Mosses from an old manse

Presented to the
LIBRARY of the

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO

by

MOFFATT ST. ANDREW WOODSIDE

1970

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

MOSSES

TROM

AN

OLD

MRNSE

NATHANIEL

lAWTHORNE

PHILADELPHIA
HENRY HLTEMUS

w

IN UNIFORM STYLE
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
THE SCARLET LETTER

Till: HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GADLE&

i ROM AX -OLD
TWU'K TOLD TALKS
A WONI'J

CONTENTS.

PAGE.

The Old Manse 5

The Birthmark 4>

A Select Party 65

Young Goodman Brown • 84

Rappaccini's Daughter 103

Mrs. Bullfrog 143

Fire-Worship 153

Buds and Bird-Voices 164

Monsieur du Miroir 176

The Hall of Fantasy 191

The Celestial Railroad 207

The Procession of Life 231

Feathertop. A Moralized Legend 249

The New Adam and Eve 276

Egotism; or, The Bosom-Serpent .<.. 300

The Christmas Banquet 319

Drowne's Wooden Image 344

The Intelligence-Office 361

Roger Malvin's Burial 379

P.'s Correspondence • 406

Earth's Holocaust 429

Sketches from Memory 456

The Old Apple-Dealer 484

The Artist of the Beautiful 493

A Virtuoso's Collection *

MOSSES FROM AN OLD MANSE.

THE OLD MANSE.

The Author makes the Reader acquainted with his Abode,

BETWEEN two tall gateposts of rough-hewn stone
(the gate itself having fallen from its hinges at some
unknown epoch) we beheld the gray front of the old
parsonage, terminating the vista of an avenue of
black-ash trees. It was now a twelvemonth since the
funeral procession of the venerable clergyman, its
last inhabitant, had turned from that gateway to-
ward the village burying-ground. The wheel-track
leading to the door, as well as the whole breadth of
the avenue, was almost overgrown with grass, afford-
ing dainty mouthfuls to two or three vagrant cows
and an old white horse who had his own living to
pick up along the roadside. The glimmering
shadows that lay half asleep between the door of
the house and the public highway were a kind of
spiritual medium seen through which the edifice had
not quite the aspect of belonging to the material
world. Certainly it had little in common with those
ordinary abodes which stand so imminent upon the
road that every passer-by can thrust his head, as it

6 .flfcossee from an ®U> flfcansc.

were, into the domestic circle. From these quiet
windows the figures of passing travelers looked too
remote and dim to disturb the sense of privacy. In
its near retirement and accessible seclusion, it was
the very spot for the residence of a clergyman — a
man not estranged from human life, yet enveloped,
in the midst of it, with a veil woven of intermingled
gloom and brightness. It was worthy to have been
one of the time-honored parsonages of England in
which through many generations a succession of holy
occupants pass from youth to age, and bequeath
each an inheritance of sanctity to pervade the house
and hover over it as with an atmosphere.

Nor, in truth, had the Old Manse ^ver been pro-
faned by a lay-occupant until that memorable summer
afternoon when I entered it as my home. A priest
had built it, a priest had succeeded to it; other
priestly men ."rrm time to time had dwel: in it, and
children born m its chambers had grown up to as-
sume the priestly character. It was awful to reflect
how many sermons mus4: have been written there.
The latest inhab; ant alone — he by whose transla-
tion to Paradise the dwelling was left vacant — had
penned nearly three thousand discourses besides
the better, if not the greater, number that gushed
living from his lips. How often, no doubt, had he
paced to and fro along the avenue, attuning his
meditations to the sighs and gentle murmurs and
deep and solemn peals of the wind among the lofty
tops of the trees ! In that variety of natural utter-
ances he could find something accordant with every
passage of his sermon, were it of tenderness or rev-
erential fear. The boughs over my head seemed
shadowy with solemn thoughts as well as with rust-
ling leaves. I took shame to myself for having been

Cbe ©K> flfcanse. 7

so long a writer of idle stories, and ventured to hope
tfratwisdom would descend upon me with the fall-
ing leaves of the avenue, and that I should light
upon an intellectual treasure in the Old Manse well
worth those hoards of long-hidden gold which people
seek for in moss-grown houses. Profound treatises
of morality — a layman's unprofessional, and there
fore unprejudiced, views of religion — histories (such
as Bancroft might have written had he taken up his
abode here, as he once purposed) bright with picture
gleaming over a depth of philosophic thought, —
these were the works that might fitly have flowed
from such a retirement. In the humblest event,
I resolved at least to achieve a novej that should
evolve some deep" lesson , and should possess phys-
ical slifrst aric'e enough to sfanct~afone~;

In fuftherance^of my design, and as if to leave
me no pretext for not fulfilling it, there was in the
rear of the house the most delightful little nook of
a study that ever offered its snug seclusion to a
scholar. It was here that Emerson wrote Nature,
for he was then an inhabitant of the manse, and
used to watch the Assyrian dawn and the Paphian
sunset and moonrise from the summit of our eastern
hill. \Yhen I first saw the room, its walls were
blackened with the smoke of unnumbered years, and
made still blacker by the grim prints of Puritan
ministers that hung around. These worthies looked
strangely like bad angels — or, at least, like men who
had wrestled so continually and so sternly with the
devil that somewhat of his sooty fierceness had
been imparted to their own visages. They had all
vanished now. A cheerful coat of paint and golden-
tinted paper-hangings lighted np the small apart-
ment, while the shadow of a willow tree that swept

* flfcosees trcm an CID flfcansc.

against the overhanging eaves attempered the cheery
western sunshine. In place of the grim prints there
was the sweet and lovely head of one of Raphael's
Madonnas and two pleasant little pictures of the
Lake of Como. The only other decorations were a
purple vase of flowers, always fresh, and a bronze
one containing graceful ferns. My books (few and
by no means choice, for they were chiefly such waifs
as chance had thrown in my way) stood in order
about the room, seldom to be disturbed.

The study had three windows set with little old-
fashioned panes of glass, each with a crack across
it. The two on the western side looked — or, rather,
peeped — between the willow branches down into the
orchard, with glimpses of the river through the trees.
The third, facing northward, commanded a broader
view of the river at a spot where its hitherto obscure
waters gleam forth into the light of history. It was
at this window that the clergyman who then dwelt in
the manse stood watching the outbreak of a long
and deadly struggle between two nations. He saw
the irregular array of his parishioners on the farther
side of the river, and the glittering line of the
British on the hither bank ; he awaited in an agony
of suspense the rattle of the musketry. It came,
and there needed but a gentle wind to sweep the
battle-smoke around this quiet house.

Perhaps the reader — whom I cannot help con-
sidering as my guest in the Old Manse, and entitled
to all courtesy in the way of sight-showing — perhaps
he will choose to take a nearer view of the memor-
able spot. We stand now on the river's brink. It
may well be called the Concord — the river of peace
and quietness — for.it is certainly the most unexcit-
able and sluggish stream that ever loitered imptr-

Cbe ©U> Afcanse. 9

ceptibly toward its eternity the sea. Positively, I
had lived three weeks beside it before it grew quite
clear to my perception which way the current flowed,
it never has a vivacious aspect except when a north-
western breeze is vexing its surface on a sunshiny
day. From the incurable indolence of its nature
the stream is, happily, incapable of becoming the
slave of human ingenuity, as is the fate of so many
a wild, free mountain-torrent. While all things else
are compelled to subserve some useful purpose, it
idles its siuggish life away in lazy liberty without
turning a solitary spindle or affording even water-
power enough to grind the corn that grows upon its
banks. The torpor of its movement allows it no-
where a bright pebbly shore, nor so much as a
narrow strip of glistening sand in any part of its
course. It slumbers between broad prairies, kissing
the long meadow-grass, and bathes the overhanging
boughs of elder bushes and willows or the roots of
elms and ash trees and clumps of maples. Flags
and rushes grow along its plashy shore ; the yellow
water-lily spreads its broad flat leaves on the margin,
and the fragrant white pond-lily abounds, generally
selecting a position just so far from the river's brink
that it cannot be grasped save at the hazard of
plunging in.

It is a marvel whence this perfect flower derives
its loveliness and perfume, springing, as it does,
from the black mud over which the river sleeps,
and where lurk the slimy eel and speckled frog
and the mud-turtle whom continual washing cannot
cleanse. It is the very same black mud_out of
which the "yellowlily sucks~iFs obscene life and
noTsome~bdor. ^Thus we seCf totyin the world that
some persons assimilate only what is ugly and evil

io dfcoases from an ©Ifc flfcanse.

from the same moral circumstances which supply
good and beautiful results — the fragrance of celestial
nowers — to the daily life of others.

The reader must not from any testimony of mine
contract a dislike toward our slumberous stream.
In the light of a calm and golden sunset it becomes
lovely beyond expression — the more lovely for the
quietude that so well accords with the hour, when
even the wind, after blustering all day long, usually
hushes itself to rest. Each tree and rock and every
blade of grass is distinctly imaged, and, however
unsightly in reality, assumes ideal beauty in the
reflection. The minutest_things^ of earth and the
broad aspect ot the firmament are pictured equally
without ertort and with the same felicity of success,
Arr"the~~sky glows~"dbwhward at our feet ; the rich
clouds float through the unruffled bosom of the
stream like heavenly thoughts through a peaceful
heart. WjMviHjio^Jjieji, malign our river as gross
and impuTe7~~wKiTeit can glorify itself with so
adequate a pi cttrreuf- the- heaven that broods above
it ; or if we remember its tawny hue and the mud-
diness of its bed, let it be a symbol that the earth-
liest human soul has" "an infinite spiritual capacity
*ahd*may contain the better world within its depths.
But, indeed, the same lesson might be drawn out of
any mud-puddle in the streets of a city ; and, being
taught us everywhere, it must be true.

Come ! We have pursued a somewhat devious
track in our walk to the battle-ground. Here we
are at the point where the river was crossed by the
old bridge the possession of which was the immediate
object of the contest. On the hither side grow two
or three elms, throwing a wide circumference of
shade, but which must have been planted at some

Cbe ©IS dfcanse. n

period within the threescore years and ten that have
passed since the battle-day. On the farther shore,
overhung by a clump of elder-bushes, we discern the
stone abutment of the bridge. Looking down into
the river, I once discovered some heavy fragment
of the timbers, all green with half a century's growth
of water-moss ; for during that length of time the
tramp of horses and human footsteps have ceased
along this ancient highway. The stream has here
about the breadth of twenty strokes of a swimmer's
arm — a space not too wide when the bullets were
whistling across. Old people who dwell hereabouts
will point out the very spots on the western bank
where our countrymen fell down and died, and on
this side of the river an obelisk of granite has grown
up from the soil that was fertilized with British
blood. The monument — not more than twenty feet
in height — is such as it befitted the inhabitants of a
village to erect in illustration of a matter of local
interest, rather than what was suitable to commemo-
rate an epoch of national history. Still, by the
fathers of the village this famous deed was done,
and their descendants might rightfully claim the
privilege of building a memorial.

A humbler token of the fight, yet a more interest-
ing one, than the granite obelisk may be seen close
under the stone wall which separates the battle-
ground from the precincts of the parsonage. It is
the grave — marked by a small moss-grown fragment
of stone at the head, and another at the foot — the
grave of two British soldiers who were slain in the
skirmish, and have ever since slept peacefully
where Zechariah Brown and Thomas Davis buried
them. Soon was their warfare ended. A weary
night-march from Boston, a rattling volley of mus*

12 d&oases from an OlD dfcanse.

ketry across the river, and then these many years
of rest ! In the long procession of slain invaders
who passed into eternity from the battle-fields of
the Revolution these two nameless soldiers led the
way.

Lowell, the poet, as we were once standing over
this grave, told me a tradition in reference to one of
the inhabitants below. The story has something
deeplv impressive, though its circumstances cannot
altogether be reconciled with probability. A youth
in the service of the clergyman happened to be chop-
ping wood that April morning at the back door of
the manse ; and when the noise of battle rang from
side to side of the bridge, he hastened across the
intervening field to see what might be going for-
ward. It is rather strange, by the way, that this lad
should have been so diligently at work when the
whole population of town and country were startled
out of their customary business by the advance of
the British troops. Be that as it might, the tradi-
tion says that the lad now left his task and hurried
to the battle-field with the ax still in his hand. The
British had by this time retreated ; the Americans
were in pursuit, and the late scene of strife was
thus deserted by both parties. Two soldiers lay on
the ground ; one was a corpse, but, as the young
New Englander drew nigh, the other Briton raised
himself painfully upon his hands and knees and
gave a ghastly stare into his face. The boy — it
must have been a nervous impulse without purpose,
without thought and betokening a sensitive and
impressible nature rather than a hardened one — the
boy uplifted his ax and dealt the wounded soldier
a fierce and fatal blow upon the head. I could wish
that the grave might be opened, for I would fain

©IS dfcansc. 13

know whether either of the skeleton-soldiers has the
mark of an ax in his skull.

The story comes home to me like truth. Often- ;
times, as an intellectual and moral exercise, I have
sought to follow that poor youth through his sub-
sequent career and observe how his soul was tor-
tured by the blood-stain, contracted, as it had been,
before the long custom of war had robbed human
life of its sanctity, and while it still seemed murder-
ous to slay a brother-man. This one circumstance
has borne more fruit for me than all that history
tells us of the fight.

Many strangers come in the summer-time to view
the battle-ground. For my own part, 1 have never
found my imagination much excited by this or any
other scene of historic celebrity, nor would the placid
margin of the river have lost any of its charm for
me had men never fought and died there. There is
a wilder interest in the tract of land — perhaps a
hundred yards in breadth — which extends between
the battle-field and the northern face of our Old
Manse, with its contiguous avenue and orchard.
Here, in some unknown age before the white man
came, stood an Indian village convenient to the
river whence its inhabitants must have drawn so
large a part of their subsistence. The site is iden-
tified by the spears and arrow-heads, the chhels, and
other implements of war, labor and the chase which
the plow turns up from the soil. You see a
splinter of stone half hidden beneath a sod. It looks
like nothing worthy of note ; but if you have faith
enough to pick it up, behold ! a relic. Thoreau, who
has a strange faculty of finding what the Indians
have left behind them, first set me on the search,
and I afterward enriched myself with some very

2

14 /Bosses from an DID flfcanse.

perfect specimens so rudely wrought that it seemed al-
most as if chance had fashioned them. Their great
charm consists in this rudeness and in the individu-
ality of each article, so different from the productions
of civilized machinery, which shapes everything on
one pattern. There is exquisite delight, too, in pick-
ing up for one's self an arrow-head that was dropped
centuries ago and has never been handled since, and
which we thus receive directly from the hand of the
red hunter who purposed to shoot it at his game or
at an enemy. Such an incident builds up again the
Indian village and its encircling forest, and recalls
to life the painted chiefs and warriors, the squaws
at their household toil and the children sporting
among the wigwams, while the little wind-rocked
pappoose swings from the branch of a tree. It can
hardly be told whether it is a joy or a pain, after
such a momentary vision, to gaze around in the
broad daylight of reality and see stone fences, white
houses, potato-fields and men doggedly hoeing in
their shirt-sleeves and homespun pantaloons. But
this is nonsense. The Old Manse is better than a
thousand wigwams.

The Old Manse ! We had almost forgotten it, but
will return thither through the orchard. This was
set out by the last clergyman in the decline of his
life, when the neighbors laughed at the hoary-headed
man for planting trees from which he could have no
prospect of gathering fruit. Even had that been
the case, there was only so much the better motive
IoT~p1anting them in the pure and unselfish hope
of benefiting his successors — an end so seldom
achieved by more ambitious efforts. But the old
minister, before reaching his patriarchal age of
ninety, ate the apples from this orchard during

©U> fl&anse. 15

many years, and added silver and gold to his annual
stipend by disposing of the superfluity. It is
pleasant to think of him walking among the trees in
the quiet afternoons of early autumn and picking
up here and there a windfall, while he observes how
heavily the branches are weighed down and com-
putes the number of empty flour-barrels that will be
filled by their burden. He loved each tree, doubt-
less, as if it had been his own child. An orchard
has a relation to mankind and readily~connects
trselt with matters of the heart. The trees possess a
domestic character ; tHey have lost the wild nature
of their forest-kindred, and have grown humanized
by receiving the care of man as well as by contribut-
ing to his wants. There is so much individuality of
character, too, among apple trees that it gives them
an additional claim to be the objects of human in-
terest. One is harsh and crabbed in its manifesta-
tions ; another gives us fruit as mild as charity. One
is churlish and illiberal, evidently grudging the
few apples that it bears ; another exhausts itself in
free-hearted benevolence. The variety of grotesque
shapes into which apple trees contort themselves
has its effect on those who get acquainted with them :
they stretch out their crooked branches and take
such hold of the imagination that we remember them
as humorists and odd fellows. And what is more
melancholy than the old apple trees that linger about
the spot where once stood a homestead, but where
there is now only a ruined chimney rising out of a
grassy and weed-grown cellar? They offer their
fruit to every wayfarer — apples that are bitter-sweet
with the moral of time's vicissitude.

I have met with no other such pleasant trouble in
the world as that of finding myself, with only the two

1 6 fl&os0c0 trom an CIO fflanse.

or three mouths which it was my privilege to feed, the
sole inheritor of the old clergyman's wealth of fruits.
Throughout the summer there were cherries and
currants, and then came Autumn, with his immense
burden of apples, dropping them continually from
his overladen shoulders as he trudged along. In
the stillest afternoons, if I listened, the thump of a
^reat apple was audible, falling without a breath of
wind from the mere necessity of perfect ripeness.
And, besides, there were pear trees that flung
down bushels upon bushels of heavy pears, and
peach trees which in a good year tormented me
with peaches neither to be eaten nor kept, nor with-
out labor and perplexity to be given away. The
idea of an infinite generosity and exhaustless bounty
on the part of our mother Nature was well worth
obtaining through such cares as these. That feel-
ing can be enjoyed in perfection only by the natives
of summer islands where the breadfruit, the cocoa, the
palm and the orange grow spontaneously and hold
forth the ever-ready meal, but likewise almost as
well by a man long habituated to city life who
plunges into such a solitude as that of the Old
Manse, where he plucks the fruit of trees that he
did not plant, and which, therefore, to my heterodox
taste, bear the closer resemblance to those that grew
in Eden. It has been an apophthegm these five
thousand years that toil sweetens the bread it earns.
For my part (speaking from hard experience acquired
while belaboring the rugged furrows of Brook Farm)
I relish best the free gifts of Providence.

Not that it can be disputed that the light toil
requisite to cultivate a moderately-sized garden im-
parts such zest to kitchen-vegetables as is never
found in those of the market-gardener. Childless

Cbc OlD /fcanse. 17

men, if they would know something of the bliss of
paternity, should plant a seed — be it squash, bean,
Indian corn, or perhaps a mere flower or worthless
weed — should plant it with their own hands and
nurse it from infancy to maturity altogether by their
own care. If there be not too many of them, each
individual plant becomes an object of separate
interest. My garden that skirted the avenue of the
manse, was of precisely the right extent. An hour
or two of morning labor was all that it required, but
I used to visit and revisit it a dozen times a day,
and stand in deep contemplation over my vegetable
progeny with a love that nobody could share or con-
ceive of who had never taken part in the process of
creation. It was one of the most bewitching sights
in the world to observe a hill of beans thrusting
aside the soil or a row of early peas just peeping
forth sufficiently to trace a line of delicate green.
Later in the season the humming-birds were attracted
by the blossoms of a peculiar variety of bean, and
they were a joy to me — those little spiritual visitants
— for deigning to sip any food out of my nectar-
cups. Multitudes of bees used to bury themselves in
the yellow blossoms of the summer squashes. This
too was a deep satisfaction, although, when they
h.id laden themselves with sweets, they flew away
to some unknown hive which would give back noth-
i-i^ in requital of what my garden had contributed
IJ.it I was glad thus to fling a benefaction upon the
pissing breeze with the certainty that somebody
must profit by it, and that there would be a little
more honey in the world to allay the sourness and
bitterness which mankind is always complaining of.
Ves, indeed ! My life was the sweeter for that honey.
Speaking of summer squashes, I must say a word

i8 flfcosses from an QID flfcanse.

of their beautiful and varied forms. They presented
an endless diversity of urns and vases, shallow or
deep, scalloped or plain, molded in patterns which
a sculptor would do well to copy, since art has
never invented anything more graceful. A hundred
squashes in the garden were worthy — in my eyes, at
least — of being rendered indestructible in marble.
If ever Providence (but I know it never will) should
assign me a superfluity of gold, part of it shall be
expended for a service of plate of most delicate
porcelain, to be wrought into the shapes of summer
squashes gathered from vines which I will plant
with my own hands. As dishes for containing
vegetables they would be peculiarly appropriate.

But not merely the squeamish love of the Beauti-
ful was gratified by my toil in the kitchen-garden.
There was a hearty enjoyment, likewise, in observ-
ing the growth of the crook-necked winter squashes
from the first little bulb, with the withered blossom
adhering to it, until they lay strewn upon the soil,
big, round fellows hiding their heads beneath the
leaves, but turning up their great yellow rotundities
to the noontide sun. Gazing at them, I felt that
by_my^gency something worth living for had been
^jone. ~A~new substance was born into the world.
They were real and tangible existences which the
mind could seize hold of and rejoice in. A cabbage,
too — especially the Early Dutch cabbage, which
swells to a monstrous circumference, until its ambi-
tious heart often bursts asunder — is a matter to be
proud of when we can claim a share with the earth
and sky in producing it. But, after all, the hugest
pleasure is reserved until these vegetable children
of ours are smoking on the table, and we, like Saturn,
make a meal of them.

Cbc CIO flfcansc. 19

What with the river, the battle-field, the orchard
and the garden, the reader begins to despair of find-
ing his way back into the Old Manse, but in agree-
able weather it is the truest hospitality to keep him
out of doors. I never grew quite acquainted with
my habitation till a long spell of sulky rain had con-
fined me beneath its roof. There could not be a
more somber aspect of external nature than as seen
from the windows of my study. The great willow
tree had caught and retained among its leaves a
whole cataract of water, to be shaken down at inter-
vals by the frequent gusts of wind. All day long,
and for a week together, the rain was drip-drip-drip-
ping and splash-splash-splashing from the eaves and
bubbling and foaming into the tubs beneath the
spouts. The old unpainted shingles of the house
and outbuildings were black with moisture, and the
mosses, of ancient growth, upon the walls looked
green and fresh as if they were the newest things
and after-thought of time. The usually mirrored
surface of the river was blurred by an infinity of
raindrops. The whole landscape had a completely
water-soaked appearance, conveying the impression
that the earth was wet through like a sponge, while
the summit of a wooded hill about a mile distant
was enveloped in a dense mist, where the demon of
the tempest seemed to have his abiding-place, and
to be plotting still direr inclemencies.

Nature has no kindness, no hospitality, during a
rain. In the fiercest heat of sunny days she retains
a secret mercy and welcomes the wayfarer to shady
nooks of the woods whither the sun cannot pene-
trate. But she provides no shelter against her
storms. It makes us shiver to think of those deep,
umbrageous recesses, those overshadowing banks,

20 /fcosscs trom an OlD flfcanse.

where we found such enjoyment during the sultry
afternoons. Not a twig of foliage there but would
dash a little shower into our faces. Looking re-
proachfully toward the impenetrable sky — if sky there
be above that dismal uniformity of cloud — we are
apt to murmur against the whole system of the uni-
verse, since it involves the extinction of so many
summer days in so short a life by the hissing and
spluttering rain. In such spells of weather — and it
is to be supposed such weather came — Eve's bower
in Paradise must have been but a cheerless and aguish
kind of shelter, nowise comparable to the old par-
sonage, which had resources of its own to beguile
the week's imprisonment. The idea of sleeping on
a couch of wet roses !

Happy the man who in a rainy day can betake
himself to a huge garret stored, like that of the
manse, with lumber that each generation has left
behind it from a period before the Revolution. Our
garret was an arched hall dimly -illuminated through
sfnaTTaTTa dusty windows^ It_was but a twilight at
the best, and there were nooks — or, rather, caverns
— of deep obscurity, the secrets of which I never
learned, being too reverent of their dust and cobwebs.
The beams and rafters, roughly hewn and with strips
of bark still on them, and the rude masonry of the
chimneys, made the garret look wild and uncivilized
— an aspect unlike what was seen elsewhere in the
quiet and decorous old house. But on one sides
there was a little whitewashed apartment which bore
the traditionary title of " The Saint's Chamber " be-
cause holy men in their youth had slept and studied
and prayed there. With its elevated retirement, its
one window, its small fireplace and its closet con-
venient for an oratory, it was the very spot where a

Cbc CIS dfcansc. 21

young man might inspire himself with solemn enthu-
siasm and cherish saintly dreams. The occupants at
various epochs had left brief records and speculations
inscribed upon the walls. There, too, hung a tat-
tered and shriveled roll of canvas which on inspec-
tion proved to be the forcibly wrought picture of a
clergyman in wig, band and gown, holding a Bible
in his hand. As I turned his face toward the light
he eyed me with an air of authority such as men of
his profession seldom assume in our days. The
original had been pastor of the parish more than a
century ago — a friend of Whitefield, and almost his
equal in fervid eloquence. I bowed before the effigy
of the dignified divine, and felt as if I had now met
face to face with the_ghosl-by whom, as there was
reason to apprehend, the manse was haunted.

"Houses of any antiquity in New England are so in
variably possessed with spirits that the matter seems
hardly worth alluding to. Our ghost used to heave
deep sighs in a particular corner of the parlor, and
sometimes rustled paper, as if he were turning over
a sermon, in the long upper entry — where, never-
theless, he was invisible, in spite of the bright
moonshine that fell through the eastern window.
Not improbably he wished me to edit and publish a
selection from a chest full of manuscript discourses
that stood in the garret. Once, while Hillard and
other friends sat talking with__usjn_the twilight,
there came~T~niSTnlrTg noise, as ot_a rninistef's silk
gown, sweeping through the very midst of the com-
pany^so closely as almost to brush against the chairs.
Still, there was nothing visible. A yet stranger
business was that of a ghostly servant,-maid_who
used to be heard in the kitchen_at_dee4ies.t.jnidnight
grinding coffee, cooking, ironing — performing, in

22 flfcosses from an CIS /fcanse.

short, all kinds of domestic labor, although no
traces of anything accomplished could be detected
the next morning. Some neglected duty of her
servitude — some ill-starched ministerial band — dis-
turbed the poor damsel in her grave and kept her
to work without any wages.

But to return from this digression. A part of my
predecessor's library was stored in the garret — no
unfit receptacle, indeed, for such dreary trash as
comprised the greater number of volumes. The old
books would have been worth nothing at an auction.
In this venerable garret, however, they possessed
an interest, quite apart from their literary value, as
heirlooms, many of which had been transmitted
down through a series of consecrated hands from
the days of the mighty Puritan divines. Au-
tographs of famous names were to be seen, in
faded ink, on some of their fly leaves, and there
were marginal observations or interpolated pages
closely covered with manuscript in illegible short-
hand, perhaps concealing matter of profound truth
and wisdom. The world will never be the better
for it. A few of the books were Latin folios written
by Catholic authors ; others demolished papistry
as with a sledge-hammer, in plain English. A dis-
sertation on the book of Job — which only Job himself
could have had patience to read — filled at least a
score of small thickset quartos, at the rate of two 01
three volumes to a chapter. Then there was a vast
folio Body of Divinity — too corpulent a body, it
might be feared, to comprehend the spiritual element
of religion. Volumes of this form dated back
two hundred years or more, and were generally
bound in black leather, exhibiting precisely such
an appearance as we should attribute to books o*

Cbe Olfc /Ranee. 23

enchantment. Others equally antique were of a size
proper to be carried in the large waistcoat pockets
of old times — diminutive, but as black as their bulk-
ier brethren, and abundantly interfused with Greek
and Latin quotations. These little old volumes
impressed me as if they had been intended for very
large ones, but had been unfortunately blighted at
an early stage of their growth.

The rain pattered upon the roof and the sky
gloomed through the dusty garret windows while 1
burrowed among these yenerabk. books in searcTT
Qf"any living thou&htwhich~should bum Jike a coal
oTrire or glow like^^lne^inguishable gem beneath
the dead trumpery~that had long hidden it. But I
found rio~sucli"treasure — all was dead alike ; and I
could not but muse deeply and wonderingly upon
the humiliating fact that the works of man's intellect
decay like those of his hands. Thought grows
moldy. What was good and nourishing food for
the spirits of one generation affords no sustenance
for the next. Books of religion, however, cannot be "
considered a fair test of the enduring and vivacious
properties of human thought, because such books
so seldom really touch upon their ostensible subject,
and have, therefore, so little business to be written
at all. So long as an unlettered soul can attain to
saving grace there would seem to be no deadly error
in holding theological libraries to be accumulations
of, for the most part, stupendous impertinence.

Many of the books had accrued in the latter years
of the last clergyman's lifetime. These threatened
to be of even less interest than the elder works a
century hence to any curious inquirer who should
then rummage them as I was doing now. Volumes
of the Liberal Preacher and Christian Examiner^

24 /Rosses from an Olo

occasional sermons, controversial pamphlets, tracts,
and other productions of a like fugitive nature, took
the place of the thick and heavy volumes of past
time. In a physical point of view there was much"*1
the same difference as between a feather and a lump
of lead, but, intellectually regarded, the specific"
gravity of old and new was about upon a par. Both
also, were alike frigid. The elder books, never
theless, seemed to have been earnestly written, and
might be conceived to have possessed warmth at
some former period, although, with the lapse of time,
the heated masses had cooled down even to the
freezing-point. The frigidity of the modern prod
tions, on the other hand, was characteristic and in-
herent, and evidently had little to do with the
writers' qualities of mind and heart. In fine, of this.,
whole dusty heap of literature, I tossed aside all the
sacred part, and felt myself none the less a Christian
for eschewing it. There appeared no hope of either
mounting to the better world on a Gothic staircase
of ancient folios, or of flying thither on the wings of
a modern tract.

Nothing, strange to say, retained any sap, except
what had been written for the passing day and year,
without the remotest pretension or idea of per-
manence. There were a few old newspapers, and
still older almanacs, which reproduced, to my mental
eye, the epochs when they had issued from the press,
with a distinctness that was altogether unaccount-
able. It was as if I had found bits of magic look-
ing-glass among the books, with the images of a
vanished century in them. I turned my eyes toward;
the tattered picture above mentioned, and asked of
the austere divine wherefore it was that he and his
brethren, after the most painful rummaging and

Gbe OlD flfcansc. 25

groping into their minds, had been able to produce
nothing half so real as these newspaper scribblers
and almanac-makers had thrown off in the effer-
vescence of a moment. The portrait responded not ;
so I sought an answer for myself. It is the age
itself that writes newspapers and almanacs, which
therefore have a distinct purpose and meaning at
the time, and a kind of intelligible truth for all
times ; whereas, most other works, being written by
men who in the very act set themselves apart from
their age, are likely to possess little significance
when new, and none at all when old. Genius, in-
deed, melts many ages into one, and thus effects
something permanent, yet still with a similarity of
office to that of the more ephemeral writer. A work
of genius is but the newspaper of a century, or per-
chance of a hundred centuries.

Lightly as I have spoken of these old books, there
yet lingers with me a superstitious reverence for
literature of all kinds. A bound volume has a charm
in my eyes similar to what scraps of manuscript
possess for the good Mussulman : he imagines that
those wind-wafted records are perhaps hallowed by
some sacred verse, and I that every new book or
antique one may contain the " Open, sesame ! " —
the spell to disclose treasures hidden in some un-
suspected cave of Truth. Thus it was not without
sadness that I turned away from the library of the J
Old Manse.

Blessed was the sunshine when it came again, at
the close of another stormy day, beaming from the
edge of the western horizon, while the massive
firmament of clouds threw down all the gloom it
could, but served only to kindle the golden light
into a more brilliant glow by the strongly-contrasted

26 flfcos0e0 trom an ©ID flfcanse.

shadows. Heaven smiled at the earth long unseen
from beneath its heavy eyelid. To-morrow for the
hill-tops and the woodpaths !

Or it might be that Ellery Channing came up theA
avenue to join me in a fishing-excursion on the river.)
Strange and happy times were those when we cast
aside all irksome forms and strait-laced habitudes
and delivered ourselves up to the free air, to live
like the Indians or any less conventional race dur-
ing one bright semicircle of the sun. Rowing our
boat against the current between wide meadows, we
turned aside into the Assabeth. A more lonely
stream than this for a mile above its junction with
the Concord has never flowed on earth — nowhere,
indeed, except to lave the interior regions of a poet's
imagination. It is sheltered from the breeze by
woods and a hillside ; so that elsewhere there might
be a hurricane and here scarcely a ripple across the
shaded water. The current lingers along so gently
that the mere force of the boatman's will seems suf-
ficient to propel his craft against it. It comes flow-
ing softly through the midmost privacy and deepest
heart of a wood which whispers it to be quiet, while
the stream whispers back again from its sedgy
borders, as if river and wood were hushing one an-
other to sleep. Yes, the river sleeps along its course
and dreams of the sky and of the clustering foliage,
amid which fall showers of broken sun-light, impart-
ing specks of vivid cheerfulness, in contrast with
the quiet depth of the prevailing tint. Of all this^,
scene the slumbering river had a dream-picture in
its bosom. Which, after all, was the most real — the I
picture or the original, the objects palpable to our \
grosser senses or their apotheosis in the stream ]
beneath ? Surely the disembodied images stand in J

ttbe ©K> flfcanse. 27

closer relation to the soul. But both the original
and the reflection had here an ideal charm, and, had
it been a thought more wild, I could have fancied
that this river had strayed forth out of the rich
scenery of my companion's inner world; only the
vegetation along its banks should then have had an
Oriental character.

Gentle and unobtrusive as the river is, yet the
tranquil woods seem hardly satisfied to allow its pas-
sage. The trees are rooted on the very verge of the
water and dip their pendant branches into it. At
one spot there is a lofty bank on the slope of which
grow some hemlocks, declining across the stream
with outstretched arms, as if resolute to take the
plunge. In other places the banks are almost on a
level with the water ; so that the quiet congregation
of trees set their feet in the flood and are fringed
with foliage down to the surface. Cardinal-flowers
kindle their spiral flames and illuminate the dark
nooks among the shrubbery. The pond-lily grows
abundantly along the margin — that delicious flower
which, as Thoreau tells me, opens its virgin bosom
to the first sunlight and perfects its being through
the magic of that genial kiss. He has beheld beds
of them unfolding in due succession as the sunrise
stole gradually from flower to flower — a sight not to
be hoped for unless when a poet adjusts his inward
eye to a proper focus with the outward organ.
Grapevines here and there twine themselves around
shrub and tree and hang their clusters over the
water within reach of the boatman's hand. Often-
times they unite two trees of alien race in an inex-
tricable twine, marrying the hemlock and the maple
against their will and enriching them with a purple
offspring of which neither is the parent. One of

28 flbossee trom an Gtt> dfcansc.

these ambitious parasites has climbed into the upper
branches of a tall white pine, and is still ascending
from bough to bough, unsatisfied till it shall crown
the tree's airy summit with a wreath of its broad
foliage and a cluster of its grapes.

The winding course of the stream continually shut
out the scene behind us and revealed as calm and
lovely a one before. We glided from depth to depth
and breathed new seclusion at every turn. The shy
kingfisher flew from the withered branch close at
hand to another at a distance, uttering a shrill cry
of anger or alarm. Ducks that had been floating
there since the preceding eve were startled at our
approach, and skimmed along the glassy river,
breaking its dark surface with a bright streak. The
pickerel leaped from among the lily-pads. The
turtle sunning itself upon a rock or at the root of a
tree slid suddenly into the water with a plunge.
The painted Indian who paddled his canoe along
the Assabeth three hundred years ago could hardly
have seen a wilder gentleness displayed upon its
banks and reflected in its bosom than we did.

Nor could the same Indian have prepared his
noontide meal with more simplicity. We drew up
our skiff at some point where the overarching shade
formed a natural bower, and there kindled a fire with
the pine-cones and decayed branches that lay strewn
plentifully around. Soon the smoke ascended among
the trees impregnated with a savory incense — not
heavy, dull and surfeiting, like the steam of cookery
within-doors, but sprightly and piquant. The smell
of our feast was akin to the woodland odors with
which it mingled. There was no sacrilege committed
by our intrusion there; the sacred solitude was
hospitable, and granted us free leave to cook and eat

Cbc ©10 /Range. 29

in the recess that was at once our kitchen and
b.inqueting-hall. It is strange what humble offices
may be performed in a beautiful scene without
destroying its poetry. Our fire, red-gleaming among
the trees, and we beside it busied with culinary rites
and spreading out our meal on a moss-grown log, — -
all seemed in unison with the river gliding by and the
foliage rustling over us. And, what was strangest,
neither did our mirth seem to disturb the propriety
of the solemn woods, although the hobgoblins of
the old wilderness and the will-o'-the-wisps that
glimmered in the marshy places might have come
trooping to share our table-talk and have added
their shrill laughter to our merriment It was the
very spot in which to utter the extremest nonsense or
the profoundest wisdom, or that ethereal product of
the mind which partakes of both and may become
one or the other in correspondence with the faith
and insight of the auditor.

So, amid sunshine and shadow, rustling leaves an(O
sighing waters, up gushed our talk like the babble |
of a fountain. The evanescent spray was Ellery's,^/
and his, too, the lumps of golden thought that lay
glimmering in the fountain's bed and brightened
both our faces by the reflection. Could he have
drawn out that virgin gold and stamped it with the
mint-mark that alone gives currency, the world might
have had the profit and he the fame. My mind was
the richer merely by the knowledge that it was there.
But the chief profit of those wild days, to him and
me, lay, not in any definite idea, not in any angular
or rounded truth which we dug out of the shapeless^ v .
mass of problematical stuff, but in the freedom I
which we thereby won from all custom and conven- 1
tionalism and fettering influences of man on man. )
3

30 d&osaes from an ©ID /fcanse.

"We were so free to-day that it was impossible to b«
slaves again to-morrow. When we crossed the
threshold of the house or trod the thronged pave-
ments of a city, still the leaves of the trees that
overhang the Assabeth were whispering to us,
" Be free ! Be free ! " Therefore along that shady
river-bank there are spots marked with a heap
\_of ashes and half-consumed brands only less sacred
in my remembrance than the hearth of a household
fire.

And yet how sweet as we floated homeward adown
the golden river at sunset — how sweet was it to
return within the system of human society, not as to a
dungeon and a chain, but as to a stately edifice where
we could go forth at will into statelier simplicity !
How gently, too, did the sight of the Old Manse —
best seen from the river, overshadowed with its
willow and all environed about with the foliage of its
orchard and avenue — how gently did its gray, homely
aspect rebuke the speculative extravagances of the
day ! It had grown sacred in connection with the"]
artificial life against which we inveighed ; it had been
a home for many years in spite of all ; it was my)
home too ; and, with these thoughts, it seemed to nre
that all the artifice and conventionalism of life was
but an impalpable thinness upon its surface, and that
the depth below was none the worse for it. Once,
as we turned our boat to the bank, there was a cloud
in the shape of an immensely gigantic figure of
a hound couched above the house, as if keeping
guard over it. Gazing at this symbol, I prayed that
the upper influences might long protect the institu-
tions that had grown out of the heart of mankind.

If ever my readers should decide to give up civil-
ized life, cities, houses, and whatever moral or

Cbe ©ID flfcanse. 31

material enormities, in addition to these, the per-
verted ingenuity of our race has contrived, let it be
in the early autumn. Then Nature will love him
better than at any other season, and will take him
to her bosom with a more motherly tenderness. I
could scarcely endure the roof of the old house above
me in those first autumnal days. How early in the
summer, too, the prophecy of autumn comes ! — earlier
in some years than in others, sometimes even in the
first weeks of July. There is no other feeling like
what is caused by this faint, doubtful yet real per-
ception— if it be not, rather, a foreboding — of the
year's decay, so blessedly sweet and sad in the same
breath. Did I say that there was no feeling like it ?
Ah ! but there is ! — a half-acknowledged melancholy
like to this — when we stand in the perfected vigor
of our life and feel that Time has now given us all
his flowers, and that the next work of his never-idle
fingers must be to steal them one by one away !

I have forgotten whether the song of the cricket
be not as early a token of autumn's approach as any
other — that song which may be called an audible
stillness ; for, though very loud and heard afar, yet
the mind does not take note of it as a sound, so com-
pletely is its individual existence merged among the
accompanying characteristics of the season. Alas
for the pleasant summer-time ! In August the grass
is still verdant on the hills and in the valleys ; the
foliage of the trees is as dense as ever and as green ;
the flowers gleam forth in richer abundance along
the margin of the river and by the stone walls and
deep among the woods ; the days, too, are as fervid
now as they were a month ago ; and yet in every
breath of wind and in every beam of sunshine we
hear the whispered farewell, and behold the parting

32 dfcosses from an ©to dfcanse.

smile of a dear friend. There is a coolness amid all
the heat — a mildness in the blazing noon. Not a
breeze can stir but it thrills us with the breath of
autumn. A pensive glory is seen in the far golden
gleams, among the shadows of the trees. The
flowers, even the brightest of them — and they are
the most gorgeous of the year — have this gentle sad
ness wedded to their pomp, and typify the character
of the delicious time, each within itself. The bril-
liant cardinal-flower has never seemed gay to me.

Still later in the season Nature's tenderness waxes
stronger. It is impossible not to be fond of our
mother now, for she is so fond of us. At other
periods she does not make this impression on me,
or only at rare intervals, but in those genial days of
autumn, when she has perfected her harvests and
accomplished every needful thing that was given her
to do — then she overflows with a blessed superfluity
of love. She has leisure to caress her children now.
It is good to be alive, and at such times. Thank
Heaven for breath ! yes, for mere breath, when it is
made up of a heavenly breeze like this. It comes
with a real kiss upon our cheeks. It would linger
fondly around us, if it might, but, since it must be
gone, it embraces us with its whole kindly heart and
passes onward to embrace likewise the next thing
that it meets. A blessing is flung abroad and scat-
tered far and wide over the earth, to be gathered up
by all who choose. I recline upon the still un-
withered grass and whisper to myself, " O perfect
day ! O beautiful world ! O beneficent God ! "
And it is the promise of a blessed eternity, for our
Creator would never have made such lovely days
and have given us the deep hearts to enjoy them
above and beyond all thought unless we were meant

©ID flfcanse. 33

to be immortai. This sunshine is the golden pledge
thereof. It beams through the gates of Paradise
and shows us glimpses far inward.

By and by — in a little time — the outward world
puts on a drear austerity. On some October morn-
ing there is a heavy hoar-frost on the grass and along
the tops of the fences, and at sunrise the leaves fall
from the trees of our avenue without a breath of wind,
quietly descending by their own weight. All summer
long they have murmured like the noise of waters ;
they have roared loudly while the branches were
wrestling with the thunder-gust ; they have made
music both glad and solemn ; they have attuned
my thoughts by their quiet sound as I paced to and
fro beneath the arch of intermingling boughs. Now
they can only rustle under my feet. Henceforth
the gray parsonage begins to assume a larger impor-
tance, and draws to its fireside — for the abomination
of the air-tight stove is reserved till wintry weather
—draws closer and closer to its fireside the vagrant
impulses that had gone wandering about through the
summer.

