, the sombre tapestries of the walls, the
ebon blackness of the floors, and the phantasmagoric armorial
trophies which rattled as I strode, were but matters to which, or to
such as which, I had been accustomed from my infancy - while I
hesitated not to acknowledge how familiar was all this - I still
wondered to find how unfamiliar were the fancies which ordinary
images were stirring up.  On one of the staircases, I met the
physician of the family.  His countenance, I thought, wore a mingled
expression of low cunning and perplexity.  He accosted me with
trepidation and passed on.  The valet now threw open a door and
ushered me into the presence of his master.

    The room in which I found myself was very large and lofty.  The
windows were long, narrow, and pointed, and at so vast a distance
from the black oaken floor as to be altogether inaccessible from
within. Feeble gleams of encrimsoned light made their way through the
trellissed panes, and served to render sufficiently distinct the more
prominent objects around ;  the eye, however, struggled in vain to
reach the remoter angles of the chamber, or the recesses of the
vaulted and fretted ceiling.  Dark draperies hung upon the walls.
The general furniture was profuse, comfortless, antique, and
tattered.  Many books and musical instruments lay scattered about,
but failed to give any vitality to the scene.  I felt that I breathed
an atmosphere of sorrow.  An air of stern, deep, and irredeemable
gloom hung over and pervaded all.

    Upon my entrance, Usher arose from a sofa on which he had been
lying at full length, and greeted me with a vivacious warmth which
had much in it, I at first thought, of an overdone cordiality - of
the constrained effort of the _ennuyé_ ;  man of the world. A glance,
however, at his countenance, convinced me of his perfect sincerity.
We sat down ;  and for some moments, while he spoke not, I gazed upon
him with a feeling half of pity, half of awe.  Surely, man had never
before so terribly altered, in so brief a period, as had Roderick
Usher !  It was with difficulty that I could bring myself to admit
the identity of the wan being before me with the companion of my
early boyhood.  Yet the character of his face had been at all times
remarkable.  A cadaverousness of complexion ;  an eye large, liquid,
and luminous beyond comparison ;  lips somewhat thin and very pallid,
but of a surpassingly beautiful curve ;  a nose of a delicate Hebrew
model, but with a breadth of nostril unusual in similar formations ;
a finely moulded chin, speaking, in its want of prominence, of a want
of moral energy; hair of a more than web-like softness and tenuity ;
these features, with an inordinate expansion above the regions of the
temple, made up altogether a countenance not easily to be forgotten.
And now in the mere exaggeration of the prevailing character of these
features, and of the expression they were wont to convey, lay so much
of change that I doubted to whom I spoke.  The now ghastly pallor of
the skin, and the now miraculous lustre of the eye, above all things
startled and even awed me.  The silken hair, too, had been suffered
to grow all unheeded, and as, in its wild gossamer texture, it
floated rather than fell about the face, I could not, even with
effort, connect its Arabesque expression with any idea of simple
humanity.

    In the manner of my friend I was at once struck with an
incoherence - an inconsistency ;  and I soon found this to arise from
a series of feeble and futile struggles to overcome an habitual
trepidancy - an excessive nervous agitation.  For something of this
nature I had indeed been prepared, no less by his letter, than by
reminiscences of certain boyish traits, and by conclusions deduced
from his peculiar physical conformation and temperament.  His action
was alternately vivacious and sullen.  His voice varied rapidly from
a tremulous indecision (when the animal spirits seemed utterly in
abeyance) to that species of energetic concision - that abrupt,
weighty, unhurried, and hollow-sounding enunciation - that leaden,
self-balanced and perfectly modulated guttural utterance, which may
be observed in the lost drunkard, or the irreclaimable eater of
opium, during the periods of his most intense excitement.

    It was thus that he spoke of the object of my visit, of his
earnest desire to see me, and of the solace he expected me to afford
him.  He entered, at some length, into what he conceived to be the
nature of his malady.  It was, he said, a constitutional and a family
evil, and one for which he despaired to find a remedy - a mere
nervous affection, he immediately added, which would undoubtedly soon
pass off.  It displayed itself in a host of unnatural sensations.
Some of these, as he detailed them, interested and bewildered me ;
although, perhaps, the terms, and the general manner of the narration
had their weight.  He suffered much from a morbid acuteness of the
senses ;  the most insipid food was alone endurable; he could wear
only garments of certain texture ;  the odors of all flowers were
oppressive ;  his eyes were tortured by even a faint light ;  and
there were but peculiar sounds, and these from stringed instruments,
which did not inspire him with horror.

    To an anomalous species of terror I found him a bounden slave.
"I shall perish," said he, "I must perish in this deplorable folly.
Thus, thus, and not otherwise, shall I be lost.  I dread the events
of the future, not in themselves, but in their results.  I shudder at
the thought of any, even the most trivial, incident, which may
operate upon this intolerable agitation of soul.  I have, indeed, no
abhorrence of danger, except in its absolute effect - in terror.  In
this unnerved - in this pitiable condition - I feel that the period
will sooner or later arrive when I must abandon life and reason
together, in some struggle with the grim phantasm, FEAR."

    I learned, moreover, at intervals, and through broken and
equivocal hints, another singular feature of his mental condition. He
was enchained by certain superstitious impressions in regard to the
dwelling which he tenanted, and whence, for many years, he had never
ventured forth - in regard to an influence whose supposititious force
was conveyed in terms too shadowy here to be re-stated - an influence
which some peculiarities in the mere form and substance of his family
mansion, had, by dint of long sufferance, he said, obtained over his
spirit - an effect which the _physique_ of the gray walls and
turrets, and of the dim tarn into which they all looked down, had, at
length, brought about upon the _morale_ of his existence.

    He admitted, however, although with hesitation, that much of the
peculiar gloom which thus afflicted him could be traced to a more
natural and far more palpable origin - to the severe and
long-continued illness - indeed to the evidently approaching
dissolution - of a tenderly beloved sister - his sole companion for
long years - his last and only relative on earth.  "Her decease," he
said, with a bitterness which I can never forget, "would leave him
(him the hopeless and the frail) the last of the ancient race of the
Ushers." While he spoke, the lady Madeline (for so was she called)
passed slowly through a remote portion of the apartment, and, without
having noticed my presence, disappeared.  I regarded her with an
utter astonishment not unmingled with dread - and yet I found it
impossible to account for such feelings.  A sensation of stupor
oppressed me, as my eyes followed her retreating steps.  When a door,
at length, closed upon her, my glance sought instinctively and
eagerly the countenance of the brother - but he had buried his face
in his hands, and I could only perceive that a far more than ordinary
wanness had overspread the emaciated fingers through which trickled
many passionate tears.

    The disease of the lady Madeline had long baffled the skill of
her physicians.  A settled apathy, a gradual wasting away of the
person, and frequent although transient affections of a partially
cataleptical character, were the unusual diagnosis.  Hitherto she had
steadily borne up against the pressure of her malady, and had not
betaken herself finally to bed ;  but, on the closing in of the
evening of my arrival at the house, she succumbed (as her brother
told me at night with inexpressible agitation) to the prostrating
power of the destroyer ;  and I learned that the glimpse I had
obtained of her person would thus probably be the last I should
obtain - that the lady, at least while living, would be seen by me no
more.

    For several days ensuing, her name was unmentioned by either
Usher or myself: and during this period I was busied in earnest
endeavors to alleviate the melancholy of my friend.  We painted and
read together ;  or I listened, as if in a dream, to the wild
improvisations of his speaking guitar.  And thus, as a closer and
still closer intimacy admitted me more unreservedly into the recesses
of his spirit, the more bitterly did I perceive the futility of all
attempt at cheering a mind from which darkness, as if an inherent
positive quality, poured forth upon all objects of the moral and
physical universe, in one unceasing radiation of gloom.

    I shall ever bear about me a memory of the many solemn hours I
thus spent alone with the master of the House of Usher.  Yet I should
fail in any attempt to convey an idea of the exact character of the
studies, or of the occupations, in which he involved me, or led me
the way.  An excited and highly distempered ideality threw a
sulphureous lustre over all.  His long improvised dirges will ring
forever in my ears.  Among other things, I hold painfully in mind a
certain singular perversion and amplification of the wild air of the
last waltz of Von Weber.  From the paintings over which his elaborate
fancy brooded, and which grew, touch by touch, into vaguenesses at
which I shuddered the more thrillingly, because I shuddered knowing
not why ;  - from these paintings (vivid as their images now are
before me) I would in vain endeavor to educe more than a small
portion which should lie within the compass of merely written words.
By the utter simplicity, by the nakedness of his designs, he arrested
and overawed attention.  If ever mortal painted an idea, that mortal
was Roderick Usher.  For me at least - in the circumstances then
surrounding me - there arose out of the pure abstractions which the
hypochondriac contrived to throw upon his canvass, an intensity of
intolerable awe, no shadow of which felt I ever yet in the
contemplation of the certainly glowing yet too concrete reveries of
Fuseli.

    One of the phantasmagoric conceptions of my friend, partaking not
so rigidly of the spirit of abstraction, may be shadowed forth,
although feebly, in words.  A small picture presented the interior of
an immensely long and rectangular vault or tunnel, with low walls,
smooth, white, and without interruption or device.  Certain accessory
points of the design served well to convey the idea that this
excavation lay at an exceeding depth below the surface of the earth.
No outlet was observed in any portion of its vast extent, and no
torch, or other artificial source of light was discernible ;  yet a
flood of intense rays rolled throughout, and bathed the whole in a
ghastly and inappropriate splendor.

    I have just spoken of that morbid condition of the auditory nerve
which rendered all music intolerable to the sufferer, with the
exception of certain effects of stringed instruments.  It was,
perhaps, the narrow limits to which he thus confined himself upon the
guitar, which gave birth, in great measure, to the fantastic
character of his performances. But the fervid _facility_ of his
_impromptus_ could not be so accounted for.  They must have been, and
were, in the notes, as well as in the words of his wild fantasias
(for he not unfrequently accompanied himself with rhymed verbal
improvisations), the result of that intense mental collectedness and
concentration to which I have previously alluded as observable only
in particular moments of the highest artificial excitement. The words
of one of these rhapsodies I have easily remembered.  I was, perhaps,
the more forcibly impressed with it, as he gave it, because, in the
under or mystic current of its meaning, I fancied that I perceived,
and for the first time, a full consciousness on the part of Usher, of
the tottering of his lofty reason upon her throne.  The verses, which
were entitled "The Haunted Palace," ran very nearly, if not
accurately, thus:

                         I.
     In the greenest of our valleys,
         By good angels tenanted,
     Once a fair and stately palace -
         Radiant palace - reared its head.
     In the monarch Thought's dominion -
         It stood there !
     Never seraph spread a pinion
         Over fabric half so fair.
                         II.
     Banners yellow, glorious, golden,
         On its roof did float and flow;
     (This - all this - was in the olden
         Time long ago)
     And every gentle air that dallied,
         In that sweet day,
     Along the ramparts plumed and pallid,
         A winged odor went away.
                         III.
     Wanderers in that happy valley
         Through two luminous windows saw
     Spirits moving musically
         To a lute's well-tunéd law,
     Round about a throne, where sitting
         (Porphyrogene  !)
     In state his glory well befitting,
         The ruler of the realm was seen.
                          IV.
     And all with pearl and ruby glowing
         Was the fair palace door,
     Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing,
         And sparkling evermore,
     A troop of Echoes whose sweet duty
         Was but to sing,
     In voices of surpassing beauty,
         The wit and wisdom of their king.
                         V.
     But evil things, in robes of sorrow,
         Assailed the monarch's high estate ;
     (Ah, let us mourn, for never morrow
         Shall dawn upon him, desolate  !)
     And, round about his home, the glory
         That blushed and bloomed
     Is but a dim-remembered story
         Of the old time entombed.
                         VI.
     And travellers now within that valley,
         Through the red-litten windows, see
     Vast forms that move fantastically
         To a discordant melody ;
     While, like a rapid ghastly river,
         Through the pale door,
     A hideous throng rush out forever,
         And laugh - but smile no more.

    I well remember that suggestions arising from this ballad, led us
into a train of thought wherein there became manifest an opinion of
Usher's which I mention not so much on account of its novelty, (for
other men * have thought thus,) as on account of the pertinacity with
which he maintained it.  This opinion, in its general form, was that
of the sentience of all vegetable things.  But, in his disordered
fancy, the idea had assumed a more daring character, and trespassed,
under certain conditions, upon the kingdom of inorganization.  I lack
words to express the full extent, or the earnest _abandon_ of his
persuasion.  The belief, however, was connected (as I have previously
hinted) with the gray stones of the home of his forefathers.  The
conditions of the sentience had been here, he imagined, fulfilled in
the method of collocation of these stones - in the order of their
arrangement, as well as in that of the many _fungi_ which overspread
them, and of the decayed trees which stood around - above all, in the
long undisturbed endurance of this arrangement, and in its
reduplication in the still waters of the tarn.  Its evidence - the
evidence of the sentience - was to be seen, he said, (and I here
started as he spoke,) in the gradual yet certain condensation of an
atmosphere of their own about the waters and the walls.  The result
was discoverable, he added, in that silent, yet importunate and
terrible influence which for centuries had moulded the destinies of
his family, and which made _him_ what I now saw him - what he was.
Such opinions need no comment, and I will make none.

    * Watson, Dr.  Percival, Spallanzani, and especially the Bishop
of Landaff.  -  See "Chemical Essays," vol v.

    Our books - the books which, for years, had formed no small
portion of the mental existence of the invalid - were, as might be
supposed, in strict keeping with this character of phantasm.  We
pored together over such works as the Ververt et Chartreuse of
Gresset ;  the Belphegor of Machiavelli ;  the Heaven and Hell of
Swedenborg ;  the Subterranean Voyage of Nicholas Klimm by Holberg ;
the Chiromancy of Robert Flud, of Jean D'Indaginé, and of De la
Chambre ;  the Journey into the Blue Distance of Tieck ;  and the
City of the Sun of Campanella.  One favorite volume was a small
octavo edition of the _Directorium Inquisitorium_, by the Dominican
Eymeric de Gironne; and there were passages in Pomponius Mela, about
the old African Satyrs and 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 _Vigiliae Mortuorum secundum
Chorum Ecclesiae Maguntinae_.

    I could not help thinking of the wild ritual of this work, and of
its probable influence upon the hypochondriac, when, one evening,
having informed me abruptly that the lady Madeline was no more, he
stated his intention of preserving her corpse for a fortnight,
(previously to its final interment,) in one of the numerous vaults
within the main walls of the building.  The worldly reason, however,
assigned for this singular proceeding, was one which I did not feel
at liberty to dispute.  The brother had been led to his resolution
(so he told me) by consideration of the unusual character of the
malady of the deceased, of certain obtrusive and eager inquiries on
the part of her medical men, and of the remote and exposed situation
of the burial-ground of the family.  I will not deny that when I
called to mind the sinister countenance of the person whom I met upon
the staircase, on the day of my arrival at the house, I had no desire
to oppose what I regarded as at best but a harmless, and by no means
an unnatural, precaution.

    At the request of Usher, I personally aided him in the
arrangements for the temporary entombment.  The body having been
encoffined, we two alone bore it to its rest.  The vault in which we
placed it (and which had been so long unopened that our torches, half
smothered in its oppressive atmosphere, gave us little opportunity
for investigation) was small, damp, and entirely without means of
admission for light ;  lying, at great depth, immediately beneath
that portion of the building in which was my own sleeping apartment.
It had been used, apparently, in remote feudal times, for the worst
purposes of a donjon-keep, and, in later days, as a place of deposit
for powder, or some other highly combustible substance, as a portion
of its floor, and the whole interior of a long archway through which
we reached it, were carefully sheathed with copper.  The door, of
massive iron, had been, also, similarly protected. Its immense weight
caused an unusually sharp grating sound, as it moved upon its hinges.

    Having deposited our mournful burden upon tressels within this
region of horror, we partially turned aside the yet unscrewed lid of
the coffin, and looked upon the face of the tenant.  A striking
similitude between the brother and sister now first arrested my
attention ;  and Usher, divining, perhaps, my thoughts, murmured out
some few words from which I learned that the deceased and himself had
been twins, and that sympathies of a scarcely intelligible nature had
always existed between them.  Our glances, however, rested not long
upon the dead - for we could not regard her unawed.  The disease
which had thus entombed the lady in the maturity of youth, had left,
as usual in all maladies of a strictly cataleptical character, the
mockery of a faint blush upon the bosom and the face, and that
suspiciously lingering smile upon the lip which is so terrible in
death.  We replaced and screwed down the lid, and, having secured the
door of iron, made our way, with toil, into the scarcely less gloomy
apartments of the upper portion of the house.

    And now, some days of bitter grief having elapsed, an observable
change came over the features of the mental disorder of my friend.
His ordinary manner had vanished.  His ordinary occupations were
neglected or forgotten.  He roamed from chamber to chamber with
hurried, unequal, and objectless step.  The pallor of his countenance
had assumed, if possible, a more ghastly hue - but the luminousness
of his eye had utterly gone out.  The once occasional huskiness of
his tone was heard no more; and a tremulous quaver, as if of extreme
terror, habitually characterized his utterance.  There were times,
indeed, when I thought his unceasingly agitated mind was laboring
with some oppressive secret, to divulge which he struggled for the
necessary courage.  At times, again, I was obliged to resolve all
into the mere inexplicable vagaries of madness, for I beheld him
gazing upon vacancy for long hours, in an attitude of the profoundest
attention, as if listening to some imaginary sound.  It was no wonder
that his condition terrified - that it infected me.  I felt creeping
upon me, by slow yet certain degrees, the wild influences of his own
fantastic yet impressive superstitions.

    It was, especially, upon retiring to bed late in the night of the
seventh or eighth day after the placing of the lady Madeline within
the donjon, that I experienced the full power of such feelings. Sleep
came not near my couch - while the hours waned and waned away.  I
struggled to reason off the nervousness which had dominion over me.
I endeavored to believe that much, if not all of what I felt, was due
to the bewildering influence of the gloomy furniture of the room - of
the dark and tattered draperies, which, tortured into motion by the
breath of a rising tempest, swayed fitfully to and fro upon the
walls, and rustled uneasily about the decorations of the bed.  But my
efforts were fruitless.  An irrepressible tremor gradually pervaded
my frame ;  and, at length, there sat upon my very heart an incubus
of utterly causeless alarm.  Shaking this off with a gasp and a
struggle, I uplifted myself upon the pillows, and, peering earnestly
within the intense darkness of the chamber, harkened - I know not
why, except that an instinctive spirit prompted me - to certain low
and indefinite sounds which came, through the pauses of the storm, at
long intervals, I knew not whence.  Overpowered by an intense
sentiment of horror, unaccountable yet unendurable, I threw on my
clothes with haste (for I felt that I should sleep no more during the
night), and endeavored to arouse myself from the pitiable condition
into which I had fallen, by pacing rapidly to and fro through the
apartment.

    I had taken but few turns in this manner, when a light step on an
adjoining staircase arrested my attention.  I presently recognised it
as that of Usher.  In an instant afterward he rapped, with a gentle
touch, at my door, and entered, bearing a lamp.  His countenance was,
as usual, cadaverously wan - but, moreover, there was a species of
mad hilarity in his eyes - an evidently restrained _hysteria_ in his
whole demeanor.  His air appalled me - but anything was preferable to
the solitude which I had so long endured, and I even welcomed his
presence as a relief.

    "And you have not seen it ?" he said abruptly, after having
stared about him for some moments in silence - "you have not then
seen it ?  - but, stay !  you shall." Thus speaking, and having
carefully shaded his lamp, he hurried to one of the casements, and
threw it freely open to the storm.

    The impetuous fury of the entering gust nearly lifted us from our
feet.  It was, indeed, a tempestuous yet sternly beautiful night, and
one wildly singular in its terror and its beauty.  A whirlwind had
apparently collected its force in our vicinity ;  for there were
frequent and violent alterations in the direction of the wind ;  and
the exceeding density of the clouds (which hung so low as to press
upon the turrets of the house) did not prevent our perceiving the
life-like velocity with which they flew careering from all points
against each other, without passing away into the distance.  I say
that even their exceeding density did not prevent our perceiving this
- yet we had no glimpse of the moon or stars - nor was there any
flashing forth of the lightning.  But the under surfaces of the huge
masses of agitated vapor, as well as all terrestrial objects
immediately around us, were glowing in the unnatural light of a
faintly luminous and distinctly visible gaseous exhalation which hung
about and enshrouded the mansion.

    "You must not - you shall not behold this !" said I,
shudderingly, to Usher, as I led him, with a gentle violence, from
the window to a seat.  "These appearances, which bewilder you, are
merely electrical phenomena not uncommon - or it may be that they
have their ghastly origin in the rank miasma of the tarn.  Let us
close this casement ;  - the air is chilling and dangerous to your
frame.  Here is one of your favorite romances.  I will read, and you
shall listen ;  - and so we will pass away this terrible night
together."

    The antique volume which I had taken up was the "Mad Trist" of
Sir Launcelot Canning ;  but I had called it a favorite of Usher's
more in sad jest than in earnest ;  for, in truth, there is little in
its uncouth and unimaginative prolixity which could have had interest
for the lofty and spiritual ideality of my friend.  It was, however,
the only book immediately at hand ;  and I indulged a vague hope that
the excitement which now agitated the hypochondriac, might find
relief (for the history of mental disorder is full of similar
anomalies) even in the extremeness of the folly which I should read.
Could I have judged, indeed, by the wild overstrained air of vivacity
with which he harkened, or apparently harkened, to the words of the
tale, I might well have congratulated myself upon the success of my
design.

    I had arrived at that well-known portion of the story where
Ethelred, the hero of the Trist, having sought in vain for peaceable
admission into the dwelling of the hermit, proceeds to make good an
entrance by force.  Here, it will be remembered, the words of the
narrative run thus:

    "And Ethelred, who was by nature of a doughty heart, and who was
now mighty withal, on account of the powerfulness of the wine which
he had drunken, waited no longer to hold parley with the hermit, who,
in sooth, was of an obstinate and maliceful turn, but, feeling the
rain upon his shoulders, and fearing the rising of the tempest,
uplifted his mace outright, and, with blows, made quickly room in the
plankings of the door for his gauntleted hand ;  and now pulling
therewith sturdily, he so cracked, and ripped, and tore all asunder,
that the noise of the dry and hollow-sounding wood alarummed and
reverberated throughout the forest."

    At the termination of this sentence I started, and for a moment,
paused ;  for it appeared to me (although I at once concluded that my
excited fancy had deceived me) - it appeared to me that, from some
very remote portion of the mansion, there came, indistinctly, to my
ears, what might have been, in its exact similarity of character, the
echo (but a stifled and dull one certainly) of the very cracking and
ripping sound which Sir Launcelot had so particularly described.  It
was, beyond doubt, the coincidence alone which had arrested my
attention ;  for, amid the rattling of the sashes of the casements,
and the ordinary commingled noises of the still increasing storm, the
sound, in itself, had nothing, surely, which should have interested
or disturbed me.  I continued the story:

    "But the good champion Ethelred, now entering within the door,
was sore enraged and amazed to perceive no signal of the maliceful
hermit ;  but, in the stead thereof, a dragon of a scaly and
prodigious demeanor, and of a fiery tongue, which sate in guard
before a palace of gold, with a floor of silver ;  and upon the wall
there hung a shield of shining brass with this legend enwritten -

     Who entereth herein, a conqueror hath bin ;
     Who slayeth the dragon, the shield he shall win;

    And Ethelred uplifted his mace, and struck upon the head of the
dragon, which fell before him, and gave up his pesty breath, with a
shriek so horrid and harsh, and withal so piercing, that Ethelred had
fain to close his ears with his hands against the dreadful noise of
it, the like whereof was never before heard."

    Here again I paused abruptly, and now with a feeling of wild
amazement - for there could be no doubt whatever that, in this
instance, I did actually hear (although from what direction it
proceeded I found it impossible to say) a low and apparently distant,
but harsh, protracted, and most unusual screaming or grating sound -
the exact counterpart of what my fancy had already conjured up for
the dragon's unnatural shriek as described by the romancer.

    Oppressed, as I certainly was, upon the occurrence of this second
and most extraordinary coincidence, by a thousand conflicting
sensations, in which wonder and extreme terror were predominant, I
still retained sufficient presence of mind to avoid exciting, by any
observation, the sensitive nervousness of my companion.  I was by no
means certain that he had noticed the sounds in question ;  although,
assuredly, a strange alteration had, during the last few minutes,
taken place in his demeanor. From a position fronting my own, he had
gradually brought round his chair, so as to sit with his face to the
door of the chamber ;  and thus I could but partially perceive his
features, although I saw that his lips trembled as if he were
murmuring inaudibly.  His head had dropped upon his breast - yet I
knew that he was not asleep, from the wide and rigid opening of the
eye as I caught a glance of it in profile.  The motion of his body,
too, was at variance with this idea - for he rocked from side to side
with a gentle yet constant and uniform sway.  Having rapidly taken
notice of all this, I resumed the narrative of Sir Launcelot, which
thus proceeded:

    "And now, the champion, having escaped from the terrible fury of
the dragon, bethinking himself of the brazen shield, and of the
breaking up of the enchantment which was upon it, removed the carcass
from out of the way before him, and approached valorously over the
silver pavement of the castle to where the shield was upon the wall ;
 which in sooth tarried not for his full coming, but fell down at his
feet upon the silver floor, with a mighty great and terrible ringing
sound."

    No sooner had these syllables passed my lips, than - as if a
shield of brass had indeed, at the moment, fallen heavily upon a
floor of silver - I became aware of a distinct, hollow, metallic, and
clangorous, yet apparently muffled reverberation.  Completely
unnerved, I leaped to my feet ;  but the measured rocking movement of
Usher was undisturbed.  I rushed to the chair in which he sat.  His
eyes were bent fixedly before him, and throughout his whole
countenance there reigned a stony rigidity.  But, as I placed my hand
upon his shoulder, there came a strong shudder over his whole person
;  a sickly smile quivered about his lips ;  and I saw that he spoke
in a low, hurried, and gibbering murmur, as if unconscious of my
presence.  Bending closely over him, I at length drank in the hideous
import of his words.

    "Not hear it ?  - yes, I hear it, and _have_ heard it.  Long -
long - long - many minutes, many hours, many days, have I heard it -
yet I dared not - oh, pity me, miserable wretch that I am !  - I
dared not - I _dared_ not speak !  _We have put her living in the
tomb !_  Said I not that my senses were acute ?  I _now_ tell you
that I heard her first feeble movements in the hollow coffin.  I
heard them - many, many days ago - yet I dared not - _I dared not
speak !_  And now - to-night - Ethelred - ha !  ha ! - the breaking
of the hermit's door, and the death-cry of the dragon, and the
clangor of the shield !  - say, rather, the rending of her coffin,
and the grating of the iron hinges of her prison, and her struggles
within the coppered archway of the vault !   Oh whither shall I fly ?
 Will she not be here anon ?  Is she not hurrying to upbraid me for
my haste ?  Have I not heard her footstep on the stair ?  Do I not
distinguish that heavy and horrible beating of her heart ?  Madman !"
- here he sprang furiously to his feet, and shrieked out his
syllables, as if in the effort he were giving up his soul - "_Madman
!  I tell you that she now stands without the door !_"

    As if in the superhuman energy of his utterance there had been
found the potency of a spell - the huge antique pannels to which the
speaker pointed, threw slowly back, upon the instant, their ponderous
and ebony jaws.  It was the work of the rushing gust - but then
without those doors there _did_ stand the lofty and enshrouded figure
of the lady Madeline of Usher.  There was blood upon her white robes,
and the evidence of some bitter struggle upon every portion of her
emaciated frame.  For a moment she remained trembling and reeling to
and fro upon the threshold - then, with a low moaning cry, fell
heavily inward upon the person of her brother, and in her violent and
now final death-agonies, bore him to the floor a corpse, and a victim
to the terrors he had anticipated.

    From that chamber, and from that mansion, I fled aghast.  The
storm was still abroad in all its wrath as I found myself crossing
the old causeway.  Suddenly there shot along the path a wild light,
and I turned to see whence a gleam so unusual could have issued ;
for the vast house and its shadows were alone behind me.  The
radiance was that of the full, setting, and blood-red moon, which now
shone vividly through that once barely-discernible fissure, of which
I have before spoken as extending from the roof of the building, in a
zigzag direction, to the base.  While I gazed, this fissure rapidly
widened - there came a fierce breath of the whirlwind - the entire
orb of the satellite burst at once upon my sight - my brain reeled as
I saw the mighty walls rushing asunder - there was a long tumultuous
shouting sound like the voice of a thousand waters - and the deep and
dank tarn at my feet closed sullenly and silently over the fragments
of the "_House of Usher_."



~~~ End of Text ~~~

======

SILENCE -- A FABLE

+L*@LF4< D@D,T< 6@*zLN"4 J, 6"4 N"D"((,.

ALCMAN. The mountain pinnacles slumber; valleys, crags and caves are
silent.

"LISTEN to me," said the Demon as he placed his hand upon my head.
"The region of which I speak is a dreary region in Libya, by the
borders of the river Zaire. And there is no quiet there, nor silence.

"The waters of the river have a saffron and sickly hue; and they flow
not onwards to the sea, but palpitate forever and forever beneath the
red eye of the sun with a tumultuous and convulsive motion. For many
miles on either side of the river's oozy bed is a pale desert of
gigantic water-lilies. They sigh one unto the other in that solitude,
and stretch towards the heaven their long and ghastly necks, and nod
to and fro their everlasting heads. And there is an indistinct murmur
which cometh out from among them like the rushing of subterrene
water. And they sigh one unto the other.

"But there is a boundary to their realm -- the boundary of the dark,
horrible, lofty forest. There, like the waves about the Hebrides, the
low underwood is agitated continually. But there is no wind
throughout the heaven. And the tall primeval trees rock eternally
hither and thither with a crashing and mighty sound. And from their
high summits, one by one, drop everlasting dews. And at the roots
strange poisonous flowers lie writhing in perturbed slumber. And
overhead, with a rustling and loud noise, the gray clouds rush
westwardly forever, until they roll, a cataract, over the fiery wall
of the horizon. But there is no wind throughout the heaven. And by
the shores of the river Zaire there is neither quiet nor silence.

"It was night, and the rain fell; and falling, it was rain, but,
having fallen, it was blood. And I stood in the morass among the tall
and the rain fell upon my head -- and the lilies sighed one unto the
other in the solemnity of their desolation.

"And, all at once, the moon arose through the thin ghastly mist, and
was crimson in color. And mine eyes fell upon a huge gray rock which
stood by the shore of the river, and was lighted by the light of the
moon. And the rock was gray, and ghastly, and tall, -- and the rock
was gray. Upon its front were characters engraven in the stone; and I
walked through the morass of water-lilies, until I came close unto
the shore, that I might read the characters upon the stone. But I
could not decypher them. And I was going back into the morass, when
the moon shone with a fuller red, and I turned and looked again upon
the rock, and upon the characters; -- and the characters were
DESOLATION.

"And I looked upwards, and there stood a man upon the summit of the
rock; and I hid myself among the water-lilies that I might discover
the actions of the man. And the man was tall and stately in form, and
was wrapped up from his shoulders to his feet in the toga of old
Rome. And the outlines of his figure were indistinct -- but his
features were the features of a deity; for the mantle of the night,
and of the mist, and of the moon, and of the dew, had left uncovered
the features of his face. And his brow was lofty with thought, and
his eye wild with care; and, in the few furrows upon his cheek I read
the fables of sorrow, and weariness, and disgust with mankind, and a
longing after solitude.

"And the man sat upon the rock, and leaned his head upon his hand,
and looked out upon the desolation. He looked down into the low
unquiet shrubbery, and up into the tall primeval trees, and up higher
at the rustling heaven, and into the crimson moon. And I lay close
within shelter of the lilies, and observed the actions of the man.
And the man trembled in the solitude; -- but the night waned, and he
sat upon the rock.

"And the man turned his attention from the heaven, and looked out
upon the dreary river Zaire, and upon the yellow ghastly waters, and
upon the pale legions of the water-lilies. And the man listened to
the sighs of the water-lilies, and to the murmur that came up from
among them. And I lay close within my covert and observed the actions
of the man. And the man trembled in the solitude; -- but the night
waned and he sat upon the rock.

"Then I went down into the recesses of the morass, and waded afar in
among the wilderness of the lilies, and called unto the hippopotami
which dwelt among the fens in the recesses of the morass. And the
hippopotami heard my call, and came, with the behemoth, unto the foot
of the rock, and roared loudly and fearfully beneath the moon. And I
lay close within my covert and observed the actions of the man. And
the man trembled in the solitude; -- but the night waned and he sat
upon the rock.

"Then I cursed the elements with the curse of tumult; and a frightful
tempest gathered in the heaven where, before, there had been no wind.
And the heaven became livid with the violence of the tempest -- and
the rain beat upon the head of the man -- and the floods of the river
came down -- and the river was tormented into foam -- and the
water-lilies shrieked within their beds -- and the forest crumbled
before the wind -- and the thunder rolled -- and the lightning fell
-- and the rock rocked to its foundation. And I lay close within my
covert and observed the actions of the man. And the man trembled in
the solitude; -- but the night waned and he sat upon the rock.

"Then I grew angry and cursed, with the curse of silence, the river,
and the lilies, and the wind, and the forest, and the heaven, and the
thunder, and the sighs of the water-lilies. And they became accursed,
and were still. And the moon ceased to totter up its pathway to
heaven -- and the thunder died away -- and the lightning did not
flash -- and the clouds hung motionless -- and the waters sunk to
their level and remained -- and the trees ceased to rock -- and the
water-lilies sighed no more -- and the murmur was heard no longer
from among them, nor any shadow of sound throughout the vast
illimitable desert. And I looked upon the characters of the rock, and
they were changed; -- and the characters were SILENCE.

"And mine eyes fell upon the countenance of the man, and his
countenance was wan with terror. And, hurriedly, he raised his head
from his hand, and stood forth upon the rock and listened. But there
was no voice throughout the vast illimitable desert, and the
characters upon the rock were SILENCE. And the man shuddered, and
turned his face away, and fled afar off, in haste, so that I beheld
him no more."

Now there are fine tales in the volumes of the Magi -- in the
iron-bound, melancholy volumes of the Magi. Therein, I say, are
glorious histories of the Heaven, and of the Earth, and of the mighty
sea -- and of the Genii that over-ruled the sea, and the earth, and
the lofty heaven. There was much lore too in the sayings which were
said by the Sybils; and holy, holy things were heard of old by the
dim leaves that trembled around Dodona -- but, as Allah liveth, that
fable which the Demon told me as he sat by my side in the shadow of
the tomb, I hold to be the most wonderful of all! And as the Demon
made an end of his story, he fell back within the cavity of the tomb
and laughed. And I could not laugh with the Demon, and he cursed me
because I could not laugh. And the lynx which dwelleth forever in the
tomb, came out therefrom, and lay down at the feet of the Demon, and
looked at him steadily in the face.

~~~ End of Text ~~~

======

THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH.

THE "Red Death" had long devastated the country. No pestilence had
ever been so fatal, or so hideous. Blood was its Avatar and its seal
-- the redness and the horror of blood. There were sharp pains, and
sudden dizziness, and then profuse bleeding at the pores, with
dissolution. The scarlet stains upon the body and especially upon the
face of the victim, were the pest ban which shut him out from the aid
and from the sympathy of his fellow-men. And the whole seizure,
progress and termination of the disease, were the incidents of half
an hour.

But the Prince Prospero was happy and dauntless and sagacious. When
his dominions were half depopulated, he summoned to his presence a
thousand hale and light-hearted friends from among the knights and
dames of his court, and with these retired to the deep seclusion of
one of his castellated abbeys. This was an extensive and magnificent
structure, the creation of the prince's own eccentric yet august
taste. A strong and lofty wall girdled it in. This wall had gates of
iron. The courtiers, having entered, brought furnaces and massy
hammers and welded the bolts. They resolved to leave means neither of
ingress or egress to the sudden impulses of despair or of frenzy from
within. The abbey was amply provisioned. With such precautions the
courtiers might bid defiance to contagion. The external world could
take care of itself. In the meantime it was folly to grieve, or to
think. The prince had provided all the appliances of pleasure. There
were buffoons, there were improvisatori, there were ballet-dancers,
there were musicians, there was Beauty, there was wine. All these and
security were within. Without was the "Red Death."

It was toward the close of the fifth or sixth month of his seclusion,
and while the pestilence raged most furiously abroad, that the Prince
Prospero entertained his thousand friends at a masked ball of the
most unusual magnificence.

It was a voluptuous scene, that masquerade. But first let me tell of
the rooms in which it was held. There were seven -- an imperial
suite. In many palaces, however, such suites form a long and straight
vista, while the folding doors slide back nearly to the walls on
either hand, so that the view of the whole extent is scarcely
impeded. Here the case was very different; as might have been
expected from the duke's love of the bizarre. The apartments were so
irregularly disposed that the vision embraced but little more than
one at a time. There was a sharp turn at every twenty or thirty
yards, and at each turn a novel effect. To the right and left, in the
middle of each wall, a tall and narrow Gothic window looked out upon
a closed corridor which pursued the windings of the suite. These
windows were of stained glass whose color varied in accordance with
the prevailing hue of the decorations of the chamber into which it
opened. That at the eastern extremity was hung, for example, in blue
-- and vividly blue were its windows. The second chamber was purple
in its ornaments and tapestries, and here the panes were purple. The
third was green throughout, and so were the casements. The fourth was
furnished and lighted with orange -- the fifth with white -- the
sixth with violet. The seventh apartment was closely shrouded in
black velvet tapestries that hung all over the ceiling and down the
walls, falling in heavy folds upon a carpet of the same material and
hue. But in this chamber only, the color of the windows failed to
correspond with the decorations. The panes here were scarlet -- a
deep blood color. Now in no one of the seven apartments was there any
lamp or candelabrum, amid the profusion of golden ornaments that lay
scattered to and fro or depended from the roof. There was no light of
any kind emanating from lamp or candle within the suite of chambers.
But in the corridors that followed the suite, there stood, opposite
to each window, a heavy tripod, bearing a brazier of fire that
protected its rays through the tinted glass and so glaringly
illumined the room. And thus were produced a multitude of gaudy and
fantastic appearances. But in the western or black chamber the effect
of the fire-light that streamed upon the dark hangings through the
blood-tinted panes, was ghastly in the extreme, and produced so wild
a look upon the countenances of those who entered, that there were
few of the company bold enough to set foot within its precincts at
all.

It was in this apartment, also, that there stood against the western
wall, a gigantic clock of ebony. Its pendulum swung to and fro with a
dull, heavy, monotonous clang; and when the minute-hand made the
circuit of the face, and the hour was to be stricken, there came from
the brazen lungs of the clock a sound which was clear and loud and
deep and exceedingly musical, but of so peculiar a note and emphasis
that, at each lapse of an hour, the musicians of the orchestra were
constrained to pause, momentarily, in their performance, to hearken
to the sound; and thus the waltzers perforce ceased their evolutions;
and there was a brief disconcert of the whole gay company; and, while
the chimes of the clock yet rang, it was observed that the giddiest
grew pale, and the more aged and sedate passed their hands over their
brows as if in confused reverie or meditation. But when the echoes
had fully ceased, a light laughter at once pervaded the assembly; the
musicians looked at each other and smiled as if at their own
nervousness and folly, and made whispering vows, each to the other,
that the next chiming of the clock should produce in them no similar
emotion; and then, after the lapse of sixty minutes, (which embrace
three thousand and six hundred seconds of the Time that flies,) there
came yet another chiming of the clock, and then were the same
disconcert and tremulousness and meditation as before.

But, in spite of these things, it was a gay and magnificent revel.
The tastes of the duke were peculiar. He had a fine eye for colors
and effects. He disregarded the decora of mere fashion. His plans
were bold and fiery, and his conceptions glowed with barbaric lustre.
There are some who would have thought him mad. His followers felt
that he was not. It was necessary to hear and see and touch him to be
sure that he was not.

He had directed, in great part, the moveable embellishments of the
seven chambers, upon occasion of this great fete; and it was his own
guiding taste which had given character to the masqueraders. Be sure
they were grotesque. There were much glare and glitter and piquancy
and phantasm -- much of what has been since seen in "Hernani." There
were arabesque figures with unsuited limbs and appointments. There
were delirious fancies such as the madman fashions. There was much of
the beautiful, much of the wanton, much of the bizarre, something of
the terrible, and not a little of that which might have excited
disgust. To and fro in the seven chambers there stalked, in fact, a
multitude of dreams. And these -- the dreams -- writhed in and about,
taking hue from the rooms, and causing the wild music of the
orchestra to seem as the echo of their steps. And, anon, there
strikes the ebony clock which stands in the hall of the velvet. And
then, for a moment, all is still, and all is silent save the voice of
the clock. The dreams are stiff-frozen as they stand. But the echoes
of the chime die away -- they have endured but an instant -- and a
light, half-subdued laughter floats after them as they depart. And
now again the music swells, and the dreams live, and writhe to and
fro more merrily than ever, taking hue from the many-tinted windows
through which stream the rays from the tripods. But to the chamber
which lies most westwardly of the seven, there are now none of the
maskers who venture; for the night is waning away; and there flows a
ruddier light through the blood-colored panes; and the blackness of
the sable drapery appals; and to him whose foot falls upon the sable
carpet, there comes from the near clock of ebony a muffled peal more
solemnly emphatic than any which reaches their ears who indulge in
the more remote gaieties of the other apartments.

But these other apartments were densely crowded, and in them beat
feverishly the heart of life. And the revel went whirlingly on, until
at length there commenced the sounding of midnight upon the clock.
And then the music ceased, as I have told; and the evolutions of the
waltzers were quieted; and there was an uneasy cessation of all
things as before. But now there were twelve strokes to be sounded by
the bell of the clock; and thus it happened, perhaps, that more of
thought crept, with more of time, into the meditations of the
thoughtful among those who revelled. And thus, too, it happened,
perhaps, that before the last echoes of the last chime had utterly
sunk into silence, there were many individuals in the crowd who had
found leisure to become aware of the presence of a masked figure
which had arrested the attention of no single individual before. And
the rumor of this new presence having spread itself whisperingly
around, there arose at length from the whole company a buzz, or
murmur, expressive of disapprobation and surprise -- then, finally,
of terror, of horror, and of disgust.

In an assembly of phantasms such as I have painted, it may well be
supposed that no ordinary appearance could have excited such
sensation. In truth the masquerade license of the night was nearly
unlimited; but the figure in question had out-Heroded Herod, and gone
beyond the bounds of even the prince's indefinite decorum. There are
chords in the hearts of the most reckless which cannot be touched
without emotion. Even with the utterly lost, to whom life and death
are equally jests, there are matters of which no jest can be made.
The whole company, indeed, seemed now deeply to feel that in the
costume and bearing of the stranger neither wit nor propriety
existed. The figure was tall and gaunt, and shrouded from head to
foot in the habiliments of the grave. The mask which concealed the
visage was made so nearly to resemble the countenance of a stiffened
corpse that the closest scrutiny must have had difficulty in
detecting the cheat. And yet all this might have been endured, if not
approved, by the mad revellers around. But the mummer had gone so far
as to assume the type of the Red Death. His vesture was dabbled in
blood -- and his broad brow, with all the features of the face, was
besprinkled with the scarlet horror.

When the eyes of Prince Prospero fell upon this spectral image (which
with a slow and solemn movement, as if more fully to sustain its
role, stalked to and fro among the waltzers) he was seen to be
convulsed, in the first moment with a strong shudder either of terror
or distaste; but, in the next, his brow reddened with rage.

"Who dares?" he demanded hoarsely of the courtiers who stood near him
-- "who dares insult us with this blasphemous mockery? Seize him and
unmask him -- that we may know whom we have to hang at sunrise, from
the battlements!"

It was in the eastern or blue chamber in which stood the Prince
Prospero as he uttered these words. They rang throughout the seven
rooms loudly and clearly -- for the prince was a bold and robust man,
and the music had become hushed at the waving of his hand.

It was in the blue room where stood the prince, with a group of pale
courtiers by his side. At first, as he spoke, there was a slight
rushing movement of this group in the direction of the intruder, who
at the moment was also near at hand, and now, with deliberate and
stately step, made closer approach to the speaker. But from a certain
nameless awe with which the mad assumptions of the mummer had
inspired the whole party, there were found none who put forth hand to
seize him; so that, unimpeded, he passed within a yard of the
prince's person; and, while the vast assembly, as if with one
impulse, shrank from the centres of the rooms to the walls, he made
his way uninterruptedly, but with the same solemn and measured step
which had distinguished him from the first, through the blue chamber
to the purple -- through the purple to the green -- through the green
to the orange -- through this again to the white -- and even thence
to the violet, ere a decided movement had been made to arrest him. It
was then, however, that the Prince Prospero, maddening with rage and
the shame of his own momentary cowardice, rushed hurriedly through
the six chambers, while none followed him on account of a deadly
terror that had seized upon all. He bore aloft a drawn dagger, and
had approached, in rapid impetuosity, to within three or four feet of
the retreating figure, when the latter, having attained the extremity
of the velvet apartment, turned suddenly and confronted his pursuer.
There was a sharp cry -- and the dagger dropped gleaming upon the
sable carpet, upon which, instantly afterwards, fell prostrate in
death the Prince Prospero. Then, summoning the wild courage of
despair, a throng of the revellers at once threw themselves into the
black apartment, and, seizing the mummer, whose tall figure stood
erect and motionless within the shadow of the ebony clock, gasped in
unutterable horror at finding the grave-cerements and corpse-like
mask which they handled with so violent a rudeness, untenanted by any
tangible form.

And now was acknowledged the presence of the Red Death. He had come
like a thief in the night. And one by one dropped the revellers in
the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died each in the
despairing posture of his fall. And the life of the ebony clock went
out with that of the last of the gay. And the flames of the tripods
expired. And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable
dominion over all.

~~~ End of Text ~~~

======

THE CASK OF AMONTILLADO.

    THE thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could ;
but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge.  You, who so well
know the nature of my soul, will not suppose, however, that I gave
utterance to a threat.  _At length_ I would be avenged ;  this was a
point definitively settled - but the very definitiveness with which
it was resolved, precluded the idea of risk.  I must not only punish,
but punish with impunity.  A wrong is unredressed when retribution
overtakes its redresser.  It is equally unredressed when the avenger
fails to make himself felt as such to him who has done the wrong.

    It must be understood, that neither by word nor deed had I given
Fortunato cause to doubt my good will.  I continued, as was my wont,
to smile in his face, and he did not perceive that my smile _now_ was
at the thought of his immolation.

    He had a weak point - this Fortunato - although in other regards
he was a man to be respected and even feared.  He prided himself on
his connoisseurship in wine.  Few Italians have the true virtuoso
spirit.  For the most part their enthusiasm is adopted to suit the
time and opportunity - to practise imposture upon the British and
Austrian _millionaires_.  In painting and gemmary, Fortunato, like
his countrymen , was a quack - but in the matter of old wines he was
sincere.  In this respect I did not differ from him materially :  I
was skilful in the Italian vintages myself, and bought largely
whenever I could.

    It was about dusk, one evening during the supreme madness of the
carnival season, that I encountered my friend.  He accosted me with
excessive warmth, for he had been drinking much.  The man wore
motley.  He had on a tight-fitting parti-striped dress, and his head
was surmounted by the conical cap and bells.  I was so pleased to see
him, that I thought I should never have done wringing his hand.

    I said to him - "My dear Fortunato, you are luckily met.  How
remarkably well you are looking to-day !  But I have received a pipe
of what passes for Amontillado, and I have my doubts."

    "How ?" said he.  "Amontillado ?  A pipe ?  Impossible !  And in
the middle of the carnival !"

    "I have my doubts," I replied ;  "and I was silly enough to pay
the full Amontillado price without consulting you in the matter.  You
were not to be found, and I was fearful of losing a bargain."

    "Amontillado !"

    "I have my doubts."

    "Amontillado !"

    "And I must satisfy them."

    "Amontillado !"

    "As you are engaged, I am on my way to Luchesi.  If any one has a
critical turn, it is he.  He will tell me --"

    "Luchesi cannot tell Amontillado from Sherry."

    "And yet some fools will have it that his taste is a match for
your own."

    "Come, let us go."

    "Whither ?"

    "To your vaults."

    "My friend, no ;  I will not impose upon your good nature.  I
perceive you have an engagement.  Luchesi --"

    "I have no engagement ; - come."

    "My friend, no.  It is not the engagement, but the severe cold
with which I perceive you are afflicted.  The vaults are insufferably
damp.  They are encrusted with nitre."

    "Let us go, nevertheless.  The cold is merely nothing.
Amontillado !  You have been imposed upon.  And as for Luchesi, he
cannot distinguish Sherry from Amontillado."

    Thus speaking, Fortunato possessed himself of my arm.  Putting on
a mask of black silk, and drawing a _roquelaire_ closely about my
person, I suffered him to hurry me to my palazzo.

    There were no attendants at home ;   they had absconded to make
merry in honor of the time.  I had told them that I should not return
until the morning, and had given them explicit orders not to stir
from the house.  These orders were sufficient, I well knew, to insure
their immediate disappearance, one and all, as soon as my back was
turned.

    I took from their sconces two flambeaux, and giving one to
Fortunato, bowed him through several suites of rooms to the archway
that led into the vaults.  I passed down a long and winding
staircase, requesting him to be cautious as he followed.  We came at
length to the foot of the descent, and stood together on the damp
ground of the catacombs of the Montresors.

    The gait of my friend was unsteady, and the bells upon his cap
jingled as he strode.

    "The pipe," said he.

    "It is farther on," said I ;  "but observe the white web-work
which gleams from these cavern walls."

    He turned towards me, and looked into my eyes with two filmy orbs
that distilled the rheum of intoxication .

    "Nitre ?" he asked, at length.

    "Nitre," I replied.  "How long have you had that cough ?"

    "Ugh !  ugh !  ugh ! - ugh !  ugh !  ugh ! - ugh !  ugh !  ugh !
- ugh !  ugh !  ugh ! - ugh !  ugh !  ugh !"

    My poor friend found it impossible to reply for many minutes.

    "It is nothing," he said, at last.

    "Come," I said, with decision, "we will go back ;  your health is
precious.  You are rich, respected, admired, beloved ;  you are
happy, as once I was.  You are a man to be missed.  For me it is no
matter.  We will go back ;  you will be ill, and I cannot be
responsible.  Besides, there is Luchesi --"

    "Enough," he said ;  "the cough is a mere nothing; it will not
kill me.  I shall not die of a cough."

    "True - true," I replied ;  "and, indeed, I had no intention of
alarming you unnecessarily - but you should use all proper caution.
A draught of this Medoc will defend us from the damps."

    Here I knocked off the neck of a bottle which I drew from a long
row of its fellows that lay upon the mould.

    "Drink," I said, presenting him the wine.

    He raised it to his lips with a leer.  He paused and nodded to me
familiarly, while his bells jingled.

    "I drink," he said, "to the buried that repose around us."

    "And I to your long life."

    He again took my arm, and we proceeded.

    "These vaults," he said, "are extensive."

    "The Montresors," I replied, "were a great and numerous family."

    "I forget your arms."

    "A huge human foot d'or, in a field azure ;  the foot crushes a
serpent rampant whose fangs are imbedded in the heel."

    "And the motto ?"

    "_Nemo me impune lacessit_."

    "Good !" he said.

    The wine sparkled in his eyes and the bells jingled.  My own
fancy grew warm with the Medoc.  We had passed through walls of piled
bones, with casks and puncheons intermingling, into the inmost
recesses of the catacombs.  I paused again, and this time I made bold
to seize Fortunato by an arm above the elbow.

    "The nitre !" I said :  "see, it increases.  It hangs like moss
upon the vaults.  We are below the river's bed.  The drops of
moisture trickle among the bones.  Come, we will go back ere it is
too late.  Your cough --"

    "It is nothing," he said ;  "let us go on. But first, another
draught of the Medoc."

    I broke and reached him a flaçon of De Grâve.  He emptied it at a
breath.  His eyes flashed with a fierce light. He laughed and threw
the bottle upwards with a gesticulation I did not understand.

    I looked at him in surprise.  He repeated the movement - a
grotesque one.

    "You do not comprehend ?" he said.

    "Not I," I replied.

    "Then you are not of the brotherhood."

    "How ?"

    "You are not of the masons."

    "Yes, yes," I said, "yes, yes."

    "You ?  Impossible !  A mason ?"

    "A mason," I replied.

    "A sign," he said.

    "It is this," I answered, producing a trowel from beneath the
folds of my _roquelaire_.

    "You jest," he exclaimed, recoiling a few paces.  "But let us
proceed to the Amontillado."

    "Be it so," I said, replacing the tool beneath the cloak, and
again offering him my arm.  He leaned upon it heavily.  We continued
our route in search of the Amontillado.  We passed through a range of
low arches, descended, passed on, and descending again, arrived at a
deep crypt, in which the foulness of the air caused our flambeaux
rather to glow than flame.

    At the most remote end of the crypt there appeared another less
spacious.  Its walls had been lined with human remains, piled to the
vault overhead, in the fashion of the great catacombs of Paris.
Three sides of this interior crypt were still ornamented in this
manner.  From the fourth the bones had been thrown down, and lay
promiscuously upon the earth, forming at one point a mound of some
size.  Within the wall thus exposed by the displacing of the bones,
we perceived a still interior recess, in depth about four feet, in
width three, in height six or seven.  It seemed to have been
constructed for no especial use in itself, but formed merely the
interval between two of the colossal supports of the roof of the
catacombs, and was backed by one of their circumscribing walls of
solid granite.

    It was in vain that Fortunato, uplifting his dull torch,
endeavored to pry into the depths of the recess.  Its termination the
feeble light did not enable us to see.

    "Proceed," I said ;  "herein is the Amontillado.  As for Luchesi
--"

    "He is an ignoramus," interrupted my friend, as he stepped
unsteadily forward, while I followed immediately at his heels. In an
instant he had reached the extremity of the niche, and finding his
progress arrested by the rock, stood stupidly bewildered. A moment
more and I had fettered him to the granite. In its surface were two
iron staples, distant from each other about two feet, horizontally.
From one of these depended a short chain, from the other a padlock.
Throwing the links about his waist, it was but the work of a few
seconds to secure it. He was too much astounded to resist.
Withdrawing the key I stepped back from the recess.

    "Pass your hand," I said, "over the wall ;  you cannot help
feeling the nitre.  Indeed it is _very_ damp.  Once more let me
_implore_ you to return.  No ?  Then I must positively leave you.
But I must first render you all the little attentions in my power."

    "The Amontillado !" ejaculated my friend, not yet recovered from
his astonishment.

    "True," I replied ;  "the Amontillado."

    As I said these words I busied myself among the pile of bones of
which I have before spoken.  Throwing them aside, I soon uncovered a
quantity of building stone and mortar.  With these materials and with
the aid of my trowel, I began vigorously to wall up the entrance of
the niche.

    I had scarcely laid the first tier of my masonry when I
discovered that the intoxication of Fortunato had in a great measure
worn off.  The earliest indication I had of this was a low moaning
cry from the depth of the recess.  It was _not_ the cry of a drunken
man.  There was then a long and obstinate silence.  I laid the second
tier, and the third, and the fourth ;  and then I heard the furious
vibrations of the chain.  The noise lasted for several minutes,
during which, that I might hearken to it with the more satisfaction,
I ceased my labors and sat down upon the bones.  When at last the
clanking subsided , I resumed the trowel, and finished without
interruption the fifth, the sixth, and the seventh tier.  The wall
was now nearly upon a level with my breast.  I again paused, and
holding the flambeaux over the mason-work, threw a few feeble rays
upon the figure within.

    A succession of loud and shrill screams, bursting suddenly from
the throat of the chained form, seemed to thrust me violently back.
For a brief moment I hesitated - I trembled.  Unsheathing my rapier,
I began to grope with it about the recess :  but the thought of an
instant reassured me.  I placed my hand upon the solid fabric of the
catacombs, and felt satisfied.  I reapproached the wall.  I replied
to the yells of him who clamored.  I re-echoed - I aided - I
surpassed them in volume and in strength.  I did this, and the
clamorer grew still.

    It was now midnight, and my task was drawing to a close.  I had
completed the eighth, the ninth, and the tenth tier.  I had finished
a portion of the last and the eleventh ;   there remained but a
single stone to be fitted and plastered in.  I struggled with its
weight ;  I placed it partially in its destined position.  But now
there came from out the niche a low laugh that erected the hairs upon
my head.  It was succeeded by a sad voice, which I had difficulty in
recognising as that of the noble Fortunato.  The voice said -

    "Ha !  ha !  ha ! - he !  he ! - a very good joke indeed - an
excellent jest.  We will have many a rich laugh about it at the
palazzo - he !  he !  he ! - over our wine - he !  he !  he !"

    "The Amontillado !" I said.

    "He !  he !  he ! - he !  he !  he ! - yes, the Amontillado.  But
is it not getting late ?  Will not they be awaiting us at the
palazzo, the Lady Fortunato and the rest ?  Let us be gone."

    "Yes," I said, "let us be gone."

    "_For the love of God, Montressor !_"

    "Yes," I said, "for the love of God !"

    But to these words I hearkened in vain for a reply.  I grew
impatient.  I called aloud -

    "Fortunato !"

    No answer.  I called again -

    "Fortunato !"

    No answer still.  I thrust a torch through the remaining aperture
and let it fall within.  There came forth in return only a jingling
of the bells.  My heart grew sick - on account of the dampness of the
catacombs.  I hastened to make an end of my labor.  I forced the last
stone into its position ;  I plastered it up.  Against the new
masonry I re-erected the old rampart of bones.  For the half of a
century no mortal has disturbed them.  _In pace requiescat !_

~~~ End of Text ~~~

======

THE IMP OF THE PERVERSE

IN THE consideration of the faculties and impulses -- of the prima
mobilia of the human soul, the phrenologists have failed to make room
for a propensity which, although obviously existing as a radical,
primitive, irreducible sentiment, has been equally overlooked by all
the moralists who have preceded them. In the pure arrogance of the
reason, we have all overlooked it. We have suffered its existence to
escape our senses, solely through want of belief -- of faith; --
whether it be faith in Revelation, or faith in the Kabbala. The idea
of it has never occurred to us, simply because of its supererogation.
We saw no need of the impulse -- for the propensity. We could not
perceive its necessity. We could not understand, that is to say, we
could not have understood, had the notion of this primum mobile ever
obtruded itself; -- we could not have understood in what manner it
might be made to further the objects of humanity, either temporal or
eternal. It cannot be denied that phrenology and, in great measure,
all metaphysicianism have been concocted a priori. The intellectual
or logical man, rather than the understanding or observant man, set
himself to imagine designs -- to dictate purposes to God. Having thus
fathomed, to his satisfaction, the intentions of Jehovah, out of
these intentions he built his innumerable systems of mind. In the
matter of phrenology, for example, we first determined, naturally
enough, that it was the design of the Deity that man should eat. We
then assigned to man an organ of alimentiveness, and this organ is
the scourge with which the Deity compels man, will-I nill-I, into
eating. Secondly, having settled it to be God's will that man should
continue his species, we discovered an organ of amativeness,
forthwith. And so with combativeness, with ideality, with causality,
with constructiveness, -- so, in short, with every organ, whether
representing a propensity, a moral sentiment, or a faculty of the
pure intellect. And in these arrangements of the Principia of human
action, the Spurzheimites, whether right or wrong, in part, or upon
the whole, have but followed, in principle, the footsteps of their
predecessors: deducing and establishing every thing from the
preconceived destiny of man, and upon the ground of the objects of
his Creator.

It would have been wiser, it would have been safer, to classify (if
classify we must) upon the basis of what man usually or occasionally
did, and was always occasionally doing, rather than upon the basis of
what we took it for granted the Deity intended him to do. If we
cannot comprehend God in his visible works, how then in his
inconceivable thoughts, that call the works into being? If we cannot
understand him in his objective creatures, how then in his
substantive moods and phases of creation?

Induction, a posteriori, would have brought phrenology to admit, as
an innate and primitive principle of human action, a paradoxical
something, which we may call perverseness, for want of a more
characteristic term. In the sense I intend, it is, in fact, a mobile
without motive, a motive not motivirt. Through its promptings we act
without comprehensible object; or, if this shall be understood as a
contradiction in terms, we may so far modify the proposition as to
say, that through its promptings we act, for the reason that we
should not. In theory, no reason can be more unreasonable, but, in
fact, there is none more strong. With certain minds, under certain
conditions, it becomes absolutely irresistible. I am not more certain
that I breathe, than that the assurance of the wrong or error of any
action is often the one unconquerable force which impels us, and
alone impels us to its prosecution. Nor will this overwhelming
tendency to do wrong for the wrong's sake, admit of analysis, or
resolution into ulterior elements. It is a radical, a primitive
impulse-elementary. It will be said, I am aware, that when we persist
in acts because we feel we should not persist in them, our conduct is
but a modification of that which ordinarily springs from the
combativeness of phrenology. But a glance will show the fallacy of
this idea. The phrenological combativeness has for its essence, the
necessity of self-defence. It is our safeguard against injury. Its
principle regards our well-being; and thus the desire to be well is
excited simultaneously with its development. It follows, that the
desire to be well must be excited simultaneously with any principle
which shall be merely a modification of combativeness, but in the
case of that something which I term perverseness, the desire to be
well is not only not aroused, but a strongly antagonistical sentiment
exists.

An appeal to one's own heart is, after all, the best reply to the
sophistry just noticed. No one who trustingly consults and thoroughly
questions his own soul, will be disposed to deny the entire
radicalness of the propensity in question. It is not more
incomprehensible than distinctive. There lives no man who at some
period has not been tormented, for example, by an earnest desire to
tantalize a listener by circumlocution. The speaker is aware that he
displeases; he has every intention to please, he is usually curt,
precise, and clear, the most laconic and luminous language is
struggling for utterance upon his tongue, it is only with difficulty
that he restrains himself from giving it flow; he dreads and
deprecates the anger of him whom he addresses; yet, the thought
strikes him, that by certain involutions and parentheses this anger
may be engendered. That single thought is enough. The impulse
increases to a wish, the wish to a desire, the desire to an
uncontrollable longing, and the longing (to the deep regret and
mortification of the speaker, and in defiance of all consequences) is
indulged.

We have a task before us which must be speedily performed. We know
that it will be ruinous to make delay. The most important crisis of
our life calls, trumpet-tongued, for immediate energy and action. We
glow, we are consumed with eagerness to commence the work, with the
anticipation of whose glorious result our whole souls are on fire. It
must, it shall be undertaken to-day, and yet we put it off until
to-morrow, and why? There is no answer, except that we feel perverse,
using the word with no comprehension of the principle. To-morrow
arrives, and with it a more impatient anxiety to do our duty, but
with this very increase of anxiety arrives, also, a nameless, a
positively fearful, because unfathomable, craving for delay. This
craving gathers strength as the moments fly. The last hour for action
is at hand. We tremble with the violence of the conflict within us,
-- of the definite with the indefinite -- of the substance with the
shadow. But, if the contest have proceeded thus far, it is the shadow
which prevails, -- we struggle in vain. The clock strikes, and is the
knell of our welfare. At the same time, it is the chanticleer -- note
to the ghost that has so long overawed us. It flies -- it disappears
-- we are free. The old energy returns. We will labor now. Alas, it
is too late!

We stand upon the brink of a precipice. We peer into the abyss -- we
grow sick and dizzy. Our first impulse is to shrink from the danger.
Unaccountably we remain. By slow degrees our sickness and dizziness
and horror become merged in a cloud of unnamable feeling. By
gradations, still more imperceptible, this cloud assumes shape, as
did the vapor from the bottle out of which arose the genius in the
Arabian Nights. But out of this our cloud upon the precipice's edge,
there grows into palpability, a shape, far more terrible than any
genius or any demon of a tale, and yet it is but a thought, although
a fearful one, and one which chills the very marrow of our bones with
the fierceness of the delight of its horror. It is merely the idea of
what would be our sensations during the sweeping precipitancy of a
fall from such a height. And this fall -- this rushing annihilation
-- for the very reason that it involves that one most ghastly and
loathsome of all the most ghastly and loathsome images of death and
suffering which have ever presented themselves to our imagination --
for this very cause do we now the most vividly desire it. And because
our reason violently deters us from the brink, therefore do we the
most impetuously approach it. There is no passion in nature so
demoniacally impatient, as that of him who, shuddering upon the edge
of a precipice, thus meditates a Plunge. To indulge, for a moment, in
any attempt at thought, is to be inevitably lost; for reflection but
urges us to forbear, and therefore it is, I say, that we cannot. If
there be no friendly arm to check us, or if we fail in a sudden
effort to prostrate ourselves backward from the abyss, we plunge, and
are destroyed.

Examine these similar actions as we will, we shall find them
resulting solely from the spirit of the Perverse. We perpetrate them
because we feel that we should not. Beyond or behind this there is no
intelligible principle; and we might, indeed, deem this perverseness
a direct instigation of the Arch-Fiend, were it not occasionally
known to operate in furtherance of good.

I have said thus much, that in some measure I may answer your
question, that I may explain to you why I am here, that I may assign
to you something that shall have at least the faint aspect of a cause
for my wearing these fetters, and for my tenanting this cell of the
condemned. Had I not been thus prolix, you might either have
misunderstood me altogether, or, with the rabble, have fancied me
mad. As it is, you will easily perceive that I am one of the many
uncounted victims of the Imp of the Perverse.

It is impossible that any deed could have been wrought with a more
thorough deliberation. For weeks, for months, I pondered upon the
means of the murder. I rejected a thousand schemes, because their
accomplishment involved a chance of detection. At length, in reading
some French Memoirs, I found an account of a nearly fatal illness
that occurred to Madame Pilau, through the agency of a candle
accidentally poisoned. The idea struck my fancy at once. I knew my
victim's habit of reading in bed. I knew, too, that his apartment was
narrow and ill-ventilated. But I need not vex you with impertinent
details. I need not describe the easy artifices by which I
substituted, in his bed-room candle-stand, a wax-light of my own
making for the one which I there found. The next morning he was
discovered dead in his bed, and the Coroner's verdict was -- "Death
by the visitation of God."

Having inherited his estate, all went well with me for years. The
idea of detection never once entered my brain. Of the remains of the
fatal taper I had myself carefully disposed. I had left no shadow of
a clew by which it would be possible to convict, or even to suspect
me of the crime. It is inconceivable how rich a sentiment of
satisfaction arose in my bosom as I reflected upon my absolute
security. For a very long period of time I was accustomed to revel in
this sentiment. It afforded me more real delight than all the mere
worldly advantages accruing from my sin. But there arrived at length
an epoch, from which the pleasurable feeling grew, by scarcely
perceptible gradations, into a haunting and harassing thought. It
harassed because it haunted. I could scarcely get rid of it for an
instant. It is quite a common thing to be thus annoyed with the
ringing in our ears, or rather in our memories, of the burthen of
some ordinary song, or some unimpressive snatches from an opera. Nor
will we be the less tormented if the song in itself be good, or the
opera air meritorious. In this manner, at last, I would perpetually
catch myself pondering upon my security, and repeating, in a low
undertone, the phrase, "I am safe."

One day, whilst sauntering along the streets, I arrested myself in
the act of murmuring, half aloud, these customary syllables. In a fit
of petulance, I remodelled them thus; "I am safe -- I am safe -- yes
-- if I be not fool enough to make open confession!"

No sooner had I spoken these words, than I felt an icy chill creep to
my heart. I had had some experience in these fits of perversity,
(whose nature I have been at some trouble to explain), and I
remembered well that in no instance I had successfully resisted their
attacks. And now my own casual self-suggestion that I might possibly
be fool enough to confess the murder of which I had been guilty,
confronted me, as if the very ghost of him whom I had murdered -- and
beckoned me on to death.

At first, I made an effort to shake off this nightmare of the soul. I
walked vigorously -- faster -- still faster -- at length I ran. I
felt a maddening desire to shriek aloud. Every succeeding wave of
thought overwhelmed me with new terror, for, alas! I well, too well
understood that to think, in my situation, was to be lost. I still
quickened my pace. I bounded like a madman through the crowded
thoroughfares. At length, the populace took the alarm, and pursued
me. I felt then the consummation of my fate. Could I have torn out my
tongue, I would have done it, but a rough voice resounded in my ears
-- a rougher grasp seized me by the shoulder. I turned -- I gasped
for breath. For a moment I experienced all the pangs of suffocation;
I became blind, and deaf, and giddy; and then some invisible fiend, I
thought, struck me with his broad palm upon the back. The long
imprisoned secret burst forth from my soul.

They say that I spoke with a distinct enunciation, but with marked
emphasis and passionate hurry, as if in dread of interruption before
concluding the brief, but pregnant sentences that consigned me to the
hangman and to hell.

Having related all that was necessary for the fullest judicial
conviction, I fell prostrate in a swoon.