When summer was dead and buried, the Old
Manse became as lonely as a hermitage. Not that
ever — in my time, at least — it had been thronged
with company. But at no rare intervals we welcomed
some friend out of the dusty glare and tumult of the
world and rejoiced to share with him the transparent
obscurity that was floating over us. In one respect
our precincts were like the Enchanted Ground through
which the pilgrim traveled on his way to the
Celestial City. The guests, each and all, felt a
slumberous influence upon them ; they fell asleep
in chairs or took a more deliberate siesta on the sofa,
or were seen stretched among the shadows of the

34 /Bosaes from an OU> dfcanee.

orchard, looking up dreamily through the boughs.
They could not have paid a more acceptable compli-
ment to my abode, nor to my own qualities as a
host. I held it as a proof that they left their cares
bekind them as they passed between the stone gate-
posts at the entrance of our avenue, and that the so
powerful opiate was the abundance of peace and
quiet within and all around us. Others could give
them pleasure and amusement or instruction — these
could be picked up anywhere — but it was for me to
give them rest. Rest in a life of trouble ! What
better could be done for those weary and world-
worn spirits ? for him whose career of perpetual action
was impeded and harassed by the rarest of his
powers and the richest of his acquirements ? for
another, who had thrown his ardent heart from
earliest youth into the strife of politics, and now,
perchance, began to suspect that one lifetime is too
brief for the accomplishment of any lofty aim ? for
her on whose feminine nature had been imposed the
heavy gift of intellectual power such as a strong
man might have staggered under, and with it the
necessity to act upon the world ? In a word, not to
multiply instances, what better could be done for
anybody who came within our magic circle than to
throw the spell of a magic spirit over him ? And
when it had wrought its full effect, then we dismissed
him with but misty reminiscences, as if he had been
dreaming of us.

Were I to adopt a pet-idea, as so many people do,
and fondle it in my embraces to the exclusion of all
others, it would be that the great want which man-
kind labors under at this present period is — sleep !
The world should recline its vast head on the first
convenient pillow and take an age-long nap. It has

©U> fl&anse. 35

gone distracted through a morbid activity, and, while '
preternaturally wide-awake, is nevertheless tormented ;'
by visions that seem real to it now, but would assume \
their true aspect and character were all things once
set right by an interval of sound repose. This is the
only method of getting rid of old delusions and avoid
ing new ones — of regenerating our race, so that it^
might in due time awake as an infant out of dewy
slumber, of restoring to us the simple perception of
what is right and the single-hearted desire to achieve
it, both of which have long been lost in consequence
of this weary activity of brain and torpor or passion
of the heart that now afflict the universe. Stimu-
lants— the only mode of treatment hitherto attempt-
ed— cannot quell the disease ; they do but heighten
the delirium.

Let not the above paragraph ever be quoted
against the author, for, though tinctured with its
modicum of truth, it is the result and expression of
what he knew, while he was writing it, to be but a
distorted survey of the state and prospects of man-\
kind. There were circumstances around me which \
made it difficult to view the world precisely as it
exists, for, severe and sober as was the Old Manse,
it was necessary to go but a little way beyond its ,
threshold before meeting with stranger moral shapes
of men than might have been encountered elsewhere
in a circuit of a thousand miles.

These hobgoblins of flesh and blood were attracted
thither by the wide-spreading influence of a great
original thinker who had his earthly abode at the
opposite extremity of our village. His mind acted
upon other minds of a certain constitution with
wonderful magnetism, and drew many men upon
long pilgrimages to speak with him face to face.

36 ^Bosses trom an Ol£ dfcanae.

Young visionaries to whom just so much of insight
had been imparted as to make life all a labyrinth
around them came to seek the clue that should guide
them out of their self-involved bewilderment. Gray-
headed theorists whose systems at first air had finally
imprisoned them in an iron frame-work traveled
painfully to his door, not to ask deliverance, but to
invite the free spirit into their own thralldom. Peo-
ple that had lighted on a new thought or a thought
that they fancied new came to Emerson, as the
finder of a glittering gem hastens to a lapidary to
ascertain its quality and value. Uncertain, troubled,
earnest wanderers through the midnight of the moral
world beheld his intellectual fire as a beacon burn-
ing on a hilltop, and, climbing the difficult ascent,
looked forth into the surrounding obscurity more
hopefully than hitherto. The light revealed objects"
unseen before — mountains, gleaming lakes, glimpses
of a creation among the chaos — but also, as was
unavoidable, it attracted bats and owls, and the
whole host of night-birds, which flapped their dusky
wings against the gazer's eyes, and sometimes were j
mistaken for fowls of angelic feather. Such delu-
sions always hover nigh whenever a beacon-fire of)
truth is kindled.

For myself, there had been epochs of my life when
I too might have asked of this prophet the master-
word that should solve me the riddle of the universe,
but now, being happy, I felt as if there were no
questions to be put, and therefore admired Emerson
as a poet of deep beauty and austere tenderness,
but sought nothing from him as a philosopher. It
was good, nevertheless, to meet him in the wood-
paths, or sometimes in our avenue, with that pure,
intellectual gleam diffused about his presence like

Cbe ©Ifc fl&anse. 37

the garment of a shining one, and he so quiet, so
simple, so without pretension, encountering each
man alive as if expecting to receive more than he
could impart. And, in truth, the heart of many an
ordinary man had, perchance, inscriptions which he
could not read. But it was impossible to dwell in
his vicinity without inhaling more or less the mount-
ain-atmosphere of his lofty thought, which in the
brains of some people wrought a singular giddiness,
new truth being as heady as new wine. Never was
a poor little country-village infested with such a
variety of queer, strangely-dressed, oddly-behaved
mortals, most of whom took upon themselves to be
important agents of the world's destiny, yet were
simply bores of a very intense water. Such, I
imagine, is the invariable character of persons who
crowd so closely about an original thinker as to draw
in his unuttered breath, and thus to become imbued
•with a false originality. This triteness of novelty is
enough to make any man of common sense blas-
pheme at all ideas of less than a century's standing,
and pray that the world may be petrified and ren-
dered immovable in precisely the worst moral and
physical state that it ever yet arrived at rather than
be benefited by such schemes of such philosophers.
And now I begin to feel — and perhaps should have
sooner felt — that we have talked enough of the Old
Manse. Mine honored reader, it may be, will vilify
the poor author as an egotist for babbling through
so many pages about a moss-grown country parson-
age, and his life within its walls and on the river and
in the woods, and the influences that wrought upon
him from all these sources. My conscience, how-"^
ever, does not reproach me with betraying anything
too sacredly individual to be revealed by a human J

38 flfcosses from an ©ID flfcanse.

spirit to its brother or sister-spirit. How narrow
— how shallow and scanty too — is the stream of
thought that has been flowing from my pen, compared
with the broad tide of dim emotions, ideas and as-
sociations which swell around me from that portion
of my existence ! How little have I told ! and of
that little, how almost nothing is even tinctured with
any quality that makes it exclusively my own ! Has
the reader gone wandering hand in hand with me
through the inner passages of my being, and have
we groped together into all its chambers and ex-
amined their treasures or their rubbish ? Not so.
We have been standing on the greensward, but just
within the cavern's mouth, where the common sun-
shine is free to penetrate, and where every footstep'
is therefore free to come. I have appealed to no
sentiment or sensibilities save such as are diffused
among us all. So far as I am a man of really indi-
vidual attributes, I veil my face, nor am I, nor have
I ever been, one of those supremely hospitable
people who serve up their own hearts delicately
fried, with brain sauce, as a tidbit for their beloved
public.

Glancing back over what I have written, it seems
but the scattered reminiscences of a single summer.
In fairyland there is no measurement of time, and in
a spot so sheltered from the turmoil of life's ocean
three years hasten away with a noiseless flight, as the
breezy sunshine chases the cloud-shadows across the
depths of a still valley. Now came hints, growing
more and more distinct, that the owner of the old
house was pining for his native air. Carpenters next
appeared, making a tremendous racket among the
outbuildings, strewing green grass with pine-shavings
and chips of chestnut joists, and vexing the whole

Cbe ©U> flfcanse. 39

antiquity of the place with their discordant renova-
tions. Soon, moreover, they divested our abode of
the veil of woodbine which had crept over a large
portion of its southern face. All the aged mosses
were cleared unsparingly away, and there were hor-
rible whispers about brushing up the external walls
with a coat of paint — a purpose as little to my taste
as might be that of rouging the venerable cheeks o)
one's grandmother. But the hand that renovates i»
always more sacrilegious than that which destroys.
In fine, we gathered up our household goods, drank
a. farewell cup of tea in our pleasant little breakfast-
room — delicately fragrant tea, an unpurchasable
luxury, one of the many angel-gifts that had fallen
like dew upon us — and passed forth between the tall
stone gateposts as uncertain as the wandering Arabs
where our tent might next be pitched. Providence ^
took me by the hand, and — an oddity of dispensa-
tion which, I trust, there is no irreverence in smiling
at — has led me, as the newspapers announce while I
am writing, from the Old Manse into a custom-house.
As a story-teller I have often contrived strange vicis-
situdes for my imaginary personages, but none like
this.

The treasure of intellectual gold which I had
hoped to find in our secluded dwelling had never
come to light. No profound treatise of ethics, no
philosophic history — no novel, even, that could stand
unsupported on its edges. All that I had to show,
as a man of letters, were these few tales and essays
which had blossomed out like flowers in the calm
summer of my heart and mind. Save editing (an
easy task) the journal of my friend of many years,
the African Cruiser, I had done nothing else. With
these idle weeds and withering blossoms I have

40 flfcossea trom an Ol?

intermixed some that were produced long ago— old,
faded things, reminding me of flowers prcs^-d be-
tween the leaves of a book — and now offer the bou-
quet, such as it is, to any whom it m:iy pi
These fitful sketches, with so little of external life
about them, yet claiming no profundity of purpose,
so reserved even while they sometimes seem so frank,
often but half in earnest, and never, when most so,
expressing satisfactorily the thoughts which tiny
profess to image, — such trifles, I truly feel, afford no
solid basis for a literary reputation. Nevertheless,
the public — if my limited number of readers, whom
I venture to regard rather as a circle of friends, may
be termed a public — will receive them the more
kindly as the last offering, the last collection, of this
nature which it is my purpose ever to put forth.
Unless I could do better, I have done enough in this
kind. For myself, the book will always retain one
charm, as reminding me of the river with its delight-
ful solitudes, and of the avenue, the garden and the
orchard, and especially the dear Old Manse, with
the little study on its western side and the sunshine
glimmering through the willow-branches while I
wrote.

Let the reader, if he will do me so much honor,
imagine himself my guest, and that, having seen
whatever may be worthy of notice within and about
the Old Manse, he has finally been ushered into my
study. There, after seating him in an antique elbow-"^
chair — an heirloom of the house — I take forth a roll
of manuscript, and entreat his attention to the fol-
lowing tales — an act of personal inhospitality, how-
ever, which I never was guilty of, nor ever will be,
even to my worst enemy.

THE BIRTHMARK.

IN the latter part of the last century there lived
a man of science — an eminent proficient in every
branch of natural philosophy — who not long before
our story opens had made experience of a spiritual
affinity more attractive than any chemical one. He
had left his laboratory to the care of an assistant,
cleared his fine countenance from the furnace-smoke,
washed the stain of acids from his fingers, and per-
suaded a beautiful woman to become his wife. In
those days, when the comparatively recent discovery
of electricity, and other kindred mysteries of nature,
seemed to open paths into the region of miracle, it
was not unusual for the love of science to rival the
love of woman in its depth and absorbing energy.
The higher intellect, the imagination, the spirit, and
even the heart, might all find their congenial aliment
in pursuits which, as some of their ardent votaries be-
lieved, would ascend from one step of powerful intel-
ligence to another, until the philosopher should lay
his hand on the secret of creative force, and perhaps
make new worlds for himself. We know not whether
Aylmer possessed this degree of faith in man's ulti-
mate control over nature. He had devoted himself,
however, too unreservedly to scientific studies ever to
be weaned from them by any second passion. His
love for his young wife might prove the stronger of

42 losses from an ©ID flfcanse.

the two, but it could only be by intertwining itself
with his love of science and uniting the strength of
the latter to its own.

Such an union accordingly took place, and was
attended with truly remarkable consequences, and a
deeply impressive moral. One day, very soon after
their marriage, Aylmer sat gazing at his wife with a
trouble in his countenance that grew stronger, until
he spoke.

" Georgiana," said he, "has it never occurred to
you that the mark upon your cheek might be re-
moved ? "

" No, indeed," said she, smiling ; but, perceiving
the seriousness of his manner, she blushed deeply.
"To tell you the truth, it has been so often called a
charm that I was simple enough to imagine it might
be so."

" Ah ! upon another face perhaps it might," re-
plied her husband, " but never on yours. No, dearest
Georgiana ; you came so nearly perfect from the
hand of Nature that this slightest possible defect—
which we hesitate whether to term a defect or a
beauty — shocks me as being the visible mark of
earthly imperfection."

" Shocks you, my husband ! " cried Georgiana,
deeply hurt, at first reddening with momentary anger,
but then bursting into tears. " Then why did you
take me from my mother's side ? You cannot love
what shocks you."

To explain this conversation it must be mentioned
that in the center of Georgiana's left cheek there
was a singular mark deeply interwoven, as it were,
with the texture and substance of her face. In the
usual state of her complexion — a healthy though
delicate bloom — the mark wore a tint of deeper

Cbe Birtbmarfc. 43

crimson which imperfectly defined its shape amid the
surrounding rosiness. When she blushed, it grad-
ually became more indistinct, and finally vanished
amid the triumphant rush of blood that bathed the
whole cheek with its brilliant glow. But if any shift-
ing emotion caused her to turn pale, there was the
mark again, a crimson stain upon the snow, in what
Aylmer sometimes deemed an almost fearful dis-
tinctness. Its shape bore not a little similarity to
the human hand, though of the smallest pigmy size.
Georgiana's lovers were wont to say that some fairy
at her birth-hour had laid her tiny hand upon the
infant's cheek, and left this impress there in token
of the magic endowments that were to give her such
sway over all hearts. Many a desperate swain would
have risked life for the privilege of pressing his lips
to the mysterious hand. It must not be concealed,
however, that the impression wrought by this fairy
sign-manual varied exceedingly according to the
difference of temperament in the beholders. Some
fastidious persons — but they were exclusively of her
own sex — affirmed that the bloody hand, as they
chose to call it, quite destroyed the effect of Geor-
giana's beauty, and rendered her countenance even
hideous. But it would be as reasonable to say that
one of those small blue stains which sometimes
occur in the purest statuary marble would convert
the Eve of Powers to a monster. Masculine observ-
ers, if the birthmark did not heighten their admira-
tion, contented themselves with wishing it away, that
the world might possess one living specimen of ideal
loveliness without the semblance of a flaw.

After his marriage — for he thought little or noth-
ing of the matter before — Aylmer discovered that
this was the case with himself. Had she been less

44 dfcossea from an QIO /fcanse.

beautiful — if Envy's self could have found aught
else to sneer at — he might have felt his affection
heightened by the prettiness of this mimic hand, now
vaguely portrayed, now lost, now stealing forth
again, and glimmering to and fro with every pulse
of emotion that throbbed within her heart. But,
seeing her otherwise so perfect, he found this one
defect grow more and more intolerable with every
moment of their united lives. It was the fatal flaw
of humanity which Nature in one shape or another
stamps ineffaceably on all her productions, either to
imply that they are temporary and finite or that
their perfection must be wrought by toil and pain.
The crimson hand expressed the ineludible grip in
which mortality clutches the highest and purest of
earthly mold, degrading them into kindred with the
lowest, and even with the very brutes, like whom
their visible frames return to dust. In this manner,
selecting it as the symbol of his wife's liability to
sin, sorrow, decay and death, Aylmer's s'omber
imagination was not long in rendering the birthmark
a frightful object, causing him more trouble and
horror than ever Georgiana's beauty, whether of soul
or sense, had given him delight.

At all the seasons which should have been their
happiest he invariably, and without intending it — •
nay, in spite of a purpose to the contrary — reverted
to this one disastrous topic. Trifling as it at first
appeared, it so connected itself with innumerable
trains of thought and modes of feeling that it became
the central point of all. With the morning twilight
Aylmer opened his eyes upon his wife's face and
recognized the symbol of imperfection ; and when
they sat together at the evening hearth, his eyes wan-
dered stealthily to her cheek, and beheld, flickering

Cbe JSirtbmarh. 45

with the blaze of the wood-fire, the spectral hand
that wrote mortality where he would fain have wor-
shiped. Georgiana soon learned to shudder at his
gaze. It needed but a glance, with the peculiar ex-
pression that his face often wore, to change the roses
of her cheek into a deathlike paleness amid which
the crimson hand was brought strongly out like a
bas-relief of ruby on the whitest marble.

Late one night, when the lights were growing dim,
so as hardly to betray the stain on the poor wife's
cheek, she herself for the first time voluntarily took
up the subject.

" Do you remember, my dear Aylmer," said she,
with a feeble attempt at a smile — "have you any
recollection of a dream last night about this odious
hand ? "

" None — none whatever," replied Aylmer, start-
ing ; but then he added in a dry, cold tone, affected
for the sake of concealing the real depth of his
emotion, " I might well dream of it, for before I fell
asleep it had taken a pretty firm hold of my fancy. *

" And you did dream of it," continued Georgiana,
hastily ; for she dreaded lest a gush of tears should
interrupt what she had to say — " a terrible dream.
I wonder that you can forget it. Is it possible to
forget this one expression ? — * It is in her heart
now : we must have it out/ Reflect, my husband ;
for by all means I would have you recall that
dream."

The mind is in a sad state when Sleep the all-in-
volving cannot confine her specters within the dim
region of her sway, but suffers them to break forth,
affrighting this actual life with secrets that perchance
belong to a deeper one. Aylmer now remembered
his dream. He had fancied himself with his servant

46 ^Bosses from an Old /Ibansc.

Aminadab, attempting an operation for the removal
of the birthmark. But the deeper went the knife,
the deeper sank the hand, until at length its tiny
grasp appeared to have caught hold of Georgiana's
heart, whence, however, her husband was inexorably
resolved to cut or wrench it away.

When the dream had shaped itself perfectly in his
memory, Aylmer sat in his wife's presence with a
guilty feeling. Truth often finds its way to the mind
close-muffled in robes of sleep, and then speaks with
uncompromising directness of matters in regard to
which we practice an unconscious self-deception
during our waking moments. Until now he had not
been aware of the tyrannizing influence acquired by
one idea over his mind, and of the lengths which he
might find in his heart to go for the sake of giving
himself peace.

" Aylmer," resumed Georgiana, solemnly, " I
know not what may be the cost to both of us to rid
me of this fatal birthmark. Perhaps its removal
may cause cureless deformity. Or, it may be, the
stain goes as deep as life itself. Again, do we
know that there is a possibility, on any terms, of un-
clasping the firm grip of this little hand which was
laid upon me before I came into the world ? "

" Dearest Georgiana, I have spent much thought
upon the subject," hastily interrupted Aylmer ; " I
am convinced of the perfect practicability of its
removal."

" If there be the remotest possibility of it," con-
tinued Georgiana, " let the attempt be made, at what-
ever risk. Danger is nothing to me, for life, while
this hateful mark makes me the object of your horror
and disgust — life is a burden which I would fling
down with joy. Either remove this dreadful hand

Cbe asirtbmarh. 47

or take my wretched life. You have deep science ;
all the world bears witness of it. You have achieved
great wonders ; cannot you remove this little, little
mark which I cover with the tips of two small
fingers ? Is this beyond your power, for the sake of
your own peace and to save your poor wife from
madness ? "

'• NToblest, dearest, tenderest wife ! " cried Aylmer,
r.ipturously. " Doubt not my power. I have already
given this matter the deepest thought — thought
which might almost have enlightened me to create
a being less perfect than yourself. Georgiana, you
have led me deeper than ever into the heart of
Science. I feel myself fully competent to render this
dear cheek as faultless as its fellow, and then, most
beloved, what will be my triumph when I shall have
corrected what Nature left imperfect in her fairest
work ! Even Pygmalion, when his sculptured woman
assumed life, felt not greater ecstasy than mine will
be."

" It is resolved, then," said Georgiana, faintly
smiling. " And, Aylmer, spare me not though you
should find the birthmark take refuge in my heart at
last."

Her husband tenderly kissed her cheek — her right
cheek, not that which bore the impress of the
crimson hand.

The next day Aylmer apprised his wife of a plan
that he had formed whereby he might have oppor-
tuity for the intense thought and constant watchful-
ness which the proposed operation would require,
while Georgiana, likewise, would enjoy the perfect
repose essential to its success. They were to
seclude themselves in the extensive apartments
occupied by Aylmer as a laboratory, and where

48 /Rosses from an OlD /fcanse.

during his toilsome youth he had made discoveries
in the elemental powers of nature that had aroused
the admiration of all the learned societies in Europe.
Seated calmly in this laboratory, the pale philosopher
had investigated the secrets of the highest cloud-
region and of the profoundest mines ; he had satis-
fied himself of the causes that kindled and kept
alive the fires of the volcano, and had explained the
mystery of fountains and how it is that they gush
forth, some so bright and pure and others with such
rich medicinal virtues, from the dark bosom of the
earth. Here, too, at an earlier period, h£ had
studied the wonders of the human frame and at-
tempted to fathom the very process by which Nature
assimilates all her precious influences from earth and
air and from the spiritual world to create and foster
man, her masterpiece. The latter pursuit, however,
Aylmer had long laid aside in unwilling recognition
of the truth against which all seekers sooner or later
stumble — that our great creative mother, while she
amuses us with apparently working in the broadest
sunshine, is yet severely careful to keep her own
secrets, and in spite of her pretended openness shows
us nothing but results. She premits us, indeed, to
mar, but seldom to mend, and. like a jealous patentee,
on no account to make. Now, however, Aylmer
resumed these half-forgotten investigations — not, of
course, with such hopes or \rishes as first suggested
them, but because they involved much physiological
truth and lay in the path of his proposed scheme for
the treatment of Georgiana.

As he led her over the threshold of the laboratory,
Georgiana was cold and tremulous. Aylmer looked
cheerfully into her face with intent to reassure her,
but was so startled with the intense glow of th?

Gbe JBirtbmarfc. 49

birthmark upon the whiteness of her cheek that he
could not restrain a strong convulsive shudder.
His wife fainted.

" Aminadab ! Aminadab ! " shouted Aylmer, stamp-
ing violently on the floor.

Forthwith there issued from an inner apartment
a man of low stature but bulky frame, with shaggy
hair hanging about his visage, which was grimed
with the vapors of the furnace. This persona^x
had been Aylmer's under-worker during his whole
scientific career, and was admirably fitted for that
office by his great mechanical readiness and the
skill with which, \vhile incapable of comprehending
a single principle, he executed all the practical
details of his master's experiments. With his vast
strength, his shaggy hair, his smoky aspect and
the indescribable earthiness that encrusted him,
he seemed to represent man's physical nature,
while Aylmer's slender figure and pale intellectual
face were no less apt a type of the spiritual
element.

" Throw open the door of the boudoir, Aminadab,"
said Aylmer, " and burn a pastille."

" Yes, master/' answered Aminadab, looking
intently at the lifeless form of Georgiana ; and then
he muttered to himself, "If she were my wife, I'd
never part with that birthmark."

When Georgiana recovered consciousness, she
found herself breathing an atmosphere of penetrat-
ing fragrance the gentle potency of which had
recalled her from her deathlike faintness. The
scene around her looked like enchantment. Aylmer
had converted those smoky, dingy, somber rooms
where he had spent his brightest years in recondite
pursuits into a series of beautiful apartments not

50 flfcossee from an ©ID flfcanse.

unfit to be the secluded abode of a lovely woman.
The wails were hung with gorgeous curtains which
imparted the combination of grandeur and grace that
no other species of adornment can achieve, and as
they fell from the ceiling to the noor their rich and
ponderous folds, concealing all angles and straight
lines, appeared to shut in the scene from infinite
space. For aught Georgiana knew, it might be a
^avilion among the clouds. And Aylmer, excluding
the sunshine, which would have interfered with his
chemical processes, had supplied its place with
perfumed lamps emitting flames of various hue, but
all uniting in a soft, empurpled radiance. He now
knelt by his wife's side, watching her earnestly, but
without alarm, for he was confident in his science,
and felt that he could draw a magic circle round
her within which no evil might intrude.

" Where am I ? Ah ! I remember," said Georgi-
ana, faintly ; and she placed her hand over her
cheek to hide the terrible mark from her husband's
eyes.

" Fear not, dearest," exclaimed he. " Do not
shrink from me. Believe me, Georgiana, I even
rejoice in this single imperfection, since it will be
such a rapture to remove it."

" Oh, spare me ! " sadly replied his wife. " Pra-
do not look at it again. 1 never can forget tha.
convulsive shudder."

In order to soothe Georgiana, and, as it were, to
release her mind from the burden of actual things,
Aylmer now put in practice some of the light and
playful secrets which science had taught him among
its profounder lore. Airy figures, absolutely bodiless
ideas and forms of unsubstantial beauty came and
danced before her, imprinting their momentary

Cbc ;J6irtbmarfe. 51

footsteps on beams of light. Though she had some
indistinct idea of the method of these optical phe-
nomena, still the illusion was almost perfect enough
to warrant the belief that her husband possessed
sway over the spiritual world. Then, again, when
she felt a wish to look forth from her seclusion,
immediately, as if her thoughts were answered, the
procession of external existence flitted across a
screen. The scenery and the figures of actual life
v/ere perfectly represented, but with that bewitching
yet indescribable difference which always makes
a picture, an image or a shadow so much more
attractive than the original. When wearied of this,
Aylmer bade her cast her eyes upon a vessel con-
taining a quantity of earth. She did so, with little
interest at first, but was soon startled to perceive
the germ of a plant shooting upward from the soil.
Then came the slender stalk ; the leaves gradually
unfolded themselves, and amid them was a perfect
and lovely flower.

" It is magical," cried Georgiana ; " I dare not
touch it."

" Nay, pluck it," answered Aylmer — " pluck it and
inhale its brief perfume while you may. The flower
will wither in a few moments, and leave nothing
save its brown seed-vessels ; but thence may be per-
petuated a race as ephemeral as itself."

But Georgiana had no sooner touched the flower
than the whole plant suffered a blight, its leaves turn-
ing coal-black, as if by the agency of fire.

" There was too powerful a stimulus," said Ayl-
mer, thoughtfully.

To make up for this abortive experiment, he pro-
posed to take her portrait by a scientific process of
his own invention. It was to be effected by rays of

52 dfcosses from an GU>

light striking upon a polished plate of metal. Geor-
giana assented, but on looking at the result was
affrighted to find the features of the portrait blurred
and indefinable, while the minute figure of a hand
appeared where the cheek should have been. A;.l-
mer snatched the metallic plate and threw it into a
jar of corrosive acid.

Soon, however, he forgot these mortifying failures.
In the intervals of study and chemical experiment
he came to her flushed and exhausted, but seemed
invigorated by her presence, and spoke in glowing
language of the resources of his art. He gave a
history of the long dynasty of the alchemists, who
spent so many ages in quest of the universal solvent
by which the golden principle might be elicited from
all things vile and base. Aylmer appeared to be-
lieve that by the plainest scientific logic it was alto-
gether within the limits of possibility to discover
this long-sought medium ; but, he added, a philoso-
pher who should go deep enough to acquire the
power would attain too lofty a wisdom to stoop
to the exercise of it. Not less singular were his
opinions in regard to the Elixir Vitae. He more
than intimated that it was at his option to concoct
a liquid that should prolong life for years — perhaps
interminably — but that it would produce a discord
in nature which all the world, and chiefly the quaffer
of the immortal nostrum, would find cause to curse.

" Aylmer, are you in earnest ? " asked Georgiana,
looking at him with amazement and fear. " It is
terrible to possess such power, or even to dream of
possessing it."

" Oh, do not tremble, my love," said her husband ;
" I would not wrong either you or myself by work-
ing such inharmonious effects upon our lives. But

Cbe JBfrtbmarh.

53

I would have you consider how trifling, in com-
parison, is the skill requisite to remove this little
hand."

At the mention of the birthmark, Georgiana, as
usual, shrank as if a red-hot iron had touched her
cheek.

Again Aylmer applied himself to his labors. She
could hear his voice in the distant furnace-room giv-
ing directions to Aminadab, whose harsh, uncouth,
misshapen tones were audible in response, more like
the grunt or growl of a brute than human speech.
After hours of absence Aylmer reappeared, and pro-
posed that she should now examine his cabinet of
chemical products and natural treasures of the earth.
Among the former he showed her a small vial in
which, he remarked, was contained a gentle yet most
powerful fragrance capable of impregnating all the
breezes that blow across a kingdom. They were of
inestimable value, the contents of that little vial ;
and as he said so he threw some of the perfume into
the air and filled the room with piercing and invig-
orating delight.

" And what is this ? " asked Georgiana, pointing
to a small crystal globe containing a gold-colored
liquid. " It is so beautiful to the eye that I could
imagine it the Elixir of Life."

" In one sense it is," replied Aylmer — " or, rather,
the Elixir of Immortality. It is the most precious
poison that ever was concocted in this world. By
its aid I could apportion the lifetime of any mortal
at whom you might point your finger. The strength
of the dose would determine whether he were to
linger out years or drop dead in the midst of a
breath. No king on his guarded throne could keep
his life, if I, in my private station, should deem that

54 /fcosses from an OU> flfcanse.

the welfare of millions justified me in depriving him
of it."

" Why do you keep such a terrific drug ? " inquired
Georgiana, in horror.

" Do not mistrust me, dearest," said her husband,
smiling ; " its virtuous potency is yet greater than
its harmful one. But see ! here is a powerful cos-
metic. With a few drops of this in a vase of water
freckles may be washed away as easily as the hands
are 'cleansed. A stronger infusion would take the
blood out of the cheek and leave the rosiest beauty
a pale ghost."

" Is it with this lotion that you intend to bathe my
cheek ? " asked Georgiana anxiously.

*' Oh no ! " hastily replied her husband ; " this is
merely superficial. Your case demands a remedy
that shall go deeper."

In his interviews with Georgiana, Aylmer generally
made minute inquiries as to her sensations and
whether the confinement of the rooms and the tem-
perature of the atmosphere agreed with her. These
questions had such a particular drift that Georgiana
began to conjecture that she was already subjected
to certain physical influences, either breathed in
with the fragrant air or taken with her food. She
fancied, likewise — but it might be altogether fancy
— that there was a stirring up of her system, a
strange, indefinite sensation creeping through her
veins and tingling, half painfully, half pleasurably,
at her heart. Still whenever she dared to look into
the mirror, there she beheld herself pale as a white
rose and with the crimson birthmark stamped upon
her cheek. Not even Aylmer now hated it so much
as she.

To dispel the tedium of the hours which her hus-

Cbe JBittbmarfc, 55

band found it necessary to devote to the processes
of combination and analysis, Georgiana turned over
the volumes of his scientific library. In many dark
old tomes she met with chapters full of romance and
poetry. They were the works of the philosophers
of the Middle Ages, such as Albertus Magnus, Cor-
nelius Agrippa, Paracelsus and the famous friar who
created the prophetic Brazen Head. All these an-
tique naturalists stood in advance of their centuries,
yet were imbued with some of their credulity, and
therefore were believed, and perhaps imagined them-
selves, to have acquired from the investigation of
nature a power above nature, and from physics a sway
over the spiritual world. Hardly less curious and im-
aginative were the early volumes of the Transactions
of the Royal Society, in which the members, know-
ing little of the limits of natural possibility, were
continually recording wonders or proposing methods
whereby wonders might be wrought.

But to Georgiana the most engrossing volume
was a large folio from her husband's own hand in
which he had recorded every experiment of his
scientific career, with its original aim, the methods
adopted for its development and its final success or
failure, with the circumstances to which either event
was attributable. The book, in truth, was both the
history and emblem of his ardent, ambitious, imagina-
tive, yet practical and laborious, life. He handled
physical details as if there were nothing beyond
them, yet spiritualized them all, and redeemed him-
self from materialism by his strong and eager aspi-
ration toward the infinite. In his grasp the veriest
clod of earth assumed a soul. Georgiana, as she
read, reverenced Aylmer and loved him more pro-
foundly than ever, but with a less entire dependence

56 d&osses from an ©ID /fcanse.

on his judgment than heretofore. Much as he had
accomplished, she could not but observe that his
most splendid successes were almost invariably fail-
ures, if compared with the ideal at which he aimed.
His brightest diamonds were the merest pebbles, and
felt to be so by himself, in comparison with the in-
estimable gems which lay hidden beyond his reach.
The volume rich with achievements that had won
renown for its author was yet as melancholy a record
as ever mortal hand had penned. It was the sad
confession and continual exemplification of the
shortcomings of the composite man, the spirit bur-
dened with clay and working in matter, and of the
despair that assails the higher nature at finding it-
self so miserably thwarted by the earthly part. Per-
haps every man of genius, in whatever sphere, might
recognize the image of his own experience in Ayl-
mer's journal.

So deeply did these reflections affect Georgiana
that she laid her face upon the open volume and
burst into tears. In this situation she was found by
her husband.

" It is dangerous to read in a sorcerer's books,"
said he, with a smile, though his countenance was
uneasy and displeased. " Georgiana, there are pages
in that volume which I can scarcely glance over
and keep my senses. Take heed lest it prove as
detrimental to you."

"It has made me worship you more than ever,"
said she.

" Ah ! wait for this one success," rejoined he,
'* then worship me if you will. I shall deem myself
hardly unworthy of it. But come ! I have sought
you for the luxury of your voice. Sing to me,
dearest."

Cbc JBirtbmarh, 57

So she poured out the liquid music of her voice
to .quench the thirst of his spirit. He then took his
leave with a boyish exuberance of gayety, assuring
her that her seclusion would endure but a little
longer, and that the result was already certain.
Scarcely had he departed, when Georgiana felt
irresistibly impelled to follow him. She had for-
gotten to inform Alymer of a symptom which for
two or three hours past had begun to excite her
attention. It was a sensation in the fatal birthmark
— not painful, but which induced a restlessness
throughout her system. Hastening after her hus-
band, she intruded for the first time into the labor-
atory.

The first thing that struck her eye was the furnace,
that hot and feverish worker, with the intense glow
of its fire, which by the quantities of soot clustered
above it seemed to have been burning for ages.
There was a distilling apparatus in full operation.
Around the room were retorts, tubes, cylinders,
crucibles, and other apparatus of chemical research.
An electrical machine stood ready for immediate
use. The atmosphere felt oppressively close, and
was tainted with gaseous odors which had been
tormented forth by the processes of Science. The
Severe and homely simplicity of the apartment, with
its naked walls and brick pavement, looked strange,
accustomed as Georgiana had become to the fantastic
elegance of her boudoir. But what chiefly — indeed,
almost solely — drew her attention was the aspect of
Aylmer himself.

He was pale as death, anxious and absorbed, and
hung over the furnace as if it depended upon his
utmost watchfulness whether the liquid which it was
distilling should be the draught of immortal happiness

58 fl&o00e0 from an Old /lfcan0e.

or misery. How different from the sanguine and
joyous mien that he had assumed for Georgiana's
encouragement !

" Carefully now, Aminadab ! Carefully, thou hu-
man machine 1 Carefully, thou man of clay ! " mut-
tered Aylmer, more to himself than his assistant.
" Now, if there be a thought too much or too little,
it is all over."

" Hoh ! hoh 1 " mumbled Aminadab. " Look,
master, look ! "

Aylmer raised his eyes hastily, and at first red-
dened, then grew paler than ever, on beholding
Georgiana. He rushed toward her and seized
her arm with a grip that left the print of his fingers
upon it.

11 Why do you come hither ? Have you no trust
in your husband ? " cried he, impetuously. " Would
you throw the blight of that fatal birthmark over my
labors ? It is not well done. Go, prying woman,
go!"

" Nay, Aylmer," said Georgiana, with the firmness
of which she possessed no stinted endowment, " it
is not you that have a right to complain. You
mistrust your wife. You have concealed the anxiety
with which you watch the development of this
experiment. Think not so unworthily of me, my
husband. Tell me all the risk we run, and fear not
that I shall shrink, for my share in it is far less than
your own ! "

" No, no, Georgiana ! " said Alymer, impatiently ;
" it must not be."

" I submit," replied she, calmly. " And, Alymer,
I shall quaff whatever draught you bring me, but it
will be on the same principle that would induce me
to take a dose of poison if offered by your hand."

JStrtbmarfc. 59

" My noble wife ! " said Alymer, deeply moved ;
* I knew not the height and depth of your nature
until now. Nothing shall be concealed. Know,
then, that this crimson hand, superficial as it seems,
has clutched its grasp into your being with a strength
of which I had no previous conception. I have
already administered agents powerful enough to do
aught except to change your entire physical system.
Only one thing remains to be tried ; if that fails us,
we are ruined 1"

" Why did you hesitate to tell me this ? " asked
she.

" Because, Georgiana," said Alymer, in a low voice,
" there is danger."

" * Danger ' ! There is but one danger— that this
horrible stigma shall be left upon my cheek," cried
Georgiana. " Remove it, remove it, whatever be
the cost, or we shall both go mad."

" Heaven knows your words are too true." said
Alymer, sadly. " And now, dearest, return to your
boudoir. In a little while all will be tested."

He conducted her back, and took leave of her with
a solemn tenderness which spoke far more than his
words how much was now at stake.

After his departure Georgiana became wrapped
in musings. She considered the character of Alymer,
and did it completer justice than at any previous
moment. Her heart exulted while it trembled at
his honorable love, so pure and lofty that it would
accept nothing less than perfection, nor miserably
make itself contented with an earthlier nature than
he had dreamed of. She felt how much more pre-
cious was such a sentiment than that meaner kind
which would have borne with the imperfection 'for
her sake, and have been guilty of treason to holy

6o ^Bosses from an Old flfcanse.

love by degrading its perfect idea to the level of fhe
actual. And with her whole spirit she prayed that
for a single moment she might satisfy his highest
and deepest conception. Longer than one moment,
she well knew, it could not be, for his spirit was ever
on the march, ever ascending, and each instant re-
quired something that was beyond the scope of the
mstant before.

The sound of her husband's footsteps aroused her.
He bore a crystal goblet containing a liquor colorless
as water, but bright enough to be the draught of
immortality. Alymerwas pale, but it seemed rather
the consequences of a highly-wrought state of mind
and tension of spirit than of fear or doubt.

" The concoction of the draught has been perfect,"
said he, in answer to Georgiana's look. " Unless
all my science have deceived me, it cannot fail."

•' Save on your account, my dearest Alymer,"
observed his wife, " I might wish to put off this
birthmark of mortality by relinquishing mortality
itself, in preference to any other mode. Life is but
a sad possession to those who have attained pre-
cisely the degree of moral advancement at which I
stand. Were I weaker and blinder, it might be hap-
piness ; were I stronger, it might be endured hope-
fully ; but, being what I find myself, methinks I am
of all mortals the most fit to die."

" You are fit for heaven without tasting death,"
replied her husband. " But why do we speak of
dying ? The draught cannot fail. Behold its effect
upon this plant."

On the window-seat there stood a geranium dis-
eased with yellow blotches, which had overspread
all ils leaves. Alymer poured a small quantity of
the liquid upon the soil in which it grew. In a little

Cbe JBirtbmarft. 61

time, when the roots of the plant had taken up the
moisture, the unsightly blotches began to be extin-
guished in a living verdure.

" There needed no proof," said Georgiana, quietly.
" Give me the goblet ; I joyfully stake all upon your
word."

''Drink, then, thou lofty creature!" exclaimed
Aylmer, with fervid admiration. " There is no taint
of imperfection on thy spirit. Thy sensible frame,
too, shall soon be all perfect."

She quaffed the liquid, and returned the goblet to
his hand.

" It is grateful," said she, with a placid smile.
" Methinks it is like water from a heavenly fountain,
for it contains I know not what of unobtrusive fra-
grance and deliciousness. It allays a feverish thirst
that had parched me for many days. Now, dearest,
let me sleep. My earthly senses are closing over
my spirit like the leaves around the heart of a rose
at sunset."

She spoke the last words with a gentle reluctance,
as if it required almost more energy than she could
command to pronounce the faint and lingering syl-
lables. Scarcely had they loitered through her lips
ere she was lost in slumber. Aylmer sat by her
side, watching her aspect with the emotions proper
to a man the whole value of whose existence was
involved in the process now to be tested. Mingled
with this mood, however, was the philosophic investi-
gation characteristic of the man of science. Not the
minutest symptom escaped him. A heightened flush
of the cheek, a slight irregularity of breath, a quiver
of the eyelid, a hardly perceptible tremor through
the frame, — such were the details which as the mo-
ments passed he wrote down in his folio volume.

62 flfcoasea from an Old flfcanse.

Intense thought had set its stamp upon every pre-
vious page of that volume, but the thoughts of years
were all concentrated upon the last.

While thus employed he failed not to gaze often
at the fatal hand, and not without a shudder. Yet
once, by a strange and unaccountable impulse, he
pressed it with his lips. His spirit recoiled, how-
ever, in the very act, and Georgiana, out of the midst
of her deep sleep, moved uneasily and murmured,
as if in remonstrance. Again Aylmer resumed his
watch. Nor was it without avail. The crimson
hand, which at first had been strongly visible upon
the marble paleness of Georgiana's cheek, now grew
more faintly outlined. She remained not less pale
than ever, but the birthmark with every breath that
came and went lost somewhat of its former distinct-
ness. Its presence had been awful ; its departure
was more awful still. Watch the stain of the rain-
bow fading out of the sky, and you will know how
that mysterious symbol passed away.

" By Heaven, it is wellnigh gone ! " said Aylmer
to himself, in almost irrepressible ecstasy. " I can
scarcely trace it now. Success ! Success ! And
now it is like the faintest rose-color ; the slightest
flush of blood across her cheek would overcome it.
But she is so pale ! "

He drew aside the window-curtain and suffered
the light of natural day to fall into the room and
rest upon her cheek. At the same time he heard a
gross, hoarse chuckle which he had long known as
his servant Aminadab's expression of delight.

" Ah, clod ! Ah, earthly mass ! " cried Aylmer,
laughing in a sort of frenzy. " You have served me
well ! Matter and spirit — earth and heaven —
have both done their part in this. Laugh, thing

Cbe JStrtbmarfc. 63

of the senses ! You have earned the right to
laugh."