But why shall I say more? To-day I wear these chains, and am here!
To-morrow I shall be fetterless! -- but where?

~~~ End of Text ~~~

======

THE ISLAND OF THE FAY

Nullus enim locus sine genio est. -- _Servius_.

"LA MUSIQUE," says Marmontel, in those "Contes Moraux" {*1} which in
all our translations, we have insisted upon calling "Moral Tales," as
if in mockery of their spirit -- "la musique est le seul des talents
qui jouissent de lui-meme; tous les autres veulent des temoins." He
here confounds the pleasure derivable from sweet sounds with the
capacity for creating them. No more than any other talent, is that
for music susceptible of complete enjoyment, where there is no second
party to appreciate its exercise. And it is only in common with other
talents that it produces effects which may be fully enjoyed in
solitude. The idea which the raconteur has either failed to entertain
clearly, or has sacrificed in its expression to his national love of
point, is, doubtless, the very tenable one that the higher order of
music is the most thoroughly estimated when we are exclusively alone.
The proposition, in this form, will be admitted at once by those who
love the lyre for its own sake, and for its spiritual uses. But there
is one pleasure still within the reach of fallen mortality and
perhaps only one -- which owes even more than does music to the
accessory sentiment of seclusion. I mean the happiness experienced in
the contemplation of natural scenery. In truth, the man who would
behold aright the glory of God upon earth must in solitude behold
that glory. To me, at least, the presence -- not of human life only,
but of life in any other form than that of the green things which
grow upon the soil and are voiceless -- is a stain upon the landscape
-- is at war with the genius of the scene. I love, indeed, to regard
the dark valleys, and the gray rocks, and the waters that silently
smile, and the forests that sigh in uneasy slumbers, and the proud
watchful mountains that look down upon all, -- I love to regard these
as themselves but the colossal members of one vast animate and
sentient whole -- a whole whose form (that of the sphere) is the most
perfect and most inclusive of all; whose path is among associate
planets; whose meek handmaiden is the moon, whose mediate sovereign
is the sun; whose life is eternity, whose thought is that of a God;
whose enjoyment is knowledge; whose destinies are lost in immensity,
whose cognizance of ourselves is akin with our own cognizance of the
animalculae which infest the brain -- a being which we, in
consequence, regard as purely inanimate and material much in the same
manner as these animalculae must thus regard us.

Our telescopes and our mathematical investigations assure us on every
hand -- notwithstanding the cant of the more ignorant of the
priesthood -- that space, and therefore that bulk, is an important
consideration in the eyes of the Almighty. The cycles in which the
stars move are those best adapted for the evolution, without
collision, of the greatest possible number of bodies. The forms of
those bodies are accurately such as, within a given surface, to
include the greatest possible amount of matter; -- while the surfaces
themselves are so disposed as to accommodate a denser population than
could be accommodated on the same surfaces otherwise arranged. Nor is
it any argument against bulk being an object with God, that space
itself is infinite; for there may be an infinity of matter to fill
it. And since we see clearly that the endowment of matter with
vitality is a principle -- indeed, as far as our judgments extend,
the leading principle in the operations of Deity, -- it is scarcely
logical to imagine it confined to the regions of the minute, where we
daily trace it, and not extending to those of the august. As we find
cycle within cycle without end, -- yet all revolving around one
far-distant centre which is the God-head, may we not analogically
suppose in the same manner, life within life, the less within the
greater, and all within the Spirit Divine? In short, we are madly
erring, through self-esteem, in believing man, in either his temporal
or future destinies, to be of more moment in the universe than that
vast "clod of the valley" which he tills and contemns, and to which
he denies a soul for no more profound reason than that he does not
behold it in operation. {*2}

These fancies, and such as these, have always given to my meditations
among the mountains and the forests, by the rivers and the ocean, a
tinge of what the everyday world would not fail to term fantastic. My
wanderings amid such scenes have been many, and far-searching, and
often solitary; and the interest with which I have strayed through
many a dim, deep valley, or gazed into the reflected Heaven of many a
bright lake, has been an interest greatly deepened by the thought
that I have strayed and gazed alone. What flippant Frenchman was it
who said in allusion to the well-known work of Zimmerman, that, "la
solitude est une belle chose; mais il faut quelqu'un pour vous dire
que la solitude est une belle chose?" The epigram cannot be
gainsayed; but the necessity is a thing that does not exist.

It was during one of my lonely journeyings, amid a far distant region
of mountain locked within mountain, and sad rivers and melancholy
tarn writhing or sleeping within all -- that I chanced upon a certain
rivulet and island. I came upon them suddenly in the leafy June, and
threw myself upon the turf, beneath the branches of an unknown
odorous shrub, that I might doze as I contemplated the scene. I felt
that thus only should I look upon it -- such was the character of
phantasm which it wore.

On all sides -- save to the west, where the sun was about sinking --
arose the verdant walls of the forest. The little river which turned
sharply in its course, and was thus immediately lost to sight, seemed
to have no exit from its prison, but to be absorbed by the deep green
foliage of the trees to the east -- while in the opposite quarter (so
it appeared to me as I lay at length and glanced upward) there poured
down noiselessly and continuously into the valley, a rich golden and
crimson waterfall from the sunset fountains of the sky.

About midway in the short vista which my dreamy vision took in, one
small circular island, profusely verdured, reposed upon the bosom of
the stream.

So blended bank and shadow there

That each seemed pendulous in air -- so mirror-like was the glassy
water, that it was scarcely possible to say at what point upon the
slope of the emerald turf its crystal dominion began.

My position enabled me to include in a single view both the eastern
and western extremities of the islet; and I observed a
singularly-marked difference in their aspects. The latter was all one
radiant harem of garden beauties. It glowed and blushed beneath the
eyes of the slant sunlight, and fairly laughed with flowers. The
grass was short, springy, sweet-scented, and Asphodel-interspersed.
The trees were lithe, mirthful, erect -- bright, slender, and
graceful, -- of eastern figure and foliage, with bark smooth, glossy,
and parti-colored. There seemed a deep sense of life and joy about
all; and although no airs blew from out the heavens, yet every thing
had motion through the gentle sweepings to and fro of innumerable
butterflies, that might have been mistaken for tulips with wings.
{*4}

The other or eastern end of the isle was whelmed in the blackest
shade. A sombre, yet beautiful and peaceful gloom here pervaded all
things. The trees were dark in color, and mournful in form and
attitude, wreathing themselves into sad, solemn, and spectral shapes
that conveyed ideas of mortal sorrow and untimely death. The grass
wore the deep tint of the cypress, and the heads of its blades hung
droopingly, and hither and thither among it were many small unsightly
hillocks, low and narrow, and not very long, that had the aspect of
graves, but were not; although over and all about them the rue and
the rosemary clambered. The shade of the trees fell heavily upon the
water, and seemed to bury itself therein, impregnating the depths of
the element with darkness. I fancied that each shadow, as the sun
descended lower and lower, separated itself sullenly from the trunk
that gave it birth, and thus became absorbed by the stream; while
other shadows issued momently from the trees, taking the place of
their predecessors thus entombed.

This idea, having once seized upon my fancy, greatly excited it, and
I lost myself forthwith in revery. "If ever island were enchanted,"
said I to myself, "this is it. This is the haunt of the few gentle
Fays who remain from the wreck of the race. Are these green tombs
theirs? -- or do they yield up their sweet lives as mankind yield up
their own? In dying, do they not rather waste away mournfully,
rendering unto God, little by little, their existence, as these trees
render up shadow after shadow, exhausting their substance unto
dissolution? What the wasting tree is to the water that imbibes its
shade, growing thus blacker by what it preys upon, may not the life
of the Fay be to the death which engulfs it?"

As I thus mused, with half-shut eyes, while the sun sank rapidly to
rest, and eddying currents careered round and round the island,
bearing upon their bosom large, dazzling, white flakes of the bark of
the sycamore-flakes which, in their multiform positions upon the
water, a quick imagination might have converted into any thing it
pleased, while I thus mused, it appeared to me that the form of one
of those very Fays about whom I had been pondering made its way
slowly into the darkness from out the light at the western end of the
island. She stood erect in a singularly fragile canoe, and urged it
with the mere phantom of an oar. While within the influence of the
lingering sunbeams, her attitude seemed indicative of joy -- but
sorrow deformed it as she passed within the shade. Slowly she glided
along, and at length rounded the islet and re-entered the region of
light. "The revolution which has just been made by the Fay,"
continued I, musingly, "is the cycle of the brief year of her life.
She has floated through her winter and through her summer. She is a
year nearer unto Death; for I did not fail to see that, as she came
into the shade, her shadow fell from her, and was swallowed up in the
dark water, making its blackness more black."

And again the boat appeared and the Fay, but about the attitude of
the latter there was more of care and uncertainty and less of elastic
joy. She floated again from out the light and into the gloom (which
deepened momently) and again her shadow fell from her into the ebony
water, and became absorbed into its blackness. And again and again
she made the circuit of the island, (while the sun rushed down to his
slumbers), and at each issuing into the light there was more sorrow
about her person, while it grew feebler and far fainter and more
indistinct, and at each passage into the gloom there fell from her a
darker shade, which became whelmed in a shadow more black. But at
length when the sun had utterly departed, the Fay, now the mere ghost
of her former self, went disconsolately with her boat into the region
of the ebony flood, and that she issued thence at all I cannot say,
for darkness fell over an things and I beheld her magical figure no
more.

~~~ End of Text ~~~

======

THE ASSIGNATION

Stay for me there  !   I will not fail.
To meet thee in that hollow vale.

[_Exequy on the death of his wife, by Henry King, Bishop of
Chichester_.]

   ILL-FATED and mysterious man  !  - bewildered in the brilliancy of
thine own imagination, and fallen in the flames of thine own youth !
Again in fancy I behold thee !  Once more thy form hath risen before
me !  - not - oh not as thou art - in the cold valley and shadow -
but as thou _shouldst be_ - squandering away a life of magnificent
meditation in that city of dim visions, thine own Venice - which is a
star-beloved Elysium of the sea, and the wide windows of whose
Palladian palaces look down with a deep and bitter meaning upon the
secrets of her silent waters.  Yes !  I repeat it - as thou _shouldst
be_.  There are surely other worlds than this - other thoughts than
the thoughts of the multitude - other speculations than the
speculations of the sophist.  Who then shall call thy conduct into
question  ?    who blame thee for thy visionary hours, or denounce
those occupations as a wasting away of life, which were but the
overflowings of thine everlasting energies ?

   It was at Venice, beneath the covered archway there called the
_Ponte di Sospiri_, that I met for the third or fourth time the
person of whom I speak.  It is with a confused recollection that I
bring to mind the circumstances of that meeting.  Yet I remember - ah
!   how should I forget  ?  - the deep midnight, the Bridge of Sighs,
the beauty of woman, and the Genius of Romance that stalked up and
down the narrow canal.

   It was a night of unusual gloom.  The great clock of the Piazza
had sounded the fifth hour of the Italian evening.  The square of the
Campanile lay silent and deserted, and the lights in the old Ducal
Palace were dying fast away.  I was returning home from the Piazetta,
by way of the Grand Canal.  But as my gondola arrived opposite the
mouth of the canal San Marco, a female voice from its recesses broke
suddenly upon the night, in one wild, hysterical, and long continued
shriek.  Startled at the sound, I sprang upon my feet :  while the
gondolier, letting slip his single oar, lost it in the pitchy
darkness beyond a chance of recovery, and we were consequently left
to the guidance of the current which here sets from the greater into
the smaller channel.  Like some huge and sable-feathered condor, we
were slowly drifting down towards the Bridge of Sighs, when a
thousand flambeaux flashing from the windows, and down the staircases
of the Ducal Palace, turned all at once that deep gloom into a livid
and preternatural day.

   A child, slipping from the arms of its own mother, had fallen from
an upper window of the lofty structure into the deep and dim canal.
The quiet waters had closed placidly over their victim ;  and,
although my own gondola was the only one in sight, many a stout
swimmer, already in the stream, was seeking in vain upon the surface,
the treasure which was to be found, alas !  only within the abyss.
Upon the broad black marble flagstones at the entrance of the palace,
and a few steps above the water, stood a figure which none who then
saw can have ever since forgotten. It was the Marchesa Aphrodite -
the adoration of all Venice - the gayest of the gay - the most lovely
where all were beautiful - but still the young wife of the old and
intriguing Mentoni, and the mother of that fair child, her first and
only one, who now, deep beneath the murky water, was thinking in
bitterness of heart upon her sweet caresses, and exhausting its
little life in struggles to call upon her name.

   She stood alone.  Her small, bare, and silvery feet gleamed in the
black mirror of marble beneath her.  Her hair, not as yet more than
half loosened for the night from its ball-room array, clustered, amid
a shower of diamonds, round and round her classical head, in curls
like those of the young hyacinth.  A snowy-white and gauze-like
drapery seemed to be nearly the sole covering to her delicate form ;
but the mid-summer and midnight air was hot, sullen, and still, and
no motion in the statue-like form itself, stirred even the folds of
that raiment of very vapor which hung around it as the heavy marble
hangs around the Niobe.  Yet - strange to say !  - her large lustrous
eyes were not turned downwards upon that grave wherein her brightest
hope lay buried - but riveted in a widely different direction !  The
prison of the Old Republic is, I think, the stateliest building in
all Venice - but how could that lady gaze so fixedly upon it, when
beneath her lay stifling her only child ?  Yon dark, gloomy niche,
too, yawns right opposite her chamber window - what, then, _could_
there be in its shadows - in its architecture - in its ivy-wreathed
and solemn cornices - that the Marchesa di Mentoni had not wondered
at a thousand times before ?  Nonsense ! - Who does not remember
that, at such a time as this, the eye, like a shattered mirror,
multiplies the images of its sorrow, and sees in innumerable far-off
places, the wo which is close at hand ?

   Many steps above the Marchesa, and within the arch of the
water-gate, stood, in full dress, the Satyr-like figure of Mentoni
himself.  He was occasionally occupied in thrumming a guitar, and
seemed _ennuye_ to the very death, as at intervals he gave directions
for the recovery of his child.  Stupified and aghast, I had myself no
power to move from the upright position I had assumed upon first
hearing the shriek, and must have presented to the eyes of the
agitated group a spectral and ominous appearance, as with pale
countenance and rigid limbs, I floated down among them in that
funereal gondola.

   All efforts proved in vain.  Many of the most energetic in the
search were relaxing their exertions, and yielding to a gloomy
sorrow. There seemed but little hope for the child ;  (how much less
than for the mother !  ) but now, from the interior of that dark
niche which has been already mentioned as forming a part of the Old
Republican prison, and as fronting the lattice of the Marchesa, a
figure muffled in a cloak, stepped out within reach of the light,
and, pausing a moment upon the verge of the giddy descent, plunged
headlong into the canal.  As, in an instant afterwards, he stood with
the still living and breathing child within his grasp, upon the
marble flagstones by the side of the Marchesa, his cloak, heavy with
the drenching water, became unfastened, and, falling in folds about
his feet, discovered to the wonder-stricken spectators the graceful
person of a very young man, with the sound of whose name the greater
part of Europe was then ringing.

   No word spoke the deliverer.  But the Marchesa !  She will now
receive her child - she will press it to her heart - she will cling
to its little form, and smother it with her caresses.  Alas !
_another's_ arms have taken it from the stranger - _another's_ arms
have taken it away, and borne it afar off, unnoticed, into the palace
!  And the Marchesa !  Her lip - her beautiful lip trembles :  tears
are gathering in her eyes - those eyes which, like Pliny's acanthus,
are "soft and almost liquid." Yes !  tears are gathering in those
eyes - and see !  the entire woman thrills throughout the soul, and
the statue has started into life !  The pallor of the marble
countenance, the swelling of the marble bosom, the very purity of the
marble feet, we behold suddenly flushed over with a tide of
ungovernable crimson ;  and a slight shudder quivers about her
delicate frame, as a gentle air at Napoli about the rich silver
lilies in the grass.

   Why _should_ that lady blush !  To this demand there is no answer
- except that, having left, in the eager haste and terror of a
mother's heart, the privacy of her own _boudoir_, she has neglected
to enthral her tiny feet in their slippers, and utterly forgotten to
throw over her Venetian shoulders that drapery which is their due.
What other possible reason could there have been for her so blushing
? - for the glance of those wild appealing eyes ?  for the unusual
tumult of that throbbing bosom  ?  - for the convulsive pressure of
that trembling hand ? - that hand which fell, as Mentoni turned into
the palace, accidentally, upon the hand of the stranger.  What reason
could there have been for the low - the singularly low tone of those
unmeaning words which the lady uttered hurriedly in bidding him adieu
?  "Thou hast conquered," she said, or the murmurs of the water
deceived me ;  "thou hast conquered - one hour after sunrise - we
shall meet - so let it be !"

*     *      *     *     *      *     *

   The tumult had subsided, the lights had died away within the
palace, and the stranger, whom I now recognized, stood alone upon the
flags.  He shook with inconceivable agitation, and his eye glanced
around in search of a gondola.  I could not do less than offer him
the service of my own ;  and he accepted the civility. Having
obtained an oar at the water-gate, we proceeded together to his
residence, while he rapidly recovered his self-possession, and spoke
of our former slight acquaintance in terms of great apparent
cordiality.

   There are some subjects upon which I take pleasure in being
minute.  The person of the stranger - let me call him by this title,
who to all the world was still a stranger - the person of the
stranger is one of these subjects.  In height he might have been
below rather than above the medium size :  although there were
moments of intense passion when his frame actually _expanded_ and
belied the assertion.  The light, almost slender symmetry of his
figure, promised more of that ready activity which he evinced at the
Bridge of Sighs, than of that Herculean strength which he has been
known to wield without an effort, upon occasions of more dangerous
emergency.  With the mouth and chin of a deity - singular, wild,
full, liquid eyes, whose shadows varied from pure hazel to intense
and brilliant jet - and a profusion of curling, black hair, from
which a forehead of unusual breadth gleamed forth at intervals all
light and ivory - his were features than which I have seen none more
classically regular, except, perhaps, the marble ones of the Emperor
Commodus.  Yet his countenance was, nevertheless, one of those which
all men have seen at some period of their lives, and have never
afterwards seen again.  It had no peculiar - it had no settled
predominant expression to be fastened upon the memory ;  a
countenance seen and instantly forgotten - but forgotten with a vague
and never-ceasing desire of recalling it to mind.  Not that the
spirit of each rapid passion failed, at any time, to throw its own
distinct image upon the mirror of that face - but that the mirror,
mirror-like, retained no vestige of the passion, when the passion had
departed.

   Upon leaving him on the night of our adventure, he solicited me,
in what I thought an urgent manner, to call upon him _very_ early the
next morning.  Shortly after sunrise, I found myself accordingly at
his Palazzo, one of those huge structures of gloomy, yet fantastic
pomp, which tower above the waters of the Grand Canal in the vicinity
of the Rialto.  I was shown up a broad winding staircase of mosaics,
into an apartment whose unparalleled splendor burst through the
opening door with an actual glare, making me blind and dizzy with
luxuriousness.

   I knew my acquaintance to be wealthy.  Report had spoken of his
possessions in terms which I had even ventured to call terms of
ridiculous exaggeration.  But as I gazed about me, I could not bring
myself to believe that the wealth of any subject in Europe could have
supplied the princely magnificence which burned and blazed around.

   Although, as I say, the sun had arisen, yet the room was still
brilliantly lighted up.  I judge from this circumstance, as well as
from an air of exhaustion in the countenance of my friend, that he
had not retired to bed during the whole of the preceding night.  In
the architecture and embellishments of the chamber, the evident
design had been to dazzle and astound.  Little attention had been
paid to the _decora_ of what is technically called _keeping_, or to
the proprieties of nationality. The eye wandered from object to
object, and rested upon none - neither the _grotesques_ of the Greek
painters, nor the sculptures of the best Italian days, nor the huge
carvings of untutored Egypt.  Rich draperies in every part of the
room trembled to the vibration of low, melancholy music, whose origin
was not to be discovered.  The senses were oppressed by mingled and
conflicting perfumes, reeking up from strange convolute censers,
together with multitudinous flaring and flickering tongues of emerald
and violet fire.  The rays of the newly risen sun poured in upon the
whole, through windows, formed each of a single pane of
crimson-tinted glass.  Glancing to and fro, in a thousand
reflections, from curtains which rolled from their cornices like
cataracts of molten silver, the beams of natural glory mingled at
length fitfully with the artificial light, and lay weltering in
subdued masses upon a carpet of rich, liquid-looking cloth of Chili
gold.

   "Ha !  ha !  ha !  - ha !  ha !  ha !  " - laughed the proprietor,
motioning me to a seat as I entered the room, and throwing himself
back at full-length upon an ottoman.  "I see," said he, perceiving
that I could not immediately reconcile myself to the _bienseance_ of
so singular a welcome - "I see you are astonished at my apartment -
at my statues - my pictures - my originality of conception in
architecture and upholstery !  absolutely drunk, eh, with my
magnificence ?  But pardon me, my dear sir, (here his tone of voice
dropped to the very spirit of cordiality,) pardon me for my
uncharitable laughter.  You appeared so _utterly_ astonished.
Besides, some things are so completely ludicrous, that a man _must_
laugh or die.  To die laughing, must be the most glorious of all
glorious deaths !  Sir Thomas More - a very fine man was Sir Thomas
More - Sir Thomas More died laughing, you remember.  Also in the
_Absurdities_ of Ravisius Textor, there is a long list of characters
who came to the same magnificent end.  Do you know, however,"
continued he musingly, "that at Sparta (which is now Palæ ;  ochori,)
at Sparta, I say, to the west of the citadel, among a chaos of
scarcely visible ruins, is a kind of _socle_, upon which are still
legible the letters  7!=9 . They are undoubtedly part of  '+7!=9! .
Now, at Sparta were a thousand temples and shrines to a thousand
different divinities.  How exceedingly strange that the altar of
Laughter should have survived all the others !  But in the present
instance," he resumed, with a singular alteration of voice and
manner, "I have no right to be merry at your expense.  You might well
have been amazed.  Europe cannot produce anything so fine as this, my
little regal cabinet.  My other apartments are by no means of the
same order - mere _ultras_ of fashionable insipidity. This is better
than fashion - is it not ?  Yet this has but to be seen to become the
rage - that is, with those who could afford it at the cost of their
entire patrimony.  I have guarded, however, against any such
profanation. With one exception, you are the only human being besides
myself and my _valet_, who has been admitted within the mysteries of
these imperial precincts, since they have been bedizzened as you see
!"

   I bowed in acknowledgment - for the overpowering sense of splendor
and perfume, and music, together with the unexpected eccentricity of
his address and manner, prevented me from expressing, in words, my
appreciation of what I might have construed into a compliment.

   "Here," he resumed, arising and leaning on my arm as he sauntered
around the apartment, "here are paintings from the Greeks to Cimabue,
and from Cimabue to the present hour.  Many are chosen, as you see,
with little deference to the opinions of Virtu.  They are all,
however, fitting tapestry for a chamber such as this.  Here, too, are
some _chefs d'œuvre_ of the unknown great ;  and here, unfinished
designs by men, celebrated in their day, whose very names the
perspicacity of the academies has left to silence and to me.  What
think you," said he, turning abruptly as he spoke - "what think you
of this Madonna della Pieta ?"

   "It is Guido's own !  " I said, with all the enthusiasm of my
nature, for I had been poring intently over its surpassing
loveliness. "It is Guido's own !  - how _could_ you have obtained it
?  - she is undoubtedly in painting what the Venus is in sculpture."

   "Ha !  " said he thoughtfully, "the Venus - the beautiful Venus ?
- the Venus of the Medici ?  - she of the diminutive head and the
gilded hair ?  Part of the left arm (here his voice dropped so as to
be heard with difficulty,) and all the right, are restorations ;  and
in the coquetry of that right arm lies, I think, the quintessence of
all affectation.  Give _me_ the Canova !  The Apollo, too, is a copy
- there can be no doubt of it - blind fool that I am, who cannot
behold the boasted inspiration of the Apollo !  I cannot help - pity
me !  - I cannot help preferring the Antinous.  Was it not Socrates
who said that the statuary found his statue in the block of marble ?
Then Michael Angelo was by no means original in his couplet -

     'Non ha l'ottimo artista alcun concetto
     Che un marmo solo in se non circunscriva.' "

   It has been, or should be remarked, that, in the manner of the
true gentleman, we are always aware of a difference from the bearing
of the vulgar, without being at once precisely able to determine in
what such difference consists.  Allowing the remark to have applied
in its full force to the outward demeanor of my acquaintance, I felt
it, on that eventful morning, still more fully applicable to his
moral temperament and character. Nor can I better define that
peculiarity of spirit which seemed to place him so essentially apart
from all other human beings, than by calling it a _habit_ of intense
and continual thought, pervading even his most trivial actions -
intruding upon his moments of dalliance - and interweaving itself
with his very flashes of merriment - like adders which writhe from
out the eyes of the grinning masks in the cornices around the temples
of Persepolis.

   I could not help, however, repeatedly observing, through the
mingled tone of levity and solemnity with which he rapidly descanted
upon matters of little importance, a certain air of trepidation - a
degree of nervous _unction_ in action and in speech - an unquiet
excitability of manner which appeared to me at all times
unaccountable, and upon some occasions even filled me with alarm.
Frequently, too, pausing in the middle of a sentence whose
commencement he had apparently forgotten, he seemed to be listening
in the deepest attention, as if either in momentary expectation of a
visiter, or to sounds which must have had existence in his
imagination alone.

   It was during one of these reveries or pauses of apparent
abstraction, that, in turning over a page of the poet and scholar
Politian's beautiful tragedy "The Orfeo," (the first native Italian
tragedy,) which lay near me upon an ottoman, I discovered a passage
underlined in pencil.  It was a passage towards the end of the third
act - a passage of the most heart-stirring excitement - a passage
which, although tainted with impurity, no man shall read without a
thrill of novel emotion - no woman without a sigh.  The whole page
was blotted with fresh tears ;  and, upon the opposite interleaf,
were the following English lines, written in a hand so very different
from the peculiar characters of my acquaintance, that I had some
difficulty in recognising it as his own :  -

     Thou wast that all to me, love,
        For which my soul did pine -
     A green isle in the sea, love,
        A fountain and a shrine,
     All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers ;
        And all the flowers were mine.
     Ah, dream too bright to last !
        Ah, starry Hope, that didst arise
     But to be overcast !
        A voice from out the Future cries,
     "Onward !  " - but o'er the Past
        (Dim gulf !  ) my spirit hovering lies,
     Mute - motionless - aghast !
     For alas !  alas !  with me
        The light of life is o'er.
     "No more - no more - no more,"
     (Such language holds the solemn sea
        To the sands upon the shore,)
     Shall bloom the thunder-blasted tree,
        Or the stricken eagle soar !
     Now all my hours are trances ;
        And all my nightly dreams
     Are where the dark eye glances,
        And where thy footstep gleams,
     In what ethereal dances,
        By what Italian streams.
     Alas !  for that accursed time
        They bore thee o'er the billow,
     From Love to titled age and crime,
        And an unholy pillow !  -
     From me, and from our misty clime,
        Where weeps the silver willow  !

   That these lines were written in English - a language with which I
had not believed their author acquainted - afforded me little matter
for surprise.  I was too well aware of the extent of his
acquirements, and of the singular pleasure he took in concealing them
from observation, to be astonished at any similar discovery ;  but
the place of date, I must confess, occasioned me no little amazement.
 It had been originally written _London_, and afterwards carefully
overscored - not, however, so effectually as to conceal the word from
a scrutinizing eye.  I say, this occasioned me no little amazement ;
for I well remember that, in a former conversation with a friend, I
particularly inquired if he had at any time met in London the
Marchesa di Mentoni, (who for some years previous to her marriage had
resided in that city,) when his answer, if I mistake not, gave me to
understand that he had never visited the metropolis of Great Britain.
 I might as well here mention, that I have more than once heard,
(without, of course, giving credit to a report involving so many
improbabilities,) that the person of whom I speak, was not only by
birth, but in education, an _Englishman_.

*      *       *      *       *      *       *      *       *

   "There is one painting," said he, without being aware of my notice
of the tragedy - "there is still one painting which you have not
seen." And throwing aside a drapery, he discovered a full-length
portrait of the Marchesa Aphrodite.

     Human art could have done no more in the delineation of her
superhuman beauty.  The same ethereal figure which stood before me
the preceding night upon the steps of the Ducal Palace, stood before
me once again.  But in the expression of the countenance, which was
beaming all over with smiles, there still lurked (incomprehensible
anomaly !) that fitful stain of melancholy which will ever be found
inseparable from the perfection of the beautiful.  Her right arm lay
folded over her bosom.  With her left she pointed downward to a
curiously fashioned vase.  One small, fairy foot, alone visible,
barely touched the earth ;  and, scarcely discernible in the
brilliant atmosphere which seemed to encircle and enshrine her
loveliness, floated a pair of the most delicately imagined wings.  My
glance fell from the painting to the figure of my friend, and the
vigorous words of Chapman's _Bussy D'Ambois_, quivered instinctively
upon my lips :

                        "He is up
     There like a Roman statue !  He will stand
     Till Death hath made him marble !"

   "Come," he said at length, turning towards a table of richly
enamelled and massive silver, upon which were a few goblets
fantastically stained, together with two large Etruscan vases,
fashioned in the same extraordinary model as that in the foreground
of the portrait, and filled with what I supposed to be
Johannisberger.  "Come," he said, abruptly, "let us drink !  It is
early - but let us drink.  It is _indeed_ early," he continued,
musingly, as a cherub with a heavy golden hammer made the apartment
ring with the first hour after sunrise :  "It is _indeed_ early - but
what matters it ?  let us drink !  Let us pour out an offering to yon
solemn sun which these gaudy lamps and censers are so eager to subdue
!" And, having made me pledge him in a bumper, he swallowed in rapid
succession several goblets of the wine.

   "To dream," he continued, resuming the tone of his desultory
conversation, as he held up to the rich light of a censer one of the
magnificent vases - "to dream has been the business of my life. I
have therefore framed for myself, as you see, a bower of dreams.  In
the heart of Venice could I have erected a better ?  You behold
around you, it is true, a medley of architectural embellishments. The
chastity of Ionia is offended by antediluvian devices, and the
sphynxes of Egypt are outstretched upon carpets of gold.  Yet the
effect is incongruous to the timid alone.  Proprieties of place, and
especially of time, are the bugbears which terrify mankind from the
contemplation of the magnificent. Once I was myself a decorist ;  but
that sublimation of folly has palled upon my soul.  All this is now
the fitter for my purpose.  Like these arabesque censers, my spirit
is writhing in fire, and the delirium of this scene is fashioning me
for the wilder visions of that land of real dreams whither I am now
rapidly departing."  He here paused abruptly, bent his head to his
bosom, and seemed to listen to a sound which I could not hear.  At
length, erecting his frame, he looked upwards, and ejaculated the
lines of the Bishop of Chichester :

     _"Stay for me there !  I will not fail_
     _To meet thee in that hollow vale."_

In the next instant, confessing the power of the wine, he threw
himself at full-length upon an ottoman.

   A quick step was now heard upon the staircase, and a loud knock at
the door rapidly succeeded.  I was hastening to anticipate a second
disturbance, when a page of Mentoni's household burst into the room,
and faltered out, in a voice choking with emotion, the incoherent
words, "My mistress !  - my mistress !  - Poisoned !  - poisoned !
Oh, beautiful - oh, beautiful Aphrodite !"