These exclamations broke Georgiana's sleep. She
slowly unclosed her eyes and gazed into the mirror
which her husband had arranged for that purpose,
A faint smile flitted over her lips when she recog-
nized how barely perceptible was now that crimson
hand which had once blazed forth with such disas
trous brilliancy as to scare away all their happiness.
But then her eyes sought Aylmer's face with a trouble
and anxiety that he could by no means account 'or.

" My poor Aylmer ! " murmured she.

" Poor ? Nay — richest, happiest, most favored ! "
exclaimed he. " My peerless bride, it is successful.
You are perfect ! "

•• My poor Aylmer! " she repeated, with a more
than human tenderness. " You have aimed loftily ;
you have done nobly. Do not repent that with so
high and pure a feeling you have rejected the best
the earth could offer. Aylmer, dearest Aylmer, I
am dying."

Alas, it was too true ! The fatal hand had grap-
pled with the mystery of life, and was the bond by
which an angelic spirit kept itself in union with a
mortal frame. As the last crimson tint of the birth-
mark— that sole token of human imperfection — -
faded from her cheek, the parting breath of the now
perfect woman passed into the atmosphere, and her
soul, lingering a moment near her husband, took its
heaven-ward flight. Then a hoarse, chuckling laugh
was heard again. Thus ever does the gross fatality
of earth exult in its invariable triumph over the im-
mortal essence which in this dim sphere of half de-
velopment demands the completeness of a higher
state. Yet, had Aylmer reached a profounder wisdom,

64 /Bosses from an ©ID

he need not thus have flung away the happiness
which would have woven his mortal life of the self-
same texture with the celestial. The momentary
circumstance was too strong for him : he failed to
look beyond the shadowy scope of time, and, living
once for all in eternity, to find the perfect future in
the present.

A SELECT PARTY.

A MAN of fancy made an entertainment at one of
his castles in the air, and invited a select number of
distinguished personages to favor him with their
presence. The mansion, though less splendid than
many that have been situated in the same region,
was nevertheless of a magnificence such as is seldom
witnessed by those acquainted only with terrestrial
architecture. Its strong foundations and massive
walls were quarried out of a ledge of heavy and
somber clouds which had hung brooding over the
earth, apparently as dense and ponderous as its own
granite, throughout a whole autumnal day. Per-
ceiving that the general effect was gloomy — so that
the airy castle looked like a feudal fortress or a mon-
astery of the Middle Ages or a state-prison of our own
times rather than the home of pleasure and repose
which he intended it to be — the owner, regardless
of expense, resolved to gild the exterior from top to
bottom. Fortunately, there was just then a flood of
evening sunshine in the air. This, being gathered
up and poured abundantly upon the roof and walls,
imbued them, with a kind of solemn cheerfulness,
while the cupolas and pinnacles were made to glitter
with the purest gold, and all the hundred windows
gleamed with a glad light, as if the edifice itself
were rejoicing in its heart. And now, if the people

65

66 /Bosses trom an CIS /fcanse.

of the lower world chanced to be looking upward out
of the turmoil of their petty perplexities, they prob-
ably mistook the castle in the air for a heap of sun-
set-clouds to which the magic of light and shade had
imparted the aspect of a fantastically-constructed
mansion. To such beholders it was unreal because
they lacked the imaginative faith. Had they been
worthy to pass within its portal, they would have
recognized the truth that the dominions which the
spirit conquers for itself among unrealities become
a thousand times more real than the earth whereon
they stamp their feet, saying, " This is solid and
substantial ! This may be called a fact ! "

At the appointed hour the host stood in his great
saloon to receive the company. It was a vast and
noble room, the vaulted ceiling of which was sup-
ported by double rows of gigantic pillars that had
been hewn entire out of masses of variegated clouds.
So brilliantly were they polished, and so exquisitely
wrought by the sculptor's skill, as to resemble the
finest specimens of emerald, porphyry, opal and
chrysolite, thus producing a delicate richness of
effect which their immense size rendered not incom-
patible with grandeur. To each of these pillars a
meteor was suspended. Thousands of these ethereal
lusters are continually wandering about the firma-
ment burning out to waste, yet capable of imparting
a useful radiance to any person who has the art of
converting them to domestic purposes. As managed
in the saloon, they are far more economical than
ordinary lamplight. Such, however, was the inten-
sity of their blaze that it had been found expedient
to cover each meteor with a globe of evening mist,
thereby muffling the too potent glow and soothing
it into a mild and comfortable splendor. It was

a Select partg. 67

like the brilliancy of a powerful yet chastened im-
agination— a light which seemed to hide whatever
was unworthy to be noticed and give effect to every
beautiful and noble attribute. The guests, therefore,
as they advanced up the center of the saloon,
appeared to better advantage than ever before in
their lives.

The first that entered, with old-fashioned punctu-
ality, was a venerable figure in the costume of by-
gone days, with his white hair flowing down over
his shoulders and a reverend beard upon his breast
He leaned upon a staff, the tremulous stroke of
which, as he set it carefully upon the floor, re-echoed
through the saloon at every footstep. Recognizing
at once this celebrated personage, whom it had cost
him a vast deal of trouble and research to discover,
the host advanced nearly three-fourths of the dis-
tance down between the pillars to meet and welcome
him.

" Venerable sir," said the Man of Fancy, bending
to the floor, " the honor of this visit would never be
forgotten were my term of existence to be as happily
prolonged as your own."

The old gentleman received the compliment
with gracious condescension ; he then thrust up his
spectacles over his forehead and appeared to take a
critical survey of the saloon.

" Never, within my recollection," observed he,
" have I entered a more spacious and noble hall.
But are you sure that it is built of solid materials,
and that the structure will be permanent ? "

" Oh, never fear, my venerable friend," replied
the host. " In reference to a life-time like your
own, it is true, my castle may well be called a
temporary edifice, but it will endure long enough

68 /Bosses from an ®\b dfcanse.

to answer, all the purposes for which it was
erected."

But we forget that the reader has not yet been
made acquainted with the guest. It was no other
than that universally-accredited character so con-
stantly referred to in all seasons of intense cold or
heat — he that remembers the hot Sunday and the
cold Friday, the witness of a past age whose negative
reminiscences find their way into every newsp.ip r,
yet whose antiquated and dusky abode is so over-
shadowed by accumulated years and crowded back
by modern edifices that none but the Man of Fancy
could have discovered it. It was, in short, that
twin-brother of Time and great grandsire of man-
kind and hand-and-glove associate of all forgotten
men and things, the Oldest Inhabitant. The host
would willingly have drawn him into conversation,
but succeeded only in eliciting a few remarks as to
the oppressive atmosphere of this present summer
evening compared with one which the guest had
experienced about fourscore years ago. The old
gentleman, in fact, was a good deal overcome by his
journey among the clouds, which to a frame so
earth-encrusted by long continuance in a lower
region was unavoidably more fatiguing than to
younger spirits. He was therefore conducted to an
easy-chair well cushioned and stuffed with vaporous
softness, and left to take a little repose.

The Man of Fancy now discerned another guest,
who stood so quietly in the shadow of one of the
pillars that he might easily have been overlooked.

" My dear sir," exclaimed the host, grasping him
warmly by the hand, " allow me to greet you as the
hero of the evening, tray do not take it as an
empty compliment ; for if there were not another

21 Select parts. 69

guest in my castle, it would be entirely pervaded
with your presence ! "

" I thank you," answered the unpretending stranger,
" but, though you happened to overlook me, I have
not just arrived. I came very early, and, With your
permission, shall remain after the rest of the com-
pany have retired."

And who does the reader imagine was this unob-
trusive guest ? It was the famous performer of
acknowledged impossibilities — a character of super-
human capacity and virtue, and, if his enemies are
to be credited, of no less remarkable weaknesses
and defects. With a generosity of which he alone
sets us the example, we will glance merely at his
nobler attributes. He it is, then, who prefers the
interests of others to his own and a humble station
to an exalted one. Careless of fashion, custom, the
opinions of men and the influence of the press, he
assimilates his life to the standard of ideal rectitude,
and thus proves himself the one independent citizen
of our free country. In point of ability many people
declare him to be the only mathematician capable
of squaring the circle, the only mechanic acquainted
with the principle of perpetual motion, the only
scientific philosopher who can compel water to run
up hill, the only writer of the age whose genius
is equal to the production of an epic poem, and,
finally — so various are his accomplishments — the
only professor of gymnastics who has succeeded in
jumping down his own throat. With all these
talents, however, he is so far from being considered
a member of good society that it is the severest
censure of any fashionble assemblage to affirm that
this remarkable individual was present. Public
orators, lecturers and theatrical performers partic-

70 /Bosses trom an Qlfc flfcanse.

ularly eschew his company. For especial reasons,
we are not at liberty to disclose his name, and
shall mention only one other trait — a most singular
phenomenon in natural philosophy — that when he
happens to cast his eyes upon a looking-glass he
beholds Nobody reflected there.

Several other guests now made their appearance,
and among them, chattering with immense volubility,
a brisk little gentleman of universal vogue in private
society, and not unknown in the public journals
under the title of Monsieur On-Dit. The name
would seem to indicate a Frenchman, but, whatever
be his country, he is thoroughly versed in all the
languages of the day, and can express himself quite
as much to the purpose in English as in any other
tongue. No sooner were the ceremonies of saluta-
tion over than this talkative little person put his
mouth to the host's eat and whispered three secrets
of state, an important piece of commercial intelli-
gence and a rich item of fashionable scandal. He
then assured the Man of Fancy that he would
not fail to circulate in the society of the lower world
a minute description of this magnificent castle in
the air, and of the festivities at which he had the
honor to be a guest. So saying, Monsieur On-Dit
made his bow and hurried from one to another of
the company, with all of whom he seemed to be ac-
quainted, and to possess some topic of interest or
amusement for every individual. Coming at last to
the Oldest Inhabitant, who was slumbering comfort-
ably in the easy-chair, he applied his mouth to that
venerable ear.

" What do you say ? " cried the old gentleman,
starting from his nap and putting up his hand, to
serve the purpose of an ear-trumpet.

B Select parts. 71

Monsieur On-Dit bent forward again and repeated
his communication.

"Never, within my memory," exclaimed the Old-
est Inhabitant, lifting his hands in astonishment,
"has so remarkable an incident been heard of."

Now came in the Clerk of the Weather, who had
been invited out of deference to his official station,
although the host was well aware that his conversa-
tion was likely to contribute but little to the general
enjoyment. He soon, indeed, got into a corner
with his acquaintance of long-ago, the Oldest In-
habitant, and began to compare notes with him in
reference to the great storms, gales of wind, and
other atmospherical facts, that had occurred during
a century past. It rejoiced the Man of Fancy that
his venerable and much-respected guest had met
with so congenial an associate. Entreating them
both to make themselves perfectly at home, he now
turned to receive the Wandering Jew. This per-
sonage, however, had latterly grown so common by
mingling in all sorts of society and appearing at the
beck of every entertainer that he could hardly be
deemed a proper guest in a very exclusive circle.
Besides, being covered with dust from his continual
wanderings along the highways of the world, he
really looked out of place in a dress-party ; so that
the host felt relieved of an incommodity when the
restless individual in question, after a brief stay,
took his departure on a ramble toward Oregon.

The portal was now thronged by a crowd of
shadowy people with whom the Man of Fancy had
been acquainted in his visionary youth. He had
invited them hither for the sake of observing how
they would compare — whether advantageously or
otherwise — with the real characters to whom his

,2 /Bosses from an ©ID dfcansc.

maturerlife had introduced him. They were beings
of crude imagination such as glide before a young
man's eye and pretend to be actual inhabitants of
the earth — the wise and witty with whom he would
hereafter hold intercourse, the generous and heroic
friends whose devotion would be. requited with his
own, the beautitul dream-woman who would become
the helpmate of his human toils and sorrows, and at
once the source and partaker of his happiness,
Alas ! it is not good for the full-grown man to look
too closely at these old acquaintances, but rather to
reverence them at a distance through the medium of
years that have gathered duskily between. There
was something laughably untrue in their pompous
stride and exaggerated sentiment ; they were neither
human nor tolerable likenesses of humanity, but
fantastic masquers, rendering heroism and nature
alike ridiculous by the grave absurdity of their pre-
tensions to such attributes. And, as for the peer
less dream-lady, behold ! there advanced up the
saloon with a movement like a jointed-doll a sort of
wax figure of an angel, a creature as cold as moon
shine, an artifice in petticoats, with an intellect of
pretty phrases and only the semblance of a heart,
yet in all these particulars the true type of a young
man's imaginary mistress. Hardly could the host's
punctilious courtesy restrain a smile as he paid his
respects to this unreality and met th* sentimental
glance with which the Dream sought to remind him
of their former love-passages.

" No, no, fair lady ! " murmured he, betwixt sigh-
ing and smiling; " my taste is changed. 1 have
learned to love what Nature makes better than my
own creations in the guise of womanhood."

" Ah, false one ! " shrieked the Dream-lady, pre-

B Select part£. 73

tending *o faint, but dissolving into thin air, out of
which came the deplorable murmur of her voice.
" Your inconstancy has annihilated me."

" So be it," said the cruel Man of Fancy to him-
self ; " and a good riddance, too I "

Together with these shadows, and from the same
region, there had come an uninvited multitude of
shapes which at any time during his life had torment-
ed the Man of Fancy in his moods of morbid melan-
choly or had haunted him in the delirium of fever.
The walls of his castle in the air were not dense
enough to keep them out, nor would the strongest
of earthly architecture have availed to their exclusion.
Here were those forms of dim terror which had be-
set him at the entrance of life, waging warfare with
his hopes. Here were strange uglinesses of earlier
date such as haunt children in the night-time. He
was particularly startled by the vision of a deformed
old black woman whom he imagined as lurking in
the garret of his native home, and who when he was
an infant had once come to his bedside and grinned
at him in the crisis of a scarlet fever. This same
black shadow, with others almost as hideous, now
glided among the pillars of the magnificent saloon,
grinning recognition, until the man shuddered anew
at the forgotten terrors of his childhood. It amused
him, however, to observe the black woman, with the
mischievous caprice peculiar to such beings, steal
up to the chair of the Oldest Inhabitant and peep
into his half-dreamy mind.

" Never, within my memory," muttered that ven-
erable personage, aghast, " did I see such a face ! "

Almost immediately after the unrealities just de-
scribed arrived a number of guests whom incredu-
lous readers may be inclined to rank equally among

74 d&osaes trom an OlD

creatures of imagination. The most noteworthy
were an Incorruptible Patriot, a Scholar without ped-
antry, a Priest without worldly ambition and a Beauti-
ful Woman without pride or coquetry, a Married
Pair whose life had never been disturbed by in-
congruity of feeling, a Reformer untrammeled by
his theory, and a Poet who felt no jealousy toward
other votaries of the lyre. In truth, however, the
host was not one of the cynics who consider these
patterns of excellence without the fatal flaw such
rarities in the world, and he had invited them to his
select party chiefly out of humble deference to the
judgment of society which pronounces them almost
impossible to be met with.

" In my younger days," observed the Oldest In-
habitant, " such characters might be seen at the
corner of every street."

Be that as it might, these specimens of perfection
proved to be not half so entertaining companions as
people with the ordinary allowance of faults.

But now appeared a stranger whom the host had
no sooner recognized than, with an abundance of
courtesy unlavished on any other, he hastened down
the whole length of the saloon in order to pay him
emphatic honor. Yet he was a young man in poor
attire, with no insignia of rank or acknowledged emi-
nence, nor anything to distinguish him among the
crowd except a high white forehead beneath which
a pair of deep-set eyes were glowing with warm light.
It was such a light as never illuminates the earth save
when a great heart burns as the household fire of a
grand intellect. And who was he ? Who but the
Master-Genius for whom our country is looking anx
iously into the mist of time as destined to fulfill the
great mission of creating an American literature, hew-

B Select parts. 75

ing it, as it were, out of the umvrought granite of our
intellectual quarries. From him, whether molded
in the form of an epic poem or assuming a guise
altogether new, as the spirit itself may determine,
we are to receive our first great original work which
shall do all that remains to be achieved for our
glory among the nations. How this child of a
mighty destiny had been discovered by the Man of
Fancy it is of little consequence to mention. SuffLe
it that he dwells as yet unhonored among men, un-
recognized by those who have known him from his
cradle ; the noble countenance which should be dis-
tinguished by a halo diffused around it passes daily
amid the throng of people toiling and troubling them-
selves about the trifles of a moment, and none pay
reverence to the worker of immortality. Nor does
it matter much to him, in his triumph over all the
ages, though a generation or two of his own times
shall do themselves the wrong to disregard him.

By this time Monsieur On-Dit had caught up the
stranger's name and destiny, and was busily whisper-
ing the intelligence among the other guests.

"Pshaw!" said one; "there can never be an
American genius."

" Pish ! " cried another ; " we have already as
good poets as any in the world. For my part, I
desire to see no better."

And the Oldest Inhabitant, when it was proposed
to introduce him to the Master-Genius, begged to
be excused, observing that a man who had been
honored with the acquaintance of Dwight, Freneau
and Joel Barlow might be allowed a little austerity
of taste.

The saloon was now fast filling up by the arrival
of other remarkable characters, among whom were

76 /fcosses from an QU> flbanse.

noticed Davy Jones, the distinguished nautical per-
sonage, and a rude, carelessly-dressed, harum-scarum
sort of elderly fellow known by the nickname of Old
Harry. The latter, however, after being shown to a
dressing-room, reappeared with his gray hair nicely
combed, his clothes brushed, a clean dick yon his
neck, and altogether so changed in aspect as to
merit the more respectful appellation of Venerable
Henry. John Doe and Richard Roe came arm in
arm, accompanied by a Man of Straw, a Fictitious
Endorser, and several persons who had no existence
except as voters in closely-contested elections. The
celebrated Seatsfield, who now entered, was at first
supposed to belong to the same brotherhood, until
he made it apparent that he was a real man of flesh
and blood and had his earthly domicile in Germany.
Among the latest comers, as might reasonably be
expected, arrived a guest from the far future.

" Do you know him ? Do you know him ? " whis-
pered Monsieur On-Dit, who seemed to be acquainted
with everybody. " He is the representative of
Posterity — the man of an age to come."

" A'.d how came he here ? " asked a figure who
was evidently the prototype of the fashion-plate in
a magazine, and might be taken to represent the
vanities of the passing moment. " The fellow in-
fringes upon our rights by coming before his time."

" But you forget where we are," answered the
Man of Fancy, who overheard the remark. " The
lower earth, it is true, will be forbidden ground to
him for many long years hence, but a castle in the
air is a sort of no-man's land where Posterity may
make acquaintance with us on equal terms."

No sooner was his identity known than a throng
of guests gathered about Posterity, all expressing

H Select parts. 77

the most generous interest in his welfare, and many
boasting of the sacrifices which they had made, or
were willing to make, in his behalf. Some, with as
much secrecy as possible, desired his judgment
upon certain copies of verses or great manuscript
rolls of prose ; others accosted him with the famili-
arity of old friends, taking it for granted that he
was perfectly cognizant of their names and char-
acters. At length, finding himself thus beset, Pos-
terity was put quite beside his patience.

"Gentlemen — my good friends," cried he, break-
ing loose from a misty poet who strove to hold him
by the button — " I pray you to attend to your own
business and leave me to take care of mine. I ex-
pect to owe you nothing unless it be certain national
debts, and other incumbrances and impediments,
physical and moral, which I shall find it troublesome
enough to remove from my path. As to your verses,
pray read them to your contemporaries. Your
names are as strange to me as your faces ; and even
were it otherwise — let me whisper you a secret — the
cold, icy memory which one generation may retain
of another is but a poor recompense to barter life
for. Yet if your heart is set on being known to me,
the surest — the only — method is to live truly and
wisely for your own age, whereby, if the native force
be in you, you may likewise live for posterity."

" It is nonsense," murmured the Oldest Inhabitant,
who as a man of the past felt jealous that all notice
should be withdrawn from himself to be lavished
on the future — " sheer nonsense — to waste so much
thought on what only is to be."

To divert the minds of his guests, who were
considerably abashed by this little incident, the Man
of Fancy led them through several apartments of the
6

78 dfcoases from an OlD flfcanse.

castle, receiving their compliments upon the taste
and varied magnificence that were displayed in
each. One of these rooms was filled with moonlight
which did not enter through the window, but was the
aggregate of all the moonshine that is scattered
around the earth on a summer night while no eyes
are awake to enjoy its beauty. Airy spirits had
gathered it up wherever they found it — gleaming on
the broad bosom of a lake or silvering the meanders
of a stream or glimmering among the wind-stirred
boughs of a wood — and had garnered it in one
spacious hall. Along the walls, illuminated by the
mild intensity of the moonshine, stood a multitude
of ideal statues, the original conceptions of the great
works of ancient or modern art which the sculptors
did but imperfectly succeed in putting into marble.
For it is not to be supposed that the pure idea of an
immortal creation ceases to exist : it is only necessary
to know where they are deposited, in order to obtaia
possession of them. In the alcoves of another vast
apartment was arranged a splendid library the vol-
umes of which were inestimable because they con-
sisted not of actual performances, but of the works
which the authors only planned without ever finding
the happy season to achieve them. To take familiar
instances, here were the untold tales of Chaucer's
Canterbury Pilgrims, the unwritten cantos of the
" Faery Queen," the conclusion of Coleridge's
" Christabel," and the whole of Dryden's projected
epic on the subject of King Arthur. The shelves
were crowded, for it would not be too much to affirm
that every author has imagined and shaped out in his
thought more and far better works than those which
actually proceeded from his pen. And here, like-
wise, were the unrealized conceptions of youthful

a Select parts. 70

poets who died of the very strength of their own
genius before the world had caught one inspired
murmur from their lips.

When the peculiarities of the library and statue-
gallery were explained to the Oldest Inhabitant,
he appeared infinitely perplexed, and exclaimed with
more energy than usual that he had never heard of
such a thing within his memory, and, moreover, did
not at all understand how it could be.

" But my brain, I think," said the good old
gentleman, " is getting not so clear as it use^ to
be. You young folks, I suppose, can see your way
through these strange matters. For my part, I give
it up."

" And so do I," muttered the Old Harry. " It is
enough to puzzle the — Ahem ! "

Making as little reply as possible to these obser-
vations, the Man of Fancy preceded the company
to another noble saloon, the pillars of which were
solid golden sunbeams taken out of the sky in the
first hour in the morning. Thus, as they retained
all their living luster, the room was filled with the
most cheerful radiance imaginable, yet not too daz-
zling to be borne with comfort and delight. The
windows were beautifully adorned with curtains made
of the many-colored clouds of sunrise, all imbued
with virgin light and hanging in magnificent fes-
toons from the ceiling to the floor. Moreover, there
were fragments of rainbows scattered through the
room ; so that the guests, astonished at one another,
reciprocally saw their heads made glorious by the
seven primary hues ; or if they chose — as who
would not ? — they could grasp a rainbow in the
air and convert it to their own apparel and
adornment. But the morning light and scattered

8o flfcossee trom an GU> dfcanae.

rainbows were only a type and symbol of the real
wonders of the apartment. By an influence akin to
magic, yet perfectly natural, whatever means and
opportunities of joy are neglected in the lower world
had been carefully gathered up and deposited in the
Saloon of Morning Sunshine. As may well be
conceived, therefore, there was material enough to
supply not merely a joyous evening, but also a happy
lifetime, to more than as many people as that
spacious apartment could contain. The company
seemed to renew their youth, while that pattern and
proverbial standard of innocence the Child Unborn
frolicked to and fro among them, communicating his
own unwrinkled gayety to all who had the good-
fortune to witness his gambols.

" My honored friends," said the Man of Fancy,
after they had enjoyed themselves a while, " I am
now to request your presence in the banqueting-hall,
where a slight collation is awaiting you."

" Ah ! well said ! " ejaculated a cadaverous figure
who had been invited for no other reason than that
he was pretty constantly in the habit of dining with
Duke Humphrey. " I was beginning to wonder
whether a castle in the air were provided with a
kitchen."

It was curious, in truth, to see how instantane-
ously the guests were diverted from the high moral
enjoyments which they had been tasting with so
much apparent zest by a suggestion of the more
solid as well as liquid delights of the festive board.
They thronged eagerly in the rear of the host, who
now ushered them into a lofty and extensive hall
from end to end of which was arranged a table glit-
tering all over with innumerable dishes and drinking-
vessels of gold. It is an uncertain point whether

a Select partg. 81

these rich articles of plate were made for the occasion
out of molten sunbeams or recovered from the wrecks
of Spanish galleons that had lain for ages at the
bottom of the sea. The upper end of the table was
overshadowed by a canopy beneath which was plaoe<
a chair of elaborate magnificence, v hich the hcs
himself declined to occupy, and besought his guests
to assign it to the worthiest among them. As a suit-
able homage to his incalculable antiquity and eminent
distinction, the post of honor was at first tendered to
the Oldest Inhabitant. He, however, eschewed itr
and requested the favor of a bowl of gruel at a side-
table where he could refresh himself with a quiet
nap. There was some little hesitation as to the next
candidate, until Posterity took the Master-Genius of
our country by the hand and led him to the chair of
state beneath the princely canopy. When once they
beheld him in his true place, the company acknowl-
edged the justice of the selection by a long thunder-
roll of vehement applause.

Then was served up a banquet, combining, if not
all the delicacies of the season, yet all the rarities
which careful purveyors had met with in the flesh,
fish and vegetable markets of the land of Nowhere.
The bill of fare being unfortunately lost, we can only
mention a phcenix roasted in its own flames, cold
potted birds of Paradise, ice-creams from the Milky
Way and whipsyllabubs and flummery from the
Paradise of Fools, whereof there was a very great
consumption. As for drinkables, the temperance-
people contented themselves with water, as usual,
but it was the water of the Fountain of Youth, the
ladies sipped Nepenthe, the love-lorn, the careworn
and the sorrow-stricken were supplied with brimming
goblets of Lethe, and it was shrewdly conjectured

82 &030C0 from an 010

that a certain golden vase from which only the more
distinguished guests were invited to partake con-
tained nectar that had been mellowing ever since the
days of classical mythology. The cloth being re-
moved, the company, as usual, grew eloquent over
their liquor, and delivered themselves of a succession
of brilliant speeches, the task of reporting which we
resign to the more adequate ability of Counselor
Gill, whose indispensable co-operation the Man of
Fancy had taken the precaution to secure.

When the festivity of the banquet was at its most
ethereal point, the Clerk of the Weather was
observed to steal from the table and thrust his head
between the purple and golden curtains of one of
the windows.

" My fellow-guests," he remarked, aloud, after
carefully noting the signs of the night, " I advise
such of you as live at a distance to be going as soon
as possible, for a thunder-storm is certainly at
hand."

'• Mercy on me ! " cried Mother Carey, who had
left her brood of chickens and come hither in gos-
samer drapery, with pink silk stockings ; " how shall
I ever get home ? "

All now was confusion and hasty departure, with
but little superfluous leavetaking. The Oldest In-
habitant, however, true to the rule of those long-
past days in which his courtesy had been studied,
paused on the threshold of the meteor-lighted hall
to express his vast satisfaction at the entertain-
ment.

" Never, within my memory," observed the
gracious old gentleman, " has it been my good-
fortune to spend a pleasanter evening, or in more
select society."

H Select parts. 83

The wind here took his breath away, whirled his
three-cornered hat into infinite space, and drowned
what further compliments it had been his purpose
to bestow. Many of the company had bespoken
will-o'-the-wisps to convoy them home, and the host,
in his general beneficence, had engaged the Man in
the Moon, with an immense horn lantern, to be the
guide of such desolate spinsters as could do no better
for themselves. But a blast of the rising tempest
blew out all their lights in the twinkling of an eye.
How in the darkness that ensued the guests contrived
to get back to earth, or whether the greater part of
them contrived to get back at all, or are still wan-
dering among clouds, mists and puffs of tempestuous
wind, bruised by the beams and rafters of the over-
thrown castle in the air and deluded by all sorts of
unrealities, are points that concern themselves much
more than the writer or the public. People should
think of these matters before they trust themselves
on a pleasure-party into the realm of Nowhere.

YOUNG GOODMAN BROWN.

YOUNG Goodman Brown came forth at sunset into
the street of Salem village, but put his head back,
after crossing the threshold, to exchange a parting
kiss with his young wife. And Faith, as the wife
was aptly named, thrust her own pretty head into
the street, letting the wind play with the pink ribbons
of her cap, while she called to Goodman Brown.

"Dearest heart," whispered she, softly and rather
sadly, when her lips were close to his ear, " prythee
put off your journey until sunrise and sleep in your
own bed to-night. A lone woman is troubled with
such dreams and such thoughts that she's afeard
of herself sometimes. Pray tarry with me this night,
dear husband, of all nights in the year."

" My love and my Faith," replied young Goodman
Brown, " of all nights in the year, this one night must
I tarry away from thee. My journey, as thou callest
it, forth and back again, must needs be done 'twixt
now and sunrise. What, my sweet pretty wife I
Dost thou doubt me already, and we but three
months married ? "

" Then God bless you," said Faith with the pink
ribbons, " and may you find all well when you come
back ! "

" Amen ! " cried Goodman Brown. " Say thy
84

Ii?oim0 (SooDman JSrown. 85

prayers, dear Faith, and go to bed at dusk, and no
harm will come to thee."

So they parted, and the young man pursued his
way until, being about to turn the corner by the
meeting-house, he looked back and saw the head of
Faith still peeping after him with a melancholy air,
*.n spite of her pink ribbons.

" Poor little Faith ! " thought he, for his heart
smote him. " What a wretch am I, to leave her on
such an errand ! She talks of dreams, too. Me-
thought, as she spoke, there was trouble in her face,
as if a dream had warned her what work is to be
done to-night. But no, no ! 'twould kill her to think
it. Well, she's a blessed angel on earth, and after
this one night I'll cling to her skirts and follow her
to heaven."

With this excellent resolve for the future, Good-
man Brown felt himself justified in making more
haste on his present evil purpose. He had taken
a dreary road darkened by all the gloomiest trees of
the forest, which barely stood aside to let the narrow
path creep through, and closed immediately behind.
It was all as lonely as could be ; and there is this
peculiarity in such a solitude — that the traveler
knows not who may be concealed by the innumer-
able trunks and the thick boughs overhead, so that
with lonely footsteps he may yet be passing through
an unseen multitude.

" There may be a devilish Indian behind every
tree," said Goodman Brown to himself ; and he
glanced fearfully behind him as he added, " What
if the devil himself should be at my very elbow ? "

His head being turned back, he passed a crook
of the road, and, looking forward again, beheld the
figure of a man in grave and decent attire seated at

86 /fcosscs from an Ol£ /fcanec.

the foot of an old tree. He arose at Goodmav*
Brown's approach, and walked onward side by side
with him.

" You are late, Goodman Brown," said he. " The
clock of the Old South was striking as I came
through Boston, and that is full fifteen minutei
agone."

" Faith kept me back awhile," replied the young
man, with a tremor in his voice caused by the sudden
appearance of his companion, though not wholly
unexpected.

It was now deep dusk in the forest, and deepest
in that part of it where these two were journeying.
As nearly as could be discerned, the second trav-
eler was about fifty years old, apparently in the same
rank of life as Goodman Brown, and bearing a con-
siderable resemblance to him, though perhaps more
in expression than features. Still, they might have,
been taken for father and son. And yet, though the
elder person was as simply clad as the younger, and
as simple in manner too, he had an indescribable
air of one who knew the world, and would not have
felt abashed at the governor's dinner-table or in
King William's court were it possible that his affairs
should call him thither. But the only thing about
him that could be fixed upon as remarkable was his
staff, which bore the likeness of a great black snake
so curiously wrought that it might almost be seen to
twist and wriggle itself like a living serpent. This,
of course, must have been an ocular deception,
assisted by the uncertain light.

" Come, Goodman Brown ! " cried his fellow-
traveler ; " this is a dull pace for the beginning
of a journey. Take my staff, if you are so soon
weary."

U?oung Ooofcman JBrown. 87

"Friend," said the other, exchanging his slow
pace for a full stop, " having kept covenant by meet-
ing thee here, it is my purpose now to return whence
I came. I have scruples touching the matter thou
wotst of."

" Sayest thou so ? " replied he of the serpent,
smiling apart. " Let us walk on, nevertheless, rea-
soning as we go ; and if I convince thee not, thou
shalt turn back. We are but a little way in the
forest yet."

" Too far — too far ! " exclaimed the goodman,
unconsciously resuming his walk. " My father never
went into the woods on such an errand, nor his
father before him. We have been a race of honest
men and good Christians since the days of the
martyrs, and shall I be the first of the name of Brown
that ever took this path and kept "

" ' Such company,' thou wouldst say," observed
the elder person, interrupting his pause. " Well
said, Goodman Brown ! I have been as well ac-
quainted with your family as with ever a one among
the Puritans ; and that's no trifle to say. I helped
your grandfather the constable when he lashed the
Quaker woman so smartly through the streets of
Salem, and it was I that brought your father a pitch-
pine knot kindled at my own hearth to set fire to an
Indian village in King Philip's War. They were my
good friends, both, and many a pleasant walk have
we had along this path, and returned merrily after
midnight. I would fain be friends with you for
their sake."

" If it be as thou sayest," replied Goodman Brown,
" I marvel they never spoke of these matters. Or,
verily, I marvel not, seeing that the least rumor of
the sort would have driven them from New England.

88 /fcoaaer from an QID flfcansc.

We are a people of prayer and good works to boot,
and abide no such wickedness."

" Wickedness or not," said the traveler with the
twisted staff, " I have a very general acquaintance
here in New England. The deacons of many a
church have drunk the communion wine wi»h me
the selectmen of divers towns make me their chair-
'man, and a majority of the Great and General Court
are firm supporters of my interest. The governor
and I, too But these are state secrets."

" Can this be so ? " cried Goodman Brown, with a
stare of amazement at his undisturbed companion.
" Howbeit, I have nothing to do with Hie governor
and council ; they have their own ways, and are no
rule for a simple husbandman like me. But were I
to go on with thee, how should I meet the eye of
that good old man our minister at Salem village?
Oh, his voice would make me tremble both Sabbath-
day and lecture-day."

Thus far the elder traveler had listened with due
gravity, but now burst into a fit of irrepressible
mirth, shaking himself so violently that his snake-
like staff actually seemed to wriggle in sympathy.

" Ha ! ha ! ha ! " shouted he, again and again ;
then, composing himself, "Well, go on, Goodman
Brown, go on ; but prythee don't kill me with laugh-
ing!"

" Well, then, to end the matter at once," said
Goodman Brown, considerably nettled, " there is my
wife, Faith. It would break her dear little heart,
and I'd rather break my own."

" Nay, if that be the case," answered the other,
" e'en go thy ways, Goodman Brown. I would not
for twenty old women like the one hobbling before
us that Faith should come to any harm."

Ooofcman JSrown. 89

As he spoke he pointed his staff at a female
figure on the path, in whom Goodman Brown recog-
nized a very pious and exemplary dame who had
taught him his catechism in youth, and was still his
moral and spiritual adviser jointly with the minister
and Deacon Gookin.

" A marvel, truly, that Goody Cloyse should be so
;ar in the wilderness at nightfall," said he. " But,
with your leave, friend, I shall take a cut through
the woods until we have left this Christian woman
behind. Being a stranger to you, she might ask
whom I was consorting with and whither I was
going."

" Be it so," said his fellow -traveler. " Betake
you to the woods and let me keep the path."

Accordingly, the young man turned aside, but
took care to watch his companion, who advanced
softly along the road until he had come within a
staff's length of the old dame. She, meanwhile.
was making the best of her way, with singular
speed for so aged a woman, and mumbling some
indistinct words — a prayer, doubtless — as she went.
The traveler put forth his staff and touched hei
withered neck with what seemed the serpent's tail.

" The devil ! " screamed the pious old lady.

" Then Goody Cloyse knows her old friend ? "
observed the traveler, confronting her and leaning
on his writhing stick.

" Ah, forsooth ! and is it Your Worship, indeed ? "
cried the good dame. " Yea, truly is it, and in the
very image of my old gossip Goodman Brown, the
grandfather of the silly fellow that now is. But
would Your Worship believe it ? My broomstick
hath strangely disappeared — stolen, as 1 suspect,
by that unhanged witch Goody Cory, and that, too,

90 /Bosses from an ©U> /ftansc.

when I was all anointed with the juice of smallage
and cinque-foil and wolf's-bane

" Mingled with fine wheat and the fat of a new-
born babe," said the shape of old Goodman Brown.

" Ah ! Your Worship knows the recipe," cried the
old lady, cackling aloud. " So, as I was saying,
being all ready for the meeting, and no horse to
ride on, I made up my mind to foot it ; for they tell
me there is a nice young man to be taken "into
communion to-night. But now Your Good Worship
will lend me your arm, and we shall be there >~\ a
twinkling."

" That can hardly be," answered her friend. " I
may not spare you my arm, Goody Cloyse, but here
is my staff, if you will."

So saying, he threw it down at her feet, where,
perhaps, it assumed life, being one of the rods which
its owner had formerly lent to the Egyptian magi.
Of this fact, however, Goodman Brown could not
take cognizance. He had cast up his eyes in
astonishment, and, looking down again, beheld
neither Goody Cloyse nor the serpentine staff, but
his fellow-traveler alone, who waited for him as
calmly as if nothing had happened.

" That old woman taught me my catechism ! " said
the young man ; and there was a world of meaning
in this simple comment.

They continued to walk onward, while the elder
traveler exhorted his companion to make good
speed and persevere in the path, discoursing so aptly
that his arguments seemed rather to spring up in
the bosom of his auditor than to be suggested by
himself. As they went he plucked a branch of
maple, to serve for a walking-stick, and began to
strip it of the twigs and little boughs, which were

0oofcman JBrown. 91

wet with evening dew. The moment his fingers
touched them they became strangely withered and
dried up, as with a week's sunshine. Thus the pair
proceeded at a good free pace, until suddenly, in a
gloomy hollow of the road, Goodman Brown sat
himself down on the stump of a tree and refused to
go any farther.

" Friend," said he, stubbornly, " my mind is made
up. Not another step will I budge on this errand.
What if a wretched old woman do choose to go to
the devil, when I thought she was going to heaven ?
Is that any reason why I should quit my dear Faith
and go after her ? "

" You will think better of this by and by," said
his acquaintance, composedly. " Sit here and rest
yourself awhile ; and when you feel like moving
again, there is my staff to help you along." With-
out more words he threw his companion the maple
stick, and was as speedily out of sight as if he had
vanished into the deepening gloom.

The young man sat a few moments by the roadside,
applauding himself greatly and thinking with how
clear a concience he should mee,t the minister in his
morning walk, nor shrink from the eye of good old
Deacon Gookin. And what calm sleep would be
his that very night, which was to have been spent
so wickedly, but purely and sweetly now in the arms
of Faith ! Amidst these pleasant and praiseworthy
meditations Goodman Brown heard the tramp of
horses along the road, and deemed it advisable
to conceal himself within the verge of the forest,
conscious of the guilty purpose that had brought
him thither, though now so happily turned from
it.

On came the hoof-tramps and the voices of the

92 fl&osses from an ©to flfcanse.

riders — two grave old voices conversing soberly as
they drew near. These mingled sounds appeared
to pass along the road within a few yards of the
young man's hiding-place, but, owing, doubtless, to
the depth of the gloom at that particular spot, neither
the travelers nor their steeds were visible. Though
their figures brushed the small boughs by the way-
side, it could not be seen that they intercepted even
for a moment the faint gleam from the strip of bright
sky athwart which they must have passed. Goodman
Brown alternately crouched and stood on tip-toe, pull-
ing aside the branches and thrusting forth his head
as far as he durst, without discerning so much as a
shadow. It vexed him the more because he could
have sworn, were such a thing possible, that he
recognized the voices of the minister and Deacon
Gookin jogging along quietly, as they were wont to
do when bound to some ordination or ecclesiastical
council. While yet within hearing one of the riders
stopped to pluck a switch.

" Of the two, reverend sir," said the voice like tha
deacon's, " I had rather miss an ordination dinner
than to-night's meeting. They tell me that some of
our community are to be here from Falmouth and
beyond, and others from Connecticut and Rhode
Island, besides several of the Indian pow-wows,
who after their fashion knew almost as much deviltry
as the best of us. Moreover, there is a goodly
young woman to be taken into communion."

" Mighty well, Deacon Gookin ! " replied the
solemn old tones of the minister. " Spur up, or we
shall be late. Nothing can be done, you know, until
I get on the ground."

The hoofs clattered again, and the voices talking
so strangely in the empty air passed on through the

<3ooDman JBrown. 93

forest, where no church had ever been gathered nor
solitary Christian prayed. Whither, then, could these
holy men be journeying so deep into the heathen
wilderness ? Young Goodman Brown caught hold
of a tree for support, being ready to sink down on
the ground faint and overburdened with the heavy
sickness of his heart. He looked up to the sky,
doubting whether there really was a heaven above
him ; yet there was the blue arch and the stars
brightening in it.

" With Heaven above and Faith below, I will yet
stand firm against the devil ! " cried Goodman
Brown.

While he still gazed upward into the deep arch of
the firmament and had lifted his hands to pray, a
cloud — though no wind was stirring — hurried across
the zenith and hid the brightening stars. The blue
sky was still visible except directly overhead, where
this black mass of cloud was sweeping swiftly north-
ward. Aloft in the air, as if from the depths of the
cloud, came a confused and doubtful sound of voices.
Once the listener fancied that he could distinguish
the accents of townspeople of his own, men and
women, both pious and ungodly, many of whom he
had .net at the communion-table, and had seen others
rioting at the tavern. The next moment, so indis-
tinct were the sounds, he doubted whether he
had heard aught but the murmur of the old forest
whispering without a wind. Then came a stronger
swell of those familiar tones heard daily in the sun-
shine at Salem village, but never until now from a
cloud of night. There was one voice of a young
woman uttering lamentations, yet with an uncertain
sorrow, and entreating for some favor which perhaps
it would grieve her to obtain. And all the unseen
7

94 /Bosses from an OtD /fcanse.

multitude, both saints and sinners, seemed to en-
courage her onward.

" Faith ! " shouted Goodman Brown, in a voice
of agony and desperation ; and the echoes of the
forest mocked him, crying, " Faith ! Faith ! " as if
bewildered wretches were seeking her all through
the wilderness.

The cry of grief, rage and terror was yet pierc-
ing the night, when the unhappy husband held his
breath for a response. There was a scream,
drowned immediately in a louder murmur of voices
fading into far-off laughter, as the dark cloud swept
away, leaving the clear and silent sky above Good-
man Brown. But something fluttered lightly down
through the air and caught on the branch of a tree.
The young man seized it, and beheld a pink
ribbon.