   Bewildered, I flew to the ottoman, and endeavored to arouse the
sleeper to a sense of the startling intelligence.  But his limbs were
rigid - his lips were livid - his lately beaming eyes were riveted in
_death_.  I staggered back towards the table - my hand fell upon a
cracked and blackened goblet - and a consciousness of the entire and
terrible truth flashed suddenly over my soul.

~~~ End of Text ~~~

======

THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM

Impia tortorum longos hic turba furores
Sanguinis innocui, non satiata, aluit.
Sospite nunc patria, fracto nunc funeris antro,
Mors ubi dira fuit vita salusque patent.

[_Quatrain composed for the gates of a market to he erected upon the
site of the Jacobin Club House at Paris_.]

I WAS sick -- sick unto death with that long agony; and when they at
length unbound me, and I was permitted to sit, I felt that my senses
were leaving me. The sentence -- the dread sentence of death -- was
the last of distinct accentuation which reached my ears. After that,
the sound of the inquisitorial voices seemed merged in one dreamy
indeterminate hum. It conveyed to my soul the idea of revolution --
perhaps from its association in fancy with the burr of a mill wheel.
This only for a brief period; for presently I heard no more. Yet, for
a while, I saw; but with how terrible an exaggeration! I saw the lips
of the black-robed judges. They appeared to me white -- whiter than
the sheet upon which I trace these words -- and thin even to
grotesqueness; thin with the intensity of their expression of
firmness -- of immoveable resolution -- of stern contempt of human
torture. I saw that the decrees of what to me was Fate, were still
issuing from those lips. I saw them writhe with a deadly locution. I
saw them fashion the syllables of my name; and I shuddered because no
sound succeeded. I saw, too, for a few moments of delirious horror,
the soft and nearly imperceptible waving of the sable draperies which
enwrapped the walls of the apartment. And then my vision fell upon
the seven tall candles upon the table. At first they wore the aspect
of charity, and seemed white and slender angels who would save me;
but then, all at once, there came a most deadly nausea over my
spirit, and I felt every fibre in my frame thrill as if I had touched
the wire of a galvanic battery, while the angel forms became
meaningless spectres, with heads of flame, and I saw that from them
there would be no help. And then there stole into my fancy, like a
rich musical note, the thought of what sweet rest there must be in
the grave. The thought came gently and stealthily, and it seemed long
before it attained full appreciation; but just as my spirit came at
length properly to feel and entertain it, the figures of the judges
vanished, as if magically, from before me; the tall candles sank into
nothingness; their flames went out utterly; the blackness of darkness
supervened; all sensations appeared swallowed up in a mad rushing
descent as of the soul into Hades. Then silence, and stillness, night
were the universe.

I had swooned; but still will not say that all of consciousness was
lost. What of it there remained I will not attempt to define, or even
to describe; yet all was not lost. In the deepest slumber -- no! In
delirium -- no! In a swoon -- no! In death -- no! even in the grave
all is not lost. Else there is no immortality for man. Arousing from
the most profound of slumbers, we break the gossamer web of some
dream. Yet in a second afterward, (so frail may that web have been)
we remember not that we have dreamed. In the return to life from the
swoon there are two stages; first, that of the sense of mental or
spiritual; secondly, that of the sense of physical, existence. It
seems probable that if, upon reaching the second stage, we could
recall the impressions of the first, we should find these impressions
eloquent in memories of the gulf beyond. And that gulf is -- what?
How at least shall we distinguish its shadows from those of the tomb?
But if the impressions of what I have termed the first stage, are
not, at will, recalled, yet, after long interval, do they not come
unbidden, while we marvel whence they come? He who has never swooned,
is not he who finds strange palaces and wildly familiar faces in
coals that glow; is not he who beholds floating in mid-air the sad
visions that the many may not view; is not he who ponders over the
perfume of some novel flower -- is not he whose brain grows
bewildered with the meaning of some musical cadence which has never
before arrested his attention.

Amid frequent and thoughtful endeavors to remember; amid earnest
struggles to regather some token of the state of seeming nothingness
into which my soul had lapsed, there have been moments when I have
dreamed of success; there have been brief, very brief periods when I
have conjured up remembrances which the lucid reason of a later epoch
assures me could have had reference only to that condition of seeming
unconsciousness. These shadows of memory tell, indistinctly, of tall
figures that lifted and bore me in silence down -- down -- still down
-- till a hideous dizziness oppressed me at the mere idea of the
interminableness of the descent. They tell also of a vague horror at
my heart, on account of that heart's unnatural stillness. Then comes
a sense of sudden motionlessness throughout all things; as if those
who bore me (a ghastly train!) had outrun, in their descent, the
limits of the limitless, and paused from the wearisomeness of their
toil. After this I call to mind flatness and dampness; and then all
is madness -- the madness of a memory which busies itself among
forbidden things.

Very suddenly there came back to my soul motion and sound -- the
tumultuous motion of the heart, and, in my ears, the sound of its
beating. Then a pause in which all is blank. Then again sound, and
motion, and touch -- a tingling sensation pervading my frame. Then
the mere consciousness of existence, without thought -- a condition
which lasted long. Then, very suddenly, thought, and shuddering
terror, and earnest endeavor to comprehend my true state. Then a
strong desire to lapse into insensibility. Then a rushing revival of
soul and a successful effort to move. And now a full memory of the
trial, of the judges, of the sable draperies, of the sentence, of the
sickness, of the swoon. Then entire forgetfulness of all that
followed; of all that a later day and much earnestness of endeavor
have enabled me vaguely to recall.

So far, I had not opened my eyes. I felt that I lay upon my back,
unbound. I reached out my hand, and it fell heavily upon something
damp and hard. There I suffered it to remain for many minutes, while
I strove to imagine where and what I could be. I longed, yet dared
not to employ my vision. I dreaded the first glance at objects around
me. It was not that I feared to look upon things horrible, but that I
grew aghast lest there should be nothing to see. At length, with a
wild desperation at heart, I quickly unclosed my eyes. My worst
thoughts, then, were confirmed. The blackness of eternal night
encompassed me. I struggled for breath. The intensity of the darkness
seemed to oppress and stifle me. The atmosphere was intolerably
close. I still lay quietly, and made effort to exercise my reason. I
brought to mind the inquisitorial proceedings, and attempted from
that point to deduce my real condition. The sentence had passed; and
it appeared to me that a very long interval of time had since
elapsed. Yet not for a moment did I suppose myself actually dead.
Such a supposition, notwithstanding what we read in fiction, is
altogether inconsistent with real existence; -- but where and in what
state was I? The condemned to death, I knew, perished usually at the
autos-da-fe, and one of these had been held on the very night of the
day of my trial. Had I been remanded to my dungeon, to await the next
sacrifice, which would not take place for many months? This I at once
saw could not be. Victims had been in immediate demand. Moreover, my
dungeon, as well as all the condemned cells at Toledo, had stone
floors, and light was not altogether excluded.

A fearful idea now suddenly drove the blood in torrents upon my
heart, and for a brief period, I once more relapsed into
insensibility. Upon recovering, I at once started to my feet,
trembling convulsively in every fibre. I thrust my arms wildly above
and around me in all directions. I felt nothing; yet dreaded to move
a step, lest I should be impeded by the walls of a tomb. Perspiration
burst from every pore, and stood in cold big beads upon my forehead.
The agony of suspense grew at length intolerable, and I cautiously
moved forward, with my arms extended, and my eyes straining from
their sockets, in the hope of catching some faint ray of light. I
proceeded for many paces; but still all was blackness and vacancy. I
breathed more freely. It seemed evident that mine was not, at least,
the most hideous of fates.

And now, as I still continued to step cautiously onward, there came
thronging upon my recollection a thousand vague rumors of the horrors
of Toledo. Of the dungeons there had been strange things narrated --
fables I had always deemed them -- but yet strange, and too ghastly
to repeat, save in a whisper. Was I left to perish of starvation in
this subterranean world of darkness; or what fate, perhaps even more
fearful, awaited me? That the result would be death, and a death of
more than customary bitterness, I knew too well the character of my
judges to doubt. The mode and the hour were all that occupied or
distracted me.

My outstretched hands at length encountered some solid obstruction.
It was a wall, seemingly of stone masonry -- very smooth, slimy, and
cold. I followed it up; stepping with all the careful distrust with
which certain antique narratives had inspired me. This process,
however, afforded me no means of ascertaining the dimensions of my
dungeon; as I might make its circuit, and return to the point whence
I set out, without being aware of the fact; so perfectly uniform
seemed the wall. I therefore sought the knife which had been in my
pocket, when led into the inquisitorial chamber; but it was gone; my
clothes had been exchanged for a wrapper of coarse serge. I had
thought of forcing the blade in some minute crevice of the masonry,
so as to identify my point of departure. The difficulty,
nevertheless, was but trivial; although, in the disorder of my fancy,
it seemed at first insuperable. I tore a part of the hem from the
robe and placed the fragment at full length, and at right angles to
the wall. In groping my way around the prison, I could not fail to
encounter this rag upon completing the circuit. So, at least I
thought: but I had not counted upon the extent of the dungeon, or
upon my own weakness. The ground was moist and slippery. I staggered
onward for some time, when I stumbled and fell. My excessive fatigue
induced me to remain prostrate; and sleep soon overtook me as I lay.

Upon awaking, and stretching forth an arm, I found beside me a loaf
and a pitcher with water. I was too much exhausted to reflect upon
this circumstance, but ate and drank with avidity. Shortly afterward,
I resumed my tour around the prison, and with much toil came at last
upon the fragment of the serge. Up to the period when I fell I had
counted fifty-two paces, and upon resuming my walk, I had counted
forty-eight more; -- when I arrived at the rag. There were in all,
then, a hundred paces; and, admitting two paces to the yard, I
presumed the dungeon to be fifty yards in circuit. I had met,
however, with many angles in the wall, and thus I could form no guess
at the shape of the vault; for vault I could not help supposing it to
be.

I had little object -- certainly no hope these researches; but a
vague curiosity prompted me to continue them. Quitting the wall, I
resolved to cross the area of the enclosure. At first I proceeded
with extreme caution, for the floor, although seemingly of solid
material, was treacherous with slime. At length, however, I took
courage, and did not hesitate to step firmly; endeavoring to cross in
as direct a line as possible. I had advanced some ten or twelve paces
in this manner, when the remnant of the torn hem of my robe became
entangled between my legs. I stepped on it, and fell violently on my
face.

In the confusion attending my fall, I did not immediately apprehend a
somewhat startling circumstance, which yet, in a few seconds
afterward, and while I still lay prostrate, arrested my attention. It
was this -- my chin rested upon the floor of the prison, but my lips
and the upper portion of my head, although seemingly at a less
elevation than the chin, touched nothing. At the same time my
forehead seemed bathed in a clammy vapor, and the peculiar smell of
decayed fungus arose to my nostrils. I put forward my arm, and
shuddered to find that I had fallen at the very brink of a circular
pit, whose extent, of course, I had no means of ascertaining at the
moment. Groping about the masonry just below the margin, I succeeded
in dislodging a small fragment, and let it fall into the abyss. For
many seconds I hearkened to its reverberations as it dashed against
the sides of the chasm in its descent; at length there was a sullen
plunge into water, succeeded by loud echoes. At the same moment there
came a sound resembling the quick opening, and as rapid closing of a
door overhead, while a faint gleam of light flashed suddenly through
the gloom, and as suddenly faded away.

I saw clearly the doom which had been prepared for me, and
congratulated myself upon the timely accident by which I had escaped.
Another step before my fall, and the world had seen me no more. And
the death just avoided, was of that very character which I had
regarded as fabulous and frivolous in the tales respecting the
Inquisition. To the victims of its tyranny, there was the choice of
death with its direst physical agonies, or death with its most
hideous moral horrors. I had been reserved for the latter. By long
suffering my nerves had been unstrung, until I trembled at the sound
of my own voice, and had become in every respect a fitting subject
for the species of torture which awaited me.

Shaking in every limb, I groped my way back to the wall; resolving
there to perish rather than risk the terrors of the wells, of which
my imagination now pictured many in various positions about the
dungeon. In other conditions of mind I might have had courage to end
my misery at once by a plunge into one of these abysses; but now I
was the veriest of cowards. Neither could I forget what I had read of
these pits -- that the sudden extinction of life formed no part of
their most horrible plan.

Agitation of spirit kept me awake for many long hours; but at length
I again slumbered. Upon arousing, I found by my side, as before, a
loaf and a pitcher of water. A burning thirst consumed me, and I
emptied the vessel at a draught. It must have been drugged; for
scarcely had I drunk, before I became irresistibly drowsy. A deep
sleep fell upon me -- a sleep like that of death. How long it lasted
of course, I know not; but when, once again, I unclosed my eyes, the
objects around me were visible. By a wild sulphurous lustre, the
origin of which I could not at first determine, I was enabled to see
the extent and aspect of the prison.

In its size I had been greatly mistaken. The whole circuit of its
walls did not exceed twenty-five yards. For some minutes this fact
occasioned me a world of vain trouble; vain indeed! for what could be
of less importance, under the terrible circumstances which environed
me, then the mere dimensions of my dungeon? But my soul took a wild
interest in trifles, and I busied myself in endeavors to account for
the error I had committed in my measurement. The truth at length
flashed upon me. In my first attempt at exploration I had counted
fifty-two paces, up to the period when I fell; I must then have been
within a pace or two of the fragment of serge; in fact, I had nearly
performed the circuit of the vault. I then slept, and upon awaking, I
must have returned upon my steps -- thus supposing the circuit nearly
double what it actually was. My confusion of mind prevented me from
observing that I began my tour with the wall to the left, and ended
it with the wall to the right.

I had been deceived, too, in respect to the shape of the enclosure.
In feeling my way I had found many angles, and thus deduced an idea
of great irregularity; so potent is the effect of total darkness upon
one arousing from lethargy or sleep! The angles were simply those of
a few slight depressions, or niches, at odd intervals. The general
shape of the prison was square. What I had taken for masonry seemed
now to be iron, or some other metal, in huge plates, whose sutures or
joints occasioned the depression. The entire surface of this metallic
enclosure was rudely daubed in all the hideous and repulsive devices
to which the charnel superstition of the monks has given rise. The
figures of fiends in aspects of menace, with skeleton forms, and
other more really fearful images, overspread and disfigured the
walls. I observed that the outlines of these monstrosities were
sufficiently distinct, but that the colors seemed faded and blurred,
as if from the effects of a damp atmosphere. I now noticed the floor,
too, which was of stone. In the centre yawned the circular pit from
whose jaws I had escaped; but it was the only one in the dungeon.

All this I saw indistinctly and by much effort: for my personal
condition had been greatly changed during slumber. I now lay upon my
back, and at full length, on a species of low framework of wood. To
this I was securely bound by a long strap resembling a surcingle. It
passed in many convolutions about my limbs and body, leaving at
liberty only my head, and my left arm to such extent that I could, by
dint of much exertion, supply myself with food from an earthen dish
which lay by my side on the floor. I saw, to my horror, that the
pitcher had been removed. I say to my horror; for I was consumed with
intolerable thirst. This thirst it appeared to be the design of my
persecutors to stimulate: for the food in the dish was meat pungently
seasoned.

Looking upward, I surveyed the ceiling of my prison. It was some
thirty or forty feet overhead, and constructed much as the side
walls. In one of its panels a very singular figure riveted my whole
attention. It was the painted figure of Time as he is commonly
represented, save that, in lieu of a scythe, he held what, at a
casual glance, I supposed to be the pictured image of a huge pendulum
such as we see on antique clocks. There was something, however, in
the appearance of this machine which caused me to regard it more
attentively. While I gazed directly upward at it (for its position
was immediately over my own) I fancied that I saw it in motion. In an
instant afterward the fancy was confirmed. Its sweep was brief, and
of course slow. I watched it for some minutes, somewhat in fear, but
more in wonder. Wearied at length with observing its dull movement, I
turned my eyes upon the other objects in the cell.

A slight noise attracted my notice, and, looking to the floor, I saw
several enormous rats traversing it. They had issued from the well,
which lay just within view to my right. Even then, while I gazed,
they came up in troops, hurriedly, with ravenous eyes, allured by the
scent of the meat. From this it required much effort and attention to
scare them away.

It might have been half an hour, perhaps even an hour, (for in cast
my I could take but imperfect note of time) before I again cast my
eyes upward. What I then saw confounded and amazed me. The sweep of
the pendulum had increased in extent by nearly a yard. As a natural
consequence, its velocity was also much greater. But what mainly
disturbed me was the idea that had perceptibly descended. I now
observed -- with what horror it is needless to say -- that its nether
extremity was formed of a crescent of glittering steel, about a foot
in length from horn to horn; the horns upward, and the under edge
evidently as keen as that of a razor. Like a razor also, it seemed
massy and heavy, tapering from the edge into a solid and broad
structure above. It was appended to a weighty rod of brass, and the
whole hissed as it swung through the air.

I could no longer doubt the doom prepared for me by monkish ingenuity
in torture. My cognizance of the pit had become known to the
inquisitorial agents -- the pit whose horrors had been destined for
so bold a recusant as myself -- the pit, typical of hell, and
regarded by rumor as the Ultima Thule of all their punishments. The
plunge into this pit I had avoided by the merest of accidents, I knew
that surprise, or entrapment into torment, formed an important
portion of all the grotesquerie of these dungeon deaths. Having
failed to fall, it was no part of the demon plan to hurl me into the
abyss; and thus (there being no alternative) a different and a milder
destruction awaited me. Milder! I half smiled in my agony as I
thought of such application of such a term.

What boots it to tell of the long, long hours of horror more than
mortal, during which I counted the rushing vibrations of the steel!
Inch by inch -- line by line -- with a descent only appreciable at
intervals that seemed ages -- down and still down it came! Days
passed -- it might have been that many days passed -- ere it swept so
closely over me as to fan me with its acrid breath. The odor of the
sharp steel forced itself into my nostrils. I prayed -- I wearied
heaven with my prayer for its more speedy descent. I grew frantically
mad, and struggled to force myself upward against the sweep of the
fearful scimitar. And then I fell suddenly calm, and lay smiling at
the glittering death, as a child at some rare bauble.

There was another interval of utter insensibility; it was brief; for,
upon again lapsing into life there had been no perceptible descent in
the pendulum. But it might have been long; for I knew there were
demons who took note of my swoon, and who could have arrested the
vibration at pleasure. Upon my recovery, too, I felt very -- oh,
inexpressibly sick and weak, as if through long inanition. Even amid
the agonies of that period, the human nature craved food. With
painful effort I outstretched my left arm as far as my bonds
permitted, and took possession of the small remnant which had been
spared me by the rats. As I put a portion of it within my lips, there
rushed to my mind a half formed thought of joy -- of hope. Yet what
business had I with hope? It was, as I say, a half formed thought --
man has many such which are never completed. I felt that it was of
joy -- of hope; but felt also that it had perished in its formation.
In vain I struggled to perfect -- to regain it. Long suffering had
nearly annihilated all my ordinary powers of mind. I was an imbecile
-- an idiot.

The vibration of the pendulum was at right angles to my length. I saw
that the crescent was designed to cross the region of the heart. It
would fray the serge of my robe -- it would return and repeat its
operations -- again -- and again. Notwithstanding terrifically wide
sweep (some thirty feet or more) and the its hissing vigor of its
descent, sufficient to sunder these very walls of iron, still the
fraying of my robe would be all that, for several minutes, it would
accomplish. And at this thought I paused. I dared not go farther than
this reflection. I dwelt upon it with a pertinacity of attention --
as if, in so dwelling, I could arrest here the descent of the steel.
I forced myself to ponder upon the sound of the crescent as it should
pass across the garment -- upon the peculiar thrilling sensation
which the friction of cloth produces on the nerves. I pondered upon
all this frivolity until my teeth were on edge.

Down -- steadily down it crept. I took a frenzied pleasure in
contrasting its downward with its lateral velocity. To the right --
to the left -- far and wide -- with the shriek of a damned spirit; to
my heart with the stealthy pace of the tiger! I alternately laughed
and howled as the one or the other idea grew predominant.

Down -- certainly, relentlessly down! It vibrated within three inches
of my bosom! I struggled violently, furiously, to free my left arm.
This was free only from the elbow to the hand. I could reach the
latter, from the platter beside me, to my mouth, with great effort,
but no farther. Could I have broken the fastenings above the elbow, I
would have seized and attempted to arrest the pendulum. I might as
well have attempted to arrest an avalanche!

Down -- still unceasingly -- still inevitably down! I gasped and
struggled at each vibration. I shrunk convulsively at its every
sweep. My eyes followed its outward or upward whirls with the
eagerness of the most unmeaning despair; they closed themselves
spasmodically at the descent, although death would have been a
relief, oh! how unspeakable! Still I quivered in every nerve to think
how slight a sinking of the machinery would precipitate that keen,
glistening axe upon my bosom. It was hope that prompted the nerve to
quiver -- the frame to shrink. It was hope -- the hope that triumphs
on the rack -- that whispers to the death-condemned even in the
dungeons of the Inquisition.

I saw that some ten or twelve vibrations would bring the steel in
actual contact with my robe, and with this observation there suddenly
came over my spirit all the keen, collected calmness of despair. For
the first time during many hours -- or perhaps days -- I thought. It
now occurred to me that the bandage, or surcingle, which enveloped
me, was unique. I was tied by no separate cord. The first stroke of
the razorlike crescent athwart any portion of the band, would so
detach it that it might be unwound from my person by means of my left
hand. But how fearful, in that case, the proximity of the steel! The
result of the slightest struggle how deadly! Was it likely, moreover,
that the minions of the torturer had not foreseen and provided for
this possibility! Was it probable that the bandage crossed my bosom
in the track of the pendulum? Dreading to find my faint, and, as it
seemed, in last hope frustrated, I so far elevated my head as to
obtain a distinct view of my breast. The surcingle enveloped my limbs
and body close in all directions -- save in the path of the
destroying crescent.

Scarcely had I dropped my head back into its original position, when
there flashed upon my mind what I cannot better describe than as the
unformed half of that idea of deliverance to which I have previously
alluded, and of which a moiety only floated indeterminately through
my brain when I raised food to my burning lips. The whole thought was
now present -- feeble, scarcely sane, scarcely definite, -- but still
entire. I proceeded at once, with the nervous energy of despair, to
attempt its execution.

For many hours the immediate vicinity of the low framework upon which
I lay, had been literally swarming with rats. They were wild, bold,
ravenous; their red eyes glaring upon me as if they waited but for
motionlessness on my part to make me their prey. "To what food," I
thought, "have they been accustomed in the well?"

They had devoured, in spite of all my efforts to prevent them, all
but a small remnant of the contents of the dish. I had fallen into an
habitual see-saw, or wave of the hand about the platter: and, at
length, the unconscious uniformity of the movement deprived it of
effect. In their voracity the vermin frequently fastened their sharp
fangs in my fingers. With the particles of the oily and spicy viand
which now remained, I thoroughly rubbed the bandage wherever I could
reach it; then, raising my hand from the floor, I lay breathlessly
still.

At first the ravenous animals were startled and terrified at the
change -- at the cessation of movement. They shrank alarmedly back;
many sought the well. But this was only for a moment. I had not
counted in vain upon their voracity. Observing that I remained
without motion, one or two of the boldest leaped upon the frame-work,
and smelt at the surcingle. This seemed the signal for a general
rush. Forth from the well they hurried in fresh troops. They clung to
the wood -- they overran it, and leaped in hundreds upon my person.
The measured movement of the pendulum disturbed them not at all.
Avoiding its strokes they busied themselves with the anointed
bandage. They pressed -- they swarmed upon me in ever accumulating
heaps. They writhed upon my throat; their cold lips sought my own; I
was half stifled by their thronging pressure; disgust, for which the
world has no name, swelled my bosom, and chilled, with a heavy
clamminess, my heart. Yet one minute, and I felt that the struggle
would be over. Plainly I perceived the loosening of the bandage. I
knew that in more than one place it must be already severed. With a
more than human resolution I lay still.

Nor had I erred in my calculations -- nor had I endured in vain. I at
length felt that I was free. The surcingle hung in ribands from my
body. But the stroke of the pendulum already pressed upon my bosom.
It had divided the serge of the robe. It had cut through the linen
beneath. Twice again it swung, and a sharp sense of pain shot through
every nerve. But the moment of escape had arrived. At a wave of my
hand my deliverers hurried tumultuously away. With a steady movement
-- cautious, sidelong, shrinking, and slow -- I slid from the embrace
of the bandage and beyond the reach of the scimitar. For the moment,
at least, I was free.

Free! -- and in the grasp of the Inquisition! I had scarcely stepped
from my wooden bed of horror upon the stone floor of the prison, when
the motion of the hellish machine ceased and I beheld it drawn up, by
some invisible force, through the ceiling. This was a lesson which I
took desperately to heart. My every motion was undoubtedly watched.
Free! -- I had but escaped death in one form of agony, to be
delivered unto worse than death in some other. With that thought I
rolled my eves nervously around on the barriers of iron that hemmed
me in. Something unusual -- some change which, at first, I could not
appreciate distinctly -- it was obvious, had taken place in the
apartment. For many minutes of a dreamy and trembling abstraction, I
busied myself in vain, unconnected conjecture. During this period, I
became aware, for the first time, of the origin of the sulphurous
light which illumined the cell. It proceeded from a fissure, about
half an inch in width, extending entirely around the prison at the
base of the walls, which thus appeared, and were, completely
separated from the floor. I endeavored, but of course in vain, to
look through the aperture.

As I arose from the attempt, the mystery of the alteration in the
chamber broke at once upon my understanding. I have observed that,
although the outlines of the figures upon the walls were sufficiently
distinct, yet the colors seemed blurred and indefinite. These colors
had now assumed, and were momentarily assuming, a startling and most
intense brilliancy, that gave to the spectral and fiendish
portraitures an aspect that might have thrilled even firmer nerves
than my own. Demon eyes, of a wild and ghastly vivacity, glared upon
me in a thousand directions, where none had been visible before, and
gleamed with the lurid lustre of a fire that I could not force my
imagination to regard as unreal.

Unreal! -- Even while I breathed there came to my nostrils the breath
of the vapour of heated iron! A suffocating odour pervaded the
prison! A deeper glow settled each moment in the eyes that glared at
my agonies! A richer tint of crimson diffused itself over the
pictured horrors of blood. I panted! I gasped for breath! There could
be no doubt of the design of my tormentors -- oh! most unrelenting!
oh! most demoniac of men! I shrank from the glowing metal to the
centre of the cell. Amid the thought of the fiery destruction that
impended, the idea of the coolness of the well came over my soul like
balm. I rushed to its deadly brink. I threw my straining vision
below. The glare from the enkindled roof illumined its inmost
recesses. Yet, for a wild moment, did my spirit refuse to comprehend
the meaning of what I saw. At length it forced -- it wrestled its way
into my soul -- it burned itself in upon my shuddering reason. -- Oh!
for a voice to speak! -- oh! horror! -- oh! any horror but this! With
a shriek, I rushed from the margin, and buried my face in my hands --
weeping bitterly.

The heat rapidly increased, and once again I looked up, shuddering as
with a fit of the ague. There had been a second change in the cell --
and now the change was obviously in the form. As before, it was in
vain that I, at first, endeavoured to appreciate or understand what
was taking place. But not long was I left in doubt. The Inquisitorial
vengeance had been hurried by my two-fold escape, and there was to be
no more dallying with the King of Terrors. The room had been square.
I saw that two of its iron angles were now acute -- two,
consequently, obtuse. The fearful difference quickly increased with a
low rumbling or moaning sound. In an instant the apartment had
shifted its form into that of a lozenge. But the alteration stopped
not here-I neither hoped nor desired it to stop. I could have clasped
the red walls to my bosom as a garment of eternal peace. "Death," I
said, "any death but that of the pit!" Fool! might I have not known
that into the pit it was the object of the burning iron to urge me?
Could I resist its glow? or, if even that, could I withstand its
pressure And now, flatter and flatter grew the lozenge, with a
rapidity that left me no time for contemplation. Its centre, and of
course, its greatest width, came just over the yawning gulf. I shrank
back -- but the closing walls pressed me resistlessly onward. At
length for my seared and writhing body there was no longer an inch of
foothold on the firm floor of the prison. I struggled no more, but
the agony of my soul found vent in one loud, long, and final scream
of despair. I felt that I tottered upon the brink -- I averted my
eyes --

There was a discordant hum of human voices! There was a loud blast as
of many trumpets! There was a harsh grating as of a thousand
thunders! The fiery walls rushed back! An outstretched arm caught my
own as I fell, fainting, into the abyss. It was that of General
Lasalle. The French army had entered Toledo. The Inquisition was in
the hands of its enemies.

~~~ End of Text ~~~

======

THE PREMATURE BURIAL

    THERE are certain themes of which the interest is all-absorbing,
but which are too entirely horrible for the purposes of legitimate
fiction. These the mere romanticist must eschew, if he do not wish to
offend or to disgust. They are with propriety handled only when the
severity and majesty of Truth sanctify and sustain them. We thrill,
for example, with the most intense of "pleasurable pain" over the
accounts of the Passage of the Beresina, of the Earthquake at Lisbon,
of the Plague at London, of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, or of
the stifling of the hundred and twenty-three prisoners in the Black
Hole at Calcutta. But in these accounts it is the fact - -- it is the
reality - -- it is the history which excites. As inventions, we
should regard them with simple abhorrence.

I have mentioned some few of the more prominent and august calamities
on record; but in these it is the extent, not less than the character
of the calamity, which so vividly impresses the fancy. I need not
remind the reader that, from the long and weird catalogue of human
miseries, I might have selected many individual instances more
replete with essential suffering than any of these vast generalities
of disaster. The true wretchedness, indeed -- the ultimate woe - --
is particular, not diffuse. That the ghastly extremes of agony are
endured by man the unit, and never by man the mass - -- for this let
us thank a merciful God!

To be buried while alive is, beyond question, the most terrific of
these extremes which has ever fallen to the lot of mere mortality.
That it has frequently, very frequently, so fallen will scarcely be
denied by those who think. The boundaries which divide Life from
Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one
ends, and where the other begins? We know that there are diseases in
which occur total cessations of all the apparent functions of
vitality, and yet in which these cessations are merely suspensions,
properly so called. They are only temporary pauses in the
incomprehensible mechanism. A certain period elapses, and some unseen
mysterious principle again sets in motion the magic pinions and the
wizard wheels. The silver cord was not for ever loosed, nor the
golden bowl irreparably broken. But where, meantime, was the soul?

Apart, however, from the inevitable conclusion, a priori that such
causes must produce such effects - -- that the well-known occurrence
of such cases of suspended animation must naturally give rise, now
and then, to premature interments -- apart from this consideration,
we have the direct testimony of medical and ordinary experience to
prove that a vast number of such interments have actually taken
place. I might refer at once, if necessary to a hundred well
authenticated instances. One of very remarkable character, and of
which the circumstances may be fresh in the memory of some of my
readers, occurred, not very long ago, in the neighboring city of
Baltimore, where it occasioned a painful, intense, and
widely-extended excitement. The wife of one of the most respectable
citizens-a lawyer of eminence and a member of Congress -- was seized
with a sudden and unaccountable illness, which completely baffled the
skill of her physicians. After much suffering she died, or was
supposed to die. No one suspected, indeed, or had reason to suspect,
that she was not actually dead. She presented all the ordinary
appearances of death. The face assumed the usual pinched and sunken
outline. The lips were of the usual marble pallor. The eyes were
lustreless. There was no warmth. Pulsation had ceased. For three days
the body was preserved unburied, during which it had acquired a stony
rigidity. The funeral, in short, was hastened, on account of the
rapid advance of what was supposed to be decomposition.

The lady was deposited in her family vault, which, for three
subsequent years, was undisturbed. At the expiration of this term it
was opened for the reception of a sarcophagus; - -- but, alas! how
fearful a shock awaited the husband, who, personally, threw open the
door! As its portals swung outwardly back, some white-apparelled
object fell rattling within his arms. It was the skeleton of his wife
in her yet unmoulded shroud.

A careful investigation rendered it evident that she had revived
within two days after her entombment; that her struggles within the
coffin had caused it to fall from a ledge, or shelf to the floor,
where it was so broken as to permit her escape. A lamp which had been
accidentally left, full of oil, within the tomb, was found empty; it
might have been exhausted, however, by evaporation. On the uttermost
of the steps which led down into the dread chamber was a large
fragment of the coffin, with which, it seemed, that she had
endeavored to arrest attention by striking the iron door. While thus
occupied, she probably swooned, or possibly died, through sheer
terror; and, in failing, her shroud became entangled in some iron --
work which projected interiorly. Thus she remained, and thus she
rotted, erect.

In the year 1810, a case of living inhumation happened in France,
attended with circumstances which go far to warrant the assertion
that truth is, indeed, stranger than fiction. The heroine of the
story was a Mademoiselle Victorine Lafourcade, a young girl of
illustrious family, of wealth, and of great personal beauty. Among
her numerous suitors was Julien Bossuet, a poor litterateur, or
journalist of Paris. His talents and general amiability had
recommended him to the notice of the heiress, by whom he seems to
have been truly beloved; but her pride of birth decided her, finally,
to reject him, and to wed a Monsieur Renelle, a banker and a
diplomatist of some eminence. After marriage, however, this gentleman
neglected, and, perhaps, even more positively ill-treated her. Having
passed with him some wretched years, she died, - -- at least her
condition so closely resembled death as to deceive every one who saw
her. She was buried - -- not in a vault, but in an ordinary grave in
the village of her nativity. Filled with despair, and still inflamed
by the memory of a profound attachment, the lover journeys from the
capital to the remote province in which the village lies, with the
romantic purpose of disinterring the corpse, and possessing himself
of its luxuriant tresses. He reaches the grave. At midnight he
unearths the coffin, opens it, and is in the act of detaching the
hair, when he is arrested by the unclosing of the beloved eyes. In
fact, the lady had been buried alive. Vitality had not altogether
departed, and she was aroused by the caresses of her lover from the
lethargy which had been mistaken for death. He bore her frantically
to his lodgings in the village. He employed certain powerful
restoratives suggested by no little medical learning. In fine, she
revived. She recognized her preserver. She remained with him until,
by slow degrees, she fully recovered her original health. Her woman's
heart was not adamant, and this last lesson of love sufficed to
soften it. She bestowed it upon Bossuet. She returned no more to her
husband, but, concealing from him her resurrection, fled with her
lover to America. Twenty years afterward, the two returned to France,
in the persuasion that time had so greatly altered the lady's
appearance that her friends would be unable to recognize her. They
were mistaken, however, for, at the first meeting, Monsieur Renelle
did actually recognize and make claim to his wife. This claim she
resisted, and a judicial tribunal sustained her in her resistance,
deciding that the peculiar circumstances, with the long lapse of
years, had extinguished, not only equitably, but legally, the
authority of the husband.

The "Chirurgical Journal" of Leipsic -- a periodical of high
authority and merit, which some American bookseller would do well to
translate and republish, records in a late number a very distressing
event of the character in question.

An officer of artillery, a man of gigantic stature and of robust
health, being thrown from an unmanageable horse, received a very
severe contusion upon the head, which rendered him insensible at
once; the skull was slightly fractured, but no immediate danger was
apprehended. Trepanning was accomplished successfully. He was bled,
and many other of the ordinary means of relief were adopted.
Gradually, however, he fell into a more and more hopeless state of
stupor, and, finally, it was thought that he died.

The weather was warm, and he was buried with indecent haste in one of
the public cemeteries. His funeral took place on Thursday. On the
Sunday following, the grounds of the cemetery were, as usual, much
thronged with visiters, and about noon an intense excitement was
created by the declaration of a peasant that, while sitting upon the
grave of the officer, he had distinctly felt a commotion of the
earth, as if occasioned by some one struggling beneath. At first
little attention was paid to the man's asseveration; but his evident
terror, and the dogged obstinacy with which he persisted in his
story, had at length their natural effect upon the crowd. Spades were
hurriedly procured, and the grave, which was shamefully shallow, was
in a few minutes so far thrown open that the head of its occupant
appeared. He was then seemingly dead; but he sat nearly erect within
his coffin, the lid of which, in his furious struggles, he had
partially uplifted.

He was forthwith conveyed to the nearest hospital, and there
pronounced to be still living, although in an asphytic condition.
After some hours he revived, recognized individuals of his
acquaintance, and, in broken sentences spoke of his agonies in the
grave.

From what he related, it was clear that he must have been conscious
of life for more than an hour, while inhumed, before lapsing into
insensibility. The grave was carelessly and loosely filled with an
exceedingly porous soil; and thus some air was necessarily admitted.
He heard the footsteps of the crowd overhead, and endeavored to make
himself heard in turn. It was the tumult within the grounds of the
cemetery, he said, which appeared to awaken him from a deep sleep,
but no sooner was he awake than he became fully aware of the awful
horrors of his position.

This patient, it is recorded, was doing well and seemed to be in a
fair way of ultimate recovery, but fell a victim to the quackeries of
medical experiment. The galvanic battery was applied, and he suddenly
expired in one of those ecstatic paroxysms which, occasionally, it
superinduces.

The mention of the galvanic battery, nevertheless, recalls to my
memory a well known and very extraordinary case in point, where its
action proved the means of restoring to animation a young attorney of
London, who had been interred for two days. This occurred in 1831,
and created, at the time, a very profound sensation wherever it was
made the subject of converse.

The patient, Mr. Edward Stapleton, had died, apparently of typhus
fever, accompanied with some anomalous symptoms which had excited the
curiosity of his medical attendants. Upon his seeming decease, his
friends were requested to sanction a post-mortem examination, but
declined to permit it. As often happens, when such refusals are made,
the practitioners resolved to disinter the body and dissect it at
leisure, in private. Arrangements were easily effected with some of
the numerous corps of body-snatchers, with which London abounds; and,
upon the third night after the funeral, the supposed corpse was
unearthed from a grave eight feet deep, and deposited in the opening
chamber of one of the private hospitals.

An incision of some extent had been actually made in the abdomen,
when the fresh and undecayed appearance of the subject suggested an
application of the battery. One experiment succeeded another, and the
customary effects supervened, with nothing to characterize them in
any respect, except, upon one or two occasions, a more than ordinary
degree of life-likeness in the convulsive action.

It grew late. The day was about to dawn; and it was thought
expedient, at length, to proceed at once to the dissection. A
student, however, was especially desirous of testing a theory of his
own, and insisted upon applying the battery to one of the pectoral
muscles. A rough gash was made, and a wire hastily brought in
contact, when the patient, with a hurried but quite unconvulsive
movement, arose from the table, stepped into the middle of the floor,
gazed about him uneasily for a few seconds, and then -- spoke. What
he said was unintelligible, but words were uttered; the
syllabification was distinct. Having spoken, he fell heavily to the
floor.

For some moments all were paralyzed with awe -- but the urgency of
the case soon restored them their presence of mind. It was seen that
Mr. Stapleton was alive, although in a swoon. Upon exhibition of
ether he revived and was rapidly restored to health, and to the
society of his friends -- from whom, however, all knowledge of his
resuscitation was withheld, until a relapse was no longer to be
apprehended. Their wonder -- their rapturous astonishment -- may be
conceived.

The most thrilling peculiarity of this incident, nevertheless, is
involved in what Mr. S. himself asserts. He declares that at no
period was he altogether insensible -- that, dully and confusedly, he
was aware of everything which happened to him, from the moment in
which he was pronounced dead by his physicians, to that in which he
fell swooning to the floor of the hospital. "I am alive," were the
uncomprehended words which, upon recognizing the locality of the
dissecting-room, he had endeavored, in his extremity, to utter.

It were an easy matter to multiply such histories as these -- but I
forbear -- for, indeed, we have no need of such to establish the fact
that premature interments occur. When we reflect how very rarely,
from the nature of the case, we have it in our power to detect them,
we must admit that they may frequently occur without our cognizance.
Scarcely, in truth, is a graveyard ever encroached upon, for any
purpose, to any great extent, that skeletons are not found in
postures which suggest the most fearful of suspicions.

Fearful indeed the suspicion -- but more fearful the doom! It may be
asserted, without hesitation, that no event is so terribly well
adapted to inspire the supremeness of bodily and of mental distress,
as is burial before death. The unendurable oppression of the lungs --
the stifling fumes from the damp earth -- the clinging to the death
garments -- the rigid embrace of the narrow house -- the blackness of
the absolute Night -- the silence like a sea that overwhelms -- the
unseen but palpable presence of the Conqueror Worm -- these things,
with the thoughts of the air and grass above, with memory of dear
friends who would fly to save us if but informed of our fate, and
with consciousness that of this fate they can never be informed --
that our hopeless portion is that of the really dead -- these
considerations, I say, carry into the heart, which still palpitates,
a degree of appalling and intolerable horror from which the most
daring imagination must recoil. We know of nothing so agonizing upon
Earth -- we can dream of nothing half so hideous in the realms of the
nethermost Hell. And thus all narratives upon this topic have an
interest profound; an interest, nevertheless, which, through the
sacred awe of the topic itself, very properly and very peculiarly
depends upon our conviction of the truth of the matter narrated. What
I have now to tell is of my own actual knowledge -- of my own
positive and personal experience.

For several years I had been subject to attacks of the singular
disorder which physicians have agreed to term catalepsy, in default
of a more definitive title. Although both the immediate and the
predisposing causes, and even the actual diagnosis, of this disease
are still mysterious, its obvious and apparent character is
sufficiently well understood. Its variations seem to be chiefly of
degree. Sometimes the patient lies, for a day only, or even for a
shorter period, in a species of exaggerated lethargy. He is senseless
and externally motionless; but the pulsation of the heart is still
faintly perceptible; some traces of warmth remain; a slight color
lingers within the centre of the cheek; and, upon application of a
mirror to the lips, we can detect a torpid, unequal, and vacillating
action of the lungs. Then again the duration of the trance is for
weeks -- even for months; while the closest scrutiny, and the most
rigorous medical tests, fail to establish any material distinction
between the state of the sufferer and what we conceive of absolute
death. Very usually he is saved from premature interment solely by
the knowledge of his friends that he has been previously subject to
catalepsy, by the consequent suspicion excited, and, above all, by
the non-appearance of decay. The advances of the malady are, luckily,
gradual. The first manifestations, although marked, are unequivocal.
The fits grow successively more and more distinctive, and endure each
for a longer term than the preceding. In this lies the principal
security from inhumation. The unfortunate whose first attack should
be of the extreme character which is occasionally seen, would almost
inevitably be consigned alive to the tomb.

My own case differed in no important particular from those mentioned
in medical books. Sometimes, without any apparent cause, I sank,
little by little, into a condition of hemi-syncope, or half swoon;
and, in this condition, without pain, without ability to stir, or,
strictly speaking, to think, but with a dull lethargic consciousness
of life and of the presence of those who surrounded my bed, I
remained, until the crisis of the disease restored me, suddenly, to
perfect sensation. At other times I was quickly and impetuously
smitten. I grew sick, and numb, and chilly, and dizzy, and so fell
prostrate at once. Then, for weeks, all was void, and black, and
silent, and Nothing became the universe. Total annihilation could be
no more. From these latter attacks I awoke, however, with a gradation
slow in proportion to the suddenness of the seizure. Just as the day
dawns to the friendless and houseless beggar who roams the streets
throughout the long desolate winter night -- just so tardily -- just
so wearily -- just so cheerily came back the light of the Soul to me.

Apart from the tendency to trance, however, my general health
appeared to be good; nor could I perceive that it was at all affected
by the one prevalent malady -- unless, indeed, an idiosyncrasy in my
ordinary sleep may be looked upon as superinduced. Upon awaking from
slumber, I could never gain, at once, thorough possession of my
senses, and always remained, for many minutes, in much bewilderment
and perplexity; -- the mental faculties in general, but the memory in
especial, being in a condition of absolute abeyance.

In all that I endured there was no physical suffering but of moral
distress an infinitude. My fancy grew charnel, I talked "of worms, of
tombs, and epitaphs." I was lost in reveries of death, and the idea
of premature burial held continual possession of my brain. The
ghastly Danger to which I was subjected haunted me day and night. In
the former, the torture of meditation was excessive -- in the latter,
supreme. When the grim Darkness overspread the Earth, then, with
every horror of thought, I shook -- shook as the quivering plumes
upon the hearse. When Nature could endure wakefulness no longer, it
was with a struggle that I consented to sleep -- for I shuddered to
reflect that, upon awaking, I might find myself the tenant of a
grave. And when, finally, I sank into slumber, it was only to rush at
once into a world of phantasms, above which, with vast, sable,
overshadowing wing, hovered, predominant, the one sepulchral Idea.

From the innumerable images of gloom which thus oppressed me in
dreams, I select for record but a solitary vision. Methought I was
immersed in a cataleptic trance of more than usual duration and
profundity. Suddenly there came an icy hand upon my forehead, and an
impatient, gibbering voice whispered the word "Arise!" within my ear.