" My Faith is gone ! " cried he, after one stupefied
moment. " There is no good on earth, and sin is
but a name ! — Come, devil, for to thee is this world
given ! "

And maddened with despair, so that he laughed
loud and long, did Goodman Brown grasp his staff and
set forth again at such a rate that he seemed to fly
along the forest-path rather than to walk or run. The
road grew wilder and drearier and more faintly
traced, and vanished at length, leaving him in the
heart of the dark wilderness, still rushing onward
with the instinct that guides mortal man to evil.
The whole forest was peopled with frightful sounds
— the creaking of the trees, the howling of wild beasts
and the yell of Indians — while sometimes the wind
tolled like a distant church-bell, and sometimes gave
a broad roar around the traveler, as if all Nature
were laughing him to scorn. But he was himself the

<3oofcman JBrown. 95

chief horror of the scene, and shrank not from its
other horrors.

" Ha ! ha ! ha ! " roared Goodman Brown, when
the wind laughed at him. " Let us hear which will
laugh loudest ; think not to frighten me with your
deviltry ! Come, witch ! come, wizard ! come,
Indian pow-wow ! come, devil himself ! And here
comes Goodman Brown. You may as well fear him
as he fear you."

In truth, all through the haunted forest there
could be nothing more frightful than the figure of
Goodman Brown. On he flew among the black
pines, brandishing his staff with frenzied gestures,
now giving vent to an inspiration of horrid blas-
phemy, and now shouting forth such laughter as set
all the echoes of the forest laughing like demons
around him. The fiend in his own shape is less hid-
eous than when he rages in the breast of man. Thus
sped the demoniac on his course, until, quivering
among the trees, he saw a red light before him, as
when the felled trunks and branches of a clearing have
been set on fire and throw up their lurid blaze
against the sky at the hour of midnight. He paused
in a lull of the tempest that had driven him onward,
and heard the swell of what seemed a hymn rolling
solemnly from a distance with the weight of many
voices. He knew the tune ; it was a familiar one in
the choir of the village meeting-house. The verse
died heavily away and was lengthened by a chorus
—not of human voices, but of all the sounds of the
benighted wilderness pealing in awful harmony
together. Goodman Brown cried out, and his cry
was lost to his own ear by its unison with the cry
of the desert.

In the interval of silence he stole forward until the

96 flfcosses from an Olfc /fcanse.

light glared full upon his eyes. At one extremity
of an open space hemmed in by the dark wall
of the forest arose a rock bearing some rude
natural resemblance either to an altar or a pulpit,
and surrounded by four blazing pines, their tops
aflame, their stems, untouched, like candles at an
evening meeting. The mass of foliage that had
overgrown the summit of the rock was all on fire,
blazing high into the night and fitfully illuminating
the whole field. Each pendant twig and leafy festoon
was in a blaze. As the red light arose a'nd fell a
numerous congregation alternately shone forth, then
disappeared in shadow, and again grew, as it were,
out of the darkness, peopling the heart of the
solitary woods at once.

" A grave and dark-clad company ! " quoth Good-
man I]ro\vn.

Jn truth, they were such. Among them, quivering
to and fro between gloom and splendor, appeared
faces that would be seen next day at the council-
board of the province, and others which Sabbath after
Sabbath looked devoutly heavenward and benig-
nantl} over the crowded pews from the holiest
pulpits in the land. Some affirm that the lady of the
governor was there. At least, there were high dames
well known to her, and wives of honored husbands,
and widows a great multitude, and ancient maidens
all of excellent repute, and fair young girls who trem-
bled lest their mothers should espy them. Either the
sudden gleams of 1'ght flashing over the obscure field
bedazzled Goodman Brown or he recognized a score
of the church-members of Salem village famous for
their especial sanctity. Good old Deacon Gookin had
arrived, and waited at the skirts of that venerable
saint his reverend pastor. But irreverently consort-

12oun0 Goodman 3Brown. 97

ing with these grave, reputable and pious people,
these elders of the church, these chaste dames and
dewy virgins, there were men of dissolute lives and
women of spotted fame — wretches given over to all
mean and filthy vice, and suspected even of horrid
crimes. It was strange to see that the good shrank
not from the wicked, nor were the sinners abashed by
the saints. Scattered, also, among their pale-faced
enemies were the Indian priests, or pow-wows, who
had often scared their native forest with more hideous
incantations than any known to English witchcraft.

" But where is Faith ? " thought Goodman Brown,
and as hope came into his heart he trembled.

Another verse of the hymn arose — a slow and
mournful strain such as the pious love, but joined
to words which expressed all that our nature
can conceive of sin and darkly hinted at far more.
Unfathomable to mere mortals is the lore of fiends.
Verse after verse was sung, and still the chorus of
the desert swelled between like the deepest tone
of a mighty organ. And with the final peal of that
dreadful anthem there came a sound as if the
roaring wind, the rushing streams, the howling beasts,
and every other voice of the unconverted wilderness,
were mingling and according with the voice of guilty
man in homage to the prince of all. The four
blazing pines threw up a loftier flame, and obscurely
discovered shapes and visages of horror on the
smoke-wreaths above the impious assembly. At the
same moment the fire on the rock shot redly forth
and formed a glowing arch above its base, where
now appeared a figure. With reverence be it spoken,
the apparition bore no slight similitude, both in garb
and manner, to some grave divine of the New Eng-
land churches.

98 /Bosses from an ©ID /fcanse.

" Bring forth the converts ! " cried a voice that
echoed through the field and rolled into the forest.

At the word Goodman Brown stepped forth from
the shadow of the trees and approached the con-
gregaiion, with whom he felt a loathful brotherhood
by the sympathy of all that was wicked in his heart.
He could have well-nigh sworn that the shape of his
own dead father beckoned him to advance, looking
downward from a smoke-wreath, while a woman
with dim features of despair threw out her hand to
warn him back. Was it his mother ? But he had
no power to retreat one step nor to resist even in
thought when the minister and good old Deacon
Gookin seized his arms and led him to the blazing
rock. Thither came, also, the slender form of a
veiled female, led between Goody Cloyse, that pious
teacher of the catechism, and Martha Carrier, who
had received the devil's promise to be queen of hell.
A rampant hag was she ! And there stood the
proselytes, beneath the canopy of fire.

" Welcome, my children," said the dark figure,
" to the communion of your race ! Ye have found
thus young your nature and your destiny. My
children, look behind you ! "

They turned, and, flashing forth, as it were, in a
sheet of flame, the fiend-worshipers were seen;
the smile of welcome gleamed darkly on every
visage.

"There," resumed the sable form, "are all whom
ye have reverenced from youth. Ye deemed them
holier than yourselves and shrank from your own
sin, contrasting it with their lives of righteousness
and prayerful aspirations heavenward. Yet here
are they all in my worshiping assembly ! This
night it shall be granted you to know their secret

<3ooDman 36rown. 99

deeds — how hoary-bearded elders of the church have
whispered wanton words to the young maids of their
households, how many a woman eager for widow's
weeds has given her husband a drink at bedtime
and let him sleep his last sleep in her bosom, how
beardless youths have made haste to inherit their
father's wealth, and how fair damsels — blush not,
sweet ones ! — have dug little graves in the garden
and bidden me, the sole guest, to an infant's
funeral. By the sympathy of your human hearts
for sin ye shall scent out all the places — whether in
church, bedchamber, street,, field or forest — where
crime has been committed, and shall exult to behold
the whole earth one stain of guilt, one mighty blood-
spot. Far more than this : it shall be yours to
penetrate in every bosom the deep mystery of sin,
the fountain of all wicked arts, and which inexhaust-
ibly supplies more evil impulses than human power
—than my power at its utmost — can make manifest
in deeds. And now, my children, look upon each
other."

They did so, and by the blaze of the hell-kindled
torches the wretched man beheld his Faith, and the
wife her husband, trembling before that unhallowed
altar.

" Lo ! there ye stand, my children," said the
figure, in a deep and solemn tone almost sad with
its despairing awfulness, as if his once angelic
nature could yet mourn for our miserable race.
" Depending upon one another's hearts, ye had
still hoped that virtue were not all a dream ;
now are ye undeceived. Evil is the nature of
mankind ; evil must be your only happiness. Wel-
come, again, my children, to the communion of your
race ! "

ioo &030e0 from an ©l& /ftanee.

" Welcome ! " repeated the fiend-worshipers, in
one cry of despair and triumph.

And there they stood, the only pair, as it seemed,
who were yet hesitating on the verge of wickedness
in this dark world. A basin was hollowed naturally
in the rock. Did it contain water reddened br the
lurid light ? or was it blood, or perchance a liquid
flame ? Herein did the Shape of Evil dip his hand
and prepare to lay the mark of baptism upon their
foreheads, that they might be partakers of the
mystery of sin, more conscious of the secret guilt
of others, both in deed and thought, than they
could now be of their own. The husband cast one
look at his pale wife, and Faith at him. What pol-
luted wretches would the next glance show them to
each other, shuddering alike at what they disclosed
and what they saw !

" Faith ! Faith ! " cried the husband. " Look up
to Heaven, and resist the wicked one ! "

Whether Faith obeyed he knew not. Hardly had
he spoken when he found himself amid calm night
and solitude, listening to a roar of the wind \vhich
died heavily away through the forest. He staggered
against the rock and felt it chill and damp, while a
hanging twig that had been all on fire besprinkled
his cheek with the coldest dew.

The next morning young Goodman Brown came
slowly into the street of Salem village staring around
him like a bewildered man. The good old minister
was taking a walk along the graveyard to get an ap-
petite for breakfast and meditate his sermon, and
bestowed a blessing, as he passed, on Goodman
Brown ; he shrank from the venerable saint as if to
avoid an anathema. Old Deacon Gookin was at
domestic worship, and the holy words of his prayer

<3oofcman JBrown. 101

were heard through the open window. " What God
doth the wizard pray to ? " quoth Goodman Brown.
Goody Cloyse, that excellent old Christian, stood in
the early sunshine, at her own lattice, catechising a
little girl who had brought her a pint of morning's
milk ; Goodman Brown snatched away the child as
from the grasp of the fiend himself. Turning the
corner by the meeting-house, he spied the head of
Faith, with the pink ribbons, gazing anxiously forth,
and bursting into such joy at sight of him that she
skipped along the street and almost kissed her hus-
band before the whole village ; but Goodman Brown
looked sternly and sadly into her face, and passed
on without a greeting.

Had Goodman Brown fallen asleep in the forest
and only dreamed a wild dream of a witch-meeting ?
Be it so, if you will. But, alas ! it was a dream of
evil omen for young Goodman Brown. A stern, a
sad, a darkly-meditative, a distrustful, if not a des-
perate, man did he become from the night of that
fearful dream. On the Sabbath-day, when the con-
gregation were singing a holy psalm, he could not
listen because an anthem of sin rushed loudly upon
his ear and drowned all the blessed strain. When
the minister spoke from the pulpit with power and
fervid eloquence, and with his hand on the open
Bible, of the sacred truths of our religion, and of
saint-like lives and triumphant deaths, and of future
bliss or misery unutterable, then did Goodman
Brown turn pale, dreading lest the roof should thun-
der down upon the gray blasphemer and his hearers.
Often, awaking suddenly at midnight, he shrank
from the bosom of Faith, and at morning or even-
tide, when the family knelt down at prayer, he
scowled and muttered to himself, and gazed sternly

io2 dfcosses trom an

at his wife, and turned away. And when he had
lived long and was borne to his grave, a hoary
corpse, followed by Faith, an aged woman, and
children and grandchildren, a goodly procession, be-
sides neighbors not a few, they carved no hopeful
verse upon his tombstone ; for his dying-hour was
gloom.

RAPPACCINI'S DAUGHTER.

A YOUNG man named Giovanni Guasconti came
very long ago from the more southern region of
Italy to pursue his studies at the University of
Padua. Giovanni, who had but a scanty supply of
gold ducats in his pocket, took lodgings in a high
and gloomy chamber of an old edifice which looked
not unworthy to have been the palace of a Paduan
noble, and which, in fact, exhibited over its entrance
the armorial bearings of a family long since extinct
The young stranger, who was not unstudied in the
great poem of his country, recollected that one of
the ancestors of this family, and perhaps an occu-
pant of this very mansion, had been pictured by
Dante as a partaker of the immortal agonies of his
Inferno. These reminiscences and associations,
together with the tendency to heartbreak natural
to a young man for the first time out of his native
sphere, caused Giovanni to sigh heavily as he
looked around the desolate and ill-furnished apart-
ment.

" Holy Virgin, signer ! " cried old Dame Lisabetta,
who, won by the youth's remarkable beauty of per-
son, was kindly endeavoring to give the chamber a
habitable air ; " what a sigh was that to come out of
a young man's heart ! Do you find this old mansion
gloomy? For the love of Heaven, then, put your

104 /Bosses from an Old flfcanse.

head out of the window, and you will see as bright
sunshine as you have left in Naples."

Guasconti mechanically did as the old woman
advised, but could not quite agree with her that the
Lombard sunshine was as cheerful as that of Southern
Italy. Such as it was, however, 't fell upon a gar-
den beneath the window, and expended its fostering
influences on a variety of plants which seemed tc
have been cultivated with exceeding care.

" Does this garden belong to the house ? " ask -d
Giovanni.

" Heaven forbid, signer, unless it were fruitful of
better pot-herbs than any that grow there now,'*
answered old Lisabetta. " No ; that garden is cul-
tivated by the own hands of Signor Giacomo Rap-
paccini, the famous doctor who, I warrant hi:n, has
been heard of as far as Naples. It is said th it he
distills these plants into medicines that are as p.j: jnt
as a charm. Oftentimes you may se2 the Signor
Doctor at work, and perchance tha signora his
daughter, too, gathering the strange flowers that
grow in the garden."

The old woman had now done what she could for
the aspect of the clumber, and, commending the
young man to the protection of the saints, took her
departure.

Giovanni still found no better occupation than to
look down into the garden beneath his window.
From its appearance he judged it to be one of those
botanic gardens which were of earlier date in Padua
than elsewhere in Italy, or in the world. Or, not
improbably, it might once have been the pleasure-
place of an opulent family ; for there was the ruin
of a marble fountain in the center, sculptured with
rare art, but so wofully shattered that it was im-

•Rappacctnrs 2Dau0bter. 105

possible to trace the original design from the chaos
of remaining fragments. The water, however, con-
tinued to gush and sparkle into the sunbeams as
cheerfully as ever. A little gurgling sound ascended
to the young man's window and made him feel as if
a fountain we^e an immortal spirit that sung its song
unceasingly, and without 'heeding the vicissitudes
around ir, while one century embodied it in marble
and another scattered the perishable garniture on
the soil. All about the pool into which the water
subsided grew various plants that seemed to require
a plentiful supply of moisture for the nourishment
of gigantic leaves, and in some instances flowers
gorgeously magnificent. There was one shrub in
particular, set in a marble vase in the midst of the
pool, that bore a profusion of purple blossoms, each
of which had the luster and richness of a gem ; and
the whole together made a show so resplendent that
it seemed enough to illuminate the garden even had
there been no sunshine. Every portion of the soil
was peopled with plants and herbs which, if less
beautiful, still bore tokens of assiduous care, as if
all had their individual virtues, known to the scien-
tific mind that fostered them. Some were placed
in urns rich with old carving, and others in com-
mon garden-pots ; some crept serpent-like along the
ground, or climbed on high, using whatever means of
ascent was offered them. One plant had wreathed
itself round a statue of Vertumnus, which was thus
quite veiled and shrouded in a drapery of hanging
foliage so happily arranged that it might have served
a sculptor for a study.

While Giovanni stood at the window he heard
a rustling behind a screen of leaves, and became
aware that a person was at work in the garden.

io6 d&osses trom an OtD

His figure soon emerged into view, and showed itself
to be that of no common laborer, but a tall, ema-
ciated, sallow and sickly-looking man dressed in a
scholar's garb of black. He was beyond the middle
term of life, with gray hair, a thin gray beard and a
face singularly marked wi{h intellect and cultivation,
but which could never, even in I, is more youthful
days, have expressed much warmth of heart.

Nothing could exceed the intentness with which
this scientific gardener examined every shrub which
grew in his path ; it seemed as if he was looking
into their inmost nature, making observations in
regard to their creative essence, and discovering why
one leaf grew in this shape and another in that, and
wherefore such and such flowers differed among
themselves in hue and perfume. Nevertheless, in
spite of the deep intelligence on his part, there was
no approach to intimacy between himself and these
vegetable existences. On the contrary, he avoided
their actual touch or the direct inhaling of their
odors with a caution that impressed Giovanni most
disagreeably ; for the man's demeanor was that of
one walking among malignant influences, such as
savage beasts or deadly snakes or evil spirits, which,
should he allow them one moment of license, would
wreak upon him some terrible fatality. It was
strangely frightful to the young man's imagination
to see this air of insecurity in a person cultivating
a garden — that most simple and innocent of human
toils, and which had been alike the joy and labor of
the unfallen parents of the race. Was this garden,
then, the Eden of the present world ? and this man
with such a perception of harm in what his own
hands caused to grow — was he the Adam ?

The distrustful gardener, while plucking away the

•Rappaccini's Bauabtcr. 107

dead leaves or pruning the too luxuriant growth of
the shrubs, defended his hands with a pair of thick
gloves. Nor were these his only armoi. When, in
his walk through the garden, he came to the mag-
nificent plant that hung its purple gems beside the
marble fountain, he placed a kind of mask over his
mouth and nostrils, as if all this beauty did but
conceal a deadlier malice. But, finding his task still
too dangerous, he drew back, removed the mask and
called loudly, but in the infirm voice of a person
affected with inward disease :

" Beatrice ! Beatrice ! "

"Here am I, my father! What would you?"
cried a rich and youthful voice from the window of
the opposite house — a voice as rich as a tropical
sunset, and which made Giovanni, though he knew
not why, think of deep hues of purple or crimson
and of perfumes heavily delectable. " Are you in
the garden ? "

" Yes, Beatrice," answered the gardener, " and
I need your help."

Soon there emerged from under a sculptured
portal the figure of a young girl arrayed with as
much richness of taste as the most splendid of
the flowers, beautiful as the day and with a bloom so
deep and vivid that one shade more would have
been too much. She looked redundant with life,
health and energy ; all of which attributes were
bound down and compressed, as it were, and girdled
tensely in their luxuriance by her virgin-zone. , Yet
Giovanni's fancy must have grown morbid while he
looked down into the garden, for the impression
which the fair stranger made upon him was as
if here were another flower, the human sister of
those vegetable ones, as beautiful as they — more

toS /Bosses trom an $l& /fcanse.

beautiful than the richest of them — but still to be
touched only with a glove, nor to be approached
without a mask. As Beatrice came down the garden-
path it was observable that she handled and inhaled
the odor of several of the plants which her father
had most sedulously avoided.

" Here, Beatrice," said the latter ; " see how many
n-edful offices require to be done to our chief treas-
urj. Yet, shattered as I am, my life mi^ht pay the
penalty of approaching it so closely as circum-
stances demand. Henceforth, I fear, this plant
must be consigned to your sole charge."

"And gladly will I undertake it," cried again the
rkh tones of the young lady as she bent toward the
magnificent plant and opened her arms as if to em-
brace it. — " Yes, my sister, my splendor, it shall be
Beatrice's task to nurse and serve thee, and thou
shalt reward her with thy kisses and perfume -breath,
which to her is as the breath of life."

Then, with all the tenderness in her manner that
was so strikingly expressed in her words, she busied
herself with such attentions as the plant seemed to
require ; and Giovanni, at his lofty window, rubbed
his eyes and almost doubted whether it were a girl
tending her favorite flower or one sister performing
the duties of affection to another.

The scene soon terminated. Whether Doctor
Rappaccini had finished his labors in the garden or
that his watchful eye had caught the stranger's face,
he now took his daughter's arm and retired. Night
was already closing in ; oppressive exhalations
seemed to proceed from the plants and steal upward
past the open window, and Giovanni, closing the
lattice, went to his couch and dreamed of a rich
flower and beautiful girl. Flower and maiden were

•Rappaccini's Daughter. 109

different, and yet the same, and fraught with some
strange peril in either shape.

But there is an influence in the light of morning
that tends to rectify whatever errors of fancy, or
even of judgment, we may have incurred during the
sun's decline, or among the shadows of the night,
or in the less wholesome glow of moonshine. Gio-
vanni's first movement on starting from sleep was
to throw open the window and gaze down into the
garden which his dreams had made so fertile of
mysteries. He was surprised, and a little ashamed,
to find how real and matter-of-fact an affair it proved
to be in the first rays of the sun, which gilded the
dewdrops that hung upon leaf and blossom, and,
while giving a brighter beauty to each rare flower,
brought everything within the limits of ordinary ex-
perience. The young man rejoiced that in the
heart of the barren city he had the privilege of over-
looking this spot of lovely and luxuriant vegetation.
It would serve, he said to himself, as a symbolic
language to keep him in communion with Nature.
Neither the sickly and thought-worn Doctor Gia-
como Rappaccini, it is true, nor his brilliant daughter,
was now visible ; so that Giovanni could not deter-
mine how much of the singularity which he attrib-
uted to both was due to their own qualities, and
how much to his wonder-working fancy. But he
was inclined to take a most rational view of the
whole matter.

In the course of the day he paid his respects to
Signer Pietro Baglioni, professor of medicine in the
university, a physician of eminent repute to whom
Giovanni had brought a letter of introduction. The
professor was an elderly personage, apparently of
genial nature and habits that might almost be called

no bosses trom an ©ID /fcanse.

jovial ; he kept the young man to dinner and made
himself very agreeable by the freedom and liveli-
ness of his conversation, especially when warmed
by a flask or two of Tuscan wine. Giovanni, con-
ceiving that men of science, inhabitants of the same
city, must needs be on familiar terms with one an-
other, took an opportunity to mention the name
of Dr. Rappaccini. But the professor did not
respond with so much cordiality as he had an-
ticipated.

" 111 would it become a teacher of the divine art
of medicine," said Professor Pietro Baglioni, in an-
swer to a question of Giovanni, " to withhold due
and well-considered praise of a physican so emi-
nently skilled as Rappaccini. But, on the other
hand, I should answer it but scantily to my con-
science were I to permit a worthy youth like your-
self, Signor Giovanni, the son of an ancient friend,
to imbibe erroneous ideas respecting a man who
might hereafter chance to hold your life and death
in his hands. The truth is our worshipful Doctor
Rappaccini has as much science as any member of
the faculty — with perhaps one single exception — in
Padua or all Italy, but there are certain grave objec-
tions to his professional character."

" And what are they ? " asked the young man.

" Has my friend Giovanni any disease of body or
heart, that he is so inquisitive about physicians ? "
said the professor, with a smile. " But, as for
Rappaccini, it is said of him — and I, who know the
man well, can answer for its truth — that he cares
infinitely more for science than for mankind. His
patients are interesting to him only as subjects for
some new experiment. He would sacrifice human
life — his own among the rest — or whatever else was

Happaccinfe E>augbter. m

dearest to him, for the sake of adding so much as
a grain of mustard-seed to the great heap of his
accumulated knowledge."

" Methinks he is an awful man indeed," remarked
Guasconti, mentally recalling the cold and purely
intellectual aspect of Rappaccini. " And yet, wor-
shipful professor, is it not a noble spirit ? Are there
many men capable of so spiritual a love of
science ? "

" God forbid ! " answered the professor, somewhat
testily — ** at least, unless they take sounder views
of the healing art than those adopted by Rappaccini.
It is his theory that all medicinal virtues are com-
prised within those substances which we term vege-
table poisons. These he cultivates with his own
hands, and is said even to have produced new" varie-
ties of poison more horribly deleterious than Nature,
without the assistance of this learned person, would
ever have plagued the world with. That the Signor
Doctor does less mischief than might be expected
with such dangerous substances is undeniable.
Now and then, it must be owned, he has effected —
or seemed to effect — a marvelous cure. But, to tell
you my private mind, Signor Giovanni, he should
receive little credit for such instances of success —
they being probably the work of chance — but should
be held strictly accountable for his failures, which
may justly be considered his own work."

The youth might have taken Baglioni's opinions
with many grains of allowance had he known that
there was a professional warfare of long continuance
between him and Doctor Rappaccini, in which the
latter was generally thought to have gained the
advantage. If the reader be inclined to judge for
himself, we refer him to certain black-letter tracts

ii2 losses from an OlD

on both sides preserved in the medical department
of the University of Padua.

" I know not, most learned professor," returned
Giovanni, after musing on what had been said of
Rappaccini's exclusive zeal for science — " I know
not how dearly this physician may love his art, but
surely there is one object more dear to him. He
has a daughter."

" Aha ! " cried the professor, with a laugh. " So
now our friend Giovanni's secret is out ! You have
heard of this daughter, whom all the young men in
Padua are wild about, though not half a dozen have
ever had the good hap to see her face. I know
little of the Signora Beatrice save that Rappaccini is
said to have instructed her deeply in his science,
and tlmt, young and beautiful as fame reports her,
she is already qualified to fill a professor's chair.
Perchance her father destines her for mine. Other
absurd rumors there be, not worth talking about
or listening to. So now, Signer Giovanni, drink off
your glass of Lacryma."

Guasconti returned to his lodgings somewhat
heated with the wine he had quaffed, and which
caused his brain to swim with strange fantasies in
reference to Doctor Rappaccini and the beautiful
Beatrice. On his way, happening to pass by a
florist's, he bought a fresh bouquet of flowers.

Ascending to his chamber, he seated himself near
the window, but within the shadow thrown by the
depth of the wall, so that he could look down into
the garden with little risk of being discovered. All
beneath his eye was a solitude. The strange plants
were basking in the sunshine, and now and then
nodding gently to one another, as if in acknowledg-
ment of sympathy and kindred. In the midst, by

•Rappacctm'e Baugbter. 113

the shattered fountain, grew the magnificent shrub,
with its purple gems clustering all over it ; they
glowed in the air and gleamed back again out of the
depths of the pool, which thus seemed to overflow
with colored radiance from the rich reflection that
was steeped in it At first, as we have said, the
garden was a solitude. Soon, however, as Giovanni
had half hoped, half feared, would be the case, a
figure appeared beneath the antique sculptured po*ca!
and came down between the rows of plants, inhaling
their various perfumes as if she were one of those
beings of old classic fable that lived upon sweet
odors. On again beholding Beatrice the young man
was even startled to perceive how much her beauty
exceeded his recollection of it — so brilliant, so vivid
in its character, that she glowed amid the sunlight,
and, as Giovanni whispered to himself, positively
illuminated the more shadowy intervals of the garden
path. Her face being now more revealed than on
the former occasion, he was struck by its expression
of simplicity and sweetness — qualities that had not
entered into his idea of her character, and which
made him ask anew what manner of mortal she might
be. Nor did he fail again to observe or imagine an
analogy between the beautiful girl and the gorgeous
shrub that hung its gemlike flowers over the fountain
— a resemblance which Beatrice seemed to have in-
dulged a fantastic humor in heightening both by the
arrangement of her dress and the selection of its
hues.

Approaching the shrub, she threw open her arms
as with a passionate ardor, and drew its branches
into an intimate embrace — so intimate that her feat-
ures were hidden in its leafy bosom and her glisten-
ing ringlets all intermingled with the flowers.

ii4 /Bosses from an ©ID flfcanse.

"Give me thy breath, my sister," exclaimed Bea-
trice, " for I am faint with common air. And give
me this fiower of thine, which I separate with gentlest
fingers from the stem and place it close beside my
heart."

With these words the beautiful daughter of Rap-
paccini plucked one of the richest blossoms of the
shrub, and was about to fasten it in her bosom.
But now, unless Giovanni's draughts of wine had
bewildered his senses, a singular incident occurred.
A small orange-colored reptile of the lizard or chame-
leon species chanced to be creeping along the path
just at the feet of Beatrice. It appeared to Giovanni,
but at the distance from which he gazed he could
scarcely have seen anything so minute — it appeared
to him, however, that a drop ortwo of moisture from
the broken stem of the flower descended upon the
lizard's head. For an instant the reptile contorted
itself violently, and then lay motionless in the sun-
shine. Beatrice observed this remarkable pheno-
menon and crossed herself sadly, but without sur-
prise ; nor did she therefore hesitate to arrange the
fatal flower in her bosom. There it blushed, and
almost gl' nmered with the dazzling effect of a pre-
cious stone, adding to her dress and aspect the one
appropriate charm which nothing else in the world
could have supplied. But Giovanni, out of the
shadow of his window, bent forward and shrank back,
and murmured and trembled.

" Am I awake ? Have I my senses ? " said he to
himself. "What is this being? Beautiful shall I
call her, or inexpressibly terrible ? "

Beatrice now strayed carelessly through the gar-
den, approaching closer beneath Giovanni's window;
so that he was compelled to thrust his head quite

•Rappaccim's 2>au0bter. u5

out of its concealment in order to gratify the intense
and painful curiosity which she excited. At this
moment there came a beautiful insect over the gar-
den wall ; it had perhaps wandered through the city
and found no flowers nor verdure among those
antique haunts of men until the heavy perfumes of
Doctor Rappaccini's shrubs had lured it from afar.
Without alighting on the flowers this winged bright-
ness seemed to be attracted by Beatrice, and lingered
in the air and fluttered about her head. Now, here
it could not be but that Giovanni Guasconti's eyes
deceived him. Be that as it might, he fancied that
while Beatrice was gazing at the insect with childish
delight it grew faint and fell at her feet. Its bright
wings shivered ; it was dead — from no cause that
he could discern, unless it were the atmosphere of
her breath. Again Beatrice crossed herself and
sighed heavily as she bent over the dead insect.

An impulsive movement of Giovanni drew her
eyes to the window. There she beheld the beautiful
head of the young man — rather a Grecian than an
Italian head, with fair, regular features and a glisten-
ing of gold among his ringlets — gazing down upon
her like a being that hovered in mid-air. Scarcely
knowing what he did, Giovanni threw down the bou-
cuet which he had hitherto held in his hand.

" Signora," said he, "there are pure and healthful
flowers : wear them for the sake of Giovanni Guas-
conti."

" Thanks, signer ! " replied Beatrice, with her
rich voice that came forth as it were like a gush of
music, and with a mirthful expression half childish
and half woman-like. " I accept your gift, and
would fain recompense it with this precious purple
flower ; but if I toss it into the air, it will not reach

n6 /Bosses ttom an ©10 /fcanse.

you. So Signor Guasconti must even content him-
self with my thanks."

She lifted the bouquet from the ground, and then,
as if inwardly ashamed at having stepped aside from
her maidenly reserve to respond to a stranger's greet-
ing, passed swiftly homeward through the ga.den.
But, few as the moments were, it seemed to Gio-
vanni, when she was on the point of vanishing
beneath the sculptured portal, that his beautiful
bouquet was already beginning to wither in her
grasp. It was an idle thought : there could be no
possibility of distinguishing a faded flower from a
fresh one at so great a distance.

For many days after this incident the young man
avoided the window that looked into Doctor Rappac-
cini's garden as if something ugly and monstrous
would have blasted his eyesight had he been be-
trayed into a glance. He felt conscious of having
put himself, to a certain extent, within the influence
of an unintelligible power by the communication
which he had opened with Beatrice. The wisest
course would have been, if his heart were in any
real danger, to quit his lodgings, and Padua itself,
at once ; the next wiser, to have accustomed him-
self as far as possible to the familiar and daylight
view of Beatrice, thus bringing her rigidly and sys-
tematically within the limits of ordinary experience.
Least of all, while avoiding her sight, should Gio-
vanni have remained so near this extraordinary
being that the proximity, and possibility even of
intercourse, should give a kind of substance and
reality to the wild vagaries which his imagination
ran riot continually in producing. Guasconti had
not a deep heart — or, at all events, its depths were
not sounded now — but he had a quick fancy and an

•Rappacdni'g Dauflbtcr. n;

ardent southern temperament which rose every instant
to a higher fever-pitch. Whether or no Beatrice
possessed those terrible attributes — that fatal breath,
the affinity with those so beautiful and deadly flowers
— which were indicated by what Giovanni had wit-
nessed, she had at least instilled a fierce and subtle
poison into his system. It was not love, although
her rich beauty was a madness to him, nor horror,
even while he fancied her spirit to be imbued with
the same baneful essence that seemed to pervade
her physical frame, but a wild offspring of both love
and horror that had each parent in it and burned
like one and shivered like the other. Giovanni
knew not what to dread ; still less did he know what
to hope ; yet hope and dread kept a continual war-
fare in his breast, alternately vanquishing one
another and starting up afresh to renew the contest.
Blessed are all simple emotions, be they dark or
bright ! It is the lurid intermixture of the two that
produces the illuminating blaze of the infernal
regions.

Sometimes he endeavored to assuage the fever
of his spirit by a rapid walk through the streets of
Padua or beyond its gates ; his footsteps kept time
with the throbbings of his brain, so that the walk
was apt to accelerate itself to a race. One day he
found himself arrested ; his arm was seized by a
portly personage who had turned back on recogniz-
ing the young man and expended much breath in
overtaking him.

" Signer Giovanni ! Stay, my young friend ! "
cried he. " Have you forgotten me ? That might
well be the case if I were as much altered as your-
self."

It was Baglioni, whom Giovanni had avoided ever

n8 /Bosses from an ©lo flfcanse.

since their first meeting from a doubt that the pro-
fessor's sagacity would look too deeply into his
secrets. Endeavoring to recover himself, he stared
forth wildly from his inner world into the outer one,
and spoke like a man in a dream :

" Yes ; I am Giovanni Guasconti. You are Pro
fessor Pietro Baglioni. Now let me pass."

" Not yet — not yet, Signor Giovanni Guasconti/
said the professor, smiling, but at the same time
scrutinizing the youth with an earnest glance.
" What ! Did I grow up side by side with your
father, and shall his son pass me like a stranger
in these old streets of Padua ? Stand still, Signor
Giovanni, for we must have a word or two before
we part."

" Speedily, then, most worshipful professor —
speedily!" said Giovanni, with feverish impa-
tience. " Does not Your Worship see that I am in
haste?"

Now, while he was speaking, there came a man
in black along the street, stooping and moving
feebly like a person in inferior health. His face
was all overspread with a most sickly and sallow
hue, but yet so pervaded with an expression of
piercing and active intellect that an observer might
easily have overlooked the merely physical attri-
butes, and have seen only this wonderful energy.
As he passed this person exchanged a cold and
distant salutation with Baglioni, but fixed his eyes
upon Giovanni with an intentness that seemed to
bring out whatever was within him worthy of notice.
Nevertheless, there was a peculiar quietness in the
look, as if taking merely a speculative, not a human
interest in the young man.

" It is Doctor Rappaccmi," whispered the pro-

•Rappacctni's Daughter. 119

fessor, when the stranger had passed. " Has he
ever seen your face before ? "

" Not that I know," answered Giovanni, starting
at the name.

" He has seen you ! he must have seen you ! "
said Baglioni, hastily. " For some purpose or other,
this man of science is making a study of you. I
know that look of his : it is the same that coldly
illuminates his face as he bends over a bird, a mouse
or a butterfly which in pursuance of some experi-
ment he has killed by the perfume of a flower — a
look as deep as Nature itself, but without Nature's
warmth of love. Signer Giovanni, I will stake my
life upon it you are the subject of one of Rappac-
cini's experiments."

" Will you make a fool of me ? " cried Giovanni,
passionately. " That, Signor Professor, were an un-
toward experiment."

" Patience, patience ! " replied the imperturbable
professor. "I tell thee, my poor Giovanni, that
Rappaccini has a scientific interest in thee. Thou
hast fallen into fearful hands. And the Signora
Beatrice — what part does she act in this mystery ? "

But Guasconti, finding Baglioni's pertinacity in-
tolerable, here broke away, and was gone before the
professor could again seize his arm. He looked
after the young man intently, and shook his head.

" This must not be," said Baglioni to himself.
" The youth is the son of my old friend, and shall
not come to any harm from which the arcana of
medical science can preserve him. Besides, it is
too insufferable an impertinence in Rappaccini thus
to snatch the lad out of my own hands, as I may
say, and make use of him for his infernal experi-
ments. This daughter of his ! It shall be looked

i2o flfcossea from an OlD flfcanse.

to. — Perchance, most learned Rappaccini, I may
foil you where you little dream of it ! "

Meanwhile, Giovanni had pursued a circuitous
route, and at length found himself at the door of his
lodgings. As he crossed the threshold he was met
by old Lisabetta, who smirked and smiled and was
evidently desirous to attract his attention — vainly,
however, as the ebullition of his feelings had mo
mentarily subsided into a cold and dull vacuity.
He turned his eyes full upon the withered face that
was puckering itself into a smile, but seeme! to be-
hold it not. The old dame, therefore, laid her grasp
upon his cloak.

" Signor, signer ! " whispered she, still with a
smile over the whole breadth of her visage, so that
it looked not unlike a grotesque carving in wood,
darkened by centuries. " Listen, signer ! There is
a private entrance into the garden."

" What do you say ? " exclaimed Giovanni, turn-
ing quickly about, as if an inanimate thing should
start into feverish life. " A private entrance into
Doctor Rappaccini's garden ? "

" Hush, hush ! Not so loud ! " whispered Lisa-
betta, putting her hand over his mouth. " Yes, into
the worshipful doctor's garden, where you may see
all his fine shrubbery. Many a young man in
Padua would give gold to be admitted among those
flowers."

Giovanni put a piece of gold into her hand.

" Show me the way," said he.

A surmise, probably excited by his conversation
with Baglioni, crossed his mind that this interposi-
tion of old Lisabetta might perchance be connected
with the intrigue, whatever were its nature, in which
die professor seemed to suppose that Doctor Rap-

•Rappaccini's Dauabter. 121

paccini was involving him. But such a suspicion,
though it disturbed Giovanni, was inadequate to
restrain him. The instant he was aware of the pos-
sibility of approaching Beatrice, it seemed an abso-
lute necessity of his existence to do so. It mattered
not whether she were angel or demon : he was irre-
vocably within her sphere, and must obey the law
chat whirled him onward in ever lessening circles
toward a result which he did not attempt to fore-
shadow. And yet, strange to say, there came across
him a sudden doubt whether this intense interest on
his part were not delusory, whether it were really of
so deep and positive a nature as to justify him in
now thrusting himself into an incalculable position,
whether it were not merely the fantasy of a young
man's brain only slightly or not at all connected
with his heart.

He paused, hesitated, turned half about, but again
went on. His withered guide led him along several
obscure passages, and finally undid a door through
which, as it was opened, there came the sight and
sound of rustling leaves with the broken sunshine
glimmering among them. Giovanni stepped forth,
and, forcing himself through the entanglement of a
shrub that wreathed its tendrils over the hidden
entrance, he stood beneath his own window, in the
open area of Doctor Rappaccini's garden.

How often is it the case that when impossibilities
have come to pass, and dreams have condensed their
misty substance into tangible realities, we find our-
selves calm, and even coldly self-possessed, amid
circumstances which it would have been a delirium
of joy or agony to anticipate ! Fate delights to
thwart us thus. Passion will choose his own time
to rush upon the scene, and lingers sluggishly be-

122 fl&osaes from an OlD /fcanse.

hind when an appropriate adjustment of events
would seem to summon his appearance. So was it
now with Giovanni. Day after day his pulses had
throbbed with feverish blood at the improbable idea
of an interview with Beatrice, and of standing with
'her face to face in this very garden, basking in
•the Oriental sunshine of her beauty and snatching
from her full gaze the mystery which he deemed the
riddle of his own existence. But now there was a
singular and untimely equanimity within his breast.
He threw a glance around the garden to discover if
Beatrice or her father were present, and, perceiving
that he was alone, began a critical observation of
the plants.

The aspect of one and all of them dissatisfied
him : their gorgeousness seemed fierce, passionate,
and even unnatural. There was hardly an individual
shrub which a wanderer straying by himself through
a forest would not have been startled to find grow-
ing wild, as if an unearthly face had glared at him
out of the thicket. Several, also, would have shocked
a delicate instinct by an appearance of artificialness,
indicating that there had been such commixture,
and, as it were, adultery, of various vegetable species
that the production was no longer of God's making,
but the monstrous offspring of man's depraved fancy,
glowing with only an evil mockery of beauty. They
were probably the result of experiment, which in
one or two cases had succeeded in mingling plants
individually lovely into a compound possessing the
questionable and ominous character that distin-
guished the whole growth of the garden. In fine,
Giovanni recognized but two or three plants in the
collection, and those of a kind that he well knew to
be poisonous. While busy with these contemplations

•Rappaccim's 2>au0bter. 123

he heard the rustling of a silken garment, and, turn-
ing, beheld Beatrice emerging from beneath the
sculptured portal.

Giovanni had not considered with himself what
should be his deportment — whether he should apolo-
gize for his intrusion into the garden or assume that
he was there with the privity at least, if not by the
desire, of Doctor Rappaccini or his daughter. But
Beatrice's manner placed him at his ease, though
leaving him still in doubt by what agency he had
gained admittance. She came lightly along the
path, and met him near the broken fountain. There
was surprise in her face, but brightened by a simple
and kind expression of pleasure.

" You are a connoisseur in flowers, signor," said
Beatrice, with a smile, alluding to the bouquet which
he had flung her from the window ; " it is no marvel,
therefore, if the sight of my father's rare collection
has tempted you to take a nearer view. If he were
here, he could tell you many strange and interesting
facts as to the nature and habits of these shrubs, for
he has spent a lifetime in such studies, and this
garden is his world."

" And yourself, lady ? " observed Giovanni. " If
fame says true, you likewise are deeply skilled in the
virtues indicated by these rich blossoms and these
spicy perfumes. Would you deign to be my in-
structress, I should prove an apter scholar than under
Signor Rappaccini himself."

"Are there such idle rumors ?" asked Beatrice,
with the music of a pleasant laugh. " Do people
say that I am skilled in my father's science of plants ?
What a jest is there ! No ; though I have grown
up among these flowers, I know no more of them
than their hues and perfume, and sometimes methinks

124 /fcosacs trom an ©tt> /Ranee.

I would fain rid myself of even that small knowledge.
There are many flowers here — and those not the
least brillia.it — that shock and offend me when they
meet my eye. But pray, signer, do not believe
these stories about my science ; believe nothing of
me save what you see with your own eyes."

<: And must I believe all that I have seen with my
own eyes ? " asked Giovanni, pointedly, while the
recollection of former scenes made him shrink.
" No, signora ; you demand too little of me. Bid
me believe nothing save what comes from your own
lips."

It would appear that Beatrice understood him.
There came a deep flush to her cheek, but she looked
full into Giovanni's eyes and responded to his gaze
of uneasy suspicion with a queenlike haughtiness.

" I do so bid you, signer," she replied. " Forget
whatever you may have fancied in regard to me ; if
true to the outward senses, still it may be false in its
essence. But the words of Beatrice Rappaccini's
lips are true from the heart outward ; those you may
believe."

A fervor glowed in her whole aspect and beamed
upon Giovanni's consciousness like the light of truth
itself. But while she spoke there was a fragrance
in the atmosphere around her, rich and delightful,
though evanescent, yet which the young man, from
an indefinable reluctance, scarcely dared to draw
into his lungs. It might be the odor of the flowers.
Could it be Beatrice's breath which thus embalmed
her words with a strange richness, as if by steeping
them in her heart ? A faintness passed like a shadow
over Giovanni, and flitted away ; he seemed to gaze
through the beautiful girl's eyes into her transparent
soul, and felt no more doubt or fear.