I sat erect. The darkness was total. I could not see the figure of
him who had aroused me. I could call to mind neither the period at
which I had fallen into the trance, nor the locality in which I then
lay. While I remained motionless, and busied in endeavors to collect
my thought, the cold hand grasped me fiercely by the wrist, shaking
it petulantly, while the gibbering voice said again:

"Arise! did I not bid thee arise?"

"And who," I demanded, "art thou?"

"I have no name in the regions which I inhabit," replied the voice,
mournfully; "I was mortal, but am fiend. I was merciless, but am
pitiful. Thou dost feel that I shudder. -- My teeth chatter as I
speak, yet it is not with the chilliness of the night -- of the night
without end. But this hideousness is insufferable. How canst thou
tranquilly sleep? I cannot rest for the cry of these great agonies.
These sights are more than I can bear. Get thee up! Come with me into
the outer Night, and let me unfold to thee the graves. Is not this a
spectacle of woe? -- Behold!"

I looked; and the unseen figure, which still grasped me by the wrist,
had caused to be thrown open the graves of all mankind, and from each
issued the faint phosphoric radiance of decay, so that I could see
into the innermost recesses, and there view the shrouded bodies in
their sad and solemn slumbers with the worm. But alas! the real
sleepers were fewer, by many millions, than those who slumbered not
at all; and there was a feeble struggling; and there was a general
sad unrest; and from out the depths of the countless pits there came
a melancholy rustling from the garments of the buried. And of those
who seemed tranquilly to repose, I saw that a vast number had
changed, in a greater or less degree, the rigid and uneasy position
in which they had originally been entombed. And the voice again said
to me as I gazed:

"Is it not -- oh! is it not a pitiful sight?" -- but, before I could
find words to reply, the figure had ceased to grasp my wrist, the
phosphoric lights expired, and the graves were closed with a sudden
violence, while from out them arose a tumult of despairing cries,
saying again: "Is it not -- O, God, is it not a very pitiful sight?"

Phantasies such as these, presenting themselves at night, extended
their terrific influence far into my waking hours. My nerves became
thoroughly unstrung, and I fell a prey to perpetual horror. I
hesitated to ride, or to walk, or to indulge in any exercise that
would carry me from home. In fact, I no longer dared trust myself out
of the immediate presence of those who were aware of my proneness to
catalepsy, lest, falling into one of my usual fits, I should be
buried before my real condition could be ascertained. I doubted the
care, the fidelity of my dearest friends. I dreaded that, in some
trance of more than customary duration, they might be prevailed upon
to regard me as irrecoverable. I even went so far as to fear that, as
I occasioned much trouble, they might be glad to consider any very
protracted attack as sufficient excuse for getting rid of me
altogether. It was in vain they endeavored to reassure me by the most
solemn promises. I exacted the most sacred oaths, that under no
circumstances they would bury me until decomposition had so
materially advanced as to render farther preservation impossible.
And, even then, my mortal terrors would listen to no reason -- would
accept no consolation. I entered into a series of elaborate
precautions. Among other things, I had the family vault so remodelled
as to admit of being readily opened from within. The slightest
pressure upon a long lever that extended far into the tomb would
cause the iron portal to fly back. There were arrangements also for
the free admission of air and light, and convenient receptacles for
food and water, within immediate reach of the coffin intended for my
reception. This coffin was warmly and softly padded, and was provided
with a lid, fashioned upon the principle of the vault-door, with the
addition of springs so contrived that the feeblest movement of the
body would be sufficient to set it at liberty. Besides all this,
there was suspended from the roof of the tomb, a large bell, the rope
of which, it was designed, should extend through a hole in the
coffin, and so be fastened to one of the hands of the corpse. But,
alas? what avails the vigilance against the Destiny of man? Not even
these well-contrived securities sufficed to save from the uttermost
agonies of living inhumation, a wretch to these agonies foredoomed!

There arrived an epoch -- as often before there had arrived -- in
which I found myself emerging from total unconsciousness into the
first feeble and indefinite sense of existence. Slowly -- with a
tortoise gradation -- approached the faint gray dawn of the psychal
day. A torpid uneasiness. An apathetic endurance of dull pain. No
care -- no hope -- no effort. Then, after a long interval, a ringing
in the ears; then, after a lapse still longer, a prickling or
tingling sensation in the extremities; then a seemingly eternal
period of pleasurable quiescence, during which the awakening feelings
are struggling into thought; then a brief re-sinking into non-entity;
then a sudden recovery. At length the slight quivering of an eyelid,
and immediately thereupon, an electric shock of a terror, deadly and
indefinite, which sends the blood in torrents from the temples to the
heart. And now the first positive effort to think. And now the first
endeavor to remember. And now a partial and evanescent success. And
now the memory has so far regained its dominion, that, in some
measure, I am cognizant of my state. I feel that I am not awaking
from ordinary sleep. I recollect that I have been subject to
catalepsy. And now, at last, as if by the rush of an ocean, my
shuddering spirit is overwhelmed by the one grim Danger -- by the one
spectral and ever-prevalent idea.

For some minutes after this fancy possessed me, I remained without
motion. And why? I could not summon courage to move. I dared not make
the effort which was to satisfy me of my fate -- and yet there was
something at my heart which whispered me it was sure. Despair -- such
as no other species of wretchedness ever calls into being -- despair
alone urged me, after long irresolution, to uplift the heavy lids of
my eyes. I uplifted them. It was dark -- all dark. I knew that the
fit was over. I knew that the crisis of my disorder had long passed.
I knew that I had now fully recovered the use of my visual faculties
-- and yet it was dark -- all dark -- the intense and utter
raylessness of the Night that endureth for evermore.

I endeavored to shriek-, and my lips and my parched tongue moved
convulsively together in the attempt -- but no voice issued from the
cavernous lungs, which oppressed as if by the weight of some
incumbent mountain, gasped and palpitated, with the heart, at every
elaborate and struggling inspiration.

The movement of the jaws, in this effort to cry aloud, showed me that
they were bound up, as is usual with the dead. I felt, too, that I
lay upon some hard substance, and by something similar my sides were,
also, closely compressed. So far, I had not ventured to stir any of
my limbs -- but now I violently threw up my arms, which had been
lying at length, with the wrists crossed. They struck a solid wooden
substance, which extended above my person at an elevation of not more
than six inches from my face. I could no longer doubt that I reposed
within a coffin at last.

And now, amid all my infinite miseries, came sweetly the cherub Hope
-- for I thought of my precautions. I writhed, and made spasmodic
exertions to force open the lid: it would not move. I felt my wrists
for the bell-rope: it was not to be found. And now the Comforter fled
for ever, and a still sterner Despair reigned triumphant; for I could
not help perceiving the absence of the paddings which I had so
carefully prepared -- and then, too, there came suddenly to my
nostrils the strong peculiar odor of moist earth. The conclusion was
irresistible. I was not within the vault. I had fallen into a trance
while absent from home-while among strangers -- when, or how, I could
not remember -- and it was they who had buried me as a dog -- nailed
up in some common coffin -- and thrust deep, deep, and for ever, into
some ordinary and nameless grave.

As this awful conviction forced itself, thus, into the innermost
chambers of my soul, I once again struggled to cry aloud. And in this
second endeavor I succeeded. A long, wild, and continuous shriek, or
yell of agony, resounded through the realms of the subterranean
Night.

"Hillo! hillo, there!" said a gruff voice, in reply.

"What the devil's the matter now!" said a second.

"Get out o' that!" said a third.

"What do you mean by yowling in that ere kind of style, like a
cattymount?" said a fourth; and hereupon I was seized and shaken
without ceremony, for several minutes, by a junto of very
rough-looking individuals. They did not arouse me from my slumber --
for I was wide awake when I screamed -- but they restored me to the
full possession of my memory.

This adventure occurred near Richmond, in Virginia. Accompanied by a
friend, I had proceeded, upon a gunning expedition, some miles down
the banks of the James River. Night approached, and we were overtaken
by a storm. The cabin of a small sloop lying at anchor in the stream,
and laden with garden mould, afforded us the only available shelter.
We made the best of it, and passed the night on board. I slept in one
of the only two berths in the vessel -- and the berths of a sloop of
sixty or twenty tons need scarcely be described. That which I
occupied had no bedding of any kind. Its extreme width was eighteen
inches. The distance of its bottom from the deck overhead was
precisely the same. I found it a matter of exceeding difficulty to
squeeze myself in. Nevertheless, I slept soundly, and the whole of my
vision -- for it was no dream, and no nightmare -- arose naturally
from the circumstances of my position -- from my ordinary bias of
thought -- and from the difficulty, to which I have alluded, of
collecting my senses, and especially of regaining my memory, for a
long time after awaking from slumber. The men who shook me were the
crew of the sloop, and some laborers engaged to unload it. From the
load itself came the earthly smell. The bandage about the jaws was a
silk handkerchief in which I had bound up my head, in default of my
customary nightcap.

The tortures endured, however, were indubitably quite equal for the
time, to those of actual sepulture. They were fearfully -- they were
inconceivably hideous; but out of Evil proceeded Good; for their very
excess wrought in my spirit an inevitable revulsion. My soul acquired
tone -- acquired temper. I went abroad. I took vigorous exercise. I
breathed the free air of Heaven. I thought upon other subjects than
Death. I discarded my medical books. "Buchan" I burned. I read no
"Night Thoughts" -- no fustian about churchyards -- no bugaboo tales
-- such as this. In short, I became a new man, and lived a man's
life. From that memorable night, I dismissed forever my charnel
apprehensions, and with them vanished the cataleptic disorder, of
which, perhaps, they had been less the consequence than the cause.

There are moments when, even to the sober eye of Reason, the world of
our sad Humanity may assume the semblance of a Hell -- but the
imagination of man is no Carathis, to explore with impunity its every
cavern. Alas! the grim legion of sepulchral terrors cannot be
regarded as altogether fanciful -- but, like the Demons in whose
company Afrasiab made his voyage down the Oxus, they must sleep, or
they will devour us -- they must be suffered to slumber, or we
perish.

~~~ End of Text ~~~

======

THE DOMAIN OF ARNHEIM

     The garden like a lady fair was cut,
     That lay as if she slumbered in delight,
     And to the open skies her eyes did shut.
     The azure fields of Heaven were 'sembled right
     In a large round, set with the flowers of light.
     The flowers de luce, and the round sparks of dew.
     That hung upon their azure leaves did shew
     Like twinkling stars that sparkle in the evening blue.
     Giles Fletcher.

FROM his cradle to his grave a gale of prosperity bore my friend
Ellison along. Nor do I use the word prosperity in its mere worldly
sense. I mean it as synonymous with happiness. The person of whom I
speak seemed born for the purpose of foreshadowing the doctrines of
Turgot, Price, Priestley, and Condorcet -- of exemplifying by
individual instance what has been deemed the chimera of the
perfectionists. In the brief existence of Ellison I fancy that I have
seen refuted the dogma, that in man's very nature lies some hidden
principle, the antagonist of bliss. An anxious examination of his
career has given me to understand that in general, from the violation
of a few simple laws of humanity arises the wretchedness of mankind
-- that as a species we have in our possession the as yet unwrought
elements of content -- and that, even now, in the present darkness
and madness of all thought on the great question of the social
condition, it is not impossible that man, the individual, under
certain unusual and highly fortuitous conditions, may be happy.

With opinions such as these my young friend, too, was fully imbued,
and thus it is worthy of observation that the uninterrupted enjoyment
which distinguished his life was, in great measure, the result of
preconcert. It is indeed evident that with less of the instinctive
philosophy which, now and then, stands so well in the stead of
experience, Mr. Ellison would have found himself precipitated, by the
very extraordinary success of his life, into the common vortex of
unhappiness which yawns for those of pre-eminent endowments. But it
is by no means my object to pen an essay on happiness. The ideas of
my friend may be summed up in a few words. He admitted but four
elementary principles, or more strictly, conditions of bliss. That
which he considered chief was (strange to say!) the simple and purely
physical one of free exercise in the open air. "The health," he said,
"attainable by other means is scarcely worth the name." He instanced
the ecstasies of the fox-hunter, and pointed to the tillers of the
earth, the only people who, as a class, can be fairly considered
happier than others. His second condition was the love of woman. His
third, and most difficult of realization, was the contempt of
ambition. His fourth was an object of unceasing pursuit; and he held
that, other things being equal, the extent of attainable happiness
was in proportion to the spirituality of this object.

Ellison was remarkable in the continuous profusion of good gifts
lavished upon him by fortune. In personal grace and beauty he
exceeded all men. His intellect was of that order to which the
acquisition of knowledge is less a labor than an intuition and a
necessity. His family was one of the most illustrious of the empire.
His bride was the loveliest and most devoted of women. His
possessions had been always ample; but on the attainment of his
majority, it was discovered that one of those extraordinary freaks of
fate had been played in his behalf which startle the whole social
world amid which they occur, and seldom fail radically to alter the
moral constitution of those who are their objects.

It appears that about a hundred years before Mr. Ellison's coming of
age, there had died, in a remote province, one Mr. Seabright Ellison.
This gentleman had amassed a princely fortune, and, having no
immediate connections, conceived the whim of suffering his wealth to
accumulate for a century after his decease. Minutely and sagaciously
directing the various modes of investment, he bequeathed the
aggregate amount to the nearest of blood, bearing the name of
Ellison, who should be alive at the end of the hundred years. Many
attempts had been made to set aside this singular bequest; their ex
post facto character rendered them abortive; but the attention of a
jealous government was aroused, and a legislative act finally
obtained, forbidding all similar accumulations. This act, however,
did not prevent young Ellison from entering into possession, on his
twenty-first birthday, as the heir of his ancestor Seabright, of a
fortune of four hundred and fifty millions of dollars. {*1}

When it had become known that such was the enormous wealth inherited,
there were, of course, many speculations as to the mode of its
disposal. The magnitude and the immediate availability of the sum
bewildered all who thought on the topic. The possessor of any
appreciable amount of money might have been imagined to perform any
one of a thousand things. With riches merely surpassing those of any
citizen, it would have been easy to suppose him engaging to supreme
excess in the fashionable extravagances of his time -- or busying
himself with political intrigue -- or aiming at ministerial power --
or purchasing increase of nobility -- or collecting large museums of
virtu -- or playing the munificent patron of letters, of science, of
art -- or endowing, and bestowing his name upon extensive
institutions of charity. But for the inconceivable wealth in the
actual possession of the heir, these objects and all ordinary objects
were felt to afford too limited a field. Recourse was had to figures,
and these but sufficed to confound. It was seen that, even at three
per cent., the annual income of the inheritance amounted to no less
than thirteen millions and five hundred thousand dollars; which was
one million and one hundred and twenty-five thousand per month; or
thirty-six thousand nine hundred and eighty-six per day; or one
thousand five hundred and forty-one per hour; or six and twenty
dollars for every minute that flew. Thus the usual track of
supposition was thoroughly broken up. Men knew not what to imagine.
There were some who even conceived that Mr. Ellison would divest
himself of at least one-half of his fortune, as of utterly
superfluous opulence -- enriching whole troops of his relatives by
division of his superabundance. To the nearest of these he did, in
fact, abandon the very unusual wealth which was his own before the
inheritance.

I was not surprised, however, to perceive that he had long made up
his mind on a point which had occasioned so much discussion to his
friends. Nor was I greatly astonished at the nature of his decision.
In regard to individual charities he had satisfied his conscience. In
the possibility of any improvement, properly so called, being
effected by man himself in the general condition of man, he had (I am
sorry to confess it) little faith. Upon the whole, whether happily or
unhappily, he was thrown back, in very great measure, upon self.

In the widest and noblest sense he was a poet. He comprehended,
moreover, the true character, the august aims, the supreme majesty
and dignity of the poetic sentiment. The fullest, if not the sole
proper satisfaction of this sentiment he instinctively felt to lie in
the creation of novel forms of beauty. Some peculiarities, either in
his early education, or in the nature of his intellect, had tinged
with what is termed materialism all his ethical speculations; and it
was this bias, perhaps, which led him to believe that the most
advantageous at least, if not the sole legitimate field for the
poetic exercise, lies in the creation of novel moods of purely
physical loveliness. Thus it happened he became neither musician nor
poet -- if we use this latter term in its every-day acceptation. Or
it might have been that he neglected to become either, merely in
pursuance of his idea that in contempt of ambition is to be found one
of the essential principles of happiness on earth. Is it not indeed,
possible that, while a high order of genius is necessarily ambitious,
the highest is above that which is termed ambition? And may it not
thus happen that many far greater than Milton have contentedly
remained "mute and inglorious?" I believe that the world has never
seen -- and that, unless through some series of accidents goading the
noblest order of mind into distasteful exertion, the world will never
see -- that full extent of triumphant execution, in the richer
domains of art, of which the human nature is absolutely capable.

Ellison became neither musician nor poet; although no man lived more
profoundly enamored of music and poetry. Under other circumstances
than those which invested him, it is not impossible that he would
have become a painter. Sculpture, although in its nature rigorously
poetical was too limited in its extent and consequences, to have
occupied, at any time, much of his attention. And I have now
mentioned all the provinces in which the common understanding of the
poetic sentiment has declared it capable of expatiating. But Ellison
maintained that the richest, the truest, and most natural, if not
altogether the most extensive province, had been unaccountably
neglected. No definition had spoken of the landscape-gardener as of
the poet; yet it seemed to my friend that the creation of the
landscape-garden offered to the proper Muse the most magnificent of
opportunities. Here, indeed, was the fairest field for the display of
imagination in the endless combining of forms of novel beauty; the
elements to enter into combination being, by a vast superiority, the
most glorious which the earth could afford. In the multiform and
multicolor of the flowers and the trees, he recognised the most
direct and energetic efforts of Nature at physical loveliness. And in
the direction or concentration of this effort -- or, more properly,
in its adaptation to the eyes which were to behold it on earth -- he
perceived that he should be employing the best means -- laboring to
the greatest advantage -- in the fulfilment, not only of his own
destiny as poet, but of the august purposes for which the Deity had
implanted the poetic sentiment in man.

"Its adaptation to the eyes which were to behold it on earth." In his
explanation of this phraseology, Mr. Ellison did much toward solving
what has always seemed to me an enigma: -- I mean the fact (which
none but the ignorant dispute) that no such combination of scenery
exists in nature as the painter of genius may produce. No such
paradises are to be found in reality as have glowed on the canvas of
Claude. In the most enchanting of natural landscapes, there will
always be found a defect or an excess -- many excesses and defects.
While the component parts may defy, individually, the highest skill
of the artist, the arrangement of these parts will always be
susceptible of improvement. In short, no position can be attained on
the wide surface of the natural earth, from which an artistical eye,
looking steadily, will not find matter of offence in what is termed
the "composition" of the landscape. And yet how unintelligible is
this! In all other matters we are justly instructed to regard nature
as supreme. With her details we shrink from competition. Who shall
presume to imitate the colors of the tulip, or to improve the
proportions of the lily of the valley? The criticism which says, of
sculpture or portraiture, that here nature is to be exalted or
idealized rather than imitated, is in error. No pictorial or
sculptural combinations of points of human liveliness do more than
approach the living and breathing beauty. In landscape alone is the
principle of the critic true; and, having felt its truth here, it is
but the headlong spirit of generalization which has led him to
pronounce it true throughout all the domains of art. Having, I say,
felt its truth here; for the feeling is no affectation or chimera.
The mathematics afford no more absolute demonstrations than the
sentiments of his art yields the artist. He not only believes, but
positively knows, that such and such apparently arbitrary
arrangements of matter constitute and alone constitute the true
beauty. His reasons, however, have not yet been matured into
expression. It remains for a more profound analysis than the world
has yet seen, fully to investigate and express them. Nevertheless he
is confirmed in his instinctive opinions by the voice of all his
brethren. Let a "composition" be defective; let an emendation be
wrought in its mere arrangement of form; let this emendation be
submitted to every artist in the world; by each will its necessity be
admitted. And even far more than this: -- in remedy of the defective
composition, each insulated member of the fraternity would have
suggested the identical emendation.

I repeat that in landscape arrangements alone is the physical nature
susceptible of exaltation, and that, therefore, her susceptibility of
improvement at this one point, was a mystery I had been unable to
solve. My own thoughts on the subject had rested in the idea that the
primitive intention of nature would have so arranged the earth's
surface as to have fulfilled at all points man's sense of perfection
in the beautiful, the sublime, or the picturesque; but that this
primitive intention had been frustrated by the known geological
disturbances -- disturbances of form and color -- grouping, in the
correction or allaying of which lies the soul of art. The force of
this idea was much weakened, however, by the necessity which it
involved of considering the disturbances abnormal and unadapted to
any purpose. It was Ellison who suggested that they were prognostic
of death. He thus explained: -- Admit the earthly immortality of man
to have been the first intention. We have then the primitive
arrangement of the earth's surface adapted to his blissful estate, as
not existent but designed. The disturbances were the preparations for
his subsequently conceived deathful condition.

"Now," said my friend, "what we regard as exaltation of the landscape
may be really such, as respects only the moral or human point of
view. Each alteration of the natural scenery may possibly effect a
blemish in the picture, if we can suppose this picture viewed at
large -- in mass -- from some point distant from the earth's surface,
although not beyond the limits of its atmosphere. It is easily
understood that what might improve a closely scrutinized detail, may
at the same time injure a general or more distantly observed effect.
There may be a class of beings, human once, but now invisible to
humanity, to whom, from afar, our disorder may seem order -- our
unpicturesqueness picturesque, in a word, the earth-angels, for whose
scrutiny more especially than our own, and for whose death -- refined
appreciation of the beautiful, may have been set in array by God the
wide landscape-gardens of the hemispheres."

In the course of discussion, my friend quoted some passages from a
writer on landscape-gardening who has been supposed to have well
treated his theme:

"There are properly but two styles of landscape-gardening, the
natural and the artificial. One seeks to recall the original beauty
of the country, by adapting its means to the surrounding scenery,
cultivating trees in harmony with the hills or plain of the
neighboring land; detecting and bringing into practice those nice
relations of size, proportion, and color which, hid from the common
observer, are revealed everywhere to the experienced student of
nature. The result of the natural style of gardening, is seen rather
in the absence of all defects and incongruities -- in the prevalence
of a healthy harmony and order -- than in the creation of any special
wonders or miracles. The artificial style has as many varieties as
there are different tastes to gratify. It has a certain general
relation to the various styles of building. There are the stately
avenues and retirements of Versailles; Italian terraces; and a
various mixed old English style, which bears some relation to the
domestic Gothic or English Elizabethan architecture. Whatever may be
said against the abuses of the artificial landscape -- gardening, a
mixture of pure art in a garden scene adds to it a great beauty. This
is partly pleasing to the eye, by the show of order and design, and
partly moral. A terrace, with an old moss -- covered balustrade,
calls up at once to the eye the fair forms that have passed there in
other days. The slightest exhibition of art is an evidence of care
and human interest."

"From what I have already observed," said Ellison, "you will
understand that I reject the idea, here expressed, of recalling the
original beauty of the country. The original beauty is never so great
as that which may be introduced. Of course, every thing depends on
the selection of a spot with capabilities. What is said about
detecting and bringing into practice nice relations of size,
proportion, and color, is one of those mere vaguenesses of speech
which serve to veil inaccuracy of thought. The phrase quoted may mean
any thing, or nothing, and guides in no degree. That the true result
of the natural style of gardening is seen rather in the absence of
all defects and incongruities than in the creation of any special
wonders or miracles, is a proposition better suited to the grovelling
apprehension of the herd than to the fervid dreams of the man of
genius. The negative merit suggested appertains to that hobbling
criticism which, in letters, would elevate Addison into apotheosis.
In truth, while that virtue which consists in the mere avoidance of
vice appeals directly to the understanding, and can thus be
circumscribed in rule, the loftier virtue, which flames in creation,
can be apprehended in its results alone. Rule applies but to the
merits of denial -- to the excellencies which refrain. Beyond these,
the critical art can but suggest. We may be instructed to build a
"Cato," but we are in vain told how to conceive a Parthenon or an
"Inferno." The thing done, however; the wonder accomplished; and the
capacity for apprehension becomes universal. The sophists of the
negative school who, through inability to create, have scoffed at
creation, are now found the loudest in applause. What, in its
chrysalis condition of principle, affronted their demure reason,
never fails, in its maturity of accomplishment, to extort admiration
from their instinct of beauty.

"The author's observations on the artificial style," continued
Ellison, "are less objectionable. A mixture of pure art in a garden
scene adds to it a great beauty. This is just; as also is the
reference to the sense of human interest. The principle expressed is
incontrovertible -- but there may be something beyond it. There may
be an object in keeping with the principle -- an object unattainable
by the means ordinarily possessed by individuals, yet which, if
attained, would lend a charm to the landscape-garden far surpassing
that which a sense of merely human interest could bestow. A poet,
having very unusual pecuniary resources, might, while retaining the
necessary idea of art or culture, or, as our author expresses it, of
interest, so imbue his designs at once with extent and novelty of
beauty, as to convey the sentiment of spiritual interference. It will
be seen that, in bringing about such result, he secures all the
advantages of interest or design, while relieving his work of the
harshness or technicality of the worldly art. In the most rugged of
wildernesses -- in the most savage of the scenes of pure nature --
there is apparent the art of a creator; yet this art is apparent to
reflection only; in no respect has it the obvious force of a feeling.
Now let us suppose this sense of the Almighty design to be one step
depressed -- to be brought into something like harmony or consistency
with the sense of human art -- to form an intermedium between the
two: -- let us imagine, for example, a landscape whose combined
vastness and definitiveness -- whose united beauty, magnificence, and
strangeness, shall convey the idea of care, or culture, or
superintendence, on the part of beings superior, yet akin to humanity
-- then the sentiment of interest is preserved, while the art
intervolved is made to assume the air of an intermediate or secondary
nature -- a nature which is not God, nor an emanation from God, but
which still is nature in the sense of the handiwork of the angels
that hover between man and God."

It was in devoting his enormous wealth to the embodiment of a vision
such as this -- in the free exercise in the open air ensured by the
personal superintendence of his plans -- in the unceasing object
which these plans afforded -- in the high spirituality of the object
-- in the contempt of ambition which it enabled him truly to feel --
in the perennial springs with which it gratified, without possibility
of satiating, that one master passion of his soul, the thirst for
beauty, above all, it was in the sympathy of a woman, not unwomanly,
whose loveliness and love enveloped his existence in the purple
atmosphere of Paradise, that Ellison thought to find, and found,
exemption from the ordinary cares of humanity, with a far greater
amount of positive happiness than ever glowed in the rapt day-dreams
of De Stael.

I despair of conveying to the reader any distinct conception of the
marvels which my friend did actually accomplish. I wish to describe,
but am disheartened by the difficulty of description, and hesitate
between detail and generality. Perhaps the better course will be to
unite the two in their extremes.

Mr. Ellison's first step regarded, of course, the choice of a
locality, and scarcely had he commenced thinking on this point, when
the luxuriant nature of the Pacific Islands arrested his attention.
In fact, he had made up his mind for a voyage to the South Seas, when
a night's reflection induced him to abandon the idea. "Were I
misanthropic," he said, "such a locale would suit me. The
thoroughness of its insulation and seclusion, and the difficulty of
ingress and egress, would in such case be the charm of charms; but as
yet I am not Timon. I wish the composure but not the depression of
solitude. There must remain with me a certain control over the extent
and duration of my repose. There will be frequent hours in which I
shall need, too, the sympathy of the poetic in what I have done. Let
me seek, then, a spot not far from a populous city -- whose vicinity,
also, will best enable me to execute my plans."

In search of a suitable place so situated, Ellison travelled for
several years, and I was permitted to accompany him. A thousand spots
with which I was enraptured he rejected without hesitation, for
reasons which satisfied me, in the end, that he was right. We came at
length to an elevated table-land of wonderful fertility and beauty,
affording a panoramic prospect very little less in extent than that
of Aetna, and, in Ellison's opinion as well as my own, surpassing the
far-famed view from that mountain in all the true elements of the
picturesque.

"I am aware," said the traveller, as he drew a sigh of deep delight
after gazing on this scene, entranced, for nearly an hour, "I know
that here, in my circumstances, nine-tenths of the most fastidious of
men would rest content. This panorama is indeed glorious, and I
should rejoice in it but for the excess of its glory. The taste of
all the architects I have ever known leads them, for the sake of
'prospect,' to put up buildings on hill-tops. The error is obvious.
Grandeur in any of its moods, but especially in that of extent,
startles, excites -- and then fatigues, depresses. For the occasional
scene nothing can be better -- for the constant view nothing worse.
And, in the constant view, the most objectionable phase of grandeur
is that of extent; the worst phase of extent, that of distance. It is
at war with the sentiment and with the sense of seclusion -- the
sentiment and sense which we seek to humor in 'retiring to the
country.' In looking from the summit of a mountain we cannot help
feeling abroad in the world. The heart-sick avoid distant prospects
as a pestilence."

It was not until toward the close of the fourth year of our search
that we found a locality with which Ellison professed himself
satisfied. It is, of course, needless to say where was the locality.
The late death of my friend, in causing his domain to be thrown open
to certain classes of visiters, has given to Arnheim a species of
secret and subdued if not solemn celebrity, similar in kind, although
infinitely superior in degree, to that which so long distinguished
Fonthill.

The usual approach to Arnheim was by the river. The visiter left the
city in the early morning. During the forenoon he passed between
shores of a tranquil and domestic beauty, on which grazed innumerable
sheep, their white fleeces spotting the vivid green of rolling
meadows. By degrees the idea of cultivation subsided into that of
merely pastoral care. This slowly became merged in a sense of
retirement -- this again in a consciousness of solitude. As the
evening approached, the channel grew more narrow, the banks more and
more precipitous; and these latter were clothed in rich, more
profuse, and more sombre foliage. The water increased in
transparency. The stream took a thousand turns, so that at no moment
could its gleaming surface be seen for a greater distance than a
furlong. At every instant the vessel seemed imprisoned within an
enchanted circle, having insuperable and impenetrable walls of
foliage, a roof of ultramarine satin, and no floor -- the keel
balancing itself with admirable nicety on that of a phantom bark
which, by some accident having been turned upside down, floated in
constant company with the substantial one, for the purpose of
sustaining it. The channel now became a gorge -- although the term is
somewhat inapplicable, and I employ it merely because the language
has no word which better represents the most striking -- not the most
distinctive-feature of the scene. The character of gorge was
maintained only in the height and parallelism of the shores; it was
lost altogether in their other traits. The walls of the ravine
(through which the clear water still tranquilly flowed) arose to an
elevation of a hundred and occasionally of a hundred and fifty feet,
and inclined so much toward each other as, in a great measure, to
shut out the light of day; while the long plume-like moss which
depended densely from the intertwining shrubberies overhead, gave the
whole chasm an air of funereal gloom. The windings became more
frequent and intricate, and seemed often as if returning in upon
themselves, so that the voyager had long lost all idea of direction.
He was, moreover, enwrapt in an exquisite sense of the strange. The
thought of nature still remained, but her character seemed to have
undergone modification, there was a weird symmetry, a thrilling
uniformity, a wizard propriety in these her works. Not a dead branch
-- not a withered leaf -- not a stray pebble -- not a patch of the
brown earth was anywhere visible. The crystal water welled up against
the clean granite, or the unblemished moss, with a sharpness of
outline that delighted while it bewildered the eye.

Having threaded the mazes of this channel for some hours, the gloom
deepening every moment, a sharp and unexpected turn of the vessel
brought it suddenly, as if dropped from heaven, into a circular basin
of very considerable extent when compared with the width of the
gorge. It was about two hundred yards in diameter, and girt in at all
points but one -- that immediately fronting the vessel as it entered
-- by hills equal in general height to the walls of the chasm,
although of a thoroughly different character. Their sides sloped from
the water's edge at an angle of some forty-five degrees, and they
were clothed from base to summit -- not a perceptible point escaping
-- in a drapery of the most gorgeous flower-blossoms; scarcely a
green leaf being visible among the sea of odorous and fluctuating
color. This basin was of great depth, but so transparent was the
water that the bottom, which seemed to consist of a thick mass of
small round alabaster pebbles, was distinctly visible by glimpses --
that is to say, whenever the eye could permit itself not to see, far
down in the inverted heaven, the duplicate blooming of the hills. On
these latter there were no trees, nor even shrubs of any size. The
impressions wrought on the observer were those of richness, warmth,
color, quietude, uniformity, softness, delicacy, daintiness,
voluptuousness, and a miraculous extremeness of culture that
suggested dreams of a new race of fairies, laborious, tasteful,
magnificent, and fastidious; but as the eye traced upward the
myriad-tinted slope, from its sharp junction with the water to its
vague termination amid the folds of overhanging cloud, it became,
indeed, difficult not to fancy a panoramic cataract of rubies,
sapphires, opals, and golden onyxes, rolling silently out of the sky.

The visiter, shooting suddenly into this bay from out the gloom of
the ravine, is delighted but astounded by the full orb of the
declining sun, which he had supposed to be already far below the
horizon, but which now confronts him, and forms the sole termination
of an otherwise limitless vista seen through another chasm -- like
rift in the hills.

But here the voyager quits the vessel which has borne him so far, and
descends into a light canoe of ivory, stained with arabesque devices
in vivid scarlet, both within and without. The poop and beak of this
boat arise high above the water, with sharp points, so that the
general form is that of an irregular crescent. It lies on the surface
of the bay with the proud grace of a swan. On its ermined floor
reposes a single feathery paddle of satin-wood; but no oarsmen or
attendant is to be seen. The guest is bidden to be of good cheer --
that the fates will take care of him. The larger vessel disappears,
and he is left alone in the canoe, which lies apparently motionless
in the middle of the lake. While he considers what course to pursue,
however, he becomes aware of a gentle movement in the fairy bark. It
slowly swings itself around until its prow points toward the sun. It
advances with a gentle but gradually accelerated velocity, while the
slight ripples it creates seem to break about the ivory side in
divinest melody-seem to offer the only possible explanation of the
soothing yet melancholy music for whose unseen origin the bewildered
voyager looks around him in vain.

The canoe steadily proceeds, and the rocky gate of the vista is
approached, so that its depths can be more distinctly seen. To the
right arise a chain of lofty hills rudely and luxuriantly wooded. It
is observed, however, that the trait of exquisite cleanness where the
bank dips into the water, still prevails. There is not one token of
the usual river debris. To the left the character of the scene is
softer and more obviously artificial. Here the bank slopes upward
from the stream in a very gentle ascent, forming a broad sward of
grass of a texture resembling nothing so much as velvet, and of a
brilliancy of green which would bear comparison with the tint of the
purest emerald. This plateau varies in width from ten to three
hundred yards; reaching from the river-bank to a wall, fifty feet
high, which extends, in an infinity of curves, but following the
general direction of the river, until lost in the distance to the
westward. This wall is of one continuous rock, and has been formed by
cutting perpendicularly the once rugged precipice of the stream's
southern bank, but no trace of the labor has been suffered to remain.
The chiselled stone has the hue of ages, and is profusely overhung
and overspread with the ivy, the coral honeysuckle, the eglantine,
and the clematis. The uniformity of the top and bottom lines of the
wall is fully relieved by occasional trees of gigantic height,
growing singly or in small groups, both along the plateau and in the
domain behind the wall, but in close proximity to it; so that
frequent limbs (of the black walnut especially) reach over and dip
their pendent extremities into the water. Farther back within the
domain, the vision is impeded by an impenetrable screen of foliage.

These things are observed during the canoe's gradual approach to what
I have called the gate of the vista. On drawing nearer to this,
however, its chasm-like appearance vanishes; a new outlet from the
bay is discovered to the left -- in which direction the wall is also
seen to sweep, still following the general course of the stream. Down
this new opening the eye cannot penetrate very far; for the stream,
accompanied by the wall, still bends to the left, until both are
swallowed up by the leaves.

The boat, nevertheless, glides magically into the winding channel;
and here the shore opposite the wall is found to resemble that
opposite the wall in the straight vista. Lofty hills, rising
occasionally into mountains, and covered with vegetation in wild
luxuriance, still shut in the scene.

Floating gently onward, but with a velocity slightly augmented, the
voyager, after many short turns, finds his progress apparently barred
by a gigantic gate or rather door of burnished gold, elaborately
carved and fretted, and reflecting the direct rays of the now
fast-sinking sun with an effulgence that seems to wreath the whole
surrounding forest in flames. This gate is inserted in the lofty
wall; which here appears to cross the river at right angles. In a few
moments, however, it is seen that the main body of the water still
sweeps in a gentle and extensive curve to the left, the wall
following it as before, while a stream of considerable volume,
diverging from the principal one, makes its way, with a slight
ripple, under the door, and is thus hidden from sight. The canoe
falls into the lesser channel and approaches the gate. Its ponderous
wings are slowly and musically expanded. The boat glides between
them, and commences a rapid descent into a vast amphitheatre entirely
begirt with purple mountains, whose bases are laved by a gleaming
river throughout the full extent of their circuit. Meantime the whole
Paradise of Arnheim bursts upon the view. There is a gush of
entrancing melody; there is an oppressive sense of strange sweet
odor, -- there is a dream -- like intermingling to the eye of tall
slender Eastern trees -- bosky shrubberies -- flocks of golden and
crimson birds -- lily-fringed lakes -- meadows of violets, tulips,
poppies, hyacinths, and tuberoses -- long intertangled lines of
silver streamlets -- and, upspringing confusedly from amid all, a
mass of semi-Gothic, semi-Saracenic architecture sustaining itself by
miracle in mid-air, glittering in the red sunlight with a hundred
oriels, minarets, and pinnacles; and seeming the phantom handiwork,
conjointly, of the Sylphs, of the Fairies, of the Genii and of the
Gnomes.