•Rappaccmrs Daugbtcr. 125

The tinge of passion that had colored Beatrice's
manner vanished; she became gay and appeared
to derive a pure delight from her communion with
the youth, not unlike what the maiden of a lonely
island might have felt conversing with a voyager
from the civilized world. Evidently her experience
of life had been confined within the limits of that
garden. She talked now about matters as simple
as the daylight or summer clouds, and now asked
questions in reference to the city or Giovanni's dis-
tant home, his friends, his mother and his sisters —
questions indicating such seclusion and such lack
of familiarity with modes and forms that Giovanni
responded as if to an infant. Her spirit gushed out
before him like a fresh rill that was just catching its
first glimpse of the sunlight and wondering at the
reflections of earth and sky which were flung into
its bosom. There came thoughts, too, from a deep
source, and fantasies of a gemlike brilliancy, as if
diamonds and rubies sparkled upward among the
bubbles of the fountain. Ever and anon there
gleamed* across the young man's mind a sense of
wonder that he should be walking side by side with
the being who had so wrought upon his imagination,
whom he had idealized in such hues of terror, in
whom he had positively witnessed such manifesta-
tions of dreadful attributes — that he should be con-
versing with Beatrice like a brother, and should find
her so human and so maiden-like. But such reflec-
tions were only momentary ; the effect of her char-
acter was too real not to make itself familiar at once.

In this free intercourse they had strayed through

the garden, and now, after many turns among its

avenues, were come to the shattered fountain beside

which grew the magnificent shrub with its treasury

9

126 flfcosses from an Ctt /Ranse.

of glowing blossoms. A fragrance was diffused
from it which Giovanni recognized as identical with
that which he had attributed to Beatrice's breath,
but incomparably more powerful. As her eyes fell
upon it Giovanni beheld her press her hand to hei
bosom, as if her heart were throbbing suddenly and
painfully.

" For the first time in my life," murmured she,
addressing the shrub, " I had forgotten thee."

" I remember, signora," said Giovanni, " that you
once promised to reward me with one of these liv-
ing gems for the bouquet which I had the happy
boldness to fling to your feet. Permit me now to
pluck it as a memorial of this interview."

He made a step toward the shrub with extended
hand. But Beatrice darted forward, uttering a
shriek that went through his heart like a dagger.
She caught his hand and drew it back with the
whole force of her slender figure. Giovanni felt her
touch thrilling through his fibers.

" Touch it not," exclaimed she, in a voice of agony
— " not for thy life ! It is fatal ! "

Then, hiding her face, she fled from him and
vanished beneath the sculptured portal. As Gio-
vanni followed her with his eyes he beheld the
emaciated figure and pale intelligence of Doctor
Rappaccini, who had been watching the scene, he
knew not how long, within the shadow of the en-
trance.

No sooner was Guasconti alone in his chamber
than the image of Beatrice came back to his pas-
sionate musings invested with all the \vitchery that
had been gathering around it ever since his first
glimpse of her, and now likewise imbued with a
tender warmth of girlish womanhood. She was

IRappaccmi's 2>au0bter. 127

human ; her nature was endowed with all gentle and
feminine qualities; she was worthiest to be wor-
shiped ; she was capable, surely, on her part, of
the height and heroism of love. Those tokens-
which he had hitherto considered as proofs of a
frightful peculiarity in her physical and moral system
were now either forgotten or by the subtle sophistry
of passion transmuted into a golden crown of
enchantment, rendering Beatrice the more admirable
by so much as she was the more unique. Whatever
had looked ugly was now beautiful ; or if incapable
of such a change, it stole away and hid itself among
those shapeless half-ideas which throng the dim
region beyond the daylight of our perfect conscious-
ness.

Thus did Giovanni spend the night, nor fell
asleep until the dawn had begun to awake the slum-
bering flowers in Doctor Rappaccini's garden,
whither his dreams doubtless led him. Up rose the
sun in his due season, and, flinging his beams upon
the young man's eyelids, awoke him to a sense of
pain. When thoroughly aroused, he became sensi-
ble of a burning and tingling agony in his hand, in-
his right hand — the very hand which Beatrice had
grasped in her own when he was on the point of pluck-
ing one of the gemlike flowers. On the back of that
hand there was now a purple print like that of four
small fingers, and the likeness of a slender thumb
upon his wrist. Oh how stubbornly does love, or even
that cunning semblance of love which flourishes in
the imagination, but strikes no depth of root into the
heart — how stubbornly does it hold its faith until
the moment comes when it is doomed to vanish into
thin mist ! Giovanni wrapped a handkerchief about
his hand and wondered what evil thing had stung

i28 /bosses from an Olfr rtbanse.

him, and soon forgot his pain in a reverie of Bea
trice.

After the first interview, a second was in the
inevitable course of what we call fate. A third, a
fourth, and a meeting with Beatrice in the garden
WAS no longer an incident in Giovanni's daily life,
!>ut the whole space in which he might be said to
live, for the anticipation and memory of that ecstatic
hour made up the remainder. Nor was it otherwise
with the daughter of Rappaccini. She watched for
the youth's appearance, and flew to his side with
confidence as unreserved is if they had been play-
mates from early infancy — as if they were such play-
mates still. If by any unwonted chance he failed to
come at the appointed moment, she stood bjneath
the window and sent up the rich sweetness of her
tones to float around him in his chamber and echo
and reverberate throughout his heart, " Giovanni,
Giovanni ! Why tarriest thou ? Come down ! ?I
and down he hastened into that Eden of poisonous
flowers.

But with all this intimate familiarity there was
still a reserve in Beatrice's demeanor so rigidly and
invariably sustained that the idea of infringing it
scarcely occurred to his imagination. By all ap-
preciable signs they loved — they had looked love
with eyes that conveyed the holy secret from the
depths of one soul into the depths of the other, as if it
were too sacred to be whispered by the way ; they had
even spoken love in those gushes of passion when
their spirits darted forth in articulated breath like
tongues of long-hidden flame — and yet there had been
no seal of lips, no clasp of hands, nor any slightest
caress such as love claims and hallows. He had
never touched one of the gleaming ringlets of her

•Rappaccinfs 5>aiiQbter. I2g

hair ; her garment — so marked was the physical bar-
rier between them — had never been waved against
him by a breeze. On the few occasions when Gio-
vanni had seemed tempted to overstep the limit, Bea-
trice grew so sad. so stern, and, withal, wore such a
look of desolate separation shuddering at itself, that
not a spoken word was requisite to repel him. At
such times he was startled at the horrible suspicions
that rose monster-like out of the caverns of his heart
and stared him in the face. His love grew thin and
faint as the morning mist ; his doubts alone had
substance. But when Beatrice's face brightened
again after the momentary shadow, she was trans-
formed at once from the mysterious, questionable
being whom he had watched with so much awe and
horror : she was now the beautiful and unsophisti-
cated girl whom he felt that his spirit knew with a
certainty beyond all other knowledge.

A considerable time had now passed since Gio-
vanni's last meeting with Baglioni. One morning,
however, he was disagreeably surprised by a visit
from the professor, whom he had scarcely thought
of for whole weeks, and would willingly have forgot-
ten still longer. Given up, as he had long been, to
a pervading excitement, he could tolerate no com-
panions except upon condition of their perfect
sympathy with his present state of feeling; such
sympathy was not to be expected from Professor
Baglioni.

The visitor chatted carelessly for a few moments
about the gossip of the city and the university, and
then took up another topic.

" I have been reading an old classic author lately,"
said he, " and met with a story that strangely in-
terested me. Possibly you may remember it. It is

130 dfcossee from an Olfr flfcanse.

of an Indian prince who sent a beautiful woman as
a present to Alexander the Great. She was as
lovely as the dawn and gorgeous as the sunset,
but what especially distinguished her was a certain
rich perfume in her breath richer than a garden
of Persian roses. Alexander, as was natural to a
youthful conqueror, fell in love at first sight with
this magnificent stranger. But a certain sage phy-
sician, happening to be present, discovered a terrible
secret in regard to her."

" And what was that ? " asked Giovanni, turning
his eyes downward to avoid those of the pro-
fessor.

" That this lovely woman," continued Baglioni,
with emphasis, " had been nourished with poisons
from her birth upward, until her whole nature was
so imbued with them that she herself had become
the deadliest poison in existence. Poison was her
element of life. With that rich perfume of her
breath she blasted the very air. Her love would
have been poison — her embrace, death. Is not this
a marvelous tale ? "

"A childish fable," answered Giovanni, nervously
starting from his chair. " I marvel how Your Wor-
ship finds time to read such nonsense among your
graver studies."

" By the by," said the professor, looking uneasily
about him, " what singular fragrance is this in your
apartment? Is it the perfume of your gloves? It
is faint, but delicious, and yet, after all, by no means
agreeable. Were I to breathe it long, methinks it
would make me ill. It is like the breath of a flower,
but I see no flowers in the chamber."

" Nor are there any," replied Giovanni, who had
turned pale as the professor spoke ; " nor, I think,

•Kappaccini'3 Daughter. 131

is there any fragrance except in Your "Worship's
imagination. Odors, being a sort of element com-
bined of the sensual and the spiritual, are apt to
deceive us in this manner. The recollection of a
perfume — the bare idea of it — may easily be mis-
taken for a present reality."

" Ay, but my sober imagination does not often
play such tricks," said Baglioni ; " and were I to
fancy any kind of odor, it would be that of some vile
apothecary-drug wherewith my ringers are likely
enough to be imbued. Our worshipful friend Rap-
paccini, as I have heard, tinctures his medicaments
with odors richer than those of Araby. Doubtless,
likewise, the fair and learned Signora Beatrice would
minister to her patients with draughts as sweet as
a maiden's breath, but woe to 1 ^.m that sips them ! "

Giovanni's face evinced many contending emotions.
The tone in which the professor alluded to the pure
and lovely daughter of Rappaccini was a torture to
his soul, and yet the intimation of a view of her
character opposite to his own gave instantaneous
distinctness to a thousand dim suspicions which now
grinned at him like so many demons. But he strove
hard to quell them, and to respond to Baglioni with
a true lover's perfect faith.

" Signer Professor," said he, " you were my
father's friend ; perchance, too, it is your purpose to
act a friendly part toward his son. I would fain feel
nothing toward you save respect and deference, but
I pray you to observe, signer, that there is one sub-
ject on which we must not speak. You know not
the Signora Beatrice ; you cannot, therefore, esti-
mate the wrong — the blasphemy, I may even say —
that is offered to her character by a light or injurious
word."

I32

/Bosses trom an Old

" Giovanni ! my poor Giovanni ! *' answered the
professor, with a calm expression of pity. " I know
this wretched girl far better than yourself. You
shall hear the truth in respect to the poisoner Rap-
paccini and his poisonous daughter — yes, poisonous
as she is beautiful. Listen, for even should you do
violence to my gray hairs it shall not silence me.
That old fable of the Indian woman has become a
truth by the deep and deadly science of Rappaccini
and in the person of the lovely Beatrice."

Giovanni groaned and hid his face.

" Her father," continued Baglioni, " was not
restrained by natural affection from offering up
his child in this horrible manner as the victim of his
insane zeal for science. For — let us do him justice
— he is as true a man of science as ever distilled his
own heart in an alembic. What, then, will be your
fate ? Beyond a doubt, you are selected as the
material of some new experiment. Perhaps the re-
sult is to be death — perhaps a fate more awful still.
Rappaccini, with what he calls the interest of science
before his eyes, will hesitate at nothing."

" It is a dream ! " muttered Giovanni to himself.
" Surely it is a dream ! "

" But," resumed the professor, " be of good cheer,
son of my friend ! It is not yet too late for the
rescue. Possibly we may even succeed in bringing
back this miserable child within the limits of
ordinary nature from which her father's madness
has estranged her. Behold this little silver vase ; it
was wrought by the hands of the renowned Benvenuto
Cellini, and is well worthy to be a love-gift to the
fairest dame in Italy. But its contents are invaluable.
One little sip of this antidote would have rendered
the most virulent poisons of the Borgias innocuous ;

•Rappaccfnf'0 H>au0bter. I33

doubt not that it will be as efficacious against those
of Rappaccini. Bestow the vase and the precious
liquid within it on your Beatrice, and hopefully await
the result."

Baglioni laid a small exquisitely-wrought silver
phial on the table and withdrew, leaving what he had
said to produce its effect upon the young man's mind.

"We will thwart Rappaccini yet," thought he,
chuckling to himself, as he descended the stairs.
" But let us confess the truth of him : he is a
wonderful man — a wonderful man indeed — a vile
empiric, however, in his practice, and therefore not
to be tolerated by those who respect the good old
rules of the medical profession."

Throughout Giovanni's whole acquaintance with
Beatrice he had occasionally, as we have said, been
haunted by dark surmises as to her character ; yet
so thoroughly had she made herself felt by him as a
simple, natural, most affectionate and guileless
creature that the image now held up by Professor
Baglioni looked as strange and incredible as if it
were not in accordance with his own original concep-
tion. True, there were ugly recollections connected
with his first glimpses of the beautiful girl : he could
not quite forget the bouquet that withered in her
grasp, and the insect that perished amid the sunny
air by no ostensible agency save the fragrance of
her breath. These incidents, however, dissolving
in the pure light of her character, had no longer the
efficacy of facts, but were acknowledged as mistaken
fantasies, by whatever testimony of the senses they
might appear to be substantiated. There is some-
thing truer and more real than what we can see with
the eyes and touch with the finger. On such better
evidence had Giovanni founded his confidence in

134 bosses from an CIS

Beatrice, though rather by the necessary force of hex
high attributes than by any deep and generous faith
on his part. But now his spirit was incapable of
sustaining itself at the height to which the early
enthusiasm of passion had exalted it; he fell down
groveling among earthly doubts, and defiled there-
with the pure whiteness of Beatrice's image. Not
that he gave her up : he did but distrust. He
resolved to institute some decisive test that should
satisfy him once for all whether there were those
dreadful peculiarities in her physical nature which
could not be supposed to exist without some corre-
sponding monstrosity of soul. His eyes, gazing
down afar, might have deceived him as to the lizard,
the insect and the flowers; but if he could witness
at the distance of a few paces the sudden blight of
one fresh and healthful flower in Beatrice's hand,
there would be room for no further question. With
this idea he hastened to the florist's, and purchased
a bouquet that was still gerrrmed with the morning
dewdrops.

It was now the customary hour of his daily inter-
view with Beatrice. Before descending into the
garden Giovanni failed not to look at his figure in the
mirror — a vanity to be expected in a beautiful young
man, yet, as displaying itself at that troubled and
feverish moment, the token of a certain shallowness
of feeling and insincerity of character. He did gaze,
however, and said to himself that his features had
never before possessed so rich a grace, nor his eyes
such vivacity, nor his cheeks so warm i hue of
superabundant life.

" At least," thought he. " her poison has not yet
insinuated itself into m> system. I am no riower.
to perish in her grasp."

•Rappaccmfs S>augbter. 135

With that thought he turned his eyes on the
bouquet, which he had never once laid aside from his
hand. A thrill of indefinable horror shot through
his frame on perceiving that those dewy flowers
were already beginning to droop ; they wore the
aspect of things that had been fresh and lovely
yesterday. Giovanni grew white as marble and
stood motionless before the mirror, staring at his
own reflection there as at the likeness of something
frightful. He remembered Baglioni's remark about
the fragrance that seemed to pervade the chamber :
it must have been the poison in his breath. Then
he shuddered — shuddered at himself. Recovering
from his stupor, he began to watch with curious eye
a spider that was busily at work hanging its webs
from the antique cornice of the apartment, crossing
and recrossing the artful system of interwoven lines,
as vigorous and active a spider as ever dangled from
an old ceiling. Giovanni bent toward the insect and
emitted a deep, long breath. The spider suddenly
ceased its toil ; the web vibrated with a tremor
originating in the body of the small artisan. Again
Giovanni sent forth a breath, deeper, longer and
imbued with a venomous feeling out of his heart ;
he knew not whether he were wicked or only des-
perate. The spider made a convulsive grip with
his limbs, and hung dead across the window.

" Accursed ! accursed ! " muttered Giovanni, ad-
dressing himself. " Hast thou grown so poisonous-
that this deadly insect perishes by thy breath ? "

At that moment a rich, sweet voice came floating
up from the garden :

" Giovanni, Giovanni ! It is past the hour. Why
tarriest thou ? Come down ! "

" Yes," muttered Giovanni, again ; " she is the

136 flfccsscs trom an OlD /fcansc.

only being whom my breath may not slay. Would
that it might ! "

He rushed down, and in an instant was standing
before the bright and loving eyes of Beatrice. A
moment ago his wrath and despair had been so
fierce that he could have desired nothing so much
as to wither her by a glance, but with her actual pres-
ence there came influences which had too real an
existence to be at once shaken off — recollections of
the delicate and benign power of her feminine nature,
which had so often enveloped him in a religious
calm ; recollections of many a holy and passionate
outgush oMter heart, when the pure fountain had
been unsealed from its depths and made visible in
its transparency to his mental eye ; recollections
which, had Giovanni known how to estimate them,
would have assured him that all this ugly mystery
was but an earthly illusion, and that, whatever mist
of evil might seem to have gathered over her, the
real Beatrice was a heavenly angel. Incapable as
he was of such high faith, still her presence had not
utterly lost its magic. Giovanni's rage was quelled
into an aspect of sullen insensibility. Beatrice,
with a quick spiritual sense, immediately felt that there
was a gulf of blackness between them which neither
he nor she could pass. They walked on together,
sad and silent, and came thus to the marble fount-
ain, and to its pool of water on the ground, in the
midst of which grew the shrub that bore gemlike
blossoms. Giovanni was affrighted at the eager
enjoyment — the appetite, as it were — with which
he found himself inhaling the fragrance of the
flowers.

" Beatrice." asked he, abruptly, 44 whence came
this shrub ? "

•Kappaccini'0 Dau^btcr. 137

" My father created it," answered she, with
simplicity.

•' * Created it ! created it ' ! " repeated Giovanni.
" What mean you, Beatrice ? "

" He is a man fearfully acquainted with the secrets
«f nature," replied Beatrice, " and at the hour when
I first drew breath this plant sprang from the soil,
the offspring of his science, of his intellect, while I
was but his earthly child. Approach it not," con-
tinued she, observing with terror that Giovanni was
drawing nearer to the shrub ; " it has qualities that
you little dream of. But I, dearest Giovanni — I grew
up and blossomed with the plant and was nourished
with its breath. It was my sister, and I loved it
with a human affection ; for — alas ! hast thou not
suspected it ? — there was an awful doom."

Here Giovanni frowned so darkly upon her that
Beatrice paused and trembled. But her faith in hi*
tenderness reassured her and made her blush that
she had doubted for an instant.

" There was an awful doom," she continued —
a the effect of my father's fatal love of science — •
which estranged me from all society of my kind.
Until Heaven sent thee, dearest Giovanni, oh how
lonely was thy poor Beatrice ! "

" Was it a hard doom ? " asked Giovanni, fixing
his eyes upon her.

" Only of late have I known how hard it was," an-
swered she, tenderly. "Oh yes»; but my heart was
torpid, and therefore quiet."

Giovanni's rage broke forth from his sullen gloom
like a lightning-Sash out of a dark cloud.

44 Accursed one ! " cried he, with venomous scorn
and anger. " And, finding thy solitude wearisome,
thou hast severed me likewise from all the warmth

138 /Bosses from an ©IS /Ranee.

of life and enticed me into thy region of unspeak-
able horror ! "

"Giovanni!" exclaimed Beatrice, turning her
large bright eyes upon his face. The force of his
words had not found its way into her mind ; she was
merely thunder-struck.

" Yes, poisonous thing ! " repeated Giovanni, be-
side himself with passion. "Thou hast done it!
Thou hast blasted me ! Thou hast filled my veins
with poison ! Thou hast made me as hateful, as ugly,
as loathsome and deadly a creature, as thyself — a
world's wonder of hideous monstrosity ! Now — if
our breath be, happily, as fatal to ourselves as to all
others — let us join our lips in one kiss of unutter
able hatred, and so die.''

" What has befallen me ? " murmured Beatrice,
with a low moan out of her heart. " Holy Virgin
pity me — a poor heartbroken child ! "

" Thou ? Dost thou pray ? " cried Giovanni, still
with the same fiendish scorn. "Thy very prayers as
they come from thy lips taint the atmosphere with
death. Yes, yes, let us pray ! Let us to church and
dip our fingers in the holy water at the portal : they
that come after us will perish as by a pestilence.
Let us sign crosses in the air : it will be scattering
curses abroad in the likeness of holy symbols."

" Giovanni," said Beatrice, calmly, for her grief
was beyond passion, "why dost thou join thyself
with me thus in thcfce terrible words ? I, it is true,
am the horrible thing thou namest me, but thou —
what hast thou to do save with one other shudder
at my hideous misery to go forth out of the garden
and mingle with thy race, and forget that there ever
crawled on earth such a monster as poor Beatrice ? "

" Dost thou pretend ignorance ? " asked Giovanni,

•Rappaccint's S>au0bter. 139

scowling upon her. " Behold ! This power have I
gained from the pure daughter of Rappaccini ! "

There was a swarm of summer insects flitting
through the air in search of the food promised by
the flower-odors of the fatal garden. They circled
round Giovanni's head, and were evidently attracted
toward him by the same influence which had drawn
them for an instant within the sphere of several of
the shrubs. He sent forth a breath among them,
and smiled bitterly at Beatrice as at least a score of
the insects fell dead upon the ground.

"I see it! I see it ! " shrieked Beatrice. " It is
my father's fatal science ! No, no, Giovanni, it was
not I ! Never, never ! I dreamed only to love thee
and be with thee a little time, and so to let thee
pass away, leaving but thine image in mine heart.
For, Giovanni — believe it — though my body be
nourished with poison, my spirit is God's creature
and craves love as its daily food. But my father !
he has united us in this fearful sympathy. Yes,
spurn me ! tread upon me ! kill me ! Oh, what is
death, after such words as thine ? But it was not
I ; not for a world of bliss would I have done it ! "

Giovanni's passion had exhausted itself in its out-
burst from his lips. There now came across him a
sense — mournful and not without tenderness — of
the intimate and peculiar relationship between
Beatrice and himself. They stood, as it were, in an
utter solitude which would be made none the less
solitary by the densest throng of human life. Ought
not, then, the desert of humanity around them to
press this insulated pair closer together ? If they
should be cruel to one another, who was there to be
kind to them ? Besides, thought Giovanni, might
there not still be a hope of his returning, within the

1 40 ^Bosses from an Qlb flbansc.

limits of ordinary nature, and leading Beatrice — the
redeemed Beatrice — by the hand ? Oh, weak and
selfish and unworthy spirit, that could dream of an
earthly union and earthly happiness as possible
after such deep love had been so bitterly wronged
as was Beatrice's love by Giovanni's blighting words'.
No, no ! there could be no such hope. She must
pass heavily with that broken heart across the
borders ; she must bathe her hurts in some font of
Paradise and forget her grief ii\ the light of immor-
tality, and there be well.

But Giovanni did not know it.

" Dear Beatrice," said he, approaching her, while
she shrank away, as always at his approach, but now
with a different impulse — " dearest Beatrice, our
fate is not yet so desperate. Behold ! There is a
medicine, potent, as a wise physician has assured
me, and almost divine in its efficacy. It is com-
posed of ingredients the most opposite to those by
which thy awful father has brought this calamity
upon thee and me. It is distilled of blessed herbs.
Shall we not quaff it together, and thus be purified
from evil ? "

" Give it me," said Beatrice, extending her hand
to receive the little silver phial which Giovanni took
from his bosom. She added with a peculiar em-
phasis, " I will drink, but do thou await the result."

She put Baglioni's antidote to her lips and at the
same moment the figure of Rappaccini emerged from
the portal and came slowly toward the marble
fountain. As he drew near the pale man of science
seemed to gaze with a triumphant expression at the
beautiful youth and maiden, as might an artist who
should spend his life in achieving a picture or a
group of statuary, and finally be satisfied with his

•Rappacctni's 2>au0bter. 141

success. He paused ; his bent form grew erect with
conscious power : he spread out his hand over them
in the attitude of a father imploring a blessing upon
his children. But those were the same hands that
had thrown poison into the stream of their lives !
Giovanni trembled. Beatrice shuddered very nerv-
ously and pressed her hand upon her heart.

" My daughter," said Rappaccini, " thou art no
longer lonely in the world. Pluck one of those
precious gems from thy sister- shrub, and bid thy
bridegroom wear it in his bosom. It will not harm
him now. My science and the sympathy between
thee and him have so wrought within his system
that he now stands apart from common men, as
thou dost, daughter of my pride and triumph, from
ordinary women. Pass on, then, through the world
most dear to one another and dreadful to all be-
sides."

u My father/' said Beatrice, feebly — and still, as
she spoke, she kept her hand upon her heart —
" wherefore didst thou inflict this miserable doom
upon thy child ? "

" « Miserable ' ! " exclaimed Rappaccini. " What
mean you, foolish girl ? Dost thou deem it misery
to be endowed with marvelous gifts against which
no power nor strength could avail an enemy, misery
to be able to quell the mightiest with a breath,
misery to be as terrible as thou art beautiful ?
Wouldst thou, then, have preferred the condition of
a weak woman, exposed to all evil and capable of
none ? "

" I would fain have been loved, not feared,"
murmured Beatrice, sinking down upon the ground.
" But now it matters not ; I am going, father, where

the evil which thou hast striven to mingle with my
10

142 /fcossee from an ©ID flfcanse.

being will pass away like a dream — like the fragrance
of these poisonous flowers, which will no longer
taint my breath among the flowers of Eden. Fare-
well, Giovanni ! Thy words of hatred are like lead
within my heart, but they too will fall away as I
ascend. Oh, was there not from the first more
poison in thy nature than in mine ? "

To Beatrice — so radically had her earthly part
been wrought upon by Rappaccini's skill — as poison
had been life, so the powerful antidote was death.
And thus the poor victim of man's ingenuity and
of thwarted nature and of the fatality that attends
all such efforts of perverted wisdom perished there
at the feet of her father and Giovanni.

Just at that moment Professor Pietro Baglioni
looked forth from the window and called loudly, in a
tone of triumph mixed with horror, to the thunder-
stricken man of science,

" Rappaccini, Rappaccini 1 And is this the upshot
of your experiment ? "

MRS. BULLFROG.

IT makes me melancholy to see how like fools some
very sensible people act in the matter of choosing
wives. They perplex their judgments by a most
undue attention to little niceties of personal appear-
ance, habits, disposition, and other trifles which
concern nobody but the lady herself. An unhappy
gentleman resolving to wed nothing short of perfec-
tion keeps his heart and hand till both get so old
and withered that no tolerable woman will accept
them. Now, this is the very height of absurdity.
A kind Providence has so skillfully adapted sex to
sex and the mass of individuals to each other that,
with certain obvious exceptions, any male and female
may be moderately happy in the married state. The
true rule is to ascertain that the match is fundamen-
tally a good one, and then to take it for granted that
all minor objections, should there be such, will vanish
if you let them alone. Only put yourself beyond
hazard as to the real basis of matrimonial bliss, and
it is scarcely to be imagined what miracles in the
way of reconciling smaller incongruities connubial
love will effect.

For my own part, I freely confess that in my
bachelorship I was precisely such an over-curious
simpleton as I now advise the reader not to be. My
early habits had gifted me with a feminine sensibility

'43

i44 /R000C6 from an ©U> flfcanse.

and too exquisite refinement. I was the accom-
plished graduate of a dry-goods store where by dint
of ministering to the whims of the fine ladies, and
suiting silken hose to delicate limbs, and handling
satins, ribbons, chintzes, calicoes, tapes, gauze and
cambric needles, I grew up a very ladylike sort of a
gentleman. It is not assuming too much to affirm
that the ladies themselves were hardly so ladylike
as Thomas Bullfrog. So painfully acute was my
sense of female imperfection, and such varied excel-
lence did I require in the woman whom I could love,
that there was an awful risk of my getting no wife
at all, or of being driven to perpetrate matrimony
with my own image in the looking-glass. Besides
the fundamental principle already hinted at, I
demanded the fresh bloom of youth, pearly teeth,
glossy ringlets, and the whole list of lovely items,
with the utmost delicacy of habits and sentiments,
a silken texture of mind, and, above all, a virgin
heart. In a word, if a young angel just from Para-
dise, yet dressed in earthly fashion, had come and
offered me her hand, it is by no means certain that
I should have taken it. There was every chance of
my becoming a most miserable old bachelor, when
by the best luck in the world I made a journey
into another State and was smitten by and smote
again, and wooed, won and married, the present
Mrs. Bullfrog, all in the space of a fortnight. Owing
to these extempore measures, I not only gave my
bride credit for certain perfections which have
not as yet come to light, but also overlooked a
few trifling defects, which, however, glimmered on
my perception long before the close of the honey-
moon. Yet, as there was no mistake about the fun-
damental principle aforesaid, I soon learned, as will

dfcrs. 36ullfro0. 145

be seen, to estimate Mrs. Bullfrog's deficiencies and
superfluities at exactly their proper value.

The same morning that Mrs. Bullfrog and I came
together as a unit we took two seats in the stage-
coach and began our journey toward my place of
business. There being no other passengers, we
were as much alone and as free to give vent to our
raptures as if I had hired a hack for the matrimonial
jaunt. My bride looked charmingly in a green silk
calash and riding-habit of pelisse cloth ; and when-
ever her red lips parted with a smile, each tooth
appeared like an inestimable pearl. Such was mv
passionate warmth that — we had rattled out of the
village, gentle reader, and were lonely as Adam and
Eve in Paradise — I plead guilty to no less free-
dom than a kiss. The gentle eye of Mrs. Bullfrog
scarcely rebuked me for the profanation. Embold-
ened by her indulgence, I threw back the calash
from her polished brow and suffered my fingers,
white and delicate as her own, to stray among those
dark and glossy curls which realized my day-dreams
of rich hair.

" My love," said Mrs. Bullfrog, tenderly, " you
will disarrange my curls."

" Oh, no, my sweet Laura," replied I, still playing
with the glossy ringlet. " Even your fair hand could
not manage a curl more delicately than mine. I pro-
pose myself the pleasure of doing up your hair in
papers every evening at the same time with my
own."

" Mr Bullfrog," repeated she, " you must not dis-
arrange my curte."

This was spoken in a more decided tone than I
had happened to hear until then from my gentlest
of all gentle brides. At the same time she put up

146 dBo60eg trom an ©10 flfcanse.

her hand and took mine prisoner, but merely drew it
iway from the forbidden ringlet, and then imme-
diately released it. Now, I am a fidgety little man and
always love to have something in my fingers ; so that,
being debarred from my wife's curls, I looked about
me for any other plaything. On the front seat of
the coach there was one of those small baskets
inwhich traveling-ladies who are too delicate to
appear at a public table generally carry a supply
of gingerbread, biscuits and cheese, cold ham, and
other light refreshments, merely to sustain nature to
the journey's end. Such airy diet will sometimes
keep them in pretty good flesh for a week together.
Laying hold of this same little basket, I thrust my
hand under the newspaper with which it was care-
fully covered.

"'What's this, my dear?" cried I, for the black
neck of a bottle had popped out of the basket.

" A bottle of Kalydor, Mr. Bullfrog," said my
wife, coolly taking the basket from my hands and
replacing it on the front seat.

There was no possibility of doubting my wife's
word, but I never knew genuine Kalydor such as I
use for my own complexion to smell so much like
cherry-brandy. I was about to express my fears
that the lotion would injure her skin, when an ac-
cident occurred which threatened more than a skin-
deep injury. Our Jehu had carelessly driven over a
heap of gravel and fairly capsized the coach, with
the wheels in the air and our heels where our heads
should have been. What became of my wits I can-
not imagine : they have always had a perverse trick
of deserting me just when they were most needed ;
but so it chanced that in the confusion of our over-
throw I quite forgot that there was a Mrs. Bullfrog'

fl&rs. JBullfrofi. 147

in the world. Like many men's wives, the good
lady served her husband as a stepping-stone. I had
scrambled out of the coach and was instinctively
settling my cravat, when somebody brushed roughly
by me and I heard a smart thwack upon the coach-
man's ear.

" Take that, you villain ! " cried a strange, hoarse
voice. " You have ruined me, you blackguard ! I
shall never be the woman I have been."

And then came a second thwack, aimed at the
driver's other ear, but which missed it and hit him
on the nose, causing a terrible effusion of blood.
Now, who or what fearful apparition was inflicting
this punishment on the poor fellow remained an im-
penetrable mystery to me. The blows were given'
by a person of grisly aspect with a head almost bald
and sunken cheeks, apparently of the feminine gender,
though hardly to be classed in the gentler sex.
There being no teeth to modulate the voice, it had
a mumbled fierceness — not passionate, but stern —
which absolutely made me quiver like calves'-foot
jelly. Who could the phantom be ? The most awful
circumstance of the affair is yet to be told, for this
ogre — or whatever it was — had a riding-habit like
Mrs. Bullfrog's, and also a green silk calash dan-
gling down her back by the strings. In my terror
and turmoil of mind I could imagine nothing less
than that the Old Nick at the moment of our over-
turn had annihilated my wife and jumped into her
petticoats. This idea seemed the more probable
since I could nowhere perceive Mrs. Bullfrog alive,
nor, though I looked very sharp about the coach,
could I detect any traces of that beloved woman's
dead body. There would have been a comfort in
giving her Christian burial.

148 /Bosses from an Qlfc flfcan«e.

"Come, sir ! bestir yourself ! Help this rascal to
set up the coach," said the hobgoblin to me ; then,
with a terrific screech to three countrymen at a dis-
tance, " Here, you fellows ! Ain't you ashamed to
stand off when a poor woman is in distn

The countrymen, instead of fleeing for their lives,
came running at full speed, and laid hold of the
topsy-turvy coach. I also, though a small-sized man,
went to work like a son of Anak. The coachman,
too, with the blood still streaming from his nose,
tugged and toiled most manfully, dreading, doubtless,
that the next blow might break his head. And yet,
bemauled as the poor fellow had been, he seemed
.to glance at me with an eye of pity, as if my case
were more deplorable than his. But I cherished a
hope that all would turn out a dream, and seized the
opportunity, as we raised the coach, to jam two of
my fingers under the wheel, trusting that the pain
would awaken me.

" Why, here we are all to rights again ! " exclaimed
a sweet voice, behind. — " Thank you for your as-
sistance, gentlemen. — My dear Mr. Bullfrog, how
you perspire ! Do let me wipe your face. — Don't
take this little accident too much to heart, good
driver. \Ye ought to be thankful that none of our
necks are broken ! "

" \Ye might have spared one neck out of the
three," muttered the driver, rubbing his ear and
pulling his nose, to ascertain whether he had been
cuffed or not. " Why, the woman's a witch ! "

I fear that the reader will not believe, yet it is
positively a fact, that there stood Mrs. Bullfrog with
her glossy ringlets curling on her brow and two
rows of Orient pearls gleaming between her parted
lips, which wore a most angelic smile. She had

fl&re. £ullfrog. 149

regained her riding-habit and calash from the grisly
phantom, and was in all respects the lovely woman
who had been sitting by my side at the instant of
our overturn. How she had happened to disappear,
and who had supplied her place, and whence she did
now return, were problems too knotty for me to
solve. There stood my wife : that was the one thing
certain among a heap of mysteries. Nothing re-
mained but to help her into the coach and plod on
through the journey of the day and the journey of
life as comfortably as we could. As the driver
closed the door upon us I heard him whisper to the
three countrymen.

" How do you suppose a fellow feels shut up in
the cage with a she-tiger ? "

Of course this query could have no reference to
my situation ; yet, unreasonable as it may appear, I
confess that my feelings were not altogether so
ecstatic as when I first called Mrs. Bullfrog mine.
True, she waj a sweet woman and an angel of a wife;
but what if a gorgon should return amid the trans-
ports of our connubial bliss and take the angel's
place ! I recollected the tale of a fairy who half the
time was a beautiful woman and half the time a
hideous monster. Had I taken that very fairy to
be the wife of my bosom ? While such whims and
chimeras were Hitting across my fancy I began to
look askance at Mrs. Bullfrog, almost expecting that
the transformation would be wrought before my eyes.

To divert my mind I took up the newspaper which
had covered the little basket of refreshments, and
which now lay at the bottom of the coach blushing
with a deep-red stain and emitting a potent spirituous
fume from the contents of the broken bottle of
Kalydor. The paper was two or three years old,

150 /Bosses from an Qto

but contained an article of several columns in which
I soon grew wonderfully interested. It was the
report of a trial for breach of promise of marriage,
giving the testimony in full, with fervid extracts
from both the gentleman's and lady's amatory corre-
spondence. The deserted damsel had personally
appeared in court, and had borne energetic evidence
to her lover's perfidy and the strength of her blighted
affections. On the defendant's part, there had been
an attempt though insufficiently sustained, to blast
the plaintiff's character, and a plea, in mitigation of
damages, on account of her unamiable temper. A
horrible idea was suggested by the lady's name.

" Madam," said I, holding the newspaper before
Mrs. Bullfrog's eyes — and, though a small, delicate
and thin-visaged man, I feel assured that I looked
very terrific — " Madam," repeated I, through my shut
teeth, " were you the plaintiff in this cause ? "

" Oh, my dear Mr. Bullfrog ! " replied my wife,
sweetly ; " I thought all the world knew that/'

" Horror ! horror ! " exclaimed I, sinking back on
the seat.

Covering my face with both hands, I emitted a
deep and deathlike groan, as if my tormented soul
were rending me asunder. I, the most exquisitely
fastidious of men, and whose wife was to have been
the most delicate and refined of women, with all the
fresh dewdrops glittering on her virgin rosebud of a
heart ! I thought of the glossy ringlets and pearly
teeth, I thought of the Kalydor, I thought of the
coachman's bruised ear and bloody nose, I thought
of the tender love-secrets which she had whispered
to the judge and jury, and a thousand tittering audi-
tors, and gave another groan.

" Mr. Bullfrog ! " said my wife.

flfcrg. JBulltrog. 151

As I made no reply, she gently took my hands
within her own, removed them from my face and fixed
her eyes steadfastly on mine.

" Mr. Bullfrog," said she, not unkindly, yet with
iall the decision of her strong character, " let me ad-
vise you to overcome this foolish weakness and prove
[yourself to the best of your ability as good a husband
[is I will be a wife. You have discovered, perhaps,
some little imperfections in your bride. Well, what
did you expect ? Women are not angels ; if they
.were, they would go to heaven for husbands — or, at
least, be more difficult in their choice on earth."

" But why conceal those imperfections ? " inter-
posed I, tremulously.

" Now, my love, are not you a most unreasonable
little man ? " said Mrs. Bullfrog, patting me on the
cheek. "Ought a woman to disclose her frailties
earlier than the wedding-day? Few husbands, I
assure you, make the discovery in such good season,
and still fewer complain that these trifles are con-
cealed too long. Well, what a strange man you are I
Poh ! you are joking."

" But the suit for breach of promise ! " groaned I.

" Ah ! and is that the rub ? " exclaimed my wife.
" Is it possible that you view that affair in an objec-
tionable light ? Mr. Bullfrog, I never could have
dreamed it. Is it an objection that I have triumph-
antly defended myself against slander and vindicated
my purity in a court of justice ? Or do you com-
plain because your wife has shown the proper spirit
of a woman, and punished the villain who trifled with
her affections ? "

" But," persisted I, shrinking into a corner of the
coach, however, for I did not know precisely how
much contradiction the proper spirit of a woman

152 flfco0dC3 from an GU> flftanse.

would endure — " but, my love, would it not have been
more dignified to treat the villain with the silent con
tempt he merited ? "

"That is all very well, Mr. Bullfrog," said my wife,
slyly, " but in that case where would have been the
five thousand dollars which are to stock your dry-
goods store ? "

" Mrs. Bullfrog, upon your honor," demanded I,
as if my life hung upon her words, 4i is there no mis-
take about those five thousand dollars ? "

" Upon my word and honor, there is none," re-
plied she. " The jury gave me every cent the rascal
had, and I have kept it all for my dear Bullfrog."

"Then, thou dear woman," cried I, with an over-
whelming gush of tenderness, " let me fold thee to
my heart ! The basis of matrimonial bliss is secure,
and all thy little defects and frailties are forgiven.
Nay, since the result has been so fortunate, I rejoice
at the wrongs which drove thee to this blessed law
suit, happy Bullfrog that I am ! "

FIRE-WORSHIP.

IT is a great revolution in social and domestic
life — and no less so in the life of the secluded stu-
dent— this almost universal exchange of the open
fireplace for the cheerless and ungenial stove. On
such a morning as now lowers around our old gray
parsonage I miss the bright face of my ancient friend
who was wont to dance upon the hearth and play
the part of a more familiar sunshine. It is sad to
turn from the cloudy sky and somber landscape —
from yonder hill with its crown of rusty black pines,
the foliage of which is so dismal in the absence of
the sun ; that bleak pasture-land and the broken
surface of the potato-field with the brown clods partly
concealed by the snowfall of last night ; the swollen
and sluggish river, with ice-encrusted borders, drag-
ging its bluish-gray stream along the verge of our
orchard like a snake half torpid with the cold, — it is
sad to turn from an outward scene of so little com-
fort and find the same sullen influences brooding
within the precincts of my study. Where is that
brilliant guest, that quick and subtle spirit whom
Prometheus lured from heaven to civilize mankind
and cheer them in their wintry desolation, that com-
fortable inmate whose smile during eight months of
the year was our sufficient consolation for summer's
lingering advance and early flight ? Alas ! blindly

'53

154 /Rosses from an ©ID flfcansc.

inhospitable, grudging the food that kept him cheery
and mercurial, we have thrust him into an iron prison
and compel him to smolder away his life on a daily
pittance which once would have been too scanty for
his breakfast. Without a metaphor, we now make
our fire in an air-tight stove and supply it with some
half a dozen sticks of wood between dawn and night-
fall.

I never shall be reconciled to this enormity.
Truly may it be said that the world looks darker for
it. In one way or another, here and there and all
around us, the inventions of mankind are fast blot-
ting the picturesque, the poetic and the beautiful out
of human life. The domestic fire was a type of all
these attributes, and seemed to bring might and
majesty and wild Nature and a spiritual essence
into our inmost home, and yet to dwell with us in
such friendliness that its mysteries and marvels
excited no dismay. The same mild companion that
smiled so placidly in our faces was he that comes
roaring out of JEtna. and rushes madly up the sky
like a fiend breaking loose from torment and fight-
ing for a place among the upper angels. He it is,
too, that leaps from cloud to cloud amid the crash-
ing thunder-storm. It was he whom the Gheber
worshiped with no unnatural idolatry, and it was
he who devoured London and Moscow, and many
another famous city, and who loves to riot through
our own dark forests and sweep across our prairies,
and to whose ravenous maw, it is said, the universe
shall one day be given as a final feast. Meanwhile,
he is the great artisan and laborer by whose aid
men are enabled to build a world within a world — -
or, at least, to smooth down the rough creation
which Nature flung to us. He forges the mighty

155

anchor and every lesser instrument, he drives the
steamboat and drags the rail-car, and it was he —
this creature of terrible might and so many-sided
utility and all-comprehensive destructiveness — that
used to be the cheerful, homely friend of our wintry
days, and whom we have made the prisoner of this
iron cage.

How kindly he was, and, though the tremendous
agent of change, yet bearing himself with such
gentleness, so rendering himself a part of all lifelong
and age-coeval associations, that it seemed as if he
were the great conservative of Nature. While a
man was true to the fireside, so long would he be
true to country and law, to the God whom his
fathers worshiped, to the wife of his youth, and to
all things else which instinct or religion have taught
us to consider sacred. With how sweet humility
did this elemental spirit perform all needful offices
for the household in which he was domesticated !
He was equal to the concoction of a grand dinner,
yet scorned not to roast a potato or toast a bit of
cheese. How humanely did he cherish the school-
boy's icy fingers and thaw the old man's joints with
a genial warmth which almost equaled the glow of
youth ! And how carefully did he dry the cowhide
boots that had trudged through mud and snow, and
the shaggy outside garment stiff with frozen sleet,
taking heed, likewise, to the comfort of the faithful
dog who had followed his master through the storm !
When did he refuse a coal to light a pipe, or even
a part of his own substance to kindle a neighbor's
fire ? And then, at twilight, when laborer or scholar,
or mortal of whatever age, sex or degree, drew a
chair beside him and looked into his glowing face,
how acute, how profound, how comprehensive, was

156 flfcosscs from an ©ID flfcanee.

his sympathy with the mood of each and all ! He
pictured forth their very thoughts. To the youthful
he showed the scenes of the adventurous life before
them ; to the aged, the shadows of departed love
and hope ; and if all earthly things had grown dis-
tasteful, he could gladden the fireside-muser with
golden glimpses of a better world. And amid this
varied communion with the human soul how busily
would the sympathizer, the deep moralist, the
painter of magic pictures be causing the tea-kettle
to boil !

Nor did it lessen the charm of his soft, familiar
courtesy and helpfulness that the mighty spirit, were
opportunity offered him, would run riot through the
peaceful house, wrap its inmates in his terrible
embrace, and leave nothing of them save their
whitened bones. This possibility of mad destruc-
tion only made his domestic kindness the more
beautiful and touching. It was so sweet of him,
being endowed with such power, to dwell day after
day, and one long, lonesome night after another, on
the dusky hearth, only now and then betraying his
wild nature by thrusting his red tongue out of the
chimney-top ! True, he had done much mischief in
the world, and was pretty certain to do more, but
his warm heart atoned for all. He was kindly to
the race of man, and they pardoned his character-
istic imperfections.

The good old clergyman, my predecessor in this
mansion, was well acquainted with the comforts of the
fireside. His yearly allowance of wood, according
to the terms of his settlement, was no less than sixty
cords. Almost an annual forest was converted from
sound oak-logs into ashes in the kitchen, the parlor
and this little study where now an unworthy sue-

157

cessor — not in the pastoral office, but merely in his
earthly abode — sits scribbling beside an air-tight
stove. I love to fancy one of those fireside days
while the good man, a contemporary of the Revolu-
tion, was in his early prime, some fi ve-and-sixty years
ago. Before sunrise, doubtless, the blaze hovered
upon the gray skirts of night and dissolved the frost-
work that had gathered like a curtain over the small
window-panes. There is something peculiar in the
aspect of the morning fireside — a fresher, brisker
glare, the absence of that mellowness which can be
produced only by half-consumed logs and shapeless
brands with the white ashes on them and mighty
coals, the remnant of tree-trunks that the hungry
elements have gnawed for hours. The morning
hearth, too, is newly swept and the brazen andirons
well brightened ; so that the cheerful fire may see
its face in them. Surely it was happiness when the
pastor, fortified with a substantial breakfast, sat
down in his arm-chair and slippers and opened the
Whole Body of Divinity or the Commentary on Job, or
whichever of his old folios or quartos might fall
within the range of his weekly sermons. It must
have been his own fault if the warmth and glow of
this abundant hearth did not permeate the discourse,
and keep his audience comfortable in spite of the
bitterest northern blast that ever wrestled with the
church-steeple. He reads while the heat warps the
stiff covers of the volume, he writes without numbness
either in his heart or fingers, and with unstinted
hand he throws fresh sticks of wood upon the fire.

A parishioner comes in. With what warmth of

benevolence — how should he be otherwise than warm

in any of his attributes ? — does the minister bid him

welcome, and set a chair for him in so close proximity

ii

158 flfcossea rrom an ©ID flfcanse.

to the hearth that soon the guest finds it needful to
rub his scorched shins with his great red hands !
The melted snow drips from his steaming boots and
bubbles upon the hearth. His puckered forehead
unravels its entanglement of criss-cross wrinkles.
We lose much of the enjoyment of fireside heat
without such an opportunity of marking its genial
effect upon those who have been looking the incle
ment weather in the face. In the course of the day
our clergyman himself strides forth, perchance to
pay a round of pastoral visits, or, it may be, to visit
his mountain of a wood-pile and cleave the monstrous
logs into billets suitable for the fire. He returns
with fresher life to his beloved hearth. During the
ohort afternoon the western sunshine comes into the
study and strives to stare the ruddy blaze out of
countenance, but with only a brief triumph, soon to
be succeeded by brighter glories of its rival. Beauti-
ful it is to see the strengthening gleam, the deepen-
ing light, that gradually casts distinct shadows of
the human figure, the table and the high-backed
chairs upon the opposite wall, and at length, as
twilight comes on, replenishes the room with living
radiance and makes life all rose-color. Afar the
wayfarer discerns the flickering flame as it dances
upon the windows, and hails it as a beacon-light of
humanity, reminding him, in his cold and lonely
path, that the world is not all snow and solitude-
and desolation. At eventide, probably, the study
was peopled with the clergyman's wife and family,
and children tumbled themselves upon the hearth-
rug, and grave Puss sat with her back to the
fire or gazed with a semblance of human meditation
into its fervid depths. Seasonably the plenteous
ashes of the day were raked over the moldering

159

brands, and from the heap came jets of flame and
an incense of night-long smoke creeping quietly up
the chimney.

Heaven forgive the old clergyman ! In his later
life, when for almost ninety winters he had been
gladdened by the firelight — when it had gleamed
upon him from infancy to extreme age, and nevej
without brightening his spirits as well as his visage,"
and perhaps keeping him alive so long — he had the
heart to brick up his chimney-place and bid fare-
well to the face of his old friend forever. Why did
not he take an eternal leave of the sunshine too ?
His sixty cords of wood had probably dwindled to
a far less ample supply in modern times, and it is
certain that the parsonage had grown crazy with
time and tempest and pervious to the cold ; but still
it was one of the saddest tokens of the decline and
fall of open fireplaces that the gray patriarch should
have deigned to warm himself at an air-tight stove.

And I, likewise, who have found a home in this
ancient owl's nest since its former occupant took
his heavenward flight — I, to my shame, have put up
stoves in kitchen and parlor and chamber. Wander
where you will about the house, not a glimpse of
the earth-born, heaven-aspiring fiend of ^Etna — him
that sports in the thunder-storm, the idol of the
Ghebers, the devourer of cities, the forest-rioter and
prairie-sweeper, the future destroyer of our earth,
the old chimney-corner companion who mingled
himself so sociably with household joys and sorrows,
— not a glimpse of this mighty and kindly one will
greet your eyes. He is now an invisible presence.
There is his iron cage ; touch it, and he scorches
your fingers. He delights to singe a garment or
perpetrate any other little unworthy mischief, for his

160 d&osses from an OIC> /fcanse.

temper is ruined by the ingratitude of mankind, for
whom he cherished such warmth of feeling, and to
whom he taught all their arts, even that of making
his own prison-house. In his fits of rage he puffs
volumes of smoke and noisnm-r gns through the
crevices of the door, and shakes the iron walls of his
dungeon, so as to overthrow the ornamental urn
upon its summit. We tremble lest he should break
forth amongst us. Much of his time is spent in
sighs burdened with unutterable grief and long-drawn
through the funnel. He amuses himself, too. with
repeating all the whispers, the moans and the louder
utterances or tempestuous howls of the wind ; so
that the stove becomes a microcosm of the aerial
world. Occasionally there are strange combinations
of sounds — voices talking almost articulately within
the hollow chest of iron — insomuch that Fancy be-
guiles me with the idea that my fire-wood must have
grown in that infernal forest of lamentable trees
which breathed their complaints to Dante. \Yhen
the listener is half asleep, he may readily take these
voices for the conversation of spirits, and assign
them an intelligible meaning. Anon there is a
pattering noise — drip, drip, drip — as if a summer
shower were falling within the narrow circumference
of the stove.

These barren and tedious eccentricities are all
that the air-tight stove can bestow in exchange for
the invaluable moral influences which we have losf
by our desertion of the open fireplace. Alas ! is
this world so very bright that we can afford to choke
up such a domestic fountain of gladsomeness and
sit down by its darkened source without being con-
scious of a gloom ?

It is my belief that social intercourse cannot long

161

continue what it has been, now that we have sub-
tracted from it so important and vivifying an element
as firelight. The effects will be more perceptible
on our children and the generations that shall suc-
ceed them than on ourselves, the mechanism of
whose life may remain unchanged, though its spirit
be far other than it was. The sacred trust of the
household fire has been transmitted in unbroken
succession from the earliest ages and faithfully
cherished in spite of every discouragement, such as
the curfew law of the Norman conquerors, until in
these evil days physical science has nearly succeeded
in extinguishing it. But we, at least, have our youthful
recollections tinged with the glow of the hearth
and our lifelong habits and associations arranged on
the principle of a mutual bond in the domestic fire.
Therefore, though the sociable friend be forever
departed, yet in a degree he will be spiritually present
with us, and still more will the empty forms which
were once full of his rejoicing presence continue to
rule our manners. We shall draw our chairs together
as we and our forefathers have been wont for thou-
sands of years back, and sit around some blank and
empty corner of the room, babbling with unreal
cheerfulness of topics suitable to the homely fireside.
A warmth from the past — from the ashes of bygone
years and the raked-up embers of long ago — will
sometimes thaw the ice about our hearts. But
it must be otherwise with our successors. On the
most favorable supposition, they will be acquainted
with the fireside in no better shape than that of the
sullen stove, and more probably they will have
grown up amid furnace-heat in houses which might
be fancied to have their foundation over the infernal
pit whence sulphurous steams and unbreathable

1 62 /Bosses from an Ol& flfcanse,

exhalations ascend through the apertures of the floor.
There will be nothing to attract these poor children
to one center. They will never behold one another
through that peculiar medium of vision — the ruddy
gleam of blazing wood or bituminous coal — which
gives the human spirit so deep an insight into its fel-
lows and melts all humanity into one cordial heart
of hearts. Domestic life — if it may still be termed
domestic — will seek its separate corners and never
gather itself into groups. The easy gossip, the
merry yet unambitious jest, the life-like practical
discussion of real matters in a casual way, the soul
of truth which is so often incarnated in a simple
fireside word, will disappear from earth. Conver-
sation will contract the air of a debate, and all
mortal intercourse be chilled with a fatal frost.

In classic times the exhortation to fight pro arts
ft facts — " for the altars and the hearths " — was
considered the strongest appeal that could be made
to patriotism. And it seemed an immortal utter-
ance, for all subsequent ages and people have
acknowledged its force and responded to it with the
full portion of manhood that nature had assigned to
each. Wisely were the altar and the hearth con-
joined in one mighty sentence, for the hearth too
had its kindred sanctity. Religion sat down beside
it — not in the priestly robes which decorated, and
perhaps disguised, her at the altar, but arrayed in a
simple matron's garb and uttering her lessons with
the tenderness of a mother's voice and heart. The
holy hearth ! If any earthly and material thing —
or, rather, a divine idea embodied in brick and
mortar — might be supposed to possess the perma-
nence of moral truth, it was this. All revered it. The
man who did not put off his shoes upon this holy

163

•

ground would have deemed it pastime to trample
upon the altar. It has been our task to uproot the
hearth ; what further reform is left for our children
to achieve unless they overthrow the altar too ?
And by what appeal hereafter, when the breath of
hostile armies may mingle with the pure cold breezes
of our country, shall we attempt to rouse up native
valor ? Fight for your hearths ? There will be
none, throughout the land. FIGHT FOR YOUR STOVES ?
Not I, in faith. If in such a cause I strike a blow,
it shall be on the invader's part, and Heaven grant
that it may shatter the abomination all to pieces !

BUDS AND BIRD-VOICES.

BALMY Spring — weeks later than we expected, and
months later than we longed for her — comes at last
to revive the moss on the roof and walls of our old
mansion. She peeps brightly into my study-window,
inviting me to throw it open and create a summer
atmosphere by the intermixture of her genial breath
with the black and cheerless comfort of the stove.
As the casement ascends, forth into infinite space fly
the innumerable forms of thought or fancy that have
kept me company in the retirement of this little
chamber during the sluggish lapse of wintry weather
— visions gay, grotesque and sad, pictures of real
life tinted with nature's homely gray and russet,
scenes in Dreamland bedizened with rainbow-hues
which faded before they were well )aid on. All these
may vanish now and leave me to mold a fresh
existence out of sunshine. Brooding Meditation
may flap her dusky wings and take her owl-like
flight blinking amid the cheerfulness of noontide.
Such companions befit the season of frosted window-
panes and crackling fires, when the blast howls
through the black-ash trees of our avenue, and the
drifting snow-storm chokes up the wood-paths and
fills the highway from stone wall to stone wall. In
the spring and summer-time all somber thoughts
should follow the winter northward with the
164

JBuDs anfc 36irfc=l3oices. 165

somber and thoughtful crows. The old paradi-
siacal economy of life is again in force : we live, not
to think nor to labor, but for the simple end of being
happy ; nothing for the present hour is worthy of
man's infinite capacity save to imbibe the warm smile
of heaven and sympathize with the reviving earth.

The present Spring comes onward with fleetei
footsteps because Winter lingered so unconscionably
long that with her best diligence she can hardly
retrieve half the allotted period of her reign. It is
but a fortnight since I stood on the brink of our
swollen river and beheld the accumulated ice of four
frozen months go down the stream. Except in streaks
here and there upon the hillsides, the whole visible
universe was then covered with deep snow, the
nethermost layer of which had been deposited by an
early December storm. It was a sight to make the
beholder torpid in the impossibility of imagining how
this vast white napkin was to be removed from the
face of the corpse-like world in less time than had been
required to spread it there. But who can estimate
the power of gentle influences, whether amid ma-
terial desolation or the moral winter of man's heart ?
There have been no tempestuous rains — even no
sultry days — but a constant breath of southern winds,
with now a day of kindly sunshine, and now a no
Vss kindly mist or a soft descent of showers in which
a smile and a blessing seemed to have been steeped.
The snow has vanished as if by magic ; whatever
heaps may be hidden in the woods and deep gorges
of the hills, only two solitary specks remain in the
landscape, and those I shall almost regret to miss
when to-morrow I look for them in vain.

Never before, methinks, has Spring pressed so
closely on the footsteps of retreating Winter. Along

1 66 dfcesscs from an Clft dfcansc.

the roadside the green blades of grass have sprouted
on the very edge of the snowdrifts. The pastures and
mowing-fields have not yet assumed a general aspect
of verdure, but neither have they the cheerless brown
tint which they wear in latter autumn, when vegeta-
tion has entirely ceased ; there is now a faint shadow
of life, gradually brightening into the warm reality.
Some tracts in a happy exposure — as, for instance,
yonder southwestern slope of an orchard, in front
of that old red farmhouse beyond the river — such
patches of land already wear a beautiful and tender
green to which no future luxuriance can add a
charm. It looks unreal — a prophecy, a hope, a
transitory effect of some peculiar li^ht which will
vanish with the slightest motion of the eye. But
beauty is never a delusion ; not these verdant tracts
but the dark and barren landscape all around them
is a shadow and a dream. Each moment wins some
portion of the earth from death to life ; a sudden
gleam of verdure brightens along the sunny slope of
a bank which an instant ago was brown and bare.
You look again, and, behold ! an apparition of green
grass!

The trees in our orchard and elsewhere are as yet
naked, but already appear full of life and vegetable
blood. It seems as if by one magic touch they
might instantaneously burst into full foliage, and
that the wind which now sighs through their naked
branches might make sudden music amid innumer-
able leaves. The moss-grown willow tree which for
forty years past has overshadowed these western
windows will be among the first to put on its green
attire. There are some objections to the willow:
it is not a dry and cleanly tree, and impresses the
beholder with an association of sliminess. No trees,

and JBir^Dofcea. 167

I think, are perfectly agreeable as companions un-
less they have glossy leaves, dry bark and a firm
and hard texture of trunk and branches. But the
willow is almost the earliest to gladden us with the
promise and reality of beauty in its graceful and
delicate foliage, and the last to scatter its yellow yet
scarcely withered leaves upon the ground. All
through the winter, too, its yellow twigs give it a
sunny aspect which is not without a cheering influ-
ence even in the grayest and gloomiest day. Beneath
a clouded sky it faithfully remembers the sunshine.
Our old house would lose a charm were the willow
to be cut down, with its golden crown over the snow-
covered roof, and its heap of summer verdure.

The lilac-shrubs under my study windows are
likewise almost in leaf ; in two or three days more
I may put forth my hand and pluck the topmost
bough in its freshest green. These lilacs are very
aged and have lost the luxuriant foliage of their
prime. The heart or the judgment or the moral
sense or the taste is dissatisfied with their present
aspect. Old age is not venerable when it embodies
itself in lilacs, rose-bushes, or any other ornamental
shrubs ; it seems as if such plants, as they grow
only for beauty, ought to flourish only in immortal
youth — or, at least, to die before their sad decrepi-
tude. Trees of beauty are trees of Paradise, and
^therefore not subject to decay by their original
nature, though they have lost that precious birth-
right by being transplanted to an unearthly soil.
There is a kind of ludicrous unfitness in the idea of
a time-stricken and grandfatherly lilac-bush. The
analogy holds good in human life. Persons who
can only be graceful and ornamental — who can give
the world nothing but flowers — should die young

i68 d&osses trom an OU> flfcanse.

and never be seen with gray hair and wrinkles, any
more than the flower-shrubs with mossy bark and
blighted foliage, like the lilacs under my window.
Not that beauty is worthy of less than immortality.
No ; the beautiful should live forever, and thence,
perhaps, the sense of impropriety when we see it
triumphed over by time. Apple trees, on the other
hand, grow old without reproach. Let them live as
long as they may, and contort themselves into what-
ever perversity of shape they please, and deck their
withered limbs with a springtime gaudiness of pink
blossoms, still they are respectable even if they
afford us only an apple or two in a season. Those
few apples — or, at all events, the remembrance of
apples in bygone years — are the atonement which
utilitarianism inexorably demands for the privilege
of lengthened life. Human flower-shrubs, if they
will grow old on earth, should, besides their lovely
blossoms, bear some kind of fruit that will satisfy
earthly appetites, else neither man nor the decorum
of nature will deem it fit that the moss should gather
on them.

One of the first things that strikes the attention
when the white sheet of winter is withdrawn is the
neglect and disarray that lay hidden beneath it.
Nature is not cleanly, according to our prejudices
The beauty of preceding years, now transformed to
brown and blighted deformity, obstructs the bright-
ening loveliness of the present hour. Our avenue
is strewn with the whole crop of autumn's withered
leaves. There are quantities of decayed branches
which one tempest after another has flung down,
black and rotten, and one or two with the ruin of a
bird's nest clinging to them. In the garden are the
dried bean-vines, the brown stalks of the asparagus-

anD 3BirD*V)oiccs. 169

bed, and melancholy old cabbages which were frozen
into the soil before their unthrifty cultivator could
find time to gather them. How invariably through-
out all the forms of life do we find these inter-
mingled memorials of death ! On the soil of thought
and in the garden of the heart, as we41 as in the
sensual world, lie withered leaves — the ideas and
feelings that we have done with. There is no wind
strong enough to sweep them away ; infinite space
will not garner them from our sight. What mean
they ? Why may we not be permitted to live and
enjoy as if this were the first life and our own the
primal enjoyment, instead of treading always on
these dry bones and moldering relics from the aged
accumulation of which springs all that now appears
so young and new ? Sweet must have been the
spring-time of Eden, when no earlier year had strewn
its decay upon the virgin turf, and no former ex-
perience had ripened into summer and faded into
autumn in the hearts of its inhabitants. That was
a world worth living in. — Oh, thou murmurer, it is
out of the very wantonness of such a life that thou
feignest these idle lamentations. There is no de-
cay. Each human soul is the first created inhabi-
tant of its own Eden. — We dwell in an old moss-
covered mansion and tread in the worn footprints
of the past and have a gray clergyman's ghost for
our daily and nightly inmate, yet all these outward
circumstances are made less than visionary by the
renewing power of the spirit. Should the spirit ever
lose this power — should the withered leaves and
the rotten branches and the moss-covered house
and the ghost of the gray past ever become its
realities, and the verdure and the freshness merely
its faint dream — then let it pray to be released from

170

from an ©to

earth. It will need the air of heaven to revive its
pristine energies.

What an unlooked-for flight was this from our
shadowy avenue of black-ash and balm-of-Gilead
trees into the infinite ! Now we have our feet again
upon the turf. Nowhere does the grass spring up
so industriously as in this homely yard, along the
base of the stone wall and in the sheltered nooks of
the buildings, and especially around the southern
doorstep — a locality which seems particularly favor-
able to its growth, for it is already tall enough to
bend over and wave in the wind. I observe that
several weeds — and, most frequently, a plant that
stains the fingers with its yellow juice — have sur-
vived and retained their freshness and sap through-
out the winter. One knows not how they have
deserved such an exception from the common lot
of their race. They are now the patriarchs of the
departed year, and may preach mortality to the
present generation of flowers and weeds.

Among the delights of spring, how is it possible
to forget the birds ? Even the crows were welcome,
as the sable harbingers of a brighter and livelier
race. They visited us before the snow was off, but
seem mostly to have betaken themselves to remote
depths of the woods, which they haunt all summer
long. Many a time shall I disturb them there, and
fjel as if I had intruded among a company of silent
worshipers as they sit in Sabbath stillness among
the tree-tops. Their voices, when they speak, are
in admirable accordance with the tranquil solitude
of a summer afternoon, and, resounding so far above
the head, their loud clamor increases the religious
quiet of the scene instead of breaking it. A crow,
however, has no real pretensions to religion, in spite

anfc JBirDsDoicce. 171

of his gravity of mien and black attire ; he is cer-
tainly a thief, and probably an infidel. The gulls
are far more respectable, in a moral point of view.
These denizens of sea-beaten rocks and haunters of
the lonely beach come up our inland river at this
season, and soar high overhead, flapping their broad
wings in the upper sunshine. They are among the
most picturesque of birds, because they so float and
rest upon the air as to become almost stationary
parts of the landscape. The imagination has time
to grow acquainted with them ; they have not flitted
away in a moment. You go up among the clouds
and greet these lofty-flighted gulls, and repose con-
fidently with them upon the sustaining atmosphere.
Ducks have their haunts along the solitary places
of the river and alight in flocks upon the broad
bosom of the overflowed meadows. Their flight is
too rapid and determined for the eye to catch en-
joyment from it, although it never fails to stir up
the heart with the sportsman's ineradicable instinct.
They have now gone farther northward, but will
visit us again in autumn.

The smaller birds — the little songsters of the
woods, and those that haunt man's dwellings and
claim human friendship by building their nests under
the sheltering eaves or among the orchard trees —
th^se require a touch more delicate and a gentler
heart than mine to do them justice. Their outburst
of melody is like a brook let loose from wintry chains.
"We need not deem it a too high and solemn word to
call it a hymn of praise to the Creator, since Nature,
who pictures the reviving year in so many sights of
beauty, has expressed the sentiment of renewed life
in no other sound save the notes of these blessed
birds. Their music, however, just now seems to be

172 /Bosses from an ©lo rtbanse.

incidental, and not the result of a set purpose. They
are discussing the economy of life and love and the
site and architecture of their summer residences, and
have no time to sit on a twi^ and pour forth solemn
hymns or overtures, operas, symphonies and waltzes.
Anxious questions are asked, grave subjects are
settled in quick and animated debate, and only by
occasional accident, as from pure ecstasy, does a
rich warble roll its tiny waves of golden sound
through the atmosphere. Their little bodies are as
busy as their voices ; they are in a constant flutter
and restlessness. Even when two or three retreat
to a tree-top to hold council, they wag their tails
and heads all the time with the irrepressible activity
of their nature, which perhaps renders their brief
span of life in reality as long as the patriarchal age
of sluggish man. The blackbirds — three species of
which consort together — are the noisiest of all our
feathered citizens. Great companies of them — more
than the famous " four-and-twenty " whom Mother
Goose has immortalized — congregate in contiguous
tree-tops and vociferate with all the clamor and con-
fusion of a turbulent political meeting. Politics,
certainly, must be the occasion of such tumultuous
debates, but still, unlike all other politicians they
instill melody into their individual utterances and
produce harmony as a general effect. Of all bird-
voices, none are more sweet and cheerful to my ear
than those of swallows in the dim, sun-streaked in-
ferior of a lofty barn ; they address the heart with
even a closer sympathy than Robin Redbreast.
But, indeed, all these winged people that dwell in
the vicinity of homesteads seem to partake of human
nature and possess the germ, if not the development,
of immortal souls. We hear them saying their melo-

anD 3BirD*l0ofces. 173

dious prayers at morning's blush and eventide. A
little while ago, in the deep of night, there came the
lively thrill of a bird's note from a neighboring tree
— a real song such as greets the purple dawn or
mingles with the yellow sunshine. What rould the
little bird mean by pouring it forth at midnight ?
Probably the music gushed out of the midst of a
dream in which he fancied himself in Paradise with
his mate, but suddenly awoke on a cold, leafless bough
with a New England mist penetrating through his
feathers. That was a sad exchange of imagination
for reality.

Insects are among the earliest births of spring.
Multitudes, of I know not what species, appeared
long ago on the surface of the snow. Clouds of
them almost too minute for sight hover in a beam
of sunshine, and vanish as if annihilated when they
pass into the shade. A mosquito has already been
heard to sound the small horror of his bugle-horn.
Wasps infest the sunny windows of the house. A
bee entered one of the chambers with a prophecy of
flowers. Rare butterflies came before the snow was
off, flaunting in the chill breeze, and looking forlorn
and ail-astray in spite of the magnificence of their
dark velvet cloaks with golden borders.

The fields and wood-paths have as yet few charms
to entice the wanderer. In a walk the other day I
found no violets nor anemones, nor anything in the
likeness of a flower. It was worth while, however,
to ascend our opposite hill for the sake of gaining
a general idea of the advance of spring, which I had
hitherto been studying in its minute developments.
The river lay round me in a semicircle, overflowing
all the meadows which give it its Indian name and
offering a noble breadth to sparkle in the sunbeams.

174 /Bosses from an OlS jflfcanse.

Along the hither shore a row of trees stood up to
their knees in water, and afar off, on the surface of
the stream, tufts of hushes thrust up their heads, as
it were, to breathe. The most striking objects were
great solitary trees here and there with a mile-wide
waste of water all around them. The curtailment
of the trunk by its immersion in the river quite
destroys the fair proportions of the tree, and thus
makes us sensible of a regularity and propriety in
the usual forms of nature. The flood of the present
season, though it never amounts to a freshet on our
quiet stream, has encroached farther upon the land
than any previous one for at least a score of years.
It has overflowed stone fences, and even rendered
a portion of the highway navigable for boats. The
waters, however, are now gradually subsiding;
islands become annexed to the mainland, and other
islands emerge like new creations from the watery
waste. The scene supplies an admirable image of
the receding of the Nile — except that there is no
deposit of black slime — or of Noah's flood, only that
there is a freshness and novelty in these recovered
portions of the continent which give the impression
of a world just made rather than of one so polluted
that a deluge had been requisite to purify it. These
upspringing islands are the greenest spots in the
landscape ; the first gleam of sunlight suffices to
cover them with verdure.

Thank Providence for spring ! The earth — and
man himself, by sympathy with his birthplace —
would be far other than we find them if life toiled
wearily onward without this periodical infusion of
the primal spirit. Will the world ever be so de-
cayed that spring may not renew its greenness ?
Can man be so dismally age-stricken that no faintest

JBuDs and 36irc>*lDotce3. 17

sunshine of his youth may revisit him once a yeai
It is impossible. The moss on our time-worn man
sion brightens into beauty, the good old pastor who
once dwelt here renewed his prime, regained his
boyhood, in the genial breezes of his ninetieth
spring. Alas for the worn and heavy soul if, whether
in youth or age, it have outlived its privilege of
springtime sprightliness ! From such a soul the
world must hope no reformation of its evil — no sym-
pathy with the lofty faith and gallant struggles of
those who contend in its behalf. Summer works in
the present and thinks not of the future ; autumn is
a rich conservative ; winter has utterly lost its faith,
and clings tremulously to the remembrance of what
has been ; but spring, with its outgushing life, is the
true type of the movement.

MONSIEUR DU MIROIR.

THAN the gentleman above named there is no-
body in the whole circle of my acquaintance whom
I have more attentively studied, yet of whom I have
less real knowledge beneath the surface which it
pleases him to present. Being anxious to discover
who and what he really is and how connected with
me, and what are to be the results to him and to
myself of the joint-interest which without any choice
on my part seems to be permanently established be-
tween us, and incited, furthermore, by the propensi-
ties of a student of human nature, though doubtful
whether M. du Miroir have aught of humanity but
the figure; — I have determined to place a few of his
remarkable points before the public, hoping to be
favored with some clue to the explanation of his
character. Nor let the reader condemn any part of
the narrative as frivolous, since a subject of such
grave reflection diffuses its importance through the
minutest particulars, and there is no judging before-
hand what odd little circumstance may do the office
of a blind man's dog among the perplexities of this
dark investigation. And, however extraordinary,
marvelous, preternatural and utterly incredible some
of the meditated disclosures may appear, I pledge
my honor to maintain as sacred a regard to fact as
if my testimony were given on oath and involved
176

fcu dfciroir. 177

the dearest interests of the personage in question.
Not that there is matter for a criminal accusation
against M. du Miroir, nor am I the man to bring it
forward if there were. The chief that I complain
of is his impenetrable mystery, which is no better
than nonsense if it conceal anything good, and much
worse in the contrary case.

But if undue partialities could be supposed to in
fluence me, M. du Miroir might hope to profit rather
than to suffer by them, for in the whole of our long
intercourse we have seldom had the slightest dis-
agreement ; and, moreover, there are reasons for
supposing him a near relative of mine, and con-
sequently entitled to the best word that I can give
him. He bears indisputably a strong personal
resemblance to myself, and generally puts on mourn-
ing at the funerals of the family. On the other
hand, his name would indicate a French descent;
in which case, infinitely preferring that my blood
should flow from a bold British and pure Puritan
source, I beg leave to disclaim all kindred with M.
du Miroir. Some genealogists trace his origin to
Spain, and dub him a knight of the Order of the
Caballeros de los Espejos, one of whom was over-
thrown by Don Quixote. But what says M. du
Miroir himself of his paternity and his fatherland ?
Not a word did he ever say about the matter, and
herein, perhaps, lies one of his most especial reasons
for maintaining such a vexatious mystery — that he
lacks the faculty of speech to expound it. His lips
are sometimes seen to move, his eyes and counte-
nance are alive with shifting expression, as if cor-
responding by visible hieroglyphics to his modu-
lated breath, and anon he will seem to pause with
as satisfied an air as if he had been talking excellent

178 bosses from an Olfc /fcanse.

sense. Good sense or bad, M. du Miroir is the sole
judge of his own conversational powers, never hav-
ing whispered so much as a syllable that reached
the ears of any other auditor. Is he really dumb, or
is all the world deaf ? or is it merely a piece of
my friend's waggery, meant for nothing but to
make fools of us ? If so, he has the joke all to
himself.

This dumb devil which possesses M. du Miroir is,
I am persuaded, the sole reason that he does not
make me the most flattering protestations of friend-
ship. In many particulars — indeed, as to all his
cognizable and not preternatural points, except that
once in a great while I speak a word or two — there
exists the greatest apparent sympathy between us.
Such is his confidence in my taste that he goes astray
from the general fashion and copies all his dresses
after mine. I never try on a new garment without
expecting to meet M. du Miroir in one ct the same
pattern. He has duplicates of all my waistcoats
and cravats, shirt-bosoms of precisely a similar plait,
and an old coat for private wear manufactured, I
suspect, by a Chinese tailor in exact imitation of a
beloved old coat of mine, with £ facsimile, stitch by
stitch, of a patch upon the elbow. In truth, the
singular and minute coincidences that occur both
in the accidents of the passing day and the serious
events of our lives remind me of those doubtful
legends of lovers or twin-children, twins of fate, whc
have lived, enjoyed, suffered and died in unison,
each faithfully repeating the least tremor of the
other's breath, though separated by vast tracts of
sea and land.

Strange to say, my incommodities belong equally
to my companion, though the burden is nowise ai!o

fcu d&troir. 179

viated by his participation. The other morning, after
a night of torment from the toothache, I met M. du
Miroir with such a swollen anguish in his cheek that
my own pangs were redoubled, as were also his, if I
might judge by a fresh contortion of his visage. All
the inequalities of my spirits are communicated to
him, causing the unfortunate M. du Miroir to mop^
and scowl through a whole summer's day, or to laugh
as long, for no better reason than the gay or gloomy
crochets of my brain. Once we were joint-sufferers
of a three months' sickness, and met like mutual
ghosts in the first days of convalescence. Whenever
I have been in love, M. du Miroir has looked pas-
sionate and tender, and never did my mistress dis-
card me but this too susceptible gentleman grew
lackadaisical. His temper also rises to blood heat,
fever heat or boiling- water heat according to the
measure of any wrong which might seem to have
fallen entirely on myself. I have sometimes been
calmed down by the sight of my own inordinate
wrath depicted on his frowning brow. Yet, however
prompt in taking up my quarrels, I cannot call to
mind that he ever struck a downright blow in my
behalf, nor, in fact, do I perceive that any real and
tangible good has resulted from his constant inter-
ference in my affairs ; so that in my distrustful moods
I am apt to suspect M. du Miroir's sympathy to be
mere outward show, not a whit better nor worse than
other people's sympathy. Nevertheless, as mortal
man must have something in the guise of sympathy
— and whether the true metal or merely copper-
washed is of less moment — I choose rather to con«
tent myself with M. du Miroir's, such as it is, than
to seek the sterling coin, and perhaps miss even the
-counterfeit

i8o /ft063e» from an ©U> flfcansc.

In my age of vanities I have of ten seen him in the
ball-room, and might again were I to seek him there.
We have encountered each other at the 'Fremont
Theater, where, however, he took his seat neither in
the dress-circle, pit nor upper regions, nor threw a
single glance at the stage, though the brightest star
— even Fanny Kernble herself — might be culminat-
ing there. No; this whimsical friend of mine chose
to linger in the saloon, near one of the large looking-
glasses which throw back their pictures of the illu-
minated room. He is so full of these unaccountable
eccentricities that I never like to notice M. du Mir-
oir, nor to acknowledge the slightest connection with
him, in places of public resort. He, however, has
no scruple about claiming my acquaintance, even
when his common sense — if he had any — might
teach him that I would as willingly exchange a nod
with the Old Nick. It was but the other day that
he got into a large brass kettle at the entrance of a
hardware store, and thrust his head the moment
afterward into a bright new warming-pan, whence he
gave me a most merciless look of recognition. He
smiled, and so did I ; but these childish tricks make
decent people rather shy of M. du Miroir, and sub-
ject him to more dead cuts than any other gentle-
man in town.

One of this singular person's most remarkable
peculiarities is his fondness for water, wherein he
excels any temperance man whatever. His pleasure,
it must be owned, is not so much to drink it (in which
respect a very moderate quantity will answer his
occasions) as to souse himself over head and ears
wherever he may meet with it. Perhaps he is a
merman or born of a mermaid's marriage with a mor-
tal, and thus amphibious by hereditary right, like the

/Rbonsicur £m flMroir. 181

children which the old river-deities or nymphs of
fountains gave to earthly love. When no cleaner
bathing-place happened to be at hand, I have seen
the foolish fellow in a horse-pond. Sometimes he
refreshes himself in the trough of a town-pump with-
out caring what the people think about him. Often,
while carefully picking my way along the street after
a heavy shower, I have been scandalized to see M.
du Miroir, in full dress, paddling from one mud-
puddle to another and plunging into the filthy depths
of each. Seldom have I peeped into a well without
discerning this ridiculous gentleman at the bottom,
whence he gazes up as through a long telescopic tube,
and probably makes discoveries among the stars by
daylight. Wandering along lonesome paths or in
pathless forests, when I have come to virgin-fountains
of which it would have been pleasant to deem my-
self the first discoverer, I have started to find M. du
Miroir there before me. The solitude seemed lone-
lier for his presence. I have leaned from a precipice
that frowns over Lake George — which the French
called Nature's font of sacramental water, and used
it in their log churches here and their cathedrals be-
yond the sea — and seen him far below in that pure
element. At Niagara, too, where I would gladly
have forgotten both myself and him, I could not help
observing my companion in the smooth water on
the very verge of the cataract, just above the Table
Rock. Were I to reach the sources of the Nile, I
should expect to meet him there. Unless he be
another Lado whose garments the depths of ocean
could not moisten, it is difficult to conceive how he
keeps himself in any decent pickle, though I am
bound to confess that his clothes seem always as dry
and comfortable as my own. But, as a friend, I

1 82 /Bosses from an ©ID flfcanse.

could wish that he would not so often expose himself
in liquor.

All that I have hitherto related may be classed
among those little personal oddities which agreeably
diversify the surface of society, and, though they
may sometimes annoy us, yet keep our daily inter-
course fresher and livelier than if they were done
away. By an occasional hint, however, I have en-
deavored to pave the way for stranger things to come,
which had they been disclosed at once M. du Miroir
might have been deemed a shadow, and myself a
person of no veracity, and this truthful history a fabu-
lous legend. But now that the reader knows me
worthy of his confidence I will begin to make him
stare.

To speak frankly, then, I could bring the most
astounding proofs that M. du Miroir is at least a
conjurer, if not one of that unearthly tribe with whom
conjurers deal. He has inscrutable methods of con-
veying himself from place to place with the rapidity
of the swiftest steamboat or rail-car. Brick walls
and oaken doors and iron bolts are no impediment
to his passage. Here in my chamber, for instance,
as the evening deepens into night, I sit alone, the
key turned and withdrawn from the lock, the keyhole
stuffed with paper to keep out a peevish little blast of
wind. Yet, lonely as I seem, were I to lift one of the
lamps and step five paces eastward, M. du Miroir
would be sure to meet me with a lamp also in his
hand. And were I to take the stage-coach to-mor-
row without giving him the least hint of my design,
and post onward till the week's end, at whatever
hotel I might find myself I should expect to share
my private apartment with this inevitable M. du
Miroir. Or out of a mere wayward fantasy were I

dfconsicur £>u /IMroir. 183

to go by moonlight and stand beside the stone font
of the Shaker Spring at Canterbury, M. du Miroir
would set forth on the same fool's errand, and would
not fail to meet me there.

Shall I heighten the reader's wonder ? While
writing these latter sentences I happened to glance
toward the large round globe of one of the brass
andirons, and, lo ! a miniature apparition of M. du
Miroir with his face widened and grotesquely con-
torted, as if he were making fun of my amazement.
But he has played so many of these jokes that they
begin to lose their effect. Once — presumptuous
that he was — he stole into the heaven of a young
lady's eyes; so that while I gazed and was dream-
ing only of herself I found him also in my dream.
Years have so changed him since that he need never
hope to enter those heavenly orbs again.

From these veritable statements it will be readily
concluded that had M. du Miroir played such pranks
in old witch-times matters might have gone hard
with him — at least, if the constable and posse comi-
tatus could have executed a warrant or the jailer
had been cunning enough to keep him. But it has
often occurred to me as a very singular circum-
stance, and as betokening either a temperament
morbidly suspicious or some weighty cause of appre-
hension, that he never trusts himself within the
grasp even of his most intimate friend. If you step
forward to meet him, he readily advances ; if you
offer him your hand, he extends his own with an air
of the utmost frankness, but, though you calculate
upon a hearty shake, you do not get hold of his
little finger. Ah! this M. du Miroir is a slippery
fellow.

These, truly, are matters of special admiration.

184 fl&osses from an QID toanse.

After vainly endeavoring by the strenuous exertion
of my own wits to gain a satisfactory insight into
the character of M. du Miroir, I had recourse to
certain wise men, and also to books of abstruse
philosophy, seeking who it was that haunted me,
and why. I heard long lectures and read huge
volumes with little profit beyond the knowledge
that many former instances are recorded in suc-
cessive ages of similar connections between ordinary
mortals and beings possessing the attributes of M.
du Miroir. Some now alive, perhaps, besides
myself, have such attendants. Would that M. du
Miroir could be persuaded to transfer his attach-
ment to one of those, and allow some other of his
race to assume the situation that he now holds in
regard to me ! If I must needs have so intrusire
an intimate, who stares me in the face in my closest
privacy and follows me even to my bed-chamber, I
should prefer — scandal apart — the laughing bloom
of a young girl to the dark and bearded gravity of
my present companion. But such desires are never
to be gratified. Though the members of M. du
Miroir's family have been accused — perhaps justly
— of visiting their friends often in splendid halls
and seldom in darksome dungeons, yet they exhibit
a rare constancy to the objects of their first attach-
ment, however unlovely in person or unamiable in
disposition — however unfortunate, or even infamous,
and deserted by all the world besides. So will it
be with my associate. Our fates appear insepar-
ably blended. It is my belief, as I find him min-
gling with my earliest recollections, that we came
into existence together, as my shadow follows me
into the sunshine, and that, hereafter as heretofore,
the brightness or gloom of my fortunes will shine

dfconsfeur. fcu /IMroir. 185

upon or darken the face of M. du Miroir. As we
have been young together, and as it is now near the
summer noon with both of us, so, if long life be
granted, shall each count his own wrinkles on the
other's brow and his white hairs on the other's
head.

And when the coffin-lid shall have closed over me,
and that face and form which more truly than the
lover swears it to his beloved are the sole light of
his existence — when they shall be laid in that dark
chamber whither his swift and secret footsteps can-
not bring him — then what is to become of poor
M. du Miroir ? Will he have the fortitude, with my
other friends, to take a last look at my pale coun-
tenance ? Will he walk foremost in the funeral
train ? Will he come often and haunt around my
grave, and weed away the nettles, and plant flowers
amid the verdure, and scrape the moss out of the
letters of my burial-stone ? Will he linger where I
have lived, to remind the neglectful world of one
who staked much to win a name, but will not then
care whether he lost or won ?