~~~ End of Text ~~~

======

LANDOR'S COTTAGE

A Pendant to "The Domain of Arnheim"

DURING A pedestrian trip last summer, through one or two of the river
counties of New York, I found myself, as the day declined, somewhat
embarrassed about the road I was pursuing. The land undulated very
remarkably; and my path, for the last hour, had wound about and about
so confusedly, in its effort to keep in the valleys, that I no longer
knew in what direction lay the sweet village of B-, where I had
determined to stop for the night. The sun had scarcely shone --
strictly speaking -- during the day, which nevertheless, had been
unpleasantly warm. A smoky mist, resembling that of the Indian
summer, enveloped all things, and of course, added to my uncertainty.
Not that I cared much about the matter. If I did not hit upon the
village before sunset, or even before dark, it was more than possible
that a little Dutch farmhouse, or something of that kind, would soon
make its appearance -- although, in fact, the neighborhood (perhaps
on account of being more picturesque than fertile) was very sparsely
inhabited. At all events, with my knapsack for a pillow, and my hound
as a sentry, a bivouac in the open air was just the thing which would
have amused me. I sauntered on, therefore, quite at ease -- Ponto
taking charge of my gun -- until at length, just as I had begun to
consider whether the numerous little glades that led hither and
thither, were intended to be paths at all, I was conducted by one of
them into an unquestionable carriage track. There could be no
mistaking it. The traces of light wheels were evident; and although
the tall shrubberies and overgrown undergrowth met overhead, there
was no obstruction whatever below, even to the passage of a Virginian
mountain wagon -- the most aspiring vehicle, I take it, of its kind.
The road, however, except in being open through the wood -- if wood
be not too weighty a name for such an assemblage of light trees --
and except in the particulars of evident wheel-tracks -- bore no
resemblance to any road I had before seen. The tracks of which I
speak were but faintly perceptible -- having been impressed upon the
firm, yet pleasantly moist surface of -- what looked more like green
Genoese velvet than any thing else. It was grass, clearly -- but
grass such as we seldom see out of England -- so short, so thick, so
even, and so vivid in color. Not a single impediment lay in the
wheel-route -- not even a chip or dead twig. The stones that once
obstructed the way had been carefully placed -- not thrown-along the
sides of the lane, so as to define its boundaries at bottom with a
kind of half-precise, half-negligent, and wholly picturesque
definition. Clumps of wild flowers grew everywhere, luxuriantly, in
the interspaces.

What to make of all this, of course I knew not. Here was art
undoubtedly -- that did not surprise me -- all roads, in the ordinary
sense, are works of art; nor can I say that there was much to wonder
at in the mere excess of art manifested; all that seemed to have been
done, might have been done here -- with such natural "capabilities"
(as they have it in the books on Landscape Gardening) -- with very
little labor and expense. No; it was not the amount but the character
of the art which caused me to take a seat on one of the blossomy
stones and gaze up and down this fairy -- like avenue for half an
hour or more in bewildered admiration. One thing became more and more
evident the longer I gazed: an artist, and one with a most scrupulous
eye for form, had superintended all these arrangements. The greatest
care had been taken to preserve a due medium between the neat and
graceful on the one hand, and the pittoresque, in the true sense of
the Italian term, on the other. There were few straight, and no long
uninterrupted lines. The same effect of curvature or of color
appeared twice, usually, but not oftener, at any one point of view.
Everywhere was variety in uniformity. It was a piece of
"composition," in which the most fastidiously critical taste could
scarcely have suggested an emendation.

I had turned to the right as I entered this road, and now, arising, I
continued in the same direction. The path was so serpentine, that at
no moment could I trace its course for more than two or three paces
in advance. Its character did not undergo any material change.

Presently the murmur of water fell gently upon my ear -- and in a few
moments afterward, as I turned with the road somewhat more abruptly
than hitherto, I became aware that a building of some kind lay at the
foot of a gentle declivity just before me. I could see nothing
distinctly on account of the mist which occupied all the little
valley below. A gentle breeze, however, now arose, as the sun was
about descending; and while I remained standing on the brow of the
slope, the fog gradually became dissipated into wreaths, and so
floated over the scene.

As it came fully into view -- thus gradually as I describe it --
piece by piece, here a tree, there a glimpse of water, and here again
the summit of a chimney, I could scarcely help fancying that the
whole was one of the ingenious illusions sometimes exhibited under
the name of "vanishing pictures."

By the time, however, that the fog had thoroughly disappeared, the
sun had made its way down behind the gentle hills, and thence, as it
with a slight chassez to the south, had come again fully into sight,
glaring with a purplish lustre through a chasm that entered the
valley from the west. Suddenly, therefore -- and as if by the hand of
magic -- this whole valley and every thing in it became brilliantly
visible.

The first coup d'oeil, as the sun slid into the position described,
impressed me very much as I have been impressed, when a boy, by the
concluding scene of some well-arranged theatrical spectacle or
melodrama. Not even the monstrosity of color was wanting; for the
sunlight came out through the chasm, tinted all orange and purple;
while the vivid green of the grass in the valley was reflected more
or less upon all objects from the curtain of vapor that still hung
overhead, as if loth to take its total departure from a scene so
enchantingly beautiful.

The little vale into which I thus peered down from under the fog
canopy could not have been more than four hundred yards long; while
in breadth it varied from fifty to one hundred and fifty or perhaps
two hundred. It was most narrow at its northern extremity, opening
out as it tended southwardly, but with no very precise regularity.
The widest portion was within eighty yards of the southern extreme.
The slopes which encompassed the vale could not fairly be called
hills, unless at their northern face. Here a precipitous ledge of
granite arose to a height of some ninety feet; and, as I have
mentioned, the valley at this point was not more than fifty feet
wide; but as the visiter proceeded southwardly from the cliff, he
found on his right hand and on his left, declivities at once less
high, less precipitous, and less rocky. All, in a word, sloped and
softened to the south; and yet the whole vale was engirdled by
eminences, more or less high, except at two points. One of these I
have already spoken of. It lay considerably to the north of west, and
was where the setting sun made its way, as I have before described,
into the amphitheatre, through a cleanly cut natural cleft in the
granite embankment; this fissure might have been ten yards wide at
its widest point, so far as the eye could trace it. It seemed to lead
up, up like a natural causeway, into the recesses of unexplored
mountains and forests. The other opening was directly at the southern
end of the vale. Here, generally, the slopes were nothing more than
gentle inclinations, extending from east to west about one hundred
and fifty yards. In the middle of this extent was a depression, level
with the ordinary floor of the valley. As regards vegetation, as well
as in respect to every thing else, the scene softened and sloped to
the south. To the north -- on the craggy precipice -- a few paces
from the verge -- up sprang the magnificent trunks of numerous
hickories, black walnuts, and chestnuts, interspersed with occasional
oak, and the strong lateral branches thrown out by the walnuts
especially, spread far over the edge of the cliff. Proceeding
southwardly, the explorer saw, at first, the same class of trees, but
less and less lofty and Salvatorish in character; then he saw the
gentler elm, succeeded by the sassafras and locust -- these again by
the softer linden, red-bud, catalpa, and maple -- these yet again by
still more graceful and more modest varieties. The whole face of the
southern declivity was covered with wild shrubbery alone -- an
occasional silver willow or white poplar excepted. In the bottom of
the valley itself -- (for it must be borne in mind that the
vegetation hitherto mentioned grew only on the cliffs or hillsides)
-- were to be seen three insulated trees. One was an elm of fine size
and exquisite form: it stood guard over the southern gate of the
vale. Another was a hickory, much larger than the elm, and altogether
a much finer tree, although both were exceedingly beautiful: it
seemed to have taken charge of the northwestern entrance, springing
from a group of rocks in the very jaws of the ravine, and throwing
its graceful body, at an angle of nearly forty-five degrees, far out
into the sunshine of the amphitheatre. About thirty yards east of
this tree stood, however, the pride of the valley, and beyond all
question the most magnificent tree I have ever seen, unless, perhaps,
among the cypresses of the Itchiatuckanee. It was a triple -- stemmed
tulip-tree -- the Liriodendron Tulipiferum -- one of the natural
order of magnolias. Its three trunks separated from the parent at
about three feet from the soil, and diverging very slightly and
gradually, were not more than four feet apart at the point where the
largest stem shot out into foliage: this was at an elevation of about
eighty feet. The whole height of the principal division was one
hundred and twenty feet. Nothing can surpass in beauty the form, or
the glossy, vivid green of the leaves of the tulip-tree. In the
present instance they were fully eight inches wide; but their glory
was altogether eclipsed by the gorgeous splendor of the profuse
blossoms. Conceive, closely congregated, a million of the largest and
most resplendent tulips! Only thus can the reader get any idea of the
picture I would convey. And then the stately grace of the clean,
delicately -- granulated columnar stems, the largest four feet in
diameter, at twenty from the ground. The innumerable blossoms,
mingling with those of other trees scarcely less beautiful, although
infinitely less majestic, filled the valley with more than Arabian
perfumes.

The general floor of the amphitheatre was grass of the same character
as that I had found in the road; if anything, more deliciously soft,
thick, velvety, and miraculously green. It was hard to conceive how
all this beauty had been attained.

I have spoken of two openings into the vale. From the one to the
northwest issued a rivulet, which came, gently murmuring and slightly
foaming, down the ravine, until it dashed against the group of rocks
out of which sprang the insulated hickory. Here, after encircling the
tree, it passed on a little to the north of east, leaving the tulip
tree some twenty feet to the south, and making no decided alteration
in its course until it came near the midway between the eastern and
western boundaries of the valley. At this point, after a series of
sweeps, it turned off at right angles and pursued a generally
southern direction meandering as it went -- until it became lost in a
small lake of irregular figure (although roughly oval), that lay
gleaming near the lower extremity of the vale. This lakelet was,
perhaps, a hundred yards in diameter at its widest part. No crystal
could be clearer than its waters. Its bottom, which could be
distinctly seen, consisted altogether, of pebbles brilliantly white.
Its banks, of the emerald grass already described, rounded, rather
than sloped, off into the clear heaven below; and so clear was this
heaven, so perfectly, at times, did it reflect all objects above it,
that where the true bank ended and where the mimic one commenced, it
was a point of no little difficulty to determine. The trout, and some
other varieties of fish, with which this pond seemed to be almost
inconveniently crowded, had all the appearance of veritable
flying-fish. It was almost impossible to believe that they were not
absolutely suspended in the air. A light birch canoe that lay
placidly on the water, was reflected in its minutest fibres with a
fidelity unsurpassed by the most exquisitely polished mirror. A small
island, fairly laughing with flowers in full bloom, and affording
little more space than just enough for a picturesque little building,
seemingly a fowl-house -- arose from the lake not far from its
northern shore -- to which it was connected by means of an
inconceivably light -- looking and yet very primitive bridge. It was
formed of a single, broad and thick plank of the tulip wood. This was
forty feet long, and spanned the interval between shore and shore
with a slight but very perceptible arch, preventing all oscillation.
From the southern extreme of the lake issued a continuation of the
rivulet, which, after meandering for, perhaps, thirty yards, finally
passed through the "depression" (already described) in the middle of
the southern declivity, and tumbling down a sheer precipice of a
hundred feet, made its devious and unnoticed way to the Hudson.

The lake was deep -- at some points thirty feet -- but the rivulet
seldom exceeded three, while its greatest width was about eight. Its
bottom and banks were as those of the pond -- if a defect could have
been attributed, in point of picturesqueness, it was that of
excessive neatness.

The expanse of the green turf was relieved, here and there, by an
occasional showy shrub, such as the hydrangea, or the common
snowball, or the aromatic seringa; or, more frequently, by a clump of
geraniums blossoming gorgeously in great varieties. These latter grew
in pots which were carefully buried in the soil, so as to give the
plants the appearance of being indigenous. Besides all this, the
lawn's velvet was exquisitely spotted with sheep -- a considerable
flock of which roamed about the vale, in company with three tamed
deer, and a vast number of brilliantly -- plumed ducks. A very large
mastiff seemed to be in vigilant attendance upon these animals, each
and all.

Along the eastern and western cliffs -- where, toward the upper
portion of the amphitheatre, the boundaries were more or less
precipitous -- grew ivy in great profusion -- so that only here and
there could even a glimpse of the naked rock be obtained. The
northern precipice, in like manner, was almost entirely clothed by
grape-vines of rare luxuriance; some springing from the soil at the
base of the cliff, and others from ledges on its face.

The slight elevation which formed the lower boundary of this little
domain, was crowned by a neat stone wall, of sufficient height to
prevent the escape of the deer. Nothing of the fence kind was
observable elsewhere; for nowhere else was an artificial enclosure
needed: -- any stray sheep, for example, which should attempt to make
its way out of the vale by means of the ravine, would find its
progress arrested, after a few yards' advance, by the precipitous
ledge of rock over which tumbled the cascade that had arrested my
attention as I first drew near the domain. In short, the only ingress
or egress was through a gate occupying a rocky pass in the road, a
few paces below the point at which I stopped to reconnoitre the
scene.

I have described the brook as meandering very irregularly through the
whole of its course. Its two general directions, as I have said, were
first from west to east, and then from north to south. At the turn,
the stream, sweeping backward, made an almost circular loop, so as to
form a peninsula which was very nearly an island, and which included
about the sixteenth of an acre. On this peninsula stood a
dwelling-house -- and when I say that this house, like the infernal
terrace seen by Vathek, "etait d'une architecture inconnue dans les
annales de la terre," I mean, merely, that its tout ensemble struck
me with the keenest sense of combined novelty and propriety -- in a
word, of poetry -- (for, than in the words just employed, I could
scarcely give, of poetry in the abstract, a more rigorous definition)
-- and I do not mean that merely outre was perceptible in any
respect.

In fact nothing could well be more simple -- more utterly
unpretending than this cottage. Its marvellous effect lay altogether
in its artistic arrangement as a picture. I could have fancied, while
I looked at it, that some eminent landscape-painter had built it with
his brush.

The point of view from which I first saw the valley, was not
altogether, although it was nearly, the best point from which to
survey the house. I will therefore describe it as I afterwards saw it
-- from a position on the stone wall at the southern extreme of the
amphitheatre.

The main building was about twenty-four feet long and sixteen broad
-- certainly not more. Its total height, from the ground to the apex
of the roof, could not have exceeded eighteen feet. To the west end
of this structure was attached one about a third smaller in all its
proportions: -- the line of its front standing back about two yards
from that of the larger house, and the line of its roof, of course,
being considerably depressed below that of the roof adjoining. At
right angles to these buildings, and from the rear of the main one --
not exactly in the middle -- extended a third compartment, very small
-- being, in general, one-third less than the western wing. The roofs
of the two larger were very steep -- sweeping down from the
ridge-beam with a long concave curve, and extending at least four
feet beyond the walls in front, so as to form the roofs of two
piazzas. These latter roofs, of course, needed no support; but as
they had the air of needing it, slight and perfectly plain pillars
were inserted at the corners alone. The roof of the northern wing was
merely an extension of a portion of the main roof. Between the chief
building and western wing arose a very tall and rather slender square
chimney of hard Dutch bricks, alternately black and red: -- a slight
cornice of projecting bricks at the top. Over the gables the roofs
also projected very much: -- in the main building about four feet to
the east and two to the west. The principal door was not exactly in
the main division, being a little to the east -- while the two
windows were to the west. These latter did not extend to the floor,
but were much longer and narrower than usual -- they had single
shutters like doors -- the panes were of lozenge form, but quite
large. The door itself had its upper half of glass, also in lozenge
panes -- a movable shutter secured it at night. The door to the west
wing was in its gable, and quite simple -- a single window looked out
to the south. There was no external door to the north wing, and it
also had only one window to the east.

The blank wall of the eastern gable was relieved by stairs (with a
balustrade) running diagonally across it -- the ascent being from the
south. Under cover of the widely projecting eave these steps gave
access to a door leading to the garret, or rather loft -- for it was
lighted only by a single window to the north, and seemed to have been
intended as a store-room.

The piazzas of the main building and western wing had no floors, as
is usual; but at the doors and at each window, large, flat irregular
slabs of granite lay imbedded in the delicious turf, affording
comfortable footing in all weather. Excellent paths of the same
material -- not nicely adapted, but with the velvety sod filling
frequent intervals between the stones, led hither and thither from
the house, to a crystal spring about five paces off, to the road, or
to one or two out -- houses that lay to the north, beyond the brook,
and were thoroughly concealed by a few locusts and catalpas.

Not more than six steps from the main door of the cottage stood the
dead trunk of a fantastic pear-tree, so clothed from head to foot in
the gorgeous bignonia blossoms that one required no little scrutiny
to determine what manner of sweet thing it could be. From various
arms of this tree hung cages of different kinds. In one, a large
wicker cylinder with a ring at top, revelled a mocking bird; in
another an oriole; in a third the impudent bobolink -- while three or
four more delicate prisons were loudly vocal with canaries.

The pillars of the piazza were enwreathed in jasmine and sweet
honeysuckle; while from the angle formed by the main structure and
its west wing, in front, sprang a grape-vine of unexampled
luxuriance. Scorning all restraint, it had clambered first to the
lower roof -- then to the higher; and along the ridge of this latter
it continued to writhe on, throwing out tendrils to the right and
left, until at length it fairly attained the east gable, and fell
trailing over the stairs.

The whole house, with its wings, was constructed of the old-fashioned
Dutch shingles -- broad, and with unrounded corners. It is a
peculiarity of this material to give houses built of it the
appearance of being wider at bottom than at top -- after the manner
of Egyptian architecture; and in the present instance, this
exceedingly picturesque effect was aided by numerous pots of gorgeous
flowers that almost encompassed the base of the buildings.

The shingles were painted a dull gray; and the happiness with which
this neutral tint melted into the vivid green of the tulip tree
leaves that partially overshadowed the cottage, can readily be
conceived by an artist.

From the position near the stone wall, as described, the buildings
were seen at great advantage -- for the southeastern angle was thrown
forward -- so that the eye took in at once the whole of the two
fronts, with the picturesque eastern gable, and at the same time
obtained just a sufficient glimpse of the northern wing, with parts
of a pretty roof to the spring-house, and nearly half of a light
bridge that spanned the brook in the near vicinity of the main
buildings.

I did not remain very long on the brow of the hill, although long
enough to make a thorough survey of the scene at my feet. It was
clear that I had wandered from the road to the village, and I had
thus good traveller's excuse to open the gate before me, and inquire
my way, at all events; so, without more ado, I proceeded.

The road, after passing the gate, seemed to lie upon a natural ledge,
sloping gradually down along the face of the north-eastern cliffs. It
led me on to the foot of the northern precipice, and thence over the
bridge, round by the eastern gable to the front door. In this
progress, I took notice that no sight of the out-houses could be
obtained.

As I turned the corner of the gable, the mastiff bounded towards me
in stern silence, but with the eye and the whole air of a tiger. I
held him out my hand, however, in token of amity -- and I never yet
knew the dog who was proof against such an appeal to his courtesy. He
not only shut his mouth and wagged his tail, but absolutely offered
me his paw-afterward extending his civilities to Ponto.

As no bell was discernible, I rapped with my stick against the door,
which stood half open. Instantly a figure advanced to the threshold
-- that of a young woman about twenty-eight years of age -- slender,
or rather slight, and somewhat above the medium height. As she
approached, with a certain modest decision of step altogether
indescribable. I said to myself, "Surely here I have found the
perfection of natural, in contradistinction from artificial grace."
The second impression which she made on me, but by far the more vivid
of the two, was that of enthusiasm. So intense an expression of
romance, perhaps I should call it, or of unworldliness, as that which
gleamed from her deep-set eyes, had never so sunk into my heart of
hearts before. I know not how it is, but this peculiar expression of
the eye, wreathing itself occasionally into the lips, is the most
powerful, if not absolutely the sole spell, which rivets my interest
in woman. "Romance, provided my readers fully comprehended what I
would here imply by the word -- "romance" and "womanliness" seem to
me convertible terms: and, after all, what man truly loves in woman,
is simply her womanhood. The eyes of Annie (I heard some one from the
interior call her "Annie, darling!") were "spiritual grey;" her hair,
a light chestnut: this is all I had time to observe of her.

At her most courteous of invitations, I entered -- passing first into
a tolerably wide vestibule. Having come mainly to observe, I took
notice that to my right as I stepped in, was a window, such as those
in front of the house; to the left, a door leading into the principal
room; while, opposite me, an open door enabled me to see a small
apartment, just the size of the vestibule, arranged as a study, and
having a large bow window looking out to the north.

Passing into the parlor, I found myself with Mr. Landor -- for this,
I afterwards found, was his name. He was civil, even cordial in his
manner, but just then, I was more intent on observing the
arrangements of the dwelling which had so much interested me, than
the personal appearance of the tenant.

The north wing, I now saw, was a bed-chamber, its door opened into
the parlor. West of this door was a single window, looking toward the
brook. At the west end of the parlor, were a fireplace, and a door
leading into the west wing -- probably a kitchen.

Nothing could be more rigorously simple than the furniture of the
parlor. On the floor was an ingrain carpet, of excellent texture -- a
white ground, spotted with small circular green figures. At the
windows were curtains of snowy white jaconet muslin: they were
tolerably full, and hung decisively, perhaps rather formally in
sharp, parallel plaits to the floor -- just to the floor. The walls
were prepared with a French paper of great delicacy, a silver ground,
with a faint green cord running zig-zag throughout. Its expanse was
relieved merely by three of Julien's exquisite lithographs a trois
crayons, fastened to the wall without frames. One of these drawings
was a scene of Oriental luxury, or rather voluptuousness; another was
a "carnival piece," spirited beyond compare; the third was a Greek
female head -- a face so divinely beautiful, and yet of an expression
so provokingly indeterminate, never before arrested my attention.

The more substantial furniture consisted of a round table, a few
chairs (including a large rocking-chair), and a sofa, or rather
"settee;" its material was plain maple painted a creamy white,
slightly interstriped with green; the seat of cane. The chairs and
table were "to match," but the forms of all had evidently been
designed by the same brain which planned "the grounds;" it is
impossible to conceive anything more graceful.

On the table were a few books, a large, square, crystal bottle of
some novel perfume, a plain ground -- glass astral (not solar) lamp
with an Italian shade, and a large vase of resplendently-blooming
flowers. Flowers, indeed, of gorgeous colours and delicate odour
formed the sole mere decoration of the apartment. The fire-place was
nearly filled with a vase of brilliant geranium. On a triangular
shelf in each angle of the room stood also a similar vase, varied
only as to its lovely contents. One or two smaller bouquets adorned
the mantel, and late violets clustered about the open windows.