Not thus will he prove his deep fidelity. Oh
what terror if this friend of mine, after our last fare-
well, should step into the crowded street, or roam
along our old frequented path by the still waters, or
sit down in the domestic circle, where our faces are
most familiar and beloved ! No ; but when the rays
of heaven shall bless me no more, nor the thought-
ful lamplight gleam upon my studies, nor the cheer-
ful fireside gladden the meditative man, then, his
task fulfilled, shall this mysterious being vanish
from the earth forever. He will pass to the dark
realm of Nothingness, but will not find me there.

There is something fearful in bearing such a rela

1 86 /Bosses trom an ®i& flfcanse.

tion to a creature so imperfectly known, and in the
idea that to a certain extent all which concerns myself
will be reflected in its consequences upon him.
When we feel that another is to share the selfsame
fortune with ourselves, we judge more severely of
our prospects and withhold our confidence from
hat delusive magic which appears to shed an in-
allibility of happiness over our own pathway.

Of late years, indeed, there has been much to
sadden my intercourse with M. du Miroir. Had
not our union been a necessary condition of our life,
we must have been estranged ere now. In early
youth, when my affections were warm and free, I
loved him well, and could always spend a pleasant
hour in his society, chiefly because it gave me an
excellent opinion of myself. Speechless as he was,
M. du Miroir had then a most agreeable way of
calling me a handsome fellow, and I, of course,
returned the compliment ; so that the more we kept
each other's company, the greater coxcombs we
mutually grew. But neither of us need apprehend
any such misfortune now. When we chance to
meet — for it is chance oftener than design — each
glances sadly at the other's forehead, dreading
wrinkles there: and at our temples, whence the
hair is thinning away too early ; and at the sunken
eyes, which no longer shed a gladsome light over
the whole face. I involuntarily peruse him as a
record of my heavy youth, which has been wasted
in sluggishness for lack of hope and impulse, or
equally thrown away in toil that had no wise motive
and has accomplished no good end. I perceive that
the tranquil gloom of a disappointed soul has
darkened through his countenance, where the black-
ness of the future seems to mingle with the shadows

flfconsteur Du iHSirotr. 187

of the past, giving him the aspect of a fated man.
Is it too wild a thought that my fate may have
assumed this image of myself, and therefore haunts
me with such inevitable pertinacity, originating every
act which it appears to imitate, while it deludes me
by pretending to share the events of which it is
merely the emblem and the prophecy ? I must
banish this idea, or it will throw too deep an awe
round my companion. At our next meeting,
especially if it be at midnight or in solitude, I fear
that I shall glance aside and shudder ; in which
case, as M. du Miroir is extremely sensitive to ill-
treatment, he also will avert his eyes and express
horror or disgust.

But no ! this is unworthy of me. As of old I
sought his society for the bewitching dreams of
woman's love which he inspired and because I
fancied a bright fortune in his aspect, so now will I
hold daily and long communion with him for the
sake of the stern lessons that he will teach my man-
hood. With folded arms we will sit face to face and
lengthen out our silent converse till a wiser cheer-
fulness shall have been wrought from the very tex-
ture of despondency. He will say — perhaps indig-
nantly— that it befits only him to mourn for the
decay of outward grace which while he possessed it
was his all. But have not you, he will ask, a treas-
ure in reserve to which every year may add far
more value than age, or death itself, can snatch
from that miserable clay? He will tell me that
though the bloom of life has been nipped with a
frost, yet the soul must not sit shivering in its cell,
but bestir itself manfully and kindle a genial warmth
from its own exercise against the autumnal and the
wintry atmosphere. And I, in return, will bid him

1 88 /Bosses from an Olfc

be of good cheer, nor take it amiss that I nust
blanch his locks and wrinkle him up like a wilted
apple, since it shall be my endeavor so to beautify
his face with intellect and mild benevolence that he
shall profit immensely by the change. l!ut here
a smile will glimmer somewhat sadly over M. du
Miroir's visage.

When this subject shall have been sufficiently
discussed, we may take up others as important.
Reflecting upon his power of following me to the
remotest regions and into the deepest privacy, I
will compare the attempt to escape him to the hope-
less race that men sometimes run with memory or
their own hearts or their moral selves, which, though
burdened with cares enough to crush an elephant,
will never be one step behind. I will be self-con-
templative, as nature bids me, and make him the
picture or visible type of what I muse upon, that my
mind may not wander so vaguely as heretofore,
•chasing its own shadow through a chaos and catch-
ing only the monsters that abide there. Then will
we turn our thoughts to the spiritual world, of the
reality of which my companions shall furnish me an
illustration, if not an argument. For, as we have
only the testimony of the eye to M. du Miroir's
existence, while all the other senses would fail to
inform us that such a figure stands within arm's
length, wherefore should there not be beings in-
numerable close beside us and filling heaven and
earth with their multitude, yet of whom no corporeal
perception can take cognizance ? A blind man might
as reasonably deny that M. du Miroir exists as we,
because the Creator has hitherto withheld the spir-
itual perception, can therefore contend that there are
no spirits. Oh, there are ! And at this moment,

flBonsteur &u flMrotr. 189

when the subject of which I write has grown strong
within me and surrounded itself with those solemn
and awful associations which might have seemed
most alien to it, I could fancy that M. du Miroir
himself is a wanderer from the spiritual world,
with nothing human except his illusive garment
of visibility. Methinks I should tremble now were
his wizard-power of gliding through all impediments
in search of me to place him suddenly before my
eyes.

Ha ! What is yonder ? — Shape of mystery, did
the tremor of my heart-strings vibrate to thine own
and call thee from thy home among the dancers of
the Northern Lights, and shadows flung from de-
parted sunshine, and giant specters that appear on
clouds at daybreak and affright the climber of the
Alps ? — In truth, it startled me, as I threw a wary
glance eastward across the chamber, to discern an
unbidden guest with his eyes bent on mine. The
indentical MONSIEUR DU MIROIR ! Still, there he
sits, and returns my gaze with as much of awe and
curiosity as if he too had spent a solitary evening
in fantastic musings and made me his theme. So
inimitably does he counterfeit that I could almost
doubt which of us is the visionary form, or whether
each be not .the other's mystery, and both twin-
brethren of one fate in mutually reflected spheres.
— Oh, friend, canst thou not hear and answer me ?
Break down the barrier between us ! Grasp my
hand ! Speak ! Listen ! A few words, perhaps, might
satisfy the feverish yearning of my soul for some
master-thought that should guide me through this laby-
rinth of life, teaching wherefore I was born, and how
to do my task on earth, and what is death. — Alas 1
Even that unreal image should forget to ape me and
1.1

190 &063C0 from an OlD /fcansc.

smile at these vain questions. Thus do mortals
deify, as it were, a mere shadow of themselves, a
specter of human reason, and ask of that to unveil
the mysteries which divine Intelligence has revealed
so far as needful to our guidance and hid the rest.

Farewell, Monsieur du Miroir ! Of you, perhaps,
as of many men, it may be doubted whether you are
the wiser, though your whole business is reflection.

THE HALL OF FANTASY.

IT has happened to me on various occasions to
find myself in a certain edifice which would appear
to have some of the characteristics of a public
exchange. Its interior is a spacious hall with a
pavement of white marble. Overhead is a lofty
dome supported by long rows of pillars of fantastic
architecture the idea of which was probably taken
from the Moorish ruins of the Alhambra, or perhaps
from some enchanted edifice in the Arabian tales*
The windows of this hall have a breadth and
grandeur of design and an elaborateness of work-
manship that have nowhere been equaled except i&
the Gothic cathedrals of the Old World. Like their
prototypes, too, they admit the light of heaven only
through stained and pictured glass, thus filling the
hall with many-colored radiance and painting its
marble floor with beautiful or grotesque designs ; so
that its inmates breathe, as it were, a visionary
atmosphere and tread upon the fantasies of poetic
minds. These peculiarities, combining a wilder
mixture of styles than even an American architect
usually recognizes as allowable — Grecian, Gothic,
Oriental and nondescript — cause the whole edifice
to give the impression of a dream which might be
dissipated and shattered to fragments by merely
stamping the foot upon the pavement. Yet, with

191

192 bosses from an ©Ifc dfoanse.

such modifications and repairs as successive ages
demand, the Hall of Fantasy is likely to endure
longer than the most substantial structure that ever
cumbered the earth.

It is not at all times that one can gain admittance
into this edifice, although most persons enter it at
some period or other of their lives — if not in their
waking moments, then by the universal passport of a
dream. At my last visit I wandered thither una-
wares while my mind was busy with an idle tale, and
was startled by the throng of people who seemed
suddenly to rise up around me.

" Bless me ! where am I ? " cried I, with but a
dim recognition of the place.

" You are in a spot," said a friend who chanced
to be near at hand, " which occupies in the world of
Fancy the same position which the Bourse, the Rialto
and the Exchange do in the commercial world. All
who have affairs in that mystic region which lies
above, below or beyond the actual may here meet
and talk over the business of their dreams."

" It is a noble hall," observed I.

"Yes," he replied, "yet we see but a small por-
tion of the edifice. In its upper stories are said to
be apartments where the inhabitants of earth may
hold converse with those of the moon, and beneath
our feet are gloomy cells which communicate with
the infernal regions, and where monsters and chimeras
are kept in confinement and fed with all unwhole-
someness."

In niches and on pedestals around about the hall
stood the statues or busts of men who in every age
have been rulers and demigods in the realms of im-
agination and its kindred regions. The grand old
countenance of Homer, the shrunken and decrepit

of

form, but vivid face, of JEsop, the dark presence of
Dante, the wild Ariosto, Rabelais's smile of deep-
wrought mirth, the profound, pathetic humor of
Cervantes, the all-glorious Shakespeare, Spenser.
meet guest for an allegoric structure, the severe
divinity of Milton, and Bunyan, molded of home
liest clay, but instinct with celestial fire, — were those
that chiefly attracted my eye. Fielding, Richardson
and Scott occupied conspicuous pedestals. In an
obscure and shadowy niche was deposited the bust
of our countryman the author of Arthur Mervyn.

" Besides these indestructible memorials of real
genius," remarked my companion, " each century
has erected statues of its own ephemeral favorites
in wood."

" I observe a few crumbling relics of such," said
I. " But ever and anon, I suppose. Oblivion comes
with her huge broom and sweeps them all from the
marble floor. But such will never be the fate of
this fine statue of Goethe."

" Nor of that next to it — Emanuel Swedenborg,"
said he. " Were ever two men of transcendent im-
agination more unlike ? "

In the center of the hall springs an ornamental
fountain the water of which continually throws itself
into new shapes and snatches the most diversified
hues from the stained atmosphere around. It is
impossible to conceive what a strange vivacity is
imparted to the scene by the magic dance of this
fountain, with its endless transformations in which
the imaginative beholder may discern what form he
will. The water is supposed by some to flow from
the same source as the Castalian spring, and is ex-
tolled by others as uniting the virtues of the Foun-
tain of Youth with those of many other enchanted

i94

from an ©ID /fcanse.

wells long celebrated in tale and song. Having
never tasted it, I can bear no testimony to its quality.

" Did you ever drink this water ? " I inquired of
my friend.

" A few sips now and then," answered he. " But
there are men here who make it their constant bev-
erage— or, at least, have the credit of doing so. In
some instances it is known to have intoxicating
qualities."

" Pray let us look at these water-drinkers," said I.

So we passed among the fantastic pillars till we
came to a spot where a number of persons were
clustered together in the light of one of the great
stained windows, which seemed to glorify the whole
group as well as the marble that they trod on.
Most of them were men of broad foreheads, medita-
tive countenances and thoughtful inward eyes, yet
it required but a trifle to summon up mirth, peep-
ing out from the very midst of grave and lofty mus-
ings. Some strode about or leaned against the
pillars of the hall alone and in silence ; their faces
wore a rapt expression, as if sweet music were in
the air around them, or as if their inmost souls were
about to float away in song. One or two. perhaps,
stole a glance at the bystanders to watch if their
poetic absorption were observed. Others stood
talking in groups with a liveliness of expression, a
ready smile and a light intellectual laughter which
showed how rapidly the shafts of wit were glancing
to and fro among them.

A few held higher converse which caused their
calm and melancholy souls to beam moonlight from
their eyes. As I lingered near them — for I felt
an inward attraction toward these men, as if the
sympathy of feeling, if not of genius, had united

£be 1baU ot ffantasg. 195

me to their order — my friend mentioned several of
their names. The world has likewise heard those
names ; with some it has been familiar for years,
and others are daily making their way deeper into
the universal heart.

" Thank Heaven," observed I to my companion
as we passed to another part of the hall, "we have
done with this tetchy, wayward, shy, proud, un-
reasonable set of laurel-gatherers ! I love them in
their works, but have little desire to meet them
elsewhere."

" You have adopted an old prejudice, I see,"
replied my friend, who was familiar with most of
these worthies, being himself a student of poetry
and not without the poetic flame. " But, so far as
my experience goes, men of genius are fairly gifted
with the social qualities, and in this age there
appears to be a fellow-feeling among them which
had not heretofore been developed. As men they
ask nothing better than to be on equal terms with their
fellow-men, and as authors they have thrown aside
their proverbial jealousy and acknowledge a generous
brotherhood."

" The world does not think so," answered I.
" An author is received in general society pretty
much as we honest citizens are in the Hall of
Fantasy. We gaze at him as if he had no business
among us, and question whether he is fit for any of
our pursuits."

" Then it is a very foolish question," said he.
" Now, here are a class of men whom we may daily
meet on ^Change, yet what poet in the hall is more
a fool of Fancy than the sagest of them ? "

He pointed to a number of persons who, manifest
as the fact was, would have deemed it an insult

196 d&osses trom an

to be told that they stood in the Hall of Fantasy.
Their visages were traced into wrinkles and furrows
each of which seemed the record of some actual
experience in life. Their eyes had the shrewd,
calculating glance which detects so quickly and so
surely all that it concerns a man of business to know
about the characters and purposes of his fellow-men,
judging them as they stood, they might be honored
and trusted members of the Chamber of Commerce
who had found the genuine secret of wealth, and
whose sagacity gave them the command of fortune.
There was a character of detail and matter of fact
in their talk which concealed the extravagance of
its purport, insomuch that the wildest schemes had
the aspect of every-day realities. Thus the lis-
tener was not startled at the idea of cities to be
built as if by magic in the heart of pathless forests,
and of streets to be laid out where now the sea was
tossing, and of mighty rivers to be stayed in their
courses in order to turn the machinery of a cotton
mill. It was only by an effort — and scarcely then—
that the mind convinced itself that such speculations
were as much matter of fantasy as the old dream of
Eldorado, or as Mammon's Cave or any other vision
of gold ever conjured up by the imagination of
needy poet or romantic adventurer.

" Upon my word," said I, " it is dangerous to listen
to such dreamers as these. Their madness is
contagious."

"Yes," said my friend, "because they mistake the
Hall of Fantasy for actual brick and mortar and its
purple atmosphere for unsophisticated sunshine.
But the poet knows his whereabout, and therefore
is less likely to make a fool of himself in real life."

" Here, again," observed I, as we advanced a

Gbe 1)aU of #anta0B. 197

little farther, " we see another order of dreamers —
peculiarly characteristic, too, of the genius of our
country."

These were the inventors of fantastic machines.
Models* of their contrivances were placed against
some of the pillars of the hall, and afforded good
emblems of the result generally to be anticipated
from an attempt to reduce day-dreams to practice.
The analogy may hold in morals as well as physics.
For instance, here was the model of a railroad
through the air and a tunnel under the sea. Here
was a machine — stolen, I believe — for the distilla-
tion of heat from moonshine, and another for the
condensation of morning mist into square blocks of
granite wherewith it was proposed to rebuild the
entire Hall of Fantasy. One man exhibited a sort
of lens whereby he had succeeded in making sun-
shine out of a lady's smile, and it was his purpose
wholly to irradiate the earth by means of this
wonderful invention.

" It is nothing new," said I, "for most of out
sunshine comes from woman's smile already."

"True," answered the inventor; " but my machine
will secure a constant supply for domestic use,
whereas hitherto it has been very precarious."

Another person had a scheme for fixing the re-
flections of objects in a pool of water, and thus
taking the most lifelike portraits imaginable, and
the same gentleman demonstrated the practi-
cability of giving a permanent dye to ladies' dresses
in the gorgeous clouds of sunset. There were at
least fifty kinds of perpetual motion, one of which
was applicable to the wits of newspaper editors and
writers of every description. Professor Espy was
here with a tremendous storm in a gum-elastic bag.

198 flfcosses trom an

I could enumerate many more of these Utopian in-
ventions, but, after all, a more imaginative collection
is to be found in the Patent Office at Washington.

Turning from the inventors, we took a more
general survey of the inmates of the hall. Many
persons were present whose right of entrance
appeared to consist in some crotchet of the briin
which, so long as it might operate, produced a
change in their relation to the actual world. It is
singular how very few there are who do not occasion-
ally gain admittance on such a score, either in
abstracted musings or momentary thoughts or bright
anticipations or vivid remembrances ; for even the
actual becomes ideal, whether in hope or memory,
and beguiles the dreamer into the Hall of Fantasy.
Some unfortunates make their whole abode and
business here, and contract habits which unfit them
for all the real employments of life. Others — but
these are few — possess the faculty in their occa-
sional visits of discovering a purer truth than the
world can impart among the lights and shadows
of these pictured windows.

And, with all its dangerous influences, we have
reason to thank God that there is such a place of
refuge from the gloom and chillness of actual life.
Hither may come the prisoner escaping from his
dark and narrow cell and cankerous chain to breathe
free air in this enchanted atmosphere. The sick
man leaves.his weary pillow and finds strength to
wander hither, though his wasted limbs migi^t not
support him even to the threshold of his chamber.
The exile passes through the Hall of Fantasy to
revisit his native soil. The burden of years rolls
down from the old man's shoulders the moment that
the door uncloses. Mourners leave their heavy

Cbe l>aU of ffantasg. 199

sorrows at the entrance, and here rejoin the lost
ones whose faces would else be seen no more until
thought shall have become the only fact. It may be
said, in truth, that there is but half a life — the
meaner and earthlier half — for those who never find
their way into the hall. Nor must I fail to mention
that in the observatory of the edifice is kept that
wonderful perspective glass through which the shep-
herds of the Delectable Mountains showed Christian
the far-off gleam of the Celestial City. The eye of
Faith still loves to gaze through it.

" I observe some men here," said I to my friend,
" who might set up a strong claim to be reckoned
among the most real personages of the day."

" Certainly," he replied. " If a man be in advance
of his age, he must be content to make his abode in
this hall until the lingering generations of his fellow-
men come up with him. He can find no other
shelter in the universe. But the fantasies of one
day are the deepest realities of a future one."

" It is difficult to distinguish them apart amid the
gorgeous and bewildering light of this hall," rejoined
I ; " the white sunshine of actual life is necessary in
order to test them. I am rather apt to doubt both
men and their reasonings till I meet them in that
truthful medium. "

" Perhaps your faith in the ideal is deeper than
you are aware," said my friend. " You are, at least,
a democrat, and methinks no scanty share of such
faith is essential to the adoption of that creed."

Among 4the characters who had elicited these
remarks were most of the noted reformers of the day,
whether in physics, politics, morals or religion.
There is no surer method of arriving at the Hall of
Fantasy than to throw one's self into the current of

200 /Bosses from an ©ID flfcanse.

a theory, for, whatever landmarks of fact may be set
up along the stream, there is a law of nature that
impels it thither. And let it be so, for here the wise
head and capacious heart may do their work, and what
is good and true becomes gradually hardened into
fact, while error melts away and vanishes among the
shadows of the hall. Therefore may none whc
believe and rejoice in the progress of mankind be
angry with ms because I recognized their apostles and
leaders amid the fantastic radiance of those pictured
windows. I love and honor such men, as well as
they.

It would be endless to describe the herd of real or
self-styled reformers that peopled this place of refuge.
They were the representatives of an unquiet period
when mankind is seeking to cast off the whole tissue
of ancient custom like a tattered garment. Many of
them had got possession of some crystal fragment
of truth the brightness of which so dazzled them
that they could see nothing else in the wide universe.
Here were men whose faith had embodied itself in
the form of a potato, and others whose long beards
had a deep spiritual significance. Here was the
Abolitionist brandishing his one idea like an iron flail.
In a word, there were a thousand shapes of good
and evil, faith and infidelity, wisdom and nonsense
— a most incongruous throng.

Yet, withal, the heart of the stanchest conserva-
tive, unless he abjured his fellowship with man, could
hardly have helped throbbing in sympathy with the
spirit that pervaded these innumerable theorists. It
was good for the man of unquickened heart to listen
even to their folly. Far down beyond the fathom of
the intellect the soul acknowledged that all these
varying and conflicting developments of humanity

f>all of jfantas£. 201

were united in one sentiment. Be the individual
theory as wild as fancy could make it, still the wiser
spirit would recognize the struggle of the race
after a better and purer life than had yet been
realized on earth. My faith revived even while I
rejected all their schemes. It could not be that the
world should continue forever what it has been — a
soil where happiness is so rare a flower and virtue
so often a blighted fruit, a battle-field where the good
principle, with its shield flung above its head, can
hardly save itself amid the rush of adverse influences.
In the enthusiasm of such thoughts I gazed through
one of the pictured windows, and, behold ! the whole
external world was tinged with the dimly-glorious
aspect that is peculiar to the Hall of Fantasy,
insomuch that it seemed practicable at that very
instant to realize some plan for the perfection of
mankind. But, alas ! if reformers would understand
the sphere in which their lot is cast, they must cease
to look through pictured windows, yet they not only
use this medium, but mistake it for the whitest
sunshine.

" Come ! " said I to my friend, starting from a
deep reverie ; " let us hasten hence, or I shall be
tempted to make a theory — after which, there is little
hope of any man."

" Come hither, then," answered he. " Here is
one theory that swallows up and annihilates all
others."

He led me to a distant part of the hall where a
crowd of deeply-attentive auditors were assembled
round an elderly man of plain, honest, trustworthy
aspect. With an earnestness that betokened the
sincerest faith in his own doctrine he announced that
the destruction of the world was close at hand.

202 /Rosses from an Old /foanse.

" It is Father Miller himself ! " exclaimed I.

'* No less a man," said my friend. " And observe
bow picturesque a contrast between his dogma and
those of the reformers whom we have just glanced
at. They look for the earthly perfection of mankind
Aiul are forming schemes which imply that the im-
mortal spirit will be connected with a physical
nature for innumerable ages of futurity. On the
other hand, here comes good Father Miller, and with
one puff of his relentless theory scatters all their
•dreams like so many withered leaves upon the
Hast"

" It is perhaps the only method of getting man-
kind ont of various perplexities into which they have
fallen," I replied. " Yet I could wish that the world
might be permitted to endure until some great moral
shall have been evolved. A riddle is propounded ;
where is the solution ? The Sphinx did not slay
herself until her riddle had been guessed ; will
it not be so with the world ? Now, if it should be
burned to-morrow morning, I am at a loss to know
what purpose will have been accomplished, or how
the universe will be wiser or better for our existence
and destruction."

" \Ve cannot tell what mighty truths may have
Invn embodied in act through the existence of the
globe and its inhabitants," rejoined my companion.
*' Perhaps it may be revealed to us after the fall of
the curtain over our catastrophe ; or, not impossibly,
tin- whole drama in which we are involuntary actors
may have been performed for the instruction of
another set of spectators. I cannot perceive that our
own comprehension of it is at all essential to the
matter. At any rate, while our view is so ridiculously
narrow and superficial it would be absurd to argue

Gbe t>all of ffantasE. 203

the continuance of the world from the fact that it
seems to have existed hitherto in vain."

" The poor old Earth ! " murmured I. " She has
faults enough, in all conscience, but I cannot bear to
have her perish."

" It is no great matter," said my friend. " The
happiest of us has been weary of her many a time
and oft."

" I doubt it," answered I, pertinaciously. " The
root of human nature strikes down deep into this
earthly soil, and it is but reluctantly that we submit
to be transplanted even for a higher cultivation in
heaven. I query whether the destruction of the
earth would gratify any one individual — except,
perhaps, some embarrassed man of business whose
notes fall due a day after the day of doom."

Then, methought, I heard the expostulating cry of
a multitude against the consummation prophesied
by Father Miller. The lover wrestled with Prov-
idence for his foreshadowed bliss; parents entreated
that the earth's span of endurance might be pro-
longed by some seventy years, so that their new-born
infant should not be defrauded of his lifetime ; a
youthful poet murmured because there would be no
posterity to recognize the inspiration of his song ;
the reformers, one and all, demanded a few thousand
years to test their theories, after which the universe
might go to wreck ; a mechanician who was busied
•with an improvement of the steam-engine asked
merely time to perfect his model ; a miser insisted
that the world's destruction would be a personal
wrong to himself unless he should first be permitted
to add a specified sum to his enormous heap of
gold ; a little boy made dolorous inquiry whether the
last day would come before Christmas, and thus-

804 /Bosses from an ©U> fl&anac.

deprive him of his anticipated dainties. In short,
nobody seemed satisfied that this mortal scene
of things should have its close just now. Yet it
must be confessed the motives of the crowd for de-
siring its continuance were mostly so absurd that
unless infinite Wisdom had been aware of much
better reasons the solid earth must have melted away
at once.

For my own part, not to speak of a few private
and personal ends, I really desired our old mother's
prolonged existence for her own dear sake.

u The poor old Earth ! " I repeated. " What I
should chiefly regret in her destruction would be that
very earthliness which no other sphere or state of
existence can renew or compensate. The fragrance
of flowers and of new-mown hay, the genial warmth
of sunshine and the beauty of a sunset among clouds,
the comfort and cheerful glow of the fireside, the
deliciousness of fruits, and of all good cheer, the
magnificence of mountains and seas and cataracts,
and the softer charm of rural scenery — even the fast-
falling snow and the gray atmosphere through which
it descends, — all these, and innumerable other en-
joyable things of Earth must perish with her. Then
the country frolics, the homely humor, the broad,
open-mouthed roar of laughter in which body and
soul conjoin so heartily ! I fear that no other world
can show us anything just like this. As for purely
moral enjoyments, the good will find them in
every state of being. But, where the material and
the moral exist together, what is to happen then ?
And then our mute four-footed friends and the winged
songsters of our woods ! Might it not be lawful to re-
gret them even in the hallowed groves of Paradise ? "

" You speak like the very spirit of Earth imbued

Cbe fjall of ffantagB. 205

with a scent of freshly-turned soil," exclaimed my
friend.

" It is not that I so much object to giving up
these enjoyments on my own account," continued I,
" but I hate to think that they will have been eter-
nally annih'lated from the list of joys."

*• Nor need they be," he replied. " I see no real
force in what you say. Standing in this Hall of
Fantasy, we peiaeeive what even the earth-clogged
intellect of mat can do in creating circumstances
which, thoughe'we call them shadowy and visionary,
are scarcely more so than those that surround us in
actual life. Doubt not, then, that man's disembodied
spirit may re-create time and the world for itself,
with all their peculiar enjoyments, should there still
be human yearnings amid life eternal and infinite.
But I doubt whether we shall be inclined to play
such a poor scene over again."

" Oh, you are ungrateful to our mother Earth ! "
tejoined I. " Come what may, I never will forget
her. Neither will it satisfy me to have her exist
merely in idea : I want her great round solid self
to endure interminably and still to be peopled with
the kindly race of man, whom I uphold to be much
better than he thinks himself. Nevertheless, I con-
fide the whole matter to Providence, and shall en-
deavor so to live that the world may come to an
end at any moment without leaving me at a loss to
find foothold somewhere else."

" It is an excellent resolve," said my companion,
looking at his watch. " But come ! it is the dinner
hour. Will you partake of my vegetable diet ? "

A thing so matter of fact as an invitation to
dinner, even when the fare was to be nothing more
substantial than vegetables and fruit, compelled us

206 fl&osses trom an ©U> flfcansc.

forthwith to remove from the Hall of Fantasy As
we passed out of the portal we met the spirits o\
several persons who had been sent thitfier in mag-
netic sleep. I looked back among the sculptured
pillars and at the transformations of the gleaming
fountain, and almost desired that the whole of life
might be spent in that visionary scene, where the
ictual world with its hard angles should never rub
a^iinst me and only be viewed through the medium
of pictured windows. But for those who waste all
their days in the Hall of Fantasy good Father Mil-
ler's prophecy is already accomplished and the solid
earth has come to an untimely end. Let us be con-
tent, therefore, with merely an occasional visit for
the sake of spiritualizing the grossnessof this actual
life and prefiguring to ourselves a state in which the
idea shall be all in all.

THE CELESTIAL RAILROAD.

NOT a great while ago, passing through the gate
of dreams, I visited that region of the earth in which
lies the famous City of Destruction. It interested
me much to learn that by the public spirit of some
of the inhabitants a railroad has recently been estab-
lished between this populous and flourishing town
and the Celestial City. Having a little time upon
sny hands, I resolved to gratify a liberal curiosity to
make a trip thither. Accordingly, one fine morn-
ing, after paying my bill at the hotel and directing
the porter to stow my luggage behind a coach, I
took my seat in the vehicle and set out for the station-
house. It was my good-fortune to enjoy the com-
pany of a gentleman — one Mr. Smooth-it-Away — •
who, though he had never actually visited the
Celestial City, yet seemed as well acquainted with
its laws, customs, policy and statistics as with those
of the City of Destruction, of which he was a native
townsman. Being, moreover, a director of the rail-
road corporation and one of its largest stockholders,
he had it in his power to give me all desirable in-
formation respecting that praiseworthy enterprise.

Our coach rattled out of the city, and at a short
distance from its outskirts passed over a bridge of
elegant construction, but somewhat too slight, as I
imagined, to sustain any considerable weight. On

207

208 /foosaes from an ©ID /fcanae.

both sides lay an extensive quagmire which could
not have been more disagreeable either to sight or
smell had all the kennels of the earth emptied their
pollution there.

"This," remarked Mr. Smooth-it-Away, " is the
famous Slough of Despond — a disgrace to all the
neighborhood, and the greater that it might so easily
be converted into firm ground."

" I have understood," said I, " that efforts have
been made for that purpose from time immemorial.
Bunyan mentions that above twenty thousand cart-
loads of wholesome instructions had been thrown
in here without effect."

" Very probably ! And what effect could be anti-
cipated from such unsubstantial stuff ? " cried Mr.
Smooth-it-Away. "You observe this convenient
bridge ? We obtained a sufficient foundation for it
by throwing into the slough some editions of books
ot morality, volumes of French philosophy and
German rationalism, tracts, sermons and essays of
modern clergymen, extracts from Plato, Confucius
and various Hindoo sages, together with a few
ingenious commentaries upon texts of Scripture —
all of which, by some scientific process, have been
converted into a mass like granite. The whole bog
might be filled up with similar matter."

It really seemed to me, however, that the bridge
vibrated and heaved up and down in a very formid-
able manner; and, spite of Mr. Smooth-it- A way's
testimony to the solidity of its foundation, I should
be loth to cross it in a crowded omnibus, especially
if each passenger were encumbered with as heavy
luggage as that gentleman and myself. Neverthe-
le>s, we got over without accident, and soon found
ourselves at the station-house. This very neat and

Gbe Celestial IRailroafc. 209

spacious edifice is erected on the site of the little
wicket-gate which formerly, as all old pilgrims will
recollect, stood directly across the highway, and by
its inconvenient narrowness was a great obstruction
to the traveler of liberal mind and expansive stomach.
The reader of John Bunyan will be glad to know
that Christian's old friend' Evangelist, who was ac-
customed to supply each pilgrim with a mystic roll,
now presides at the ticket-office. Some malicious
persons, it is true, deny the identity of this reput-
able character with the Evangelist of old times, and
even pretend to bring competent evidence of an im-
posture. Without involving myself in a dispute, I
shall merely observe that, so far as my experience
goes, the square pieces of pasteboard now delivered
to passengers are much more convenient and useful
along the road than the antique roll of parchment.
Whether they will be as readily received at the gate
of the Celestial City, I decline giving an opinion.

A large number of passengers were already at the
station-house awaiting the departure of the cars.
By the aspect and demeanor of these persons, it was
easy to judge that the feelings of the community
had undergone a very favorable change in reference
to the celestial pilgrimage. It would have done
Bunyan's heart good to see it. Instead of a lonely
and ragged man with a huge burden on his back
plodding along sorrowfully on foot while the whole
city hooted after him, here were parties of the first
gentry and most respectable people in the neighbor-
hood setting forth toward the Celestial City as cheer-
fully as if the pilgrimage were merely a summer
tour. Among the gentlemen were characters of de-
served eminence — magistrates, politicians and men
of wealth hv whose example religion could not but

210 /fcosses from an Olfc flfcanse.

be greatly recommended to their meaner brethren.
In the ladies' apartment, too, I rejoiced to dis-
tinguish some of those flowers of fashionable society
who are so well fitted to adorn the most elevated
circles of the Celestial City. There was much pleas-
ant conversation about the news of the day, topics
of business, politics or the lighter matters of amuse-
ment, while religion, though indubitably the main
thing at heart, was thrown tastefully into the back-
ground. Even an infidel would have heard little
or nothing to shock his sensibility.

One great convenience of the new method of going
on pilgrimage I must not forget to mention. Our
enormous burdens, instead of being carried on our
shoulders, as had been the custom of old, were all
snugly deposited in the baggage-car, and, as I was
assured, would be delivered to their respective
owners at the journey's end. Another thing, like-
wise, the benevolent reader will be delighted to
understand. It may be remembered that there was
an ancient feud between Prince Beelzebub and the
keeper of the wicket-gate, and that the adherents
of the former distinguished personage were accus-
tomed to shoot deadly arrows at honest pilgrims
while knocking at the door. This dispute, much to
the credit as well of the illustrious potentate above
mentioned as of the worthy and enlightened directors
of the railroad, has been pacifically arranged on the
principle of mutual compromise. The prince's sub*
jects are now pretty numerously employed about
the station-house — some in taking care of the bag-
gage, others in collecting fuel, feeding the engines,
and such congenial occupations — and I can con-
scientiously affirm that persons more attentive to
their business, more willing to accommodate or more

Gbe Celestial TRatlroafc. 211

generally agreeable to the passengers are not to
be found on any railroad. Every good heart must
surely exult at so satisfactory an arrangement of an
immemorial difficulty.

"Wh,^re is Mr. Great-heart?" inquired I. "Be-
yond a doubt, the directors have engaged that fam-
ous old champion to be chief conductor on the
railroad ? "

" Why, no," said Mr. Smooth-it- A way, with a dry
cough. " He was offered the situation of brake-
man, but, to tell you the truth, our friend Great-
heart has grown preposterously stiff and narrow in
his old age. He has so often guided pilgrims over
the road on foot that he considers it a sin to travel
in any other fashion. Besides, the old fellow had
entered so heartily into the ancient feud with Prince
Beelzebub that he would have been perpetually at
blows or ill-language with some of the prince's sub-
jects, and thus have embroiled us anew. So, on
the whole, we were not sorry when honest Great-
heart went off to the Celestial City in a huff and
left us at liberty to choose a more suitable and ac-
commodating man. Yonder comes the conductor
of the train. You will probably recognize him at
once."

The engine at this moment took its station in
advance of the cars, looking, I must confess, much
more like a sort of mechanical demon that would
hurry us to the infernal regions than a laudable con-
trivance for smoothing our way to the Celestial City.
On its top sat a personage almost enveloped in
smoke and flame which — not to startle the reader —
appeared to gush from his own mouth and stomach,
as well as from the engine's brazen abdomen.

" Do my eyes deceive me ? " cried I. " What on

212 flfcosses from an ©ID /flbanse.

earth is ihis ? A living creature ? If so, he is own
brother to the engine he rides upon ! "

" Poh, poh ! you are obtuse ! " said Mr. Smooth-
it- Away, with a hearty laugh. " Don't you know
Apollyon, Christian's old enemy, with whom he
fought so fierce a battle in the Valley of Humilia-
tion f He was the very fellow to manage the en-
gine, and so we have reconciled him to the custom
of going on pilgrimage, and engaged him as chief
conductor."

" Bravo, bravo ! " exclaimed I, with irrepressible
enthusiasm. "This shows the liberality of the age ;
this proves, if anything can, that all musty preju-
dices are in a fair way to be obliterated. And how
will Christian rejoice to hear of this happy trans-
formation of his old antagonist ! I promise myself
great pleasure in informing him of it when we reach
the Celestial City."

The passengers being all comfortably seated, we
now rattled away merrily, accomplishing a greater
distance in ten minutes than Christian probably
trudged over in a day. It was laughable while we
glanced along, as it were, at the tail of a thunder-
bolt, to observe two dusty foot-travelers in the old
pilgrim guise, with cockle-shell and staff, their mys-
tic rolls of parchment in their hands and their intol-
erable burdens on their backs. The preposterous
obstinacy of these honest people in persisting to
groan and stumble along the difficult pathway
rather than take advantage of modern improve-
ments excited great mirth among our wiser brother-
hood. We greeted the two pilgrims with many
pleasant gibes and a roar of laughter ; whereupon
they gazed at us with such woful and absurdly
compassionate visages that our merriment grew ten-

Celestial TRailroafc. 213

fold more obstreperous. Apollyon, also, entered
heartily into the fun, and contrived to flirt the
smoke and flame of the engine or of his own breath
into their faces, and envelop them in an atmosphere
of scalding steam. These little practical jokes
amused us mightily, and doubtless afforded the
pilgrims the gratification of considering themselves
martyrs.

At some distance from the railroad Mr. Smooth-it-
Away pointed to a large, antique edifice which, he
observed, was a tavern of long standing, and had
formerly been a noted stopping-place for pilgrims.
In Bunyan's road-book it is mentioned as the Inter-
preter's House.

" I have long had a curiosity to visit that old man-
sion," remarked I.

" It is not one of our stations, as you perceive,"
said my companion. " The keeper was violently
opposed to the railroad, and well he might be, as the
track left his house of entertainment on one side,
and thus was pretty certain to deprive him of all his
reputable customers. But the footpath still passes
his door, and the old gentleman now and then
receives a call from some simple traveler and
entertains him with fare as old-fashioned as him-
self."

Before our talk on this subject came to a conclu-
sion we were rushing by the place where Christian's
burden fell from his shoulders at the sight of the
cross. This served as a theme for Mr. Smooth-it-
A.way, Mr. Live-for-the-World, Mr. Hide-Sin-in-the-
Heart, Mr. Scaly-Conscience and a knot of gentle
men from the town of Shim-Repentance to descant
upon the inestimable advantages resulting from the
safety of our baggage. Myself — and all the passen-

214 /Bosses trom an ©K> /foanse.

gers, indeed — joined with great unanimity in this view
of the matter, for our burdens were rich in many
things esteemed precious throughout the world, and
especially we each of us possessed a great variety of
favorite habits which we trusted would not be out
of fashion even in the polite circles of the Celestial
City. It would have been a sad spectacle to see
such an assortment of valuable articles tumbling into
the sepulcher.

Thus pleasantly conversing on the favorable cir-
cumstances of our position as compared with those
of past pilgrims and of narrow-minded ones at the
present day, we soon found ourselves at the foot of
the Hill Difficulty. Through the very heart of this
rocky mountain a tunnel has been constructed, of
most admirable architecture, with a lofty arch and a
spacious double track ; so that, unless the earth and
rocks should chance to crumble down, it will remain
an eternal monument of the builders' skill and enter-
prise. It is a great though incidental advantage
that the materials from the heart of the Hill Diffi-
culty have been employed in filling up the Valley of
Humiliation, thus obviating the necessity of descend-
ing into that disagreeable and unwholesome hollow.

" This is a wonderful improvement indeed," said
I. " Yet I should have been glad of an opportunity
to visit the palace Beautiful and be introduced to
the charming young ladies — Miss Prudence, Miss
Piety, Miss Charity, and the rest — who have the
kindness to entertain pilgrims there."

'• ' Young ladies ' ! " cried Mr. Smooth-it- Away as
soon as he could speak for laughing. " And charm-
ing young ladies ! Why, my dear fellow, they are
old maids, every soul of them — prim, starched, dry
and angular — and not one of them, I will venture to

Cbe Celestial IRailroafc. 215

say, has altered so much as the fashion of her gown
since the days of Christian's pilgrimage."

" Ah, well 1 " said I, much comforted ; " then I
can very readily dispense with their acquaintance."

The respectable Apollyon was now putting on the
steam at a prodigious rate — anxious, perhaps, to get
rid of the unpleasant reminiscences connected with
the spot where he had so disastrously encountered
Christian.

Consulting Mr. Bunyan's road-book, I perceived
that we must now be within a few miles of the Val-
ley of the Shadow of Death, into which doleful re-
gion, at our present speed, we should plunge much
sooner than seemed at all desirable. In truth, I
expected nothing better than to find myself in the
ditch on one side or the quag on the other. But on
communicating my apprehensions to Mr. Smooth-it-
Away he assured me that the difficulties of this pas-
sage, even in its worst condition, had been vastly
exaggerated, and that in its present state of improve-
ment I might consider myself as safe as on any rail-
road in Christendom.

Even while we were speaking the train shot into
the entrance of this dreaded valley. Though I plead
guilty to some foolish palpitations of the heart during
our headlong rush over the causeway here con-
structed, yet it were unjust to withhold the highest
encomiums on the boldness of its original conception
and the ingenuity of those who executed it. It was
gratifying, likewise, to observe how much care had
been taken to dispel the everlasting gloom and
supply the defect of cheerful sunshine, not a ray
of which has ever penetrated among these awful
shadows. For this purpose the inflammable gas
which exudes plentifully from the soil is collected

216 ^Bosses from an ©ID dftanse.

by means of pipes, and thence communicated to a
quadruple row of lamps along the whole extent of
the passage. Thus a radiance has been created
even out of the fiery and sulphurous curse that rests
forever upon the Valley — a radiance hurtful, how-
ever, to the eyes, and somewhat bewildering, as I
discovered by the changes which it wrought in the
visages of my companions. In this respect, as com
pared wihi natural daylight, there is the same differ-
ence as between truth and falsehood ; but if the
reader have ever traveled through the dark valley, he
will have learned to be thankful for any light that he
could get — if not from the sky above, then from the
blasted soil beneath. Such was the red brilliancy of
these lamps that they appeared to build walls of fire
on both sides of the track, between which we held
our course at lightning speed, while a reverberating
thunder filled the valley with its echoes. Had the
engine run off the track — a catastrophe, it is whis-
pered, by no means unprecedented — the bottomless
pit, if there be any such place, would undoubtedly
have received us. Just as some dismal fooleries of
this nature had made my heart quake there came a
tremendous shriek careering along the Valley as if a
thousand devils had burst their lungs to utter it, but
which proved to be merely the whistle of the engine
on arriving at a stopping-place.