It is not the purpose of this work to do more than give in detail, a
picture of Mr. Landor's residence -- as I found it. How he made it
what it was -- and why -- with some particulars of Mr. Landor himself
-- may, possibly form the subject of another article.

~~~ End of Text ~~~

======

WILLIAM WILSON

What say of it? what say of CONSCIENCE grim,
That spectre in my path?

                      _Chamberlayne's Pharronida._

    LET me call myself, for the present, William Wilson. The fair
page now lying before me need not be sullied with my real
appellation. This has been already too much an object for the scorn
-- for the horror -- for the detestation of my race. To the uttermost
regions of the globe have not the indignant winds bruited its
unparalleled infamy? Oh, outcast of all outcasts most abandoned! --
to the earth art thou not forever dead? to its honors, to its
flowers, to its golden aspirations? -- and a cloud, dense, dismal,
and limitless, does it not hang eternally between thy hopes and
heaven?

I would not, if I could, here or to-day, embody a record of my later
years of unspeakable misery, and unpardonable crime. This epoch --
these later years -- took unto themselves a sudden elevation in
turpitude, whose origin alone it is my present purpose to assign. Men
usually grow base by degrees. From me, in an instant, all virtue
dropped bodily as a mantle. From comparatively trivial wickedness I
passed, with the stride of a giant, into more than the enormities of
an Elah-Gabalus. What chance -- what one event brought this evil
thing to pass, bear with me while I relate. Death approaches; and the
shadow which foreruns him has thrown a softening influence over my
spirit. I long, in passing through the dim valley, for the sympathy
-- I had nearly said for the pity -- of my fellow men. I would fain
have them believe that I have been, in some measure, the slave of
circumstances beyond human control. I would wish them to seek out for
me, in the details I am about to give, some little oasis of fatality
amid a wilderness of error. I would have them allow -- what they
cannot refrain from allowing -- that, although temptation may have
erewhile existed as great, man was never thus, at least, tempted
before -- certainly, never thus fell. And is it therefore that he has
never thus suffered? Have I not indeed been living in a dream? And am
I not now dying a victim to the horror and the mystery of the wildest
of all sublunary visions?

I am the descendant of a race whose imaginative and easily excitable
temperament has at all times rendered them remarkable; and, in my
earliest infancy, I gave evidence of having fully inherited the
family character. As I advanced in years it was more strongly
developed; becoming, for many reasons, a cause of serious disquietude
to my friends, and of positive injury to myself. I grew self-willed,
addicted to the wildest caprices, and a prey to the most ungovernable
passions. Weak-minded, and beset with constitutional infirmities akin
to my own, my parents could do but little to check the evil
propensities which distinguished me. Some feeble and ill-directed
efforts resulted in complete failure on their part, and, of course,
in total triumph on mine. Thenceforward my voice was a household law;
and at an age when few children have abandoned their leading-strings,
I was left to the guidance of my own will, and became, in all but
name, the master of my own actions.

My earliest recollections of a school-life, are connected with a
large, rambling, Elizabethan house, in a misty-looking village of
England, where were a vast number of gigantic and gnarled trees, and
where all the houses were excessively ancient. In truth, it was a
dream-like and spirit-soothing place, that venerable old town. At
this moment, in fancy, I feel the refreshing chilliness of its
deeply-shadowed avenues, inhale the fragrance of its thousand
shrubberies, and thrill anew with undefinable delight, at the deep
hollow note of the church-bell, breaking, each hour, with sullen and
sudden roar, upon the stillness of the dusky atmosphere in which the
fretted Gothic steeple lay imbedded and asleep.

It gives me, perhaps, as much of pleasure as I can now in any manner
experience, to dwell upon minute recollections of the school and its
concerns. Steeped in misery as I am -- misery, alas! only too real --
I shall be pardoned for seeking relief, however slight and temporary,
in the weakness of a few rambling details. These, moreover, utterly
trivial, and even ridiculous in themselves, assume, to my fancy,
adventitious importance, as connected with a period and a locality
when and where I recognise the first ambiguous monitions of the
destiny which afterwards so fully overshadowed me. Let me then
remember.

The house, I have said, was old and irregular. The grounds were
extensive, and a high and solid brick wall, topped with a bed of
mortar and broken glass, encompassed the whole. This prison-like
rampart formed the limit of our domain; beyond it we saw but thrice a
week -- once every Saturday afternoon, when, attended by two ushers,
we were permitted to take brief walks in a body through some of the
neighbouring fields -- and twice during Sunday, when we were paraded
in the same formal manner to the morning and evening service in the
one church of the village. Of this church the principal of our school
was pastor. With how deep a spirit of wonder and perplexity was I
wont to regard him from our remote pew in the gallery, as, with step
solemn and slow, he ascended the pulpit! This reverend man, with
countenance so demurely benign, with robes so glossy and so
clerically flowing, with wig so minutely powdered, so rigid and so
vast, -- -could this be he who, of late, with sour visage, and in
snuffy habiliments, administered, ferule in hand, the Draconian laws
of the academy? Oh, gigantic paradox, too utterly monstrous for
solution!

At an angle of the ponderous wall frowned a more ponderous gate. It
was riveted and studded with iron bolts, and surmounted with jagged
iron spikes. What impressions of deep awe did it inspire! It was
never opened save for the three periodical egressions and ingressions
already mentioned; then, in every creak of its mighty hinges, we
found a plenitude of mystery -- a world of matter for solemn remark,
or for more solemn meditation.

The extensive enclosure was irregular in form, having many capacious
recesses. Of these, three or four of the largest constituted the
play-ground. It was level, and covered with fine hard gravel. I well
remember it had no trees, nor benches, nor anything similar within
it. Of course it was in the rear of the house. In front lay a small
parterre, planted with box and other shrubs; but through this sacred
division we passed only upon rare occasions indeed -- such as a first
advent to school or final departure thence, or perhaps, when a parent
or friend having called for us, we joyfully took our way home for the
Christmas or Midsummer holy-days.

But the house! -- how quaint an old building was this! -- to me how
veritably a palace of enchantment! There was really no end to its
windings -- to its incomprehensible subdivisions. It was difficult,
at any given time, to say with certainty upon which of its two
stories one happened to be. From each room to every other there were
sure to be found three or four steps either in ascent or descent.
Then the lateral branches were innumerable -- inconceivable -- and so
returning in upon themselves, that our most exact ideas in regard to
the whole mansion were not very far different from those with which
we pondered upon infinity. During the five years of my residence
here, I was never able to ascertain with precision, in what remote
locality lay the little sleeping apartment assigned to myself and
some eighteen or twenty other scholars.

The school-room was the largest in the house -- I could not help
thinking, in the world. It was very long, narrow, and dismally low,
with pointed Gothic windows and a ceiling of oak. In a remote and
terror-inspiring angle was a square enclosure of eight or ten feet,
comprising the sanctum, "during hours," of our principal, the
Reverend Dr. Bransby. It was a solid structure, with massy door,
sooner than open which in the absence of the "Dominic," we would all
have willingly perished by the peine forte et dure. In other angles
were two other similar boxes, far less reverenced, indeed, but still
greatly matters of awe. One of these was the pulpit of the
"classical" usher, one of the "English and mathematical."
Interspersed about the room, crossing and recrossing in endless
irregularity, were innumerable benches and desks, black, ancient, and
time-worn, piled desperately with much-bethumbed books, and so
beseamed with initial letters, names at full length, grotesque
figures, and other multiplied efforts of the knife, as to have
entirely lost what little of original form might have been their
portion in days long departed. A huge bucket with water stood at one
extremity of the room, and a clock of stupendous dimensions at the
other.

Encompassed by the massy walls of this venerable academy, I passed,
yet not in tedium or disgust, the years of the third lustrum of my
life. The teeming brain of childhood requires no external world of
incident to occupy or amuse it; and the apparently dismal monotony of
a school was replete with more intense excitement than my riper youth
has derived from luxury, or my full manhood from crime. Yet I must
believe that my first mental development had in it much of the
uncommon -- even much of the outre. Upon mankind at large the events
of very early existence rarely leave in mature age any definite
impression. All is gray shadow -- a weak and irregular remembrance --
an indistinct regathering of feeble pleasures and phantasmagoric
pains. With me this is not so. In childhood I must have felt with the
energy of a man what I now find stamped upon memory in lines as
vivid, as deep, and as durable as the exergues of the Carthaginian
medals.

Yet in fact -- in the fact of the world's view -- how little was
there to remember! The morning's awakening, the nightly summons to
bed; the connings, the recitations; the periodical half-holidays, and
perambulations; the play-ground, with its broils, its pastimes, its
intrigues; -- these, by a mental sorcery long forgotten, were made to
involve a wilderness of sensation, a world of rich incident, an
universe of varied emotion, of excitement the most passionate and
spirit-stirring. "Oh, le bon temps, que ce siecle de fer!"

In truth, the ardor, the enthusiasm, and the imperiousness of my
disposition, soon rendered me a marked character among my
schoolmates, and by slow, but natural gradations, gave me an
ascendancy over all not greatly older than myself; -- over all with a
single exception. This exception was found in the person of a
scholar, who, although no relation, bore the same Christian and
surname as myself; -- a circumstance, in fact, little remarkable;
for, notwithstanding a noble descent, mine was one of those everyday
appellations which seem, by prescriptive right, to have been, time
out of mind, the common property of the mob. In this narrative I have
therefore designated myself as William Wilson, -- a fictitious title
not very dissimilar to the real. My namesake alone, of those who in
school phraseology constituted "our set," presumed to compete with me
in the studies of the class -- in the sports and broils of the
play-ground -- to refuse implicit belief in my assertions, and
submission to my will -- indeed, to interfere with my arbitrary
dictation in any respect whatsoever. If there is on earth a supreme
and unqualified despotism, it is the despotism of a master mind in
boyhood over the less energetic spirits of its companions.

Wilson's rebellion was to me a source of the greatest embarrassment;
-- the more so as, in spite of the bravado with which in public I
made a point of treating him and his pretensions, I secretly felt
that I feared him, and could not help thinking the equality which he
maintained so easily with myself, a proof of his true superiority;
since not to be overcome cost me a perpetual struggle. Yet this
superiority -- even this equality -- was in truth acknowledged by no
one but myself; our associates, by some unaccountable blindness,
seemed not even to suspect it. Indeed, his competition, his
resistance, and especially his impertinent and dogged interference
with my purposes, were not more pointed than private. He appeared to
be destitute alike of the ambition which urged, and of the passionate
energy of mind which enabled me to excel. In his rivalry he might
have been supposed actuated solely by a whimsical desire to thwart,
astonish, or mortify myself; although there were times when I could
not help observing, with a feeling made up of wonder, abasement, and
pique, that he mingled with his injuries, his insults, or his
contradictions, a certain most inappropriate, and assuredly most
unwelcome affectionateness of manner. I could only conceive this
singular behavior to arise from a consummate self-conceit assuming
the vulgar airs of patronage and protection.

Perhaps it was this latter trait in Wilson's conduct, conjoined with
our identity of name, and the mere accident of our having entered the
school upon the same day, which set afloat the notion that we were
brothers, among the senior classes in the academy. These do not
usually inquire with much strictness into the affairs of their
juniors. I have before said, or should have said, that Wilson was
not, in the most remote degree, connected with my family. But
assuredly if we had been brothers we must have been twins; for, after
leaving Dr. Bransby's, I casually learned that my namesake was born
on the nineteenth of January, 1813 -- and this is a somewhat
remarkable coincidence; for the day is precisely that of my own
nativity.

It may seem strange that in spite of the continual anxiety occasioned
me by the rivalry of Wilson, and his intolerable spirit of
contradiction, I could not bring myself to hate him altogether. We
had, to be sure, nearly every day a quarrel in which, yielding me
publicly the palm of victory, he, in some manner, contrived to make
me feel that it was he who had deserved it; yet a sense of pride on
my part, and a veritable dignity on his own, kept us always upon what
are called "speaking terms," while there were many points of strong
congeniality in our tempers, operating to awake me in a sentiment
which our position alone, perhaps, prevented from ripening into
friendship. It is difficult, indeed, to define, or even to describe,
my real feelings towards him. They formed a motley and heterogeneous
admixture; -- some petulant animosity, which was not yet hatred, some
esteem, more respect, much fear, with a world of uneasy curiosity. To
the moralist it will be unnecessary to say, in addition, that Wilson
and myself were the most inseparable of companions.

It was no doubt the anomalous state of affairs existing between us,
which turned all my attacks upon him, (and they were many, either
open or covert) into the channel of banter or practical joke (giving
pain while assuming the aspect of mere fun) rather than into a more
serious and determined hostility. But my endeavours on this head were
by no means uniformly successful, even when my plans were the most
wittily concocted; for my namesake had much about him, in character,
of that unassuming and quiet austerity which, while enjoying the
poignancy of its own jokes, has no heel of Achilles in itself, and
absolutely refuses to be laughed at. I could find, indeed, but one
vulnerable point, and that, lying in a personal peculiarity, arising,
perhaps, from constitutional disease, would have been spared by any
antagonist less at his wit's end than myself; -- my rival had a
weakness in the faucal or guttural organs, which precluded him from
raising his voice at any time above a very low whisper. Of this
defect I did not fall to take what poor advantage lay in my power.

Wilson's retaliations in kind were many; and there was one form of
his practical wit that disturbed me beyond measure. How his sagacity
first discovered at all that so petty a thing would vex me, is a
question I never could solve; but, having discovered, he habitually
practised the annoyance. I had always felt aversion to my uncourtly
patronymic, and its very common, if not plebeian praenomen. The words
were venom in my ears; and when, upon the day of my arrival, a second
William Wilson came also to the academy, I felt angry with him for
bearing the name, and doubly disgusted with the name because a
stranger bore it, who would be the cause of its twofold repetition,
who would be constantly in my presence, and whose concerns, in the
ordinary routine of the school business, must inevitably, on account
of the detestable coincidence, be often confounded with my own.

The feeling of vexation thus engendered grew stronger with every
circumstance tending to show resemblance, moral or physical, between
my rival and myself. I had not then discovered the remarkable fact
that we were of the same age; but I saw that we were of the same
height, and I perceived that we were even singularly alike in general
contour of person and outline of feature. I was galled, too, by the
rumor touching a relationship, which had grown current in the upper
forms. In a word, nothing could more seriously disturb me, although I
scrupulously concealed such disturbance,) than any allusion to a
similarity of mind, person, or condition existing between us. But, in
truth, I had no reason to believe that (with the exception of the
matter of relationship, and in the case of Wilson himself,) this
similarity had ever been made a subject of comment, or even observed
at all by our schoolfellows. That he observed it in all its bearings,
and as fixedly as I, was apparent; but that he could discover in such
circumstances so fruitful a field of annoyance, can only be
attributed, as I said before, to his more than ordinary penetration.

His cue, which was to perfect an imitation of myself, lay both in
words and in actions; and most admirably did he play his part. My
dress it was an easy matter to copy; my gait and general manner were,
without difficulty, appropriated; in spite of his constitutional
defect, even my voice did not escape him. My louder tones were, of
course, unattempted, but then the key, it was identical; and his
singular whisper, it grew the very echo of my own.

How greatly this most exquisite portraiture harassed me, (for it
could not justly be termed a caricature,) I will not now venture to
describe. I had but one consolation -- in the fact that the
imitation, apparently, was noticed by myself alone, and that I had to
endure only the knowing and strangely sarcastic smiles of my namesake
himself. Satisfied with having produced in my bosom the intended
effect, he seemed to chuckle in secret over the sting he had
inflicted, and was characteristically disregardful of the public
applause which the success of his witty endeavours might have so
easily elicited. That the school, indeed, did not feel his design,
perceive its accomplishment, and participate in his sneer, was, for
many anxious months, a riddle I could not resolve. Perhaps the
gradation of his copy rendered it not so readily perceptible; or,
more possibly, I owed my security to the master air of the copyist,
who, disdaining the letter, (which in a painting is all the obtuse
can see,) gave but the full spirit of his original for my individual
contemplation and chagrin.

I have already more than once spoken of the disgusting air of
patronage which he assumed toward me, and of his frequent officious
interference withy my will. This interference often took the
ungracious character of advice; advice not openly given, but hinted
or insinuated. I received it with a repugnance which gained strength
as I grew in years. Yet, at this distant day, let me do him the
simple justice to acknowledge that I can recall no occasion when the
suggestions of my rival were on the side of those errors or follies
so usual to his immature age and seeming inexperience; that his moral
sense, at least, if not his general talents and worldly wisdom, was
far keener than my own; and that I might, to-day, have been a better,
and thus a happier man, had I less frequently rejected the counsels
embodied in those meaning whispers which I then but too cordially
hated and too bitterly despised.

As it was, I at length grew restive in the extreme under his
distasteful supervision, and daily resented more and more openly what
I considered his intolerable arrogance. I have said that, in the
first years of our connexion as schoolmates, my feelings in regard to
him might have been easily ripened into friendship: but, in the
latter months of my residence at the academy, although the intrusion
of his ordinary manner had, beyond doubt, in some measure, abated, my
sentiments, in nearly similar proportion, partook very much of
positive hatred. Upon one occasion he saw this, I think, and
afterwards avoided, or made a show of avoiding me.

It was about the same period, if I remember aright, that, in an
altercation of violence with him, in which he was more than usually
thrown off his guard, and spoke and acted with an openness of
demeanor rather foreign to his nature, I discovered, or fancied I
discovered, in his accent, his air, and general appearance, a
something which first startled, and then deeply interested me, by
bringing to mind dim visions of my earliest infancy -- wild, confused
and thronging memories of a time when memory herself was yet unborn.
I cannot better describe the sensation which oppressed me than by
saying that I could with difficulty shake off the belief of my having
been acquainted with the being who stood before me, at some epoch
very long ago -- some point of the past even infinitely remote. The
delusion, however, faded rapidly as it came; and I mention it at all
but to define the day of the last conversation I there held with my
singular namesake.

The huge old house, with its countless subdivisions, had several
large chambers communicating with each other, where slept the greater
number of the students. There were, however, (as must necessarily
happen in a building so awkwardly planned,) many little nooks or
recesses, the odds and ends of the structure; and these the economic
ingenuity of Dr. Bransby had also fitted up as dormitories; although,
being the merest closets, they were capable of accommodating but a
single individual. One of these small apartments was occupied by
Wilson.

One night, about the close of my fifth year at the school, and
immediately after the altercation just mentioned, finding every one
wrapped in sleep, I arose from bed, and, lamp in hand, stole through
a wilderness of narrow passages from my own bedroom to that of my
rival. I had long been plotting one of those ill-natured pieces of
practical wit at his expense in which I had hitherto been so
uniformly unsuccessful. It was my intention, now, to put my scheme in
operation, and I resolved to make him feel the whole extent of the
malice with which I was imbued. Having reached his closet, I
noiselessly entered, leaving the lamp, with a shade over it, on the
outside. I advanced a step, and listened to the sound of his tranquil
breathing. Assured of his being asleep, I returned, took the light,
and with it again approached the bed. Close curtains were around it,
which, in the prosecution of my plan, I slowly and quietly withdrew,
when the bright rays fell vividly upon the sleeper, and my eyes, at
the same moment, upon his countenance. I looked; -- and a numbness,
an iciness of feeling instantly pervaded my frame. My breast heaved,
my knees tottered, my whole spirit became possessed with an
objectless yet intolerable horror. Gasping for breath, I lowered the
lamp in still nearer proximity to the face. Were these -- these the
lineaments of William Wilson? I saw, indeed, that they were his, but
I shook as if with a fit of the ague in fancying they were not. What
was there about them to confound me in this manner? I gazed; -- while
my brain reeled with a multitude of incoherent thoughts. Not thus he
appeared -- assuredly not thus -- in the vivacity of his waking
hours. The same name! the same contour of person! the same day of
arrival at the academy! And then his dogged and meaningless imitation
of my gait, my voice, my habits, and my manner! Was it, in truth,
within the bounds of human possibility, that what I now saw was the
result, merely, of the habitual practice of this sarcastic imitation?
Awe-stricken, and with a creeping shudder, I extinguished the lamp,
passed silently from the chamber, and left, at once, the halls of
that old academy, never to enter them again.

After a lapse of some months, spent at home in mere idleness, I found
myself a student at Eton. The brief interval had been sufficient to
enfeeble my remembrance of the events at Dr. Bransby's, or at least
to effect a material change in the nature of the feelings with which
I remembered them. The truth -- the tragedy -- of the drama was no
more. I could now find room to doubt the evidence of my senses; and
seldom called up the subject at all but with wonder at extent of
human credulity, and a smile at the vivid force of the imagination
which I hereditarily possessed. Neither was this species of
scepticism likely to be diminished by the character of the life I led
at Eton. The vortex of thoughtless folly into which I there so
immediately and so recklessly plunged, washed away all but the froth
of my past hours, engulfed at once every solid or serious impression,
and left to memory only the veriest levities of a former existence.

I do not wish, however, to trace the course of my miserable
profligacy here -- a profligacy which set at defiance the laws, while
it eluded the vigilance of the institution. Three years of folly,
passed without profit, had but given me rooted habits of vice, and
added, in a somewhat unusual degree, to my bodily stature, when,
after a week of soulless dissipation, I invited a small party of the
most dissolute students to a secret carousal in my chambers. We met
at a late hour of the night; for our debaucheries were to be
faithfully protracted until morning. The wine flowed freely, and
there were not wanting other and perhaps more dangerous seductions;
so that the gray dawn had already faintly appeared in the east, while
our delirious extravagance was at its height. Madly flushed with
cards and intoxication, I was in the act of insisting upon a toast of
more than wonted profanity, when my attention was suddenly diverted
by the violent, although partial unclosing of the door of the
apartment, and by the eager voice of a servant from without. He said
that some person, apparently in great haste, demanded to speak with
me in the hall.

Wildly excited with wine, the unexpected interruption rather
delighted than surprised me. I staggered forward at once, and a few
steps brought me to the vestibule of the building. In this low and
small room there hung no lamp; and now no light at all was admitted,
save that of the exceedingly feeble dawn which made its way through
the semi-circular window. As I put my foot over the threshold, I
became aware of the figure of a youth about my own height, and
habited in a white kerseymere morning frock, cut in the novel fashion
of the one I myself wore at the moment. This the faint light enabled
me to perceive; but the features of his face I could not distinguish.
Upon my entering he strode hurriedly up to me, and, seizing me by.
the arm with a gesture of petulant impatience, whispered the words
"William Wilson!" in my ear.

I grew perfectly sober in an instant. There was that in the manner of
the stranger, and in the tremulous shake of his uplifted finger, as
he held it between my eyes and the light, which filled me with
unqualified amazement; but it was not this which had so violently
moved me. It was the pregnancy of solemn admonition in the singular,
low, hissing utterance; and, above all, it was the character, the
tone, the key, of those few, simple, and familiar, yet whispered
syllables, which came with a thousand thronging memories of bygone
days, and struck upon my soul with the shock of a galvanic battery.
Ere I could recover the use of my senses he was gone.

Although this event failed not of a vivid effect upon my disordered
imagination, yet was it evanescent as vivid. For some weeks, indeed,
I busied myself in earnest inquiry, or was wrapped in a cloud of
morbid speculation. I did not pretend to disguise from my perception
the identity of the singular individual who thus perseveringly
interfered with my affairs, and harassed me with his insinuated
counsel. But who and what was this Wilson? -- and whence came he? --
and what were his purposes? Upon neither of these points could I be
satisfied; merely ascertaining, in regard to him, that a sudden
accident in his family had caused his removal from Dr. Bransby's
academy on the afternoon of the day in which I myself had eloped. But
in a brief period I ceased to think upon the subject; my attention
being all absorbed in a contemplated departure for Oxford. Thither I
soon went; the uncalculating vanity of my parents furnishing me with
an outfit and annual establishment, which would enable me to indulge
at will in the luxury already so dear to my heart, -- to vie in
profuseness of expenditure with the haughtiest heirs of the
wealthiest earldoms in Great Britain.

Excited by such appliances to vice, my constitutional temperament
broke forth with redoubled ardor, and I spurned even the common
restraints of decency in the mad infatuation of my revels. But it
were absurd to pause in the detail of my extravagance. Let it
suffice, that among spendthrifts I out-Heroded Herod, and that,
giving name to a multitude of novel follies, I added no brief
appendix to the long catalogue of vices then usual in the most
dissolute university of Europe.

It could hardly be credited, however, that I had, even here, so
utterly fallen from the gentlemanly estate, as to seek acquaintance
with the vilest arts of the gambler by profession, and, having become
an adept in his despicable science, to practise it habitually as a
means of increasing my already enormous income at the expense of the
weak-minded among my fellow-collegians. Such, nevertheless, was the
fact. And the very enormity of this offence against all manly and
honourable sentiment proved, beyond doubt, the main if not the sole
reason of the impunity with which it was committed. Who, indeed,
among my most abandoned associates, would not rather have disputed
the clearest evidence of his senses, than have suspected of such
courses, the gay, the frank, the generous William Wilson -- the
noblest and most commoner at Oxford -- him whose follies (said his
parasites) were but the follies of youth and unbridled fancy -- whose
errors but inimitable whim -- whose darkest vice but a careless and
dashing extravagance?

I had been now two years successfully busied in this way, when there
came to the university a young parvenu nobleman, Glendinning -- rich,
said report, as Herodes Atticus -- his riches, too, as easily
acquired. I soon found him of weak intellect, and, of course, marked
him as a fitting subject for my skill. I frequently engaged him in
play, and contrived, with the gambler's usual art, to let him win
considerable sums, the more effectually to entangle him in my snares.
At length, my schemes being ripe, I met him (with the full intention
that this meeting should be final and decisive) at the chambers of a
fellow-commoner, (Mr. Preston,) equally intimate with both, but who,
to do him Justice, entertained not even a remote suspicion of my
design. To give to this a better colouring, I had contrived to have
assembled a party of some eight or ten, and was solicitously careful
that the introduction of cards should appear accidental, and
originate in the proposal of my contemplated dupe himself. To be
brief upon a vile topic, none of the low finesse was omitted, so
customary upon similar occasions that it is a just matter for wonder
how any are still found so besotted as to fall its victim.

We had protracted our sitting far into the night, and I had at length
effected the manoeuvre of getting Glendinning as my sole antagonist.
The game, too, was my favorite ecarte!. The rest of the company,
interested in the extent of our play, had abandoned their own cards,
and were standing around us as spectators. The parvenu, who had been
induced by my artifices in the early part of the evening, to drink
deeply, now shuffled, dealt, or played, with a wild nervousness of
manner for which his intoxication, I thought, might partially, but
could not altogether account. In a very short period he had become my
debtor to a large amount, when, having taken a long draught of port,
he did precisely what I had been coolly anticipating -- he proposed
to double our already extravagant stakes. With a well-feigned show of
reluctance, and not until after my repeated refusal had seduced him
into some angry words which gave a color of pique to my compliance,
did I finally comply. The result, of course, did but prove how
entirely the prey was in my toils; in less than an hour he had
quadrupled his debt. For some time his countenance had been losing
the florid tinge lent it by the wine; but now, to my astonishment, I
perceived that it had grown to a pallor truly fearful. I say to my
astonishment. Glendinning had been represented to my eager inquiries
as immeasurably wealthy; and the sums which he had as yet lost,
although in themselves vast, could not, I supposed, very seriously
annoy, much less so violently affect him. That he was overcome by the
wine just swallowed, was the idea which most readily presented
itself; and, rather with a view to the preservation of my own
character in the eyes of my associates, than from any less interested
motive, I was about to insist, peremptorily, upon a discontinuance of
the play, when some expressions at my elbow from among the company,
and an ejaculation evincing utter despair on the part of Glendinning,
gave me to understand that I had effected his total ruin under
circumstances which, rendering him an object for the pity of all,
should have protected him from the ill offices even of a fiend.

What now might have been my conduct it is difficult to say. The
pitiable condition of my dupe had thrown an air of embarrassed gloom
over all; and, for some moments, a profound silence was maintained,
during which I could not help feeling my cheeks tingle with the many
burning glances of scorn or reproach cast upon me by the less
abandoned of the party. I will even own that an intolerable weight of
anxiety was for a brief instant lifted from my bosom by the sudden
and extraordinary interruption which ensued. The wide, heavy folding
doors of the apartment were all at once thrown open, to their full
extent, with a vigorous and rushing impetuosity that extinguished, as
if by magic, every candle in the room. Their light, in dying, enabled
us just to perceive that a stranger had entered, about my own height,
and closely muffled in a cloak. The darkness, however, was now total;
and we could only feel that he was standing in our midst. Before any
one of us could recover from the extreme astonishment into which this
rudeness had thrown all, we heard the voice of the intruder.

"Gentlemen," he said, in a low, distinct, and never-to-be-forgotten
whisper which thrilled to the very marrow of my bones, "Gentlemen, I
make no apology for this behaviour, because in thus behaving, I am
but fulfilling a duty. You are, beyond doubt, uninformed of the true
character of the person who has to-night won at ecarte a large sum of
money from Lord Glendinning. I will therefore put you upon an
expeditious and decisive plan of obtaining this very necessary
information. Please to examine, at your leisure, the inner linings of
the cuff of his left sleeve, and the several little packages which
may be found in the somewhat capacious pockets of his embroidered
morning wrapper."

While he spoke, so profound was the stillness that one might have
heard a pin drop upon the floor. In ceasing, he departed at once, and
as abruptly as he had entered. Can I -- shall I describe my
sensations? -- must I say that I felt all the horrors of the damned?
Most assuredly I had little time given for reflection. Many hands
roughly seized me upon the spot, and lights were immediately
reprocured. A search ensued. In the lining of my sleeve were found
all the court cards essential in ecarte, and, in the pockets of my
wrapper, a number of packs, facsimiles of those used at our sittings,
with the single exception that mine were of the species called,
technically, arrondees; the honours being slightly convex at the
ends, the lower cards slightly convex at the sides. In this
disposition, the dupe who cuts, as customary, at the length of the
pack, will invariably find that he cuts his antagonist an honor;
while the gambler, cutting at the breadth, will, as certainly, cut
nothing for his victim which may count in the records of the game.

Any burst of indignation upon this discovery would have affected me
less than the silent contempt, or the sarcastic composure, with which
it was received.

"Mr. Wilson," said our host, stooping to remove from beneath his feet
an exceedingly luxurious cloak of rare furs, "Mr. Wilson, this is
your property." (The weather was cold; and, upon quitting my own
room, I had thrown a cloak over my dressing wrapper, putting it off
upon reaching the scene of play.) "I presume it is supererogatory to
seek here (eyeing the folds of the garment with a bitter smile) for
any farther evidence of your skill. Indeed, we have had enough. You
will see the necessity, I hope, of quitting Oxford -- at all events,
of quitting instantly my chambers."

Abased, humbled to the dust as I then was, it is probable that I
should have resented this galling language by immediate personal
violence, had not my whole attention been at the moment arrested by a
fact of the most startling character. The cloak which I had worn was
of a rare description of fur; how rare, how extravagantly costly, I
shall not venture to say. Its fashion, too, was of my own fantastic
invention; for I was fastidious to an absurd degree of coxcombry, in
matters of this frivolous nature. When, therefore, Mr. Preston
reached me that which he had picked up upon the floor, and near the
folding doors of the apartment, it was with an astonishment nearly
bordering upon terror, that I perceived my own already hanging on my
arm, (where I had no doubt unwittingly placed it,) and that the one
presented me was but its exact counterpart in every, in even the
minutest possible particular. The singular being who had so
disastrously exposed me, had been muffled, I remembered, in a cloak;
and none had been worn at all by any of the members of our party with
the exception of myself. Retaining some presence of mind, I took the
one offered me by Preston; placed it, unnoticed, over my own; left
the apartment with a resolute scowl of defiance; and, next morning
ere dawn of day, commenced a hurried journey from Oxford to the
continent, in a perfect agony of horror and of shame.

I fled in vain. My evil destiny pursued me as if in exultation, and
proved, indeed, that the exercise of its mysterious dominion had as
yet only begun. Scarcely had I set foot in Paris ere I had fresh
evidence of the detestable interest taken by this Wilson in my
concerns. Years flew, while I experienced no relief. Villain! -- at
Rome, with how untimely, yet with how spectral an officiousness,
stepped he in between me and my ambition! At Vienna, too -- at Berlin
-- and at Moscow! Where, in truth, had I not bitter cause to curse
him within my heart? From his inscrutable tyranny did I at length
flee, panic-stricken, as from a pestilence; and to the very ends of
the earth I fled in vain.

And again, and again, in secret communion with my own spirit, would I
demand the questions "Who is he? -- whence came he? -- and what are
his objects?" But no answer was there found. And then I scrutinized,
with a minute scrutiny, the forms, and the methods, and the leading
traits of his impertinent supervision. But even here there was very
little upon which to base a conjecture. It was noticeable, indeed,
that, in no one of the multiplied instances in which he had of late
crossed my path, had he so crossed it except to frustrate those
schemes, or to disturb those actions, which, if fully carried out,
might have resulted in bitter mischief. Poor justification this, in
truth, for an authority so imperiously assumed! Poor indemnity for
natural rights of self-agency so pertinaciously, so insultingly
denied!

I had also been forced to notice that my tormentor, for a very long
period of time, (while scrupulously and with miraculous dexterity
maintaining his whim of an identity of apparel with myself,) had so
contrived it, in the execution of his varied interference with my
will, that I saw not, at any moment, the features of his face. Be
Wilson what he might, this, at least, was but the veriest of
affectation, or of folly. Could he, for an instant, have supposed
that, in my admonisher at Eton -- in the destroyer of my honor at
Oxford, -- in him who thwarted my ambition at Rome, my revenge at
Paris, my passionate love at Naples, or what he falsely termed my
avarice in Egypt, -- that in this, my arch-enemy and evil genius,
could fall to recognise the William Wilson of my school boy days, --
the namesake, the companion, the rival, -- the hated and dreaded
rival at Dr. Bransby's? Impossible! -- But let me hasten to the last
eventful scene of the drama.

Thus far I had succumbed supinely to this imperious domination. The
sentiment of deep awe with which I habitually regarded the elevated
character, the majestic wisdom, the apparent omnipresence and
omnipotence of Wilson, added to a feeling of even terror, with which
certain other traits in his nature and assumptions inspired me, had
operated, hitherto, to impress me with an idea of my own utter
weakness and helplessness, and to suggest an implicit, although
bitterly reluctant submission to his arbitrary will. But, of late
days, I had given myself up entirely to wine; and its maddening
influence upon my hereditary temper rendered me more and more
impatient of control. I began to murmur, -- to hesitate, -- to
resist. And was it only fancy which induced me to believe that, with
the increase of my own firmness, that of my tormentor underwent a
proportional diminution? Be this as it may, I now began to feel the
inspiration of a burning hope, and at length nurtured in my secret
thoughts a stern and desperate resolution that I would submit no
longer to be enslaved.

It was at Rome, during the Carnival of 18 -- , that I attended a
masquerade in the palazzo of the Neapolitan Duke Di Broglio. I had
indulged more freely than usual in the excesses of the wine-table;
and now the suffocating atmosphere of the crowded rooms irritated me
beyond endurance. The difficulty, too, of forcing my way through the
mazes of the company contributed not a little to the ruffling of my
temper; for I was anxiously seeking, (let me not say with what
unworthy motive) the young, the gay, the beautiful wife of the aged
and doting Di Broglio. With a too unscrupulous confidence she had
previously communicated to me the secret of the costume in which she
would be habited, and now, having caught a glimpse of her person, I
was hurrying to make my way into her presence. -- At this moment I
felt a light hand placed upon my shoulder, and that ever-remembered,
low, damnable whisper within my ear.

In an absolute phrenzy of wrath, I turned at once upon him who had
thus interrupted me, and seized him violently by tile collar. He was
attired, as I had expected, in a costume altogether similar to my
own; wearing a Spanish cloak of blue velvet, begirt about the waist
with a crimson belt sustaining a rapier. A mask of black silk
entirely covered his face.

"Scoundrel!" I said, in a voice husky with rage, while every syllable
I uttered seemed as new fuel to my fury, "scoundrel! impostor!
accursed villain! you shall not -- you shall not dog me unto death!
Follow me, or I stab you where you stand!" -- and I broke my way from
the ball-room into a small ante-chamber adjoining -- dragging him
unresistingly with me as I went.

Upon entering, I thrust him furiously from me. He staggered against
the wall, while I closed the door with an oath, and commanded him to
draw. He hesitated but for an instant; then, with a slight sigh, drew
in silence, and put himself upon his defence.

The contest was brief indeed. I was frantic with every species of
wild excitement, and felt within my single arm the energy and power
of a multitude. In a few seconds I forced him by sheer strength
against the wainscoting, and thus, getting him at mercy, plunged my
sword, with brute ferocity, repeatedly through and through his bosom.

At that instant some person tried the latch of the door. I hastened
to prevent an intrusion, and then immediately returned to my dying
antagonist. But what human language can adequately portray that
astonishment, that horror which possessed me at the spectacle then
presented to view? The brief moment in which I averted my eyes had
been sufficient to produce, apparently, a material change in the
arrangements at the upper or farther end of the room. A large mirror,
-- so at first it seemed to me in my confusion -- now stood where
none had been perceptible before; and, as I stepped up to it in
extremity of terror, mine own image, but with features all pale and
dabbled in blood, advanced to meet me with a feeble and tottering
gait.

Thus it appeared, I say, but was not. It was my antagonist -- it was
Wilson, who then stood before me in the agonies of his dissolution.
His mask and cloak lay, where he had thrown them, upon the floor. Not
a thread in all his raiment -- not a line in all the marked and
singular lineaments of his face which was not, even in the most
absolute identity, mine own!

It was Wilson; but he spoke no longer in a whisper, and I could have
fancied that I myself was speaking while he said:

"You have conquered, and I yield. Yet, henceforward art thou also
dead -- dead to the World, to Heaven and to Hope! In me didst thou
exist -- and, in my death, see by this image, which is thine own, how
utterly thou hast murdered thyself."

~~~ End of Text ~~~

======

The Tell-Tale Heart.

    TRUE! - nervous - very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and
am; but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my
senses - not destroyed - not dulled them. Above all was the sense of
hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I
heard many things in hell. How, then, am I mad? Hearken! and observe
how healthily - how calmly I can tell you the whole story.

It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but once
conceived, it haunted me day and night. Object there was none.
Passion there was none. I loved the old man. He had never wronged me.
He had never given me insult. For his gold I had no desire. I think
it was his eye! yes, it was this! He had the eye of a vulture - a
pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my
blood ran cold; and so by degrees - very gradually - I made up my
mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye
forever.

Now this is the point. You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing. But you
should have seen me. You should have seen how wisely I proceeded -
with what caution - with what foresight - with what dissimulation I
went to work! I was never kinder to the old man than during the whole
week before I killed him. And every night, about midnight, I turned
the latch of his door and opened it - oh so gently! And then, when I
had made an opening sufficient for my head, I put in a dark lantern,
all closed, closed, that no light shone out, and then I thrust in my
head. Oh, you would have laughed to see how cunningly I thrust it in!
I moved it slowly - very, very slowly, so that I might not disturb
the old man's sleep. It took me an hour to place my whole head within
the opening so far that I could see him as he lay upon his bed. Ha!
would a madman have been so wise as this, And then, when my head was
well in the room, I undid the lantern cautiously-oh, so cautiously -
cautiously (for the hinges creaked) - I undid it just so much that a
single thin ray fell upon the vulture eye. And this I did for seven
long nights - every night just at midnight - but I found the eye
always closed; and so it was impossible to do the work; for it was
not the old man who vexed me, but his Evil Eye. And every morning,
when the day broke, I went boldly into the chamber, and spoke
courageously to him, calling him by name in a hearty tone, and
inquiring how he has passed the night. So you see he would have been
a very profound old man, indeed, to suspect that every night, just at
twelve, I looked in upon him while he slept.

Upon the eighth night I was more than usually cautious in opening the
door. A watch's minute hand moves more quickly than did mine. Never
before that night had I felt the extent of my own powers - of my
sagacity. I could scarcely contain my feelings of triumph. To think
that there I was, opening the door, little by little, and he not even
to dream of my secret deeds or thoughts. I fairly chuckled at the
idea; and perhaps he heard me; for he moved on the bed suddenly, as
if startled. Now you may think that I drew back - but no. His room
was as black as pitch with the thick darkness, (for the shutters were
close fastened, through fear of robbers,) and so I knew that he could
not see the opening of the door, and I kept pushing it on steadily,
steadily.

I had my head in, and was about to open the lantern, when my thumb
slipped upon the tin fastening, and the old man sprang up in bed,
crying out - "Who's there?"

I kept quite still and said nothing. For a whole hour I did not move
a muscle, and in the meantime I did not hear him lie down. He was
still sitting up in the bed listening; - just as I have done, night
after night, hearkening to the death watches in the wall.

Presently I heard a slight groan, and I knew it was the groan of
mortal terror. It was not a groan of pain or of grief - oh, no! - it
was the low stifled sound that arises from the bottom of the soul
when overcharged with awe. I knew the sound well. Many a night, just
at midnight, when all the world slept, it has welled up from my own
bosom, deepening, with its dreadful echo, the terrors that distracted
me. I say I knew it well. I knew what the old man felt, and pitied
him, although I chuckled at heart. I knew that he had been lying
awake ever since the first slight noise, when he had turned in the
bed. His fears had been ever since growing upon him. He had been
trying to fancy them causeless, but could not. He had been saying to
himself - "It is nothing but the wind in the chimney - it is only a
mouse crossing the floor," or "It is merely a cricket which has made
a single chirp." Yes, he had been trying to comfort himself with
these suppositions: but he had found all in vain. All in vain;
because Death, in approaching him had stalked with his black shadow
before him, and enveloped the victim. And it was the mournful
influence of the unperceived shadow that caused him to feel -
although he neither saw nor heard - to feel the presence of my head
within the room.

When I had waited a long time, very patiently, without hearing him
lie down, I resolved to open a little - a very, very little crevice
in the lantern. So I opened it - you cannot imagine how stealthily,
stealthily - until, at length a simple dim ray, like the thread of
the spider, shot from out the crevice and fell full upon the vulture
eye.

It was open - wide, wide open - and I grew furious as I gazed upon
it. I saw it with perfect distinctness - all a dull blue, with a
hideous veil over it that chilled the very marrow in my bones; but I
could see nothing else of the old man's face or person: for I had
directed the ray as if by instinct, precisely upon the damned spot.

And have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but
over-acuteness of the sense? - now, I say, there came to my ears a
low, dull, quick sound, such as a watch makes when enveloped in
cotton. I knew that sound well, too. It was the beating of the old
man's heart. It increased my fury, as the beating of a drum
stimulates the soldier into courage.

But even yet I refrained and kept still. I scarcely breathed. I held
the lantern motionless. I tried how steadily I could maintain the ray
upon the eve. Meantime the hellish tattoo of the heart increased. It
grew quicker and quicker, and louder and louder every instant. The
old man's terror must have been extreme! It grew louder, I say,
louder every moment! - do you mark me well I have told you that I am
nervous: so I am. And now at the dead hour of the night, amid the
dreadful silence of that old house, so strange a noise as this
excited me to uncontrollable terror. Yet, for some minutes longer I
refrained and stood still. But the beating grew louder, louder! I
thought the heart must burst. And now a new anxiety seized me - the
sound would be heard by a neighbour! The old man's hour had come!
With a loud yell, I threw open the lantern and leaped into the room.
He shrieked once - once only. In an instant I dragged him to the
floor, and pulled the heavy bed over him. I then smiled gaily, to
find the deed so far done. But, for many minutes, the heart beat on
with a muffled sound. This, however, did not vex me; it would not be
heard through the wall. At length it ceased. The old man was dead. I
removed the bed and examined the corpse. Yes, he was stone, stone
dead. I placed my hand upon the heart and held it there many minutes.
There was no pulsation. He was stone dead. His eye would trouble me
no more.

If still you think me mad, you will think so no longer when I
describe the wise precautions I took for the concealment of the body.
The night waned, and I worked hastily, but in silence. First of all I
dismembered the corpse. I cut off the head and the arms and the legs.

I then took up three planks from the flooring of the chamber, and
deposited all between the scantlings. I then replaced the boards so
cleverly, so cunningly, that no human eye - not even his - could have
detected any thing wrong. There was nothing to wash out - no stain of
any kind - no blood-spot whatever. I had been too wary for that. A
tub had caught all - ha! ha!

When I had made an end of these labors, it was four o'clock - still
dark as midnight. As the bell sounded the hour, there came a knocking
at the street door. I went down to open it with a light heart, - for
what had I now to fear? There entered three men, who introduced
themselves, with perfect suavity, as officers of the police. A shriek
had been heard by a neighbour during the night; suspicion of foul
play had been aroused; information had been lodged at the police
office, and they (the officers) had been deputed to search the
premises.

I smiled, - for what had I to fear? I bade the gentlemen welcome. The
shriek, I said, was my own in a dream. The old man, I mentioned, was
absent in the country. I took my visitors all over the house. I bade
them search - search well. I led them, at length, to his chamber. I
showed them his treasures, secure, undisturbed. In the enthusiasm of
my confidence, I brought chairs into the room, and desired them here
to rest from their fatigues, while I myself, in the wild audacity of
my perfect triumph, placed my own seat upon the very spot beneath
which reposed the corpse of the victim.

The officers were satisfied. My manner had convinced them. I was
singularly at ease. They sat, and while I answered cheerily, they
chatted of familiar things. But, ere long, I felt myself getting pale
and wished them gone. My head ached, and I fancied a ringing in my
ears: but still they sat and still chatted. The ringing became more
distinct: - It continued and became more distinct: I talked more
freely to get rid of the feeling: but it continued and gained
definiteness - until, at length, I found that the noise was not
within my ears.

No doubt I now grew _very_ pale; - but I talked more fluently, and
with a heightened voice. Yet the sound increased - and what could I
do? It was a low, dull, quick sound - much such a sound as a watch
makes when enveloped in cotton. I gasped for breath - and yet the
officers heard it not. I talked more quickly - more vehemently; but
the noise steadily increased. I arose and argued about trifles, in a
high key and with violent gesticulations; but the noise steadily
increased. Why would they not be gone? I paced the floor to and fro
with heavy strides, as if excited to fury by the observations of the
men - but the noise steadily increased. Oh God! what could I do? I
foamed - I raved - I swore! I swung the chair upon which I had been
sitting, and grated it upon the boards, but the noise arose over all
and continually increased. It grew louder - louder - louder! And
still the men chatted pleasantly, and smiled. Was it possible they
heard not? Almighty God! - no, no! They heard! - they suspected! -
they knew! - they were making a mockery of my horror!-this I thought,
and this I think. But anything was better than this agony! Anything
was more tolerable than this derision! I could bear those
hypocritical smiles no longer! I felt that I must scream or die! and
now - again! - hark! louder! louder! louder! louder!

"Villains!" I shrieked, "dissemble no more! I admit the deed! - tear
up the planks! here, here! - It is the beating of his hideous heart!"

~~~ End of Text ~~~

======

BERENICE

    Dicebant mihi sodales, si sepulchrum amicae visitarem, curas meas
aliquantulum forelevatas.

                              - _Ebn Zaiat_.

    MISERY is manifold. The wretchedness of earth is multiform.
Overreaching the wide horizon as the rainbow, its hues are as various
as the hues of that arch - as distinct too, yet as intimately
blended. Overreaching the wide horizon as the rainbow! How is it that
from beauty I have derived a type of unloveliness? - from the
covenant of peace, a simile of sorrow? But as, in ethics, evil is a
consequence of good, so, in fact, out of joy is sorrow born. Either
the memory of past bliss is the anguish of to-day, or the agonies
which _are_, have their origin in the ecstasies which _might have
been_.

    My baptismal name is Egaeus; that of my family I will not
mention. Yet there are no towers in the land more time-honored than
my gloomy, gray, hereditary halls. Our line has been called a race of
visionaries; and in many striking particulars - in the character of
the family mansion - in the frescos of the chief saloon - in the
tapestries of the dormitories - in the chiselling of some buttresses
in the armory - but more especially in the gallery of antique
paintings - in the fashion of the library chamber - and, lastly, in
the very peculiar nature of the library's contents - there is more
than sufficient evidence to warrant the belief.

    The recollections of my earliest years are connected with that
chamber, and with its volumes - of which latter I will say no more.
Here died my mother. Herein was I born. But it is mere idleness to
say that I had not lived before - that the soul has no previous
existence. You deny it? - let us not argue the matter. Convinced
myself, I seek not to convince. There is, however, a remembrance of
aerial forms - of spiritual and meaning eyes - of sounds, musical yet
sad - a remembrance which will not be excluded; a memory like a
shadow - vague, variable, indefinite, unsteady; and like a shadow,
too, in the impossibility of my getting rid of it while the sunlight
of my reason shall exist.

    In that chamber was I born. Thus awaking from the long night of
what seemed, but was not, nonentity, at once into the very regions of
fairy land - into a palace of imagination - into the wild dominions
of monastic thought and erudition - it is not singular that I gazed
around me with a startled and ardent eye - that I loitered away my
boyhood in books, and dissipated my youth in reverie; but it _is_
singular that as years rolled away, and the noon of manhood found me
still in the mansion of my fathers - it _is_ wonderful what
stagnation there fell upon the springs of my life - wonderful how
total an inversion took place in the character of my commonest
thought. The realities of the world affected me as visions, and as
visions only, while the wild ideas of the land of dreams became, in
turn, not the material of my every-day existence, but in very deed
that existence utterly and solely in itself.

*         *         *         *         *        *        *

    Berenice and I were cousins, and we grew up together in my
paternal halls. Yet differently we grew - I, ill of health, and
buried in gloom - she, agile, graceful, and overflowing with energy;
hers, the ramble on the hill-side - mine the studies of the cloister;
I, living within my own heart, and addicted, body and soul, to the
most intense and painful meditation - she, roaming carelessly through
life, with no thought of the shadows in her path, or the silent
flight of the raven-winged hours. Berenice! -I call upon her name -
Berenice! - and from the gray ruins of memory a thousand tumultuous
recollections are startled at the sound! Ah, vividly is her image
before me now, as in the early days of her light-heartedness and joy!
Oh, gorgeous yet fantastic beauty! Oh, sylph amid the shrubberies of
Arnheim! Oh, Naiad among its fountains! And then - then all is
mystery and terror, and a tale which should not be told. Disease - a
fatal disease, fell like the simoon upon her frame; and, even while I
gazed upon her, the spirit of change swept over her, pervading her
mind, her habits, and her character, and, in a manner the most subtle
and terrible, disturbing even the identity of her person! Alas! the
destroyer came and went! - and the victim -where is she? I knew her
not - or knew her no longer as Berenice.

    Among the numerous train of maladies superinduced by that fatal
and primary one which effected a revolution of so horrible a kind in
the moral and physical being of my cousin, may be mentioned as the
most distressing and obstinate in its nature, a species of epilepsy
not unfrequently terminating in _trance_ itself - trance very nearly
resembling positive dissolution, and from which her manner of
recovery was in most instances, startlingly abrupt. In the mean time
my own disease - for I have been told that I should call it by no
other appellation - my own disease, then, grew rapidly upon me, and
assumed finally a monomaniac character of a novel and extraordinary
form - hourly and momently gaining vigor - and at length obtaining
over me the most incomprehensible ascendancy. This monomania, if I
must so term it, consisted in a morbid irritability of those
properties of the mind in metaphysical science termed the
_attentive_. It is more than probable that I am not understood; but I
fear, indeed, that it is in no manner possible to convey to the mind
of the merely general reader, an adequate idea of that nervous
_intensity of interest_ with which, in my case, the powers of
meditation (not to speak technically) busied and buried themselves,
in the contemplation of even the most ordinary objects of the
universe.

    To muse for long unwearied hours, with my attention riveted to
some frivolous device on the margin, or in the typography of a book;
to become absorbed, for the better part of a summer's day, in a
quaint shadow falling aslant upon the tapestry or upon the floor; to
lose myself, for an entire night, in watching the steady flame of a
lamp, or the embers of a fire; to dream away whole days over the
perfume of a flower; to repeat, monotonously, some common word, until
the sound, by dint of frequent repetition, ceased to convey any idea
whatever to the mind; to lose all sense of motion or physical
existence, by means of absolute bodily quiescence long and
obstinately persevered in: such were a few of the most common and
least pernicious vagaries induced by a condition of the mental
faculties, not, indeed, altogether unparalleled, but certainly
bidding defiance to anything like analysis or explanation.

    Yet let me not be misapprehended. The undue, earnest, and morbid
attention thus excited by objects in their own nature frivolous, must
not be confounded in character with that ruminating propensity common
to all mankind, and more especially indulged in by persons of ardent
imagination. It was not even, as might be at first supposed, an
extreme condition, or exaggeration of such propensity, but primarily
and essentially distinct and different. In the one instance, the
dreamer, or enthusiast, being interested by an object usually _not_
frivolous, imperceptibly loses sight of this object in a wilderness
of deductions and suggestions issuing therefrom, until, at the
conclusion of a day dream _often replete with luxury_, he finds the
_incitamentum_, or first cause of his musings, entirely vanished and
forgotten. In my case, the primary object was _invariably frivolous_,
although assuming, through the medium of my distempered vision, a
refracted and unreal importance. Few deductions, if any, were made;
and those few pertinaciously returning in upon the original object as
a centre. The meditations were _never_ pleasurable; and, at the
termination of the reverie, the first cause, so far from being out of
sight, had attained that supernaturally exaggerated interest which
was the prevailing feature of the disease. In a word, the powers of
mind more particularly exercised were, with me, as I have said
before, the _attentive_, and are, with the day-dreamer, the
_speculative_.

    My books, at this epoch, if they did not actually serve to
irritate the disorder, partook, it will be perceived, largely, in
their imaginative and inconsequential nature, of the characteristic
qualities of the disorder itself. I well remember, among others, the
treatise of the noble Italian, Coelius Secundus Curio, "_De
Amplitudine Beati Regni Dei;_" St. Austin's great work, the "City of
God;" and Tertullian's "_De Carne Christi_," in which the paradoxical
sentence "_Mortuus est Dei filius; credible est quia ineptum est: et
sepultus resurrexit; certum est quia impossibile est,_" occupied my
undivided time, for many weeks of laborious and fruitless
investigation.

    Thus it will appear that, shaken from its balance only by trivial
things, my reason bore resemblance to that ocean-crag spoken of by
Ptolemy Hephestion, which steadily resisting the attacks of human
violence, and the fiercer fury of the waters and the winds, trembled
only to the touch of the flower called Asphodel. And although, to a
careless thinker, it might appear a matter beyond doubt, that the
alteration produced by her unhappy malady, in the _moral_ condition
of Berenice, would afford me many objects for the exercise of that
intense and abnormal meditation whose nature I have been at some
trouble in explaining, yet such was not in any degree the case. In
the lucid intervals of my infirmity, her calamity, indeed, gave me
pain, and, taking deeply to heart that total wreck of her fair and
gentle life, I did not fall to ponder, frequently and bitterly, upon
the wonder-working means by which so strange a revolution had been so
suddenly brought to pass. But these reflections partook not of the
idiosyncrasy of my disease, and were such as would have occurred,
under similar circumstances, to the ordinary mass of mankind. True to
its own character, my disorder revelled in the less important but
more startling changes wrought in the _physical_ frame of Berenice -
in the singular and most appalling distortion of her personal
identity.

    During the brightest days of her unparalleled beauty, most surely
I had never loved her. In the strange anomaly of my existence,
feelings with me, _had never been_ of the heart, and my passions
_always were_ of the mind. Through the gray of the early morning -
among the trellised shadows of the forest at noonday - and in the
silence of my library at night - she had flitted by my eyes, and I
had seen her - not as the living and breathing Berenice, but as the
Berenice of a dream; not as a being of the earth, earthy, but as the
abstraction of such a being; not as a thing to admire, but to
analyze; not as an object of love, but as the theme of the most
abstruse although desultory speculation. And _now_ - now I shuddered
in her presence, and grew pale at her approach; yet, bitterly
lamenting her fallen and desolate condition, I called to mind that
she had loved me long, and, in an evil moment, I spoke to her of
marriage.

    And at length the period of our nuptials was approaching, when,
upon an afternoon in the winter of the year - one of those
unseasonably warm, calm, and misty days which are the nurse of the
beautiful Halcyon {*1}, - I sat, (and sat, as I thought, alone,) in
the inner apartment of the library. But, uplifting my eyes, I saw
that Berenice stood before me.

    Was it my own excited imagination - or the misty influence of the
atmosphere - or the uncertain twilight of the chamber - or the gray
draperies which fell around her figure - that caused in it so
vacillating and indistinct an outline? I could not tell. She spoke no
word; and I - not for worlds could I have uttered a syllable. An icy
chill ran through my frame; a sense of insufferable anxiety oppressed
me; a consuming curiosity pervaded my soul; and sinking back upon the
chair, I remained for some time breathless and motionless, with my
eyes riveted upon her person. Alas! its emaciation was excessive, and
not one vestige of the former being lurked in any single line of the
contour. My burning glances at length fell upon the face.

    The forehead was high, and very pale, and singularly placid; and
the once jetty hair fell partially over it, and overshadowed the
hollow temples with innumerable ringlets, now of a vivid yellow, and
jarring discordantly, in their fantastic character, with the reigning
melancholy of the countenance. The eyes were lifeless, and
lustreless, and seemingly pupilless, and I shrank involuntarily from
their glassy stare to  he contemplation of the thin and shrunken
lips. They parted; and in a smile of peculiar meaning, _the teeth_ of
the changed Berenice disclosed themselves slowly to my view. Would to
God that I had never beheld them, or that, having done so, I had
died!

*         *         *         *         *        *        *

    The shutting of a door disturbed me, and, looking up, I found
that my cousin had departed from the chamber. But from the disordered
chamber of my brain, had not, alas! departed, and would not be driven
away, the white and ghastly _spectrum_ of the teeth. Not a speck on
their surface - not a shade on their enamel - not an indenture in
their edges - but what that period of her smile had sufficed to brand
in upon my memory. I saw them _now_ even more unequivocally than I
beheld them _then_. The teeth! - the teeth! - they were here, and
there, and everywhere, and visibly and palpably before me; long,
narrow, and excessively white, with the pale lips writhing about
them, as in the very moment of their first terrible development. Then
came the full fury of my _monomania_, and I struggled in vain against
its strange and irresistible influence. In the multiplied objects of
the external world I had no thoughts but for the teeth. For these I
longed with a phrenzied desire. All other matters and all different
interests became absorbed in their single contemplation. They - they
alone were present to the mental eye, and they, in their sole
individuality, became the essence of my mental life. I held them in
every light. I turned them in every attitude. I surveyed their
characteristics. I dwelt upon their peculiarities. I pondered upon
their conformation. I mused upon the alteration in their nature. I
shuddered as I assigned to them in imagination a sensitive and
sentient power, and even when unassisted by the lips, a capability of
moral expression. Of Mademoiselle Salle it has been well said, "_Que
tous ses pas etaient des sentiments_," and of Berenice I more
seriously believed _que toutes ses dents etaient des idees_. _Des
idees!_ - ah here was the idiotic thought that destroyed me! _Des
idees!_ - ah _therefore_ it was that I coveted them so madly! I felt
that their possession could alone ever restore me to peace, in giving
me back to reason.

    And the evening closed in upon me thus - and then the darkness
came, and tarried, and went - and the day again dawned - and the
mists of a second night were now gathering around - and still I sat
motionless in that solitary room - and still I sat buried in
meditation - and still the _phantasma_ of the teeth maintained its
terrible ascendancy, as, with the most vivid hideous distinctness, it
floated about amid the changing lights and shadows of the chamber. At
length there broke in upon my dreams a cry as of horror and dismay;
and thereunto, after a pause, succeeded the sound of troubled voices,
intermingled with many low moanings of sorrow or of pain. I arose
from my seat, and throwing open one of the doors of the library, saw
standing out in the ante-chamber a servant maiden, all in tears, who
told me that Berenice was - no more! She had been seized with
epilepsy in the early morning, and now, at the closing in of the
night, the grave was ready for its tenant, and all the preparations
for the burial were completed.

*         *         *         *         *        *        *

    I found myself sitting in the library, and again sitting there
alone. It seemed that I had newly awakened from a confused and
exciting dream. I knew that it was now midnight, and I was well
aware, that since the setting of the sun, Berenice had been interred.
But of that dreary period which intervened I had no positive, at
least no definite comprehension. Yet its memory was replete with
horror - horror more horrible from being vague, and terror more
terrible from ambiguity. It was a fearful page in the record my
existence, written all over with dim, and hideous, and unintelligible
recollections. I strived to decypher them, but in vain; while ever
and anon, like the spirit of a departed sound, the shrill and
piercing shriek of a female voice seemed to be ringing in my ears. I
had done a deed - what was it? I asked myself the question aloud, and
the whispering echoes of the chamber answered me, - "_what was it?_"

    On the table beside me burned a lamp, and near it lay a little
box. It was of no remarkable character, and I had seen it frequently
before, for it was the property of the family physician; but how came
it _there_, upon my table, and why did I shudder in regarding it?
These things were in no manner to be accounted for, and my eyes at
length dropped to the open pages of a book, and to a sentence
underscored therein. The words were the singular but simple ones of
the poet Ebn Zaiat: - "_Dicebant mihi sodales si sepulchrum amicae
visitarem, curas meas aliquantulum fore levatas_." Why then, as I
perused them, did the hairs of my head erect themselves on end, and
the blood of my body become congealed within my veins?

    There came a light tap at the library door - and, pale as the
tenant of a tomb, a menial entered upon tiptoe. His looks were wild
with terror, and he spoke to me in a voice tremulous, husky, and very
low. What said he? - some broken sentences I heard. He told of a wild
cry disturbing the silence of the night - of the gathering together
of the household - of a search in the direction of the sound; and
then his tones grew thrillingly distinct as he whispered me of a
violated grave - of a disfigured body enshrouded, yet still breathing
- still palpitating - _still alive_!

    He pointed to garments; - they were muddy and clotted with gore.
I spoke not, and he took me gently by the hand: it was indented with
the impress of human nails. He directed my attention to some object
against the wall. I looked at it for some minutes: it was a spade.
With a shriek I bounded to the table, and grasped the box that lay
upon it. But I could not force it open; and in my tremor, it slipped
from my hands, and fell heavily, and burst into pieces; and from it,
with a rattling sound, there rolled out some instruments of dental
surgery, intermingled with thirty-two small, white and ivory-looking
substances that were scattered to and fro about the floor.



~~~ End of Text ~~~

======

ELEONORA

Sub conservatione formae specificae salva anima.

                          _  Raymond Lully_ .

I AM come of a race noted for vigor of fancy and ardor of passion.
Men have called me mad; but the question is not yet settled, whether
madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence -- whether much that
is glorious- whether all that is profound -- does not spring from
disease of thought -- from moods of mind exalted at the expense of
the general intellect. They who dream by day are cognizant of many
things which escape those who dream only by night. In their gray
visions they obtain glimpses of eternity, and thrill, in awakening,
to find that they have been upon the verge of the great secret. In
snatches, they learn something of the wisdom which is of good, and
more of the mere knowledge which is of evil. They penetrate, however,
rudderless or compassless into the vast ocean of the "light
ineffable," and again, like the adventures of the Nubian geographer,
"agressi sunt mare tenebrarum, quid in eo esset exploraturi."

We will say, then, that I am mad. I grant, at least, that there are
two distinct conditions of my mental existence -- the condition of a
lucid reason, not to be disputed, and belonging to the memory of
events forming the first epoch of my life -- and a condition of
shadow and doubt, appertaining to the present, and to the
recollection of what constitutes the second great era of my being.
Therefore, what I shall tell of the earlier period, believe; and to
what I may relate of the later time, give only such credit as may
seem due, or doubt it altogether, or, if doubt it ye cannot, then
play unto its riddle the Oedipus.

She whom I loved in youth, and of whom I now pen calmly and
distinctly these remembrances, was the sole daughter of the only
sister of my mother long departed. Eleonora was the name of my
cousin. We had always dwelled together, beneath a tropical sun, in
the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass. No unguided footstep ever came
upon that vale; for it lay away up among a range of giant hills that
hung beetling around about it, shutting out the sunlight from its
sweetest recesses. No path was trodden in its vicinity; and, to reach
our happy home, there was need of putting back, with force, the
foliage of many thousands of forest trees, and of crushing to death
the glories of many millions of fragrant flowers. Thus it was that we
lived all alone, knowing nothing of the world without the valley --
I, and my cousin, and her mother.

From the dim regions beyond the mountains at the upper end of our
encircled domain, there crept out a narrow and deep river, brighter
than all save the eyes of Eleonora; and, winding stealthily about in
mazy courses, it passed away, at length, through a shadowy gorge,
among hills still dimmer than those whence it had issued. We called
it the "River of Silence"; for there seemed to be a hushing influence
in its flow. No murmur arose from its bed, and so gently it wandered
along, that the pearly pebbles upon which we loved to gaze, far down
within its bosom, stirred not at all, but lay in a motionless
content, each in its own old station, shining on gloriously forever.

The margin of the river, and of the many dazzling rivulets that
glided through devious ways into its channel, as well as the spaces
that extended from the margins away down into the depths of the
streams until they reached the bed of pebbles at the bottom, -- these
spots, not less than the whole surface of the valley, from the river
to the mountains that girdled it in, were carpeted all by a soft
green grass, thick, short, perfectly even, and vanilla-perfumed, but
so besprinkled throughout with the yellow buttercup, the white daisy,
the purple violet, and the ruby-red asphodel, that its exceeding
beauty spoke to our hearts in loud tones, of the love and of the
glory of God.

And, here and there, in groves about this grass, like wildernesses of
dreams, sprang up fantastic trees, whose tall slender stems stood not
upright, but slanted gracefully toward the light that peered at
noon-day into the centre of the valley. Their mark was speckled with
the vivid alternate splendor of ebony and silver, and was smoother
than all save the cheeks of Eleonora; so that, but for the brilliant
green of the huge leaves that spread from their summits in long,
tremulous lines, dallying with the Zephyrs, one might have fancied
them giant serpents of Syria doing homage to their sovereign the Sun.

Hand in hand about this valley, for fifteen years, roamed I with
Eleonora before Love entered within our hearts. It was one evening at
the close of the third lustrum of her life, and of the fourth of my
own, that we sat, locked in each other's embrace, beneath the
serpent-like trees, and looked down within the water of the River of
Silence at our images therein. We spoke no words during the rest of
that sweet day, and our words even upon the morrow were tremulous and
few. We had drawn the God Eros from that wave, and now we felt that
he had enkindled within us the fiery souls of our forefathers. The
passions which had for centuries distinguished our race, came
thronging with the fancies for which they had been equally noted, and
together breathed a delirious bliss over the Valley of the
Many-Colored Grass. A change fell upon all things. Strange, brilliant
flowers, star-shaped, burn out upon the trees where no flowers had
been known before. The tints of the green carpet deepened; and when,
one by one, the white daisies shrank away, there sprang up in place
of them, ten by ten of the ruby-red asphodel. And life arose in our
paths; for the tall flamingo, hitherto unseen, with all gay glowing
birds, flaunted his scarlet plumage before us. The golden and silver
fish haunted the river, out of the bosom of which issued, little by
little, a murmur that swelled, at length, into a lulling melody more
divine than that of the harp of Aeolus-sweeter than all save the
voice of Eleonora. And now, too, a voluminous cloud, which we had
long watched in the regions of Hesper, floated out thence, all
gorgeous in crimson and gold, and settling in peace above us, sank,
day by day, lower and lower, until its edges rested upon the tops of
the mountains, turning all their dimness into magnificence, and
shutting us up, as if forever, within a magic prison-house of
grandeur and of glory.

The loveliness of Eleonora was that of the Seraphim; but she was a
maiden artless and innocent as the brief life she had led among the
flowers. No guile disguised the fervor of love which animated her
heart, and she examined with me its inmost recesses as we walked
together in the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass, and discoursed of
the mighty changes which had lately taken place therein.

At length, having spoken one day, in tears, of the last sad change
which must befall Humanity, she thenceforward dwelt only upon this
one sorrowful theme, interweaving it into all our converse, as, in
the songs of the bard of Schiraz, the same images are found
occurring, again and again, in every impressive variation of phrase.

She had seen that the finger of Death was upon her bosom -- that,
like the ephemeron, she had been made perfect in loveliness only to
die; but the terrors of the grave to her lay solely in a
consideration which she revealed to me, one evening at twilight, by
the banks of the River of Silence. She grieved to think that, having
entombed her in the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass, I would quit
forever its happy recesses, transferring the love which now was so
passionately her own to some maiden of the outer and everyday world.
And, then and there, I threw myself hurriedly at the feet of
Eleonora, and offered up a vow, to herself and to Heaven, that I
would never bind myself in marriage to any daughter of Earth -- that
I would in no manner prove recreant to her dear memory, or to the
memory of the devout affection with which she had blessed me. And I
called the Mighty Ruler of the Universe to witness the pious
solemnity of my vow. And the curse which I invoked of Him and of her,
a saint in Helusion should I prove traitorous to that promise,
involved a penalty the exceeding great horror of which will not
permit me to make record of it here. And the bright eyes of Eleonora
grew brighter at my words; and she sighed as if a deadly burthen had
been taken from her breast; and she trembled and very bitterly wept;
but she made acceptance of the vow, (for what was she but a child?)
and it made easy to her the bed of her death. And she said to me, not
many days afterward, tranquilly dying, that, because of what I had
done for the comfort of her spirit she would watch over me in that
spirit when departed, and, if so it were permitted her return to me
visibly in the watches of the night; but, if this thing were, indeed,
beyond the power of the souls in Paradise, that she would, at least,
give me frequent indications of her presence, sighing upon me in the
evening winds, or filling the air which I breathed with perfume from
the censers of the angels. And, with these words upon her lips, she
yielded up her innocent life, putting an end to the first epoch of my
own.

Thus far I have faithfully said. But as I pass the barrier in Times
path, formed by the death of my beloved, and proceed with the second
era of my existence, I feel that a shadow gathers over my brain, and
I mistrust the perfect sanity of the record. But let me on. -- Years
dragged themselves along heavily, and still I dwelled within the
Valley of the Many-Colored Grass; but a second change had come upon
all things. The star-shaped flowers shrank into the stems of the
trees, and appeared no more. The tints of the green carpet faded;
and, one by one, the ruby-red asphodels withered away; and there
sprang up, in place of them, ten by ten, dark, eye-like violets, that
writhed uneasily and were ever encumbered with dew. And Life departed
from our paths; for the tall flamingo flaunted no longer his scarlet
plumage before us, but flew sadly from the vale into the hills, with
all the gay glowing birds that had arrived in his company. And the
golden and silver fish swam down through the gorge at the lower end
of our domain and bedecked the sweet river never again. And the
lulling melody that had been softer than the wind-harp of Aeolus, and
more divine than all save the voice of Eleonora, it died little by
little away, in murmurs growing lower and lower, until the stream
returned, at length, utterly, into the solemnity of its original
silence. And then, lastly, the voluminous cloud uprose, and,
abandoning the tops of the mountains to the dimness of old, fell back
into the regions of Hesper, and took away all its manifold golden and
gorgeous glories from the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass.

Yet the promises of Eleonora were not forgotten; for I heard the
sounds of the swinging of the censers of the angels; and streams of a
holy perfume floated ever and ever about the valley; and at lone
hours, when my heart beat heavily, the winds that bathed my brow came
unto me laden with soft sighs; and indistinct murmurs filled often
the night air, and once -- oh, but once only! I was awakened from a
slumber, like the slumber of death, by the pressing of spiritual lips
upon my own.

But the void within my heart refused, even thus, to be filled. I
longed for the love which had before filled it to overflowing. At
length the valley pained me through its memories of Eleonora, and I
left it for ever for the vanities and the turbulent triumphs of the
world.

I found myself within a strange city, where all things might have
served to blot from recollection the sweet dreams I had dreamed so
long in the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass. The pomps and
pageantries of a stately court, and the mad clangor of arms, and the
radiant loveliness of women, bewildered and intoxicated my brain. But
as yet my soul had proved true to its vows, and the indications of
the presence of Eleonora were still given me in the silent hours of
the night. Suddenly these manifestations they ceased, and the world
grew dark before mine eyes, and I stood aghast at the burning
thoughts which possessed, at the terrible temptations which beset me;
for there came from some far, far distant and unknown land, into the
gay court of the king I served, a maiden to whose beauty my whole
recreant heart yielded at once -- at whose footstool I bowed down
without a struggle, in the most ardent, in the most abject worship of
love. What, indeed, was my passion for the young girl of the valley
in comparison with the fervor, and the delirium, and the
spirit-lifting ecstasy of adoration with which I poured out my whole
soul in tears at the feet of the ethereal Ermengarde? -- Oh, bright
was the seraph Ermengarde! and in that knowledge I had room for none
other. -- Oh, divine was the angel Ermengarde! and as I looked down
into the depths of her memorial eyes, I thought only of them -- and
of her.

I wedded; -- nor dreaded the curse I had invoked; and its bitterness
was not visited upon me. And once -- but once again in the silence of
the night; there came through my lattice the soft sighs which had
forsaken me; and they modelled themselves into familiar and sweet
voice, saying:

"Sleep in peace! -- for the Spirit of Love reigneth and ruleth, and,
in taking to thy passionate heart her who is Ermengarde, thou art
absolved, for reasons which shall be made known to thee in Heaven, of
thy vows unto Eleonora."

~~~ End of Text ~~~

======

Notes to This Volume

Notes --- Scherezade

{*1} The coralites.

{*2} "One of the most remarkable natural curiosities in Texas is a
petrified forest, near the head of Pasigno river. It consists of
several hundred trees, in an erect position, all turned to stone.
Some trees, now growing, are partly petrified. This is a startling
fact for natural philosophers, and must cause them to modify the
existing theory of petrification. -- _Kennedy_.

This account, at first discredited, has since been corroborated by
the discovery of a completely petrified forest, near the head waters
of the Cheyenne, or Chienne river, which has its source in the Black
Hills of the rocky chain.

There is scarcely, perhaps, a spectacle on the surface of the globe
more remarkable, either in a geological or picturesque point of view
than that presented by the petrified forest, near Cairo. The
traveller, having passed the tombs of the caliphs, just beyond the
gates of the city, proceeds to the southward, nearly at right angles
to the road across the desert to Suez, and after having travelled
some ten miles up a low barren valley, covered with sand, gravel, and
sea shells, fresh as if the tide had retired but yesterday, crosses a
low range of sandhills, which has for some distance run parallel to
his path. The scene now presented to him is beyond conception
singular and desolate. A mass of fragments of trees, all converted
into stone, and when struck by his horse's hoof ringing like cast
iron, is seen to extend itself for miles and miles around him, in the
form of a decayed and prostrate forest. The wood is of a dark brown
hue, but retains its form in perfection, the pieces being from one to
fifteen feet in length, and from half a foot to three feet in
thickness, strewed so closely together, as far as the eye can reach,
that an Egyptian donkey can scarcely thread its way through amongst
them, and so natural that, were it in Scotland or Ireland, it might
pass without remark for some enormous drained bog, on which the
exhumed trees lay rotting in the sun. The roots and rudiments of the
branches are, in many cases, nearly perfect, and in some the
worm-holes eaten under the bark are readily recognizable. The most
delicate of the sap vessels, and all the finer portions of the centre
of the wood, are perfectly entire, and bear to be examined with the
strongest magnifiers. The whole are so thoroughly silicified as to
scratch glass and are capable of receiving the highest polish.--
_Asiatic Magazine_.

{*3} The Mammoth Cave of Kentucky.

{*4} In Iceland, 1783.

{*5} "During the eruption of Hecla, in 1766, clouds of this kind
produced such a degree of darkness that, at Glaumba, which is more
than fifty leagues from the mountain, people could only find their
way by groping. During the eruption of Vesuvius, in 1794, at Caserta,
four leagues distant, people could only walk by the light of torches.
On the first of May, 1812, a cloud of volcanic ashes and sand, coming
from a volcano in the island of St. Vincent, covered the whole of
Barbadoes, spreading over it so intense a darkness that, at mid-day,
in the open air, one could not perceive the trees or other objects
near him, or even a white handkerchief placed at the distance of six
inches from the eye._" -- Murray, p. 215, Phil. edit._

{*6} In the year 1790, in the Caraccas during an earthquake a portion
of the granite soil sank and left a lake eight hundred yards in
diameter, and from eighty to a hundred feet deep. It was a part of
the forest of Aripao which sank, and the trees remained green for
several months under the water." -- _Murray_, p. 221

{*7} The hardest steel ever manufactured may, under the action of a
blowpipe, be reduced to an impalpable powder, which will float
readily in the atmospheric air.

{*8} The region of the Niger. See Simmona's _Colonial Magazine_ .

{*9} The Myrmeleon-lion-ant. The term "monster" is equally applicable
to small abnormal things and to great, while such epithets as "vast"
are merely comparative. The cavern of the myrmeleon is vast in
comparison with the hole of the common red ant. A grain of silex is
also a "rock."

{*10} The _Epidendron, Flos Aeris,_ of the family of the _Orchideae_,
grows with merely the surface of its roots attached to a tree or
other object, from which it derives no nutriment -- subsisting
altogether upon air.

{*11} The _Parasites,_ such as the wonderful _Rafflesia Arnaldii_.

{*12} _Schouw_ advocates a class of plants that grow upon living
animals -- the _Plantae_ _Epizoae_. Of this class are the _Fuci_ and
_Algae_.

_Mr. J. B. Williams, of Salem, Mass._, presented the "National
Institute" with an insect from New Zealand, with the following
description: " '_The Hotte_,a decided caterpillar, or worm, is found
gnawing at the root of the _Rota_ tree, with a plant growing out of
its head. This most peculiar and extraordinary insect travels up both
the _Rota_ and _Ferriri_ trees, and entering into the top, eats its
way, perforating the trunkof the trees until it reaches the root, and
dies, or remains dormant, and the plant propagates out of its head;
the body remains perfect and entire, of a harder substance than when
alive. From this insect the natives make a coloring for tattooing.

{*13} In mines and natural caves we find a species of cryptogamous
_fungus_ that emits an intense phosphorescence.

{*14} The orchis, scabius and valisneria.

{*15} The corolla of this flower (_Aristolochia Clematitis_), which
is tubular, but terminating upwards in a ligulate limb, is inflated
into a globular figure at the base. The tubular part is internally
beset with stiff hairs, pointing downwards. The globular part
contains the pistil, which consists merely of a germen and stigma,
together with the surrounding stamens. But the stamens, being shorter
than the germen, cannot discharge the pollen so as to throw it upon
the stigma, as the flower stands always upright till after
impregnation. And hence, without some additional and peculiar aid,
the pollen must necessarily fan down to the bottom of the flower.
Now, the aid that nature has furnished in this case, is that of the
_Tiputa Pennicornis_, a small insect, which entering the tube of the
corrolla in quest of honey, descends to the bottom, and rummages
about till it becomes quite covered with pollen; but not being able
to force its way out again, owing to the downward position of the
hairs, which converge to a point like the wires of a mouse-trap, and
being somewhat impatient of its confinement it brushes backwards and
forwards, trying every corner, till, after repeatedly traversing the
stigma, it covers it with pollen sufficient for its impregnation, in
consequence of which the flower soon begins to droop, and the hairs
to shrink to the sides of the tube, effecting an easy passage for the
escape of the insect." --_Rev. P. Keith-System of Physiological
Botany_.

{*16} The bees -- ever since bees were -- have been constructing
their cells with just such sides, in just such number, and at just
such inclinations, as it has been demonstrated (in a problem
involving the profoundest mathematical principles) are the very
sides, in the very number, and at the very angles, which will afford
the creatures the most room that is compatible with the greatest
stability of structure.

During the latter part of the last century, the question arose among
mathematicians--"to determine the best form that can be given to the
sails of a windmill, according to their varying distances from the
revolving vanes , and likewise from the centres of the revoloution."
This is an excessively complex problem, for it is, in other words, to
find the best possible position at an infinity of varied distances
and at an infinity of points on the arm.There were a thousand futile
attempts to answer the queryon the part of the most illustrious
mathematicians, and when at length, an undeniable soloution was
discovered, men found that the wings of a bird had given it with
absoloute precisionrvrt since the first bird had traversed the air.

{*17} He observed a flock of pigeons passing betwixt Frankfort and
the Indian territory, one mile at least in breadth; it took up four
hours in passing, which, at the rate of one mile per minute, gives a
length of 240 miles; and, supposing three pigeons to each square
yard, gives 2,230,272,000 Pigeons. -- "_Travels in Canada and the
United States," by Lieut. F. Hall._

{*18} The earth is upheld by a cow of a blue color, having horns four
hundred in number." -- _Sale's Koran_.

{*19} "The _Entozoa_, or intestinal worms, have repeatedly been
observed in the muscles, and in the cerebral substance of men." --
See Wyatt's Physiology, p. 143.

{*20} On the Great Western Railway, between London and Exeter, a
speed of 71 miles per hour has been attained. A train weighing 90
tons was whirled from Paddington to Didcot (53 miles) in 51 minutes.

{*21} The _Eccalobeion_

{*22} Maelzel's Automaton Chess-player.

{*23} Babbage's Calculating Machine.

{*24} _Chabert_, and since him, a hundred others.

{*25} The Electrotype.

{*26} _Wollaston_ made of platinum for the field of views in a
telescope a wire one eighteen-thousandth part of an inch in
thickness. It could be seen only by means of the microscope.

{*27} Newton demonstrated that the retina beneath the influence of
the violet ray of the spectrum, vibrated 900,000,000 of times in a
second.

{*28} Voltaic pile.

{*29} The Electro Telegraph Printing Apparatus.

{*30} The Electro telegraph transmits intelligence instantaneously-
at least at so far as regards any distance upon the earth.

{*31} Common experiments in Natural Philosophy. If two red rays from
two luminous points be admitted into a dark chamber so as to fall on
a white surface, and differ in their length by 0.0000258 of an inch,
their intensity is doubled. So also if the difference in length be
any whole-number multiple of that fraction. A multiple by 2 1/4, 3
1/4, &c., gives an intensity equal to one ray only; but a multiple by
2 1/2, 3 1/2, &c., gives the result of total darkness. In violet rays
similar effects arise when the difference in length is 0.000157 of an
inch; and with all other rays the results are the same -- the
difference varying with a uniform increase from the violet to the red.

{*32} Place a platina crucible over a spirit lamp, and keep it a red
heat; pour in some sulphuric acid, which, though the most volatile of
bodies at a common temperature, will be found to become completely
fixed in a hot crucible, and not a drop evaporates -- being
surrounded by an atmosphere of its own, it does not, in fact, touch
the sides. A few drops of water are now introduced, when the acid,
immediately coming in contact with the heated sides of the crucible,
flies off in sulphurous acid vapor, and so rapid is its progress,
that the caloric of the water passes off with it, which falls a lump
of ice to the bottom; by taking advantage of the moment before it is
allowed to remelt, it may be turned out a lump of ice from a red-hot
vessel.

{*33} The Daguerreotype.

{*34) Although light travels 167,000 miles in a second, the distance
of 61 Cygni (the only star whose distance is ascertained) is so
inconceivably great, that its rays would require more than ten years
to reach the earth. For stars beyond this, 20 -- or even 1000 years
-- would be a moderate estimate. Thus, if they had been annihilated
20, or 1000 years ago, we might still see them to-day by the light
which started from their surfaces 20 or 1000 years in the past time.
That many which we see daily are really extinct, is not impossible --
not even improbable.

Notes--Maelstrom

{*1} See Archimedes, "_De Incidentibus in Fluido_." - lib. 2.

Notes--Island of the Fay

{*1} Moraux is here derived from moeurs, and its meaning is
"fashionable" or more strictly "of manners."

{*2} Speaking of the tides, Pomponius Mela, in his treatise "De Situ
Orbis," says "either the world is a great animal, or" etc

{*3} Balzac--in substance--I do not remember the words

{*4} Florem putares nare per liquidum aethera. -- P. Commire.

Notes-- Domain of Arnheim

{*1} An incident, similar in outline to the one here imagined,
occurred, not very long ago, in England. The name of the fortunate
heir was Thelluson. I first saw an account of this matter in the
"Tour" of Prince Puckler Muskau, who makes the sum inherited _ninety
millions of pounds_, and justly observes that "in the contemplation
of so vast a sum, and of the services to which it might be applied,
there is something even of the sublime." To suit the views of this
article I have followed the Prince's statement, although a grossly
exaggerated one. The germ, and in fact, the commencement of the
present paper was published many years ago -- previous to the issue
of the first number of Sue's admirable _Juif Errant_, which may
possibly have been suggested to him by Muskau's account.

Notes--Berenice

{*1} For as Jove, during the winter season, gives twice seven days of
warmth, men have called this element and temperate time the nurse of
the beautiful Halcyon -- _Simonides_

End of Notes to Volume Two





End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Works of Edgar Allan Poe V. 2