The spot where we had now paused is the same
that our friend Bunyan — truthful man, but infected
with many fantastic notions — has designated in terms
plainer than I like to repeat as the mouth of the
infernal region. This, however, must be a mistake,
inasmuch as Mr. Smooth-it- A way, while we remained
in the smoky and lurid cavern, took occasion to
prove that Tophet has not even a metaphorical ex-

Celeetial IRaitroaD. 217

istence. The place, he assured us, is no other than
the crater of a half-extinct volcano in which the
directors had caused forges to be set up for the
manufacture of railroad iron. Hence, also, is ob-
tained a plentiful supply of fuel for the use of the
engines. Whoever had gazed into the dismal ob-
scurity of the broad cavern-mouth, whence ever and
anon darted huge tongues of dusky flame, and had
seen the strange, half-shaped monsters and visions
of faces horribly grotesque into which the smoke
seemed to wreathe itself, and had heard the awful
murmurs and shrieks and deep shuddering whispers
ot the blast, sometimes forming themselves into
words almost articulate, would have seized upon Mr.
Smooth-it-Away's comfortable explanation as greed-
ily as we did. The inhabitants of the cavern, more-
over, were unlovely personages — dark, smoke-be-
grimed, generally deformed, with misshapen feet and
a glow of dusky redness in their eyes, as if their
hearts had caught fire and were blazing out of the
upper windows. It struck me as a peculiarity that
the laborers at the forge and those who brought fuel
to the engine, when they began to draw short breaths,
positively emitted smoke from their mouth and
nostrils.

Among the idlers about the train, most of whom
were puffing cigars which they had lighted at the
flame of the crater, I was perplexed to notice several
who to my certain knowledge had heretofore set
forth by railroad for the Celestial City. They looked
dark, wild and smoky, with a singular resemblance,
indeed, to the native inhabitants, like whom, also,
they hud a disagreeable propensity to ill-natured
gibes and sneers, the habit of which had wrought a
settled contortion of their visages. Having been on

218 dfcosses from an <$>!£> /fcanee.

speaking terms with one of these persons — an indo-
lent, good-for-nothing fellow who went by the name
of Take-it-Easy — I called him and inquired what
was his business there.

" Did you not start," said I, " for the Celestial
City?"

" That's a fact," said Mr. Take-it-Easy, carelessly
puffing some smoke into my eyes ; " but I heard
such bad accounts that I never took pains to climb
the hill on which the city stands — no business doing,
no fun going on, nothing to drink and no smoking
allowed, and a thrumming of church music from
morning till night. I would not stay in such a place
if they offered me house-room and living free."

" But, my good Mr. Take-it-Easy," cried I, " why
take up your residence here of all places in the
world ? "

"Oh," said the loafer, with a grin, "it is very
warm hereabouts, 'and I meet with plenty of old
acquaintances, and altogether the place suits me.
I hope to see you back again some day soon. A
pleasant journey to you ! "

While he was speaking the bell of the engine
rang, and we dashed away after dropping a few
passengers, but receiving no new ones.

Rattling onward through the valley, we were daz-
zled with the fiercely gleaming gas-lamps, as before,
but sometimes, in the dark of intense brightness,
grim faces that bore the aspect and expression of
individual sins or evil passions seemed to ^thrust
themselves through the veil of light, glaring upon us
and stretching forth a great dusky hand as if to
impede our progress. I almost thought that they
were my own sins that appalled me there. These
were freaks of imagination — nothing more, certainly ;

Celestial IRailroaO. 219

mere delusions which I ought to be heartily ashamed
of — but all through the dark valley I was tormented
and pestered and dolefully bewildered with the same
kind of waking dreams. The mephitic gases of that
region intoxicate the brain. As the light of natural
day, however, began to struggle with the glow of the
lanterns, these vain imaginations lost their vividness,
and finally vanished with the first ray of sunshine
that greeted our escape from the Valley of the
Shadow of Death. Ere we had gone a mile beyond
it I could well-nigh have taken my oath that this
whole gloomy passage was a dream.

At the end of the valley, as John Bunyan men-
tions, is a cavern where in his days dwelt two cruel
giants, Pope and Pagan, who had strewn the ground
about their residence with the bones of slaughtered
pilgrims. These vile old troglodytes are no longer
there, but in their deserted cave another terrible
giant has thrust hitnself, and makes it his business
to seize upon honest travelers and fat them for his
table, with plentiful meals of smoke, mist, moonshine,
raw potatoes and sawdust. He is a German by
birth, and is called Giant Transcendentalist ; but as
to his form, his features, his substance, and his
nature generally, it is the chief peculiarity of this
huge miscreant that neither he for himself nor any-
body for him has ever been able to describe them.
As we rushed by the cavern's mouth we caught a
hasty glimpse of him, looking somewhat like an ill-
proportioned figure, but considerably more like a
heap of fog and duskiness. He shouted after us,
but in so strange a phraseology that we knew not
what he meant, nor whether to be encouraged or
affrighted.

It was late in the day when the train thundered

220 /Bosses from an ©Ifc /Range.

into the ancient City of Vanity, where Vanity Fair
is still at the height of prosperity and exhibits an
epitome of whatever is brilliant, gay and fascinating
beneath the sun. As I purposed to make a con-
siderable stay here, it gratified me to learn that
there is no longer the want of harmony between the
townspeople and pilgrims which impelled the former
to such lamentably mistaken measures as the persecu-
tion of Christian and the fiery martyrdom of Faith-
ful. On the contrary, as the new railroad brings
with it great trade and a constant influx of strangers,
the lord of Vanity Fair is its chief patron and the
capitalists of the city are among the largest stock-
holders. Many passengers stop to take their pleas-
ure or make their profit in the fair, instead of going
onward to the Celestial City. Indeed, such are the
charms of the place that people often affirm it to be
the true and only heaven, stoutjy contending that
there is no other, that those who seek farther are
mere dreamers, and that if the fabled brightness of
the Celestial City lay but a bare mile beyond the
gates of Vanity they would not be fools enough to
go thither. Without subscribing to these perhaps
exaggerated encomiums, I can truly say that my
abode in the city was mainly agreeable and my inter-
course with the inhabitants productive of much
amusement and instruction.

Being naturally of a serious turn, my attention was
directed to the solid advantages derivable from a
residence here, rather than to the effervescent pleas-
ures which are the grand object with too many
visitants. The Christian reader, if he have had no
accounts of the city later than Bunyan's time, will
be surprised to hear that almost every street has its
church, and that the reverend clergy are nowhere

JOHN SINOI.KTON COPLEY

Celeettal "KaUroaD. 221

held in higher respect than at Vanity Fair. And
well do they deserve such honorable estimation, for
the maxims of wisdom and virtue which fall from
their lips come from as deep a spiritual source and
tend to as lofty a religious aim as those of the sagest
philosophers of old. In justification of this high
oraise I need only mention the names of the Rev.
Mr. Shallow-Deep, the Rev. Mr. Stumble-at-Truth.
that fine old clerical character the Rev. Mr. This-to-
Day, who expects shortly to resign his pulpit to the
Rev. Mr. That-to-Morrow, together with the Rev.
Mr. Bewilderment, the Rev. Mr. Clog-the-Spirit, and.
last and greatest, the Rev. Dr. Wind-of-Doctrine.
The labors of these eminent divines are aided by those
of innumerable lecturers, who diffuse such a various
profundity in all subjects of human or celestial
science that any man may acquire an omnigenous
erudition without the trouble of even learning to read.
Thus literature is etherealized by assuming for its
medium the human voice, and knowledge, deposit-
ing all its heavier particles — except, doubtless, its
gold — becomes exhaled into a sound which forthwith
steais into the ever-open ear of the community.
These ingenious methods constitute a sort of ma-
chinery by which thought and study are done to
every person's hand without his putting himself to
the slightest inconvenience in the matter. There is
another species of machine for the wholesale manu-
facture of individual morality. This excellent result
is effected by societies for all manner of virtuous
purposes, and with which a man has merely to
connect himself, throwing, as it were, his quota of
virtue into the common stock, and the president
and directors will take care that the aggregate
amount be well applied. All these, and other
15

222 /Bosses from an ©lo /fcanse.

wonderful improvements in ethics, religion and
literature, being made plain to my comprehension
by the ingenious Mr. Smooth-it- Away, inspired me
with a vast admiration of Vanity Fair.

It would fill a volume in an age of pamphlets
were I to record all my observations in this great
capital of human business and pleasure. There
was an unlimited range of society — the powerful,
the wise, the witty and the famous in every walk of
life, princes, presidents, poets, generals, artists,
actors and philanthropists — all making their own
market at the fair and deeming no price too ex-
orbitant for such commodities as hit their fancy. It
was well worth one's while, even if he had no idea
of buying or selling, to loiter through the bazaars
and observe the various sorts of traffic that were
going forward.

Some of the purchasers, I thought, made very
foolish bargains. For instance, a young man having
inherited a splendid fortune laid out a considerable
portion of it in the purchase of diseases, and finally
spent all the rest for a heavy lot of repentance and a
suit of rags. A very pretty girl bartered a heart as
clear as crystal, and which seemed her most valuable
possession, for another jewel of the same kind, but
so worn and defaced as to be utterly worthless. In
one shop there were a great many crowns of laurel
and myrtle which soldiers, authors, statesmen, and
various other people, pressed eagerly to buy. Some
purchased these paltry wreaths with their lives,
others by a toilsome servitude of years, and many
sacrificed whatever was most valuable, yet finally
slunk away without the crown. There was a sort
of stock or scrip called Conscience which seemed to
be in great demand and would purchase almost any-

Gbe Celestial IRatlroaD. 223

thing. Indeed, few rich commodities were to be
obtained without paying a heavy sum in this par-
ticular stock, and a man's business was seldom very
lucrative unless he knew precisely when and how to
throw his hoard of Conscience into the market.
Yet, as this stock was the only thing of permanent
value, whoever parted with it was sure to find him-
self a loser in the long run. Several of the specula-
tions were of a questionable character. Occasionally
a member of Congress recruited his pocket by the
sale of his constituents, and I was assured that public
officers have often sold their country at very moder-
ate prices. Thousands sold their happiness for a
whim. Gilded chains were in great demand, and
purchased with almost any sacrifice. In truth, those
who desired, according to the old adage, to sell any-
thing valuable for a song, might find customers all
over the fair, and there were innumerable messes of
pottage, piping hot, for such as chose to buy them
with their birthrights. A few -articles, however,
could not be found genuine at Vanity Fair. If a
customer wished to renew his stock of youth, the
dealers offered him a set of false teeth and an auburn
wig ; if he demanded peace of mind, they recom-
mended opium or a brandy-bottle.

Tracts of land and golden mansions situate in the
Celestial City were often exchanged at very disad-
vantageous rates for a few years' lease of small dis-
mal, inconvenient tenements in Vanity Fair. Prince
Beelzebub himself took great interest in this sort of
traffic, and sometimes condescended to meddle with
smaller matters. I once had the pleasure to see
him bargaining with a miser for his soul, which after
much ingenious skirmishing on both sides His High-
ness succeeded in obtaining at about the value of

224 bosses from an ©ID /foanse.

sixpence. The prince remarked with a smile that
he was a loser by the transaction.

Day after day, as I walked the streets of Vanity,
my manners and deportment became more and more
like those of the inhabitants. The place began to
seem like home ; the idea of pursuing my travels
to the Celestial City was almost obliterated from my
mind. I was reminded of it, however, by the sight
of the same pair of simple pilgrims at whom we had
laughed so heartily when Apollyon puffed smoke
and steam into their faces at the commencement of
our journey. There they stood amid the densest
bustle of Vanity, the dealers offering them their
purple and fine linen and jewels, the men of wit and
humor gibing at them, a pair of buxom ladies ogling
them askance, while the benevolent Mr. Smooth-it-
Away whispered some of his wisdom at their elbows
and pointed to a newly-erected temple; but there
were these worthy simpletons making the scene look
wild and monstrous merely by their sturdy repudia-
tion of all part in its business or pleasures.

One of them — his name was Stick-to-the-Right —
perceived in my face, I suppose, a species of sym-
pathy, and almost admiration, which, to my own
great surprise, I could not help feeling for this
pragmatic couple. It prompted him to address me.

" Sir/' inquired he, with a sad yet mild and kindly
voice, " do you call yourself a pilgrim ? "

" Yes," I replied ; " my right to that appellation
is indubitable. I am merely a sojourner here in
Vanity Fair, being bound to the Celestial City by
the new railroad."

" Alas, friend ! " rejoined Mr. Stick-to-the-Right ;
" I do assure you, and beseech you to receive the
truth of my words, that that whole concern is a

Celestial IRaflroaD. 225

bubble. You may travel on it all your lifetime, were
you to live thousands of years, and yet never get
beyond the limits of Vanity Fair. Yea, though you
should deem yourself entering the gates of the
blessed city, it will be nothing but a miserable
delusion."

"The Lord of the Celestial City/' began the
other pilgrim, whose name was Mr. Foot-it~to-
Heaven, "has refused, and will ever refuse, to
grant an act of incorporation for this railroad, and
unless that be obtained no passenger can ever hope
to enter his dominions ; wherefore every man who
buys a ticket must lay his account with losing the
purchase-money, which is the value of his own
soul."

" Poh ! nonsense ! " said Mr. Smooth-it- Away,
taking my arm and leading me off ; " these fellows
ought to be indicted for a libel. If the law stood as
it once did in Vanity Fair, we should see them
grinning through the iron bars of the prison
window."

This incident made a considerable impression on
my mind, and contributed with other circumstances
to indispose me to a permanent residence in the
City of Vanity, although, of course, I was not
simple enough to give up my original plan of gliding
along easily and commodiously by railroad. Still
I grew anxious to be gone. There was one strange
thing that troubled me : amid the occupations or
amusements of the fair, nothing was more common
than for a person — whether at a feast, theater or
church, or trafficking for wealth and honors, or what-
ever he might be doing and however unseasonable
the interruption — suddenly to vanish like a soap-
bubble and be nevermore seen of his fellows ; and

^26 /Bosses from an ©to dfcanse.

so accustomed were the latter to such little accidents
that they went on with their business as quietly as
if nothing had happened. But it was otherwise
with me.

Finally, after a pretty long residence at the fair,
I resumed my journey toward the Celestial City,
still with Mr. Smooth-it-Away at my side. At a
short distance beyond the suburbs of Vanity we
passed the ancient silver-mine of which Demas was
the first discoverer, and which is now wrought to
great advantage, supplying nearly all the coined
currency of the world. A little farther onward was
the spot where Lot's wife had stood for ages under
the semblance of a pillar of salt. Curious travelers
have long since carried it away piecemeal. Had all
regrets been punished as righteously as. this poor
dame's were, my yearning for the relinquished
delights of Vanity Fair might have produced a
similar change in my own corporeal substance and
left me a warning to future pilgrims.

The next remarkable object was a large edifice
constructed of moss-grown stone, but in a modern
and airy style of architecture. The engine came
to a pause in its vicinity with the usual tremendous
shriek.

" This was formerly the castle of the redoubted
Giant Despair," observed Mr. Smooth-it-Away,
" but since his death Mr. Flimsy- Faith has repaired
it, and now keeps an excellent house of entertain-
ment here. It is one of our stopping-places."

" It seems but slightly put together," remarked I,
looking at the frail yet ponderous walls. " I do not
envy Mr. Flimsy-Faith his habitation. Some day
it will thunder down upon the heads of the occu-
pants."

(Tbe Celestial IRailroaD. 227

" We shall escape, at all events," said Mr. Smooth-
it-Away, " for Apollyon is putting on the steam again."

The'road now plunged into a gorge of the Delect-
able Mountains, and traversed the field where in
former ages the blind men wandered and stumbled
among the tombs. One of these ancient tombstones
had been thrust across the track by some malicious
person, and gave the train of cars a terrible jolt.
Far up the rugged side of a mountain I perceived
a rusty iron door half overgrown with bushes and
creeping plants, but with smoke issuing from its
crevices.

" Is that," inquired I, "the very door in the hill-
side which the shepherds assured Christian was
a by-way to hell ? "

" That was a joke on the part of the shepherds,"
said Mr. Smooth-it- Away, with a smile. " It is
neither more nor less than the door of a cavern
which they use as a smoke-house for the prepara-
tion of mutton-hams."

My recollections of the journey are now for a
little space dim and confused, inasmuch as a singular
drowsiness here overcame me, owing to the fact that
we were passing over the Enchanted Ground, the
air of which encourages a disposition to sleep. I
awoke, however, as soon as we crossed the borders
of the pleasant Land of Beulah. All the passengers
were rubbing their eyes, comparing watches and
congratulating one another on the prospect of arriv-
ing so seasonably at the journey's end. The sweet
breezes of this happy clime came refreshingly to our
nostrils ; we beheld the glimmering gush of silver
fountains overhung by trees of beautiful foliage and
delicious fruit, which were propagated by grafts
from the celestial gardens. Once, as we dashed on

228 /losses from an ©l£> flfcanse.

ward like a hurricane, there was a flutter of wings
and the bright appearance of an angel in the air
speeding forth on some heavenly mission.

The engine now announced the close vicinity
of the final station-house by one last and horrible
scream in which there seemed to be distinguishable
every kind of wailing and woe and bitter fierceness
of wrath, all mixed up with the wild laughter of a
devil or a madman. Throughout our journey, at
every stopping-place, Apollyon had exercised his
ingenuity in screwing the most abominable sounds
out of the whistle of the steam-engine, but in this
closing effort he outdid himself, and created an
infernal uproar which, besides disturbing the peace-
ful inhabitants of Beulah, must have sent its discord
even through the celestial gates.

While the horrid clamor was still ringing in our
ears we heard an exulting strain, as if a thousand
instruments of music with height and depth and
sweetness in their tones, at once tender and tri-
umphant, were struck in unison to greet the
approach of some illustrious hero who had fought
the good fight and won a glorious victory, and was
come to lay aside his battered arms forever. Look-
ing to ascertain what might be the occasion of this
glad harmony, I perceived, on alighting from the
cars, that a multitude of shining ones had assembled
on the other side of the river to welcome two poor
pilgrims who were just emerging from its depths.
They were the same whom Apollyon and ourselves
had persecuted with taunts and gibes and scalding
steam at the commencement of our journey — the
same whose unworldly aspect and impressive words
had stirred my conscience amid the wild revelers
of Vanity Fair.

Celestial IRailroaD. 229

" How amazingly well those men have got on ! "
cried I to Mr. Smooth-it-Away. ** I wish we were
secure of as good a reception."

" Never fear ! never fear ! " answered my friend.
" Come ! make haste. The ferry-boat will be off
directly, and in three minutes you will be on the
other side of the river. No doubt you will find
coaches to carry you up to the city gates."

A steam ferry-boat — the last improvement on this
important route — lay at the river-side puffing, snort-
ing and emitting all those other disagreeable utter-
ances which betoken the departure to be immediate.
I hurried on board with the rest of the passengers,
most of whom were in great perturbation, some
bawling out for their baggage, some tearing their
hair and exclaiming that the boat would explode or
sink, some already pale with the heaving of the
stream, some gazing affrighted at the ugly aspect of
the steersman, and some still dizzy with the slum-
berous influences of the Enchanted Ground.

Looking back to the shore, I was amazed to dis-
cern Mr. Smooth-it-Away waving his hand in token
of farewell.

" Don't you go over to the Celestial City ? " ex-
claimed I.

" Oh, no ! " answered he, with a queer smile and
that same disagreeable contortion of visage which I
had remarked in the inhabitants of the dark valley
— " oh, no ! I have come thus far only for the sake
of your pleasant company. Good-bye ! We shall
meet again."

And then did my excellent friend, Mr. Smooth-
it-Away, laugh outright; in the midst of which
cachinnation a smoke-wreath issued from his mouth
and nostrils, while a twinkle of lurid flame darted

230 /Bosses from an Old fl&anse.

out of either eye, proving indubitably that his heart
was all of a red blaze. The impudent fiend ! To
deny the existence of Tophet when he felt its fiery
tortures raging within his breast ! I rushed to the
side of the boat, intending to fling myself on shore,
but the wheels, as they began their revolutions,
threw a dash of spray over me, so cold — so deadly
cold with the chill that will never leave those waters
until Death be drowned in his own river — that with
A shiver and a heart-quake I awoke.
Th*nk Heaven 1 it was a dream.

THE PROCESSION OF LIFE

LIFE figures itself to me as a festal or funeral pro-
cession. All of us have our places and are to move
onward under the direction of the chief marshal.
The grand difficulty results from the invariably mis-
taken principles on which the deputy marshals seek
to arrange this immense concourse of people, so
much more numerous than those that train their
interminable length through streets and highways
in times of political excitement. Their scheme is
ancient far beyond the memory of man, or even the
record of history, and has hitherto been very little
modified by the innate sense of something wrong
and the dim perception of better methods that have
disquieted all the ages through which the procession
has taken its march. Its members are classified by
the merest external circumstances, and thus are more
certain to be thrown out of their true positions than
if no principle of arrangement were attempted. In
one part of the procession we see men of landed
estate or moneyed capital gravely keeping each other
company for the preposterous reason that they
chance to have a similar standing in the tax-gatherer's
book. Trades and professions march together with
scarcely a more real bond of union. In this manner,
it cannot be denied, people are disentangled from
the mass and separated into various classes accord-

231

232 /fcosses from an ©ID /fcanse.

ing to certain apparent relations ; all have some
artificial badge which the world, and themselves
among the first, learn to consider as a genuine
characteristic. Fixing our attention on such outside
shows of similarity or difference, we lose sight of
those realities by which Nature, Fortune, Fate or
Providence has constituted for every man a brother-
hood wherein it is one great office of human wisdom
to classify him. When the mind has once accustomed
itself to a proper arrangement of the procession ot
life or a true classification of society, even though
merely speculative, there is thenceforth a satisfac-
tion which pretty well suffices for itself, without the
aid of any actual reformation in the order of march.

For instance, assuming to myself the power of
marshaling the aforesaid procession, I direct a
trumpeter to send forth a blast loud enough to be
heard from hence to China, and a herald with world-
pervading voice to make proclamation for a certain
class of mortals to take their places. What shall
be their principle of union ? After all. an external
one, in comparison with many that might be found,
yet far more real than those which the world has
selected for a similar purpose. Let all who are
afflicted with like physical diseases form themselves
into ranks.

Our first attempt at classification is not very
successful. It may gratify the pride of aristocracy
to reflect that disease more than any other circum-
stance of human life pays due observance to the
distinctions which rank and wealth and poverty and
lowliness have established among mankind. Some
maladies are rich and precious, and only to be ac-
quired by the right of inheritance or purchased with
gold. Of this kind is the gout» which serves as a

procession of Xifc. 233

bond of brotherhood to the purple-visaged gentry
who obey the herald's voice and painfully hobble
from all civilized regions of the globe to take their
post in the grand procession. In mercy to their
toes, let us hope that the march may not be long.
The dyspeptics, too, are people of good standing in
the world. For them the earliest salmon is caught
in our Eastern rivers, and the shy woodcock stains
the dry leaves with his blood in his remotest
haunts, and the turtle comes from the far Pacific
islands to be gobbled up in soup. They can afford
to flavor all their dishes with indolence, which, in
spite of the general opinion, is a sauce more ex-
quisitely piquant than appetite won by exercise.
Apoplexy is another highly respectable disease. We
will rank together all who have the symptom of
dizziness in the brain, and as fast as any drop by
the way supply their places with new members of
the board of aldermen.

On the other hand, here come whole tribes of
people whose physical lives are but a deteriorated
variety of life, and themselves a meaner species of
mankind, so sad an effect has been wrought by the
tainted breath of cities, scanty and unwholesome
food, destructive modes of labor and the lack of
those moral supports that might partially have
counteracted such bad influences. Behold here a*
train of house-painters all afflicted with a peculiar
sort of colic. Next in place we will marshal those -
workmen in cutlery who have breathed a fatal
disorder into their lungs with the impalpable dust of
steel. Tailors and shoemakers, being sedentary
men, will chiefly congregate in one part of the
procession and march under similar banners of
disease, but among them we may observe here and

234 /Rosses from an Gtfc flfcanse.

there a sickly student who has left his health be-
tween the leaves of classic volumes, and clerks, like-
wise, who have caught their deaths on high official
stools, and men of genius, too, who have written
sheet after sheet with pens dipped in their heart's
blood. These are a wretched, quaking, short-
breathed set. But what is this crowd of pale-
cheeked, slender girls who disturb the ear with the
multiplicity of their short, dry coughs ? They are
seamstresses who have plied the daily and nightly
needle in the service of master-tailors and close-
fisted contractors until now it is almost time for each
to hem the borders of her own shroud. Consumption
points their place in the procession. With their sad
sisterhood are intermingled many youthful maidens
who have sickened in aristocratic mansions, and for
whose aid science has unavailingly searched its
volumes and whom breathless love has watched.
In our ranks the rich maiden and the poor seamstress
may walk arm in arm. We might find innumerable
other instances where the bond of mutual disease —
not to speak of nation-sweeping pestilence — em-
braces high and low and makes the king a brother
of the clown. But it is not hard to own that Disease
is the natural aristocrat. Let him keep his state
and have his established orders of rank and wear
his royal mantle of the color of a fever-flush, and let
the noble and wealthy boast their own physical
infirmities and display their symptoms as the badges
of high station. All things considered, these are as
proper subjects of human pride as any relations of
human rank that men can fix upon.

Sound again, thou deep-breathed trumpeter ! — and,
herald, with thy voice of might, shout forth another
summons that shall reach the old baronial castles of

Cbe procession of Xlfe. 235

Europe and the rudest cabin of our Western wilder*
ness ! What class is next to take its place in the
procession of mortal life ? Let it be those whom the
gifts of intellect have united in a noble brother-
hood.

Ay, this is a reality before which the conventional
distinctions of society melt away like a vapor when
we would grasp it with the hand. Were Byron now
alive, and Burns, the first would come from his an-
cestral abbey flinging aside, although unwillingly,
the inherited honors of a thousand years to take the
arm of the mighty peasant who grew immortal while
he stooped behind his plow. These are gone, but
the hall, the farmer's fireside, the hut — perhaps the
palace — the counting-room, the workshop, the village,
the city, life's high places and low ones, may all
produce their poets whom a common temperament
pervades like an electric sympathy. Peer or plow-
man will muster them pair by pair and shoulder to
shoulder. Even society in its most artificial state
consents to this arrangement. These factory-girls
from Lowell shall mate themselves with the pride of
drawing-rooms and literary circles — the bluebells in
fashion's nosegay, the Sapphos and Montagues and
Nortons of the age.

Other modes of intellect bring together as strange
companies. — Silk-gowned professor of languages,
give your arm to this sturdy blacksmith and deem
yourself honored by the conjunction, though you be-
hold him grimy from the anvil. — All varieties of
human speech are like his mother-tongue to this rare
man. Indiscriminately let those take their places,
of whatever rank they come, who possess the kingly
gifts to lead armies or to sway a people — Nature's
generals, her lawgivers, her kings, and with them, also

236 /Ibosses from an ©ID /fcanse.

the deep philosophers who think the thought in one
generation that is to revolutionize society in the next.
With the hereditary legislator in whom eloquence is
a far-descended attainment — a rich echo repeated
by powerful voices, from Cicero downward — we will
match some wondrous backwoodsman who has
caught a wild power of language from the breeze
among his native forest boughs. But we may safely
leave brethren and sisterhood to settle their own
congenialities. Our ordinary distinctions become so
trifling, so impalpable, so ridiculously visionary, in
comparison with a classification founded on truth,
that all talk about the matter is immediately a com-
monplace.

Yet, the longer I reflect, the less am I satisfied
with the idea of forming a separate class of mankind
on the basis of high intellectual power. At best, it
is but a higher development of innate gifts common
to all. Perhaps, moreover, he whose genius appears
deepest and truest excels his fellows in nothing save
the knack of expression ; he throws out, occasionally,
a lucky hint at truths of which every human soul is
profoundly, though unutterably, conscious. There-
fore, though we suffer the brotherhood of intellect to
march onward together, it may be doubted whether
their peculiar relation will not begin to vanish as
soon as the procession shall have passed beyond the
circle of this present world. But we do not classify
for eternity.

And next let the trumpet pour forth a fune-
real wail and the herald's voice give breath in one
vast cry to all the groans and grievous utterances
that are audible throughout the earth. We appeal
now to the sacred bond of sorrow, and summon the
great multitude who labor under similar afflictions to

procession of Xife. 237

take their places in the march. How many a heart
that would have been insensible to any other call has
responded to the doleful accents of that voice ! It
has gone far and wide and high and low, and left
scarcely a mortal roof unvisited. Indeed, the prin-
ciple is only too universal for our purpose, and
unless we limit it will quite break up our classifica-'
tion of mankind and convert the whole procession
into a funeral train. We will, therefore, be at some
pains to discriminate.

Here comes a lonely rich man ; he has built a
noble fabric for his dwelling-house, with a front of
stately architecture, and marble floors, and doors of
precious woods. The whole structure is as beautiful
as a dream and as substantial as the native rock, but
the visionary shapes of a long posterity for whose
home this mansion was intended have faded into
nothingness since the death of the founder's only
son. The rich man gives a glance at his sable
garb in one of the splendid mirrors of his drawing-
room, and, descending a flight of lofty steps, instinct-
ively offers his' arm to yonder poverty-stricken
widow in the rusty black bonnet and with a check-
apron over her patched gown. The sailor-boy who
was her sole earthly stay was washed overboard in
a late tempest. This couple from the palace and
the almshouse are but the types of thousands more
who represent the dark tragedy of life and seldom
quarrel for the upper parts. Grief is such a leveler
with its own dignity and its own humility that the
noble and the peasant, the beggar and the monarch,
will waive their pretensions to external rank without
the officiousness of interference on our part. If pride
— the influence of the world's false distinctions — re-
main in the heart, then sorrow lacks the earnestness
16

238 /fcosses from an ©ID flfcanse.

which makes it holy and reverend. It loses its reality
and becomes a miserable shadow. On this ground
we have an opportunity to assign over multitudes
who would willingly claim places here to other parts
of the procession. If the mourner have anything
dearer than his grief, he must seek his true position
elsewhere. There are so many unsubstantial sorrows
which the necessity of our mortal state begets on
idleness that an observer, casting aside sentiment,
is sometimes led to question whether there be any
real woe except absolute physical suffering and the
loss of closest friends. A crowd who exhibit what
they deem to be broken hearts — and among them
many lovelorn maids and bachelors, and men of
disappointed ambition in arts or politics, and the
poor who were once rich or who have sought to be
rich in vain — the great majority of these may ask
admittance into some other fraternity. There is no
room here. Perhaps we may institute a separate
class where such unfortunates will naturally fall into
the procession. Meanwhile, let them stand aside
and patiently await their time.

If our trumpeter can borrow a note from the
doomsday trumpet-blast, let him sound it now. The
dread alarm should make the earth quake to its
center, for the herald is about to address mankind
with a summons to which even the purest mortal
may be sensible of some faint responding echo in
his breast. In many bosoms it will awaken a still
small voice more terrible than its own reverberating
uproar.

The hideous appeal has swept around the globe.
— Come, all ye guilty ones, and rank yourselves in
accordance with the brotherhood of crime. — This,
indeed, is an awful summons. I almost tremble to

precession of Xife. 239

look at the strange partnerships that begin to be
formed — reluctantly, but by the invincible necessity
of like to like — in this part of the procession. 1A
forger from the state-prison seizes the arm of a
distinguished financier. How indignantly does the
latter plead his fair reputation upon 'Change, and
insist that his operations by their magnificence oi
scope were removed into quite another sphere of
morality than those of his pitiful companion ! But
let him cut the connection if he can. Here comes a
murderer with his clanking chains, and pairs himself
— horrible to tell — with as pure and upright a man
in all observable respects as ever partook of the
consecrated bread and wine. He is one of those — •
perchance the most hopeless of all sinners — who
practice such an exemplary system of outward duties
that even a deadly crime may be hidden from their
own sight and remembrance under this unreal frost-
work. Yet he now finds his place. Why do that
pair of flaunting girls with the pert, affected laugh
and the sly leer at the bystanders intrude themselves
into the same rank with yonder decorous matron
and that somewhat prudish maiden ! Surely these
poor creatures born to vice as their sole and natural
inheritance can be no fit associates for women who
have been guarded round about by all the proprie-
ties of domestic life, and who could not err unless
they first created the opportunity ! Oh no ! It must
be merely the impertinence of those unblushing
hussies, and we can only wonder how such respect-
able ladies should have responded to a summons
that was not meant for them.

We shall make short work of this miserable class,
each member of which is entitled to grasp any other
member's hand by that vile degradation wherein

240 /Bosses from an <§>l& /fcanse.

guilty error has buried all alike. The foul fiend to
whom it properly belongs must relieve us of our
loathsome task. Let the bond-servants of sin pass
on. But neither man nor woman in whom good
predominates will smile or sneer, nor bid the
Rogue's March be played, in derision of their array.
Feeling within their breasts a shuddering sympathy
which at least gives token of the sin that might
have been, they will thank God for any place in the
grand procession of human existence save among
those most wretched ones. Many, however, will be
astonished at the fatal impulse that drags them
thitherward. Nothing is more remarkable than the
various deceptions by which guilt conceals itself
from the perpetrator's conscience, and oftenest,
perhaps, by the splendor of its garments. States-
men, rulers, generals, and all men who act over
an extensive sphere, are most liable to be deluded
in this way ; they commit wrong, devastation and
murder on so grand a scale that it impresses them as
speculative rather than actual, but in our procession
we find them linked in detestable conjunction \vith
the meanest criminals whose deeds have the vulgar-
ity of petty details. Here the effect of circum-
stance and accident is done away, and a man finds his
rank according to the spirit of his crime, in whatever
shape it may have been developed.

We have called the evil ; now let us call the
good. The trumpet's brazen throat should pour
heavenly music over the earth and the herald's voice
go forth with the sweetness of an angel's accents, as
if to summon each upright man to his reward. But
how is this ? Does none answer to the call ? Not
one ; for the just, the pure, the true and all who
might most worthily obey it shrink sadly back as

Cbe procession of 3Ufe. 241

most conscious of error and imperfection. Then let
the summons be to those whose pervading principle
is love. This classification will embrace all the truly
good, and none in whose souls there exists not some-
thing that may expand itself into a heaven both of
well-doing and felicity.

The first that presents himself is a man of wealth
who has bequeathed the bulk of his property to an
hospital ; his ghost, methinks, would have a bettei
right here than his living body. But here they come,
fhe genuine benefactors of their race. Some have
•vandered about the earth with pictures of bliss in
their imagination and with hearts that shrank sen-
sitively from the idea of pain and woe, yet have
studied all varieties of misery that human nature can
endure. The prison, the insane asylum, the squalid
chamber of the almshouse, the manufactory where
the demon of machinery annihilates the human soul
and the cotton-field where God's image becomes a
beast of burden, — to these, and every other scene
where man wrongs or neglects his brother, the
apostles of humanity have penetrated. This mis-
sionary black with India's burning sunshine shall
give his arm to a pale-faced brother who has made
himself familiar with the infected alleys and loath-
some haunts of vice in one of our own cities. The
generous founder of a college shall be the partner
of a maiden lady of narrow substance, one of whose
good deeds it has been to gather a little school
of orphan children. If the mighty merchant whose
benefactions are reckoned by thousands of dollars
deem himself worthy, let him join the procession
with her whose love has proved itself by watchings
at the sick-bed, and all those lowly offices which
bring her into actual contact with disease and

242 dfcosses from an ©to /toanse.

wretchedness. And with those whose impulses have
guided them to benevolent actions we will rank
others to whom Providence has assigned a different
tendency and different powers. Men who have
spent their lives in generous and holy contemplation
for the human race, those who by a certain heaven-
liness of spirit have purified the atmosphere around
them, and thus supplied a medium in which good and
high things may be projected and performed, — give
to these a lofty place among the benefactors of
mankind, although no deed such as the world calls
deeds may be recorded of them. There are some
individuals of whom we cannot conceive it proper
that they should apply their hands to any earthly
instrument or work out any definite act, and others
— perhaps not less high — to whom it is an essential
attribute to labor in body as well as spirit for the
welfare of their brethren. Thus, if we find a spiritual
sage whose unseen inestimable influence has exalted
the moral standard of mankind, we will choose for
his companion some poor laborer who has wrought
for love in the potato-field of a neighbor poorer
than himself.

We have summoned this various multitude — and,
to the credit of our nature, it is a large one — on the
principle of Love. It is singular, nevertheless, to
remark the shyness that exists among many mem-
bers of the present class, all of whom we might ex-
pect to recognize one another by the free-masonry
of mutual goodness, and to embrace like brethren,
giving God thanks for such various specimens of
human excellence. But it is far otherwise. Each
sect surrounds its own righteousness with a hedge
of thorns. It is difficult for the good Christian to
acknowledge the good pagan, almost impossible for

procession of Xffe. 243

the good orthodox to grasp the hand of the good
Unitarian, leaving to their Creator to settle the
matters in dispute and giving their mutual efforts
strongly and trustingly to whatever right thing is
too evident to be mistaken. Then, again, though
the heart be large, yet the mind is often of such
moderate dimensions as to be exclusively filled up
with one idea. When a good man has long de-
voted himself to a particular kind of beneficence, to
one species of reform, he is apt to become narrowed
into the limits of the path wherein he treads, and to
fancy that there is no other good to be done on
earth but that selfsame good to which he his put
his hand and in the very mode that best suits his
own conceptions. All else is worthless : his scheme
must be wrought out by the united strength of the
whole world's stock of love, or the world is no longer
worthy of a position in the universe. Moreover,
powerful truth, being the rich grape-juice expressed
from the vineyard of the ages, has an intoxicating
quality when imbibed by any save a powerful intel-
lect, and often, as it were, impels the quaffer to
quarrel in his cups. For such reasons, strange to
say, it is harder to contrive a friendly arrangement
of these brethren of love and righteousness in the
procession of life than to unite even the wicked,
who, indeed, are chained together by their crimes.
The fact is too preposterous for tears, too lugubri-
ous for laughter.

But, let good men push and elbow one another
as they may during their earthly march, all will be
peace among them when the honorable array of
their procession shall tread on heavenly ground.
There they will doubtless find that they have been
Working each for the other's cause, and that every

244 flftosses from an ©Ifc flfcanse.

well-delivered stroke which with an honest purpose
any mortal struck, even for a narrow object, was
indeed stricken for the universal cause of good.
Their own view may be bounded by country, creed,
profession, the diversities of individual character,
but above them all is the breadth of Providence
How many who have deemed themselves antago
nists will smile hereafter when they look back upon
the world's wide harvest-field and perceive that in
unconscious brotherhood they were helping to bind
the selfsame sheaf !

But come ! The sun is hastening westward while
the march of human life, that never paused before,
is delayed by our attempt to rearrange its order. It
is desirable to find some comprehensive principle
that shall render our task easier by bringing thou-
sands into the ranks where hitherto we have
brought one. Therefore let the trumpet, if possible,
split its brazen throat with a louder note than ever,
and the herald summon all mortals who, from what-
ever cause, have lost, or never found, their proper
places in the world.

Obedient to this call, a great multitude came to-
gether, most of them with a listless gait betokening
weariness of soul, yet with a gleam of satisfaction in
their faces at a prospect of at length reaching those
positions which hitherto .they have vainly sought.
But here will be another disappointment, for we
can attempt no more than merely to associate in
one fraternity all who are afflicted with the same
vague trouble. Some great mistake in life is the
chief condition of admittance into this class. Here
are members of the learned professions \\hom Provi-
dence endowed with special gifts for the plow,
the forge and the wheelbarrow, or for the routine of

Cbe procession of Xife. 245

unintellectual business. We will assign them as
partners in the march those lowly laborers and
handicraftsmen who have pined as with a dying
thirst after the unattainable fountains of knowledge.
The latter have lost less than their companions,
yet more, because they deem it infinite. Perchance
the two species of unfortunates may comfort one
another. Here are Quakers with the instinct of
battle in them, and men of war who should have
worn the broad brim. Authors shall be ranked here
whom some freak of Nature, making game of her
poor children, had imbued with the confidence of
genius and strong desire of fame, but has favored
with no corresponding power, and others whose
lofty gifts were unaccompanied with the faculty of
expression, or any of that earthly machinery by
which ethereal endowments must be manifested to
mankind. All these, therefore, are melancholy
laughing-stocks. Next, here are honest and well-
intentioned persons who by a want of tact, by inac-
curate perceptions, by a distorting imagination, have
been kept continually at cross-purposes with the
world and bewildered upon the path of life. Let
us see if they can confine themselves within the line
of our procession. In this class, likewise, we must
assign places to those who have encountered that
worst of ill-success, a higher fortune than their abili-
ties could vindicate — writers, actors, painters, the
pets of a day, but whose laurels wither unrenewed
amid their hoary hair, politicians whom some mali-
cious contingency of affairs has thrust into conspic-
uous station where, while the world stands gazing at
them, the dreary consciousness of imbecility makes
them curse their birth-hour. To such men we give
for a companion him whose rare talents, which per

24f> flboeses from an ©Id rftanse.

haps require a revolution for their exercise, are
buried in the tomb of sluggish circumstances.

Not far from these we must find room for one
whose success has been of the wrong kind — the man
who should have lingered in the cloisters of a univer-
sity digging new treasures out of the Herculaneum
of antique lore, diffusing depth and accuracy of litera-
ture throughout his country, and thus making for
himself a great and quiet fame. But the outward
tendencies around him have proved too powerful for
his inward nature, and have drawn him into the
arena of political tumult, there to contend at disad-
vantage, whether front to front or side by side, with
the brawny giants of actual life. He becomes, it
may be, a name for brawling parties to bandy to and
fro, a legislator of the Union, a governor of his na-
tive State, an ambassador to the courts of kings or
queens, and the world may deem him a man of
happy stars. But not so the wise, and not so him-
self when he looks through his experience and sighs
to miss that fitness, the one invaluable touch which
makes all things true and real. So much achieved,
yet how abortive is his life ! Whom shall we choose
for his companion ? Some weak-framed blacksmith,
perhaps, whose delicacy of muscle might have suited
a tailor's shop-board better than the anvil.

Shall we bid the trumpet sound again? It is
hardly worth the while. There remain a few idle
men of fortune, tavern and grog-shop loungers,
lazzaroni, old bachelors, decaying maidens and
people of crooked intellect or temper, all of whom
may find their like, or some tolerable approach to it,
in the plentiful diversity of our latter class. There,
too, as his ultimate destiny, must we rank the
dreamer who all his life long' has cherished the idea

Cbe iprocessfon of Hlfe. 247

that he was peculiarly apt for something, but never
could determine what it was, and there the most
unfortunate of men, whose purpose it has been to
enjoy life's pleasures, but to avoid a manful struggle
with its toil and sorrow. The remainder, if any,
may connect themselves with whatever rank of the
procession they shall find best adapted to their
tastes and consciences. The worst possible fate
would be to remain behind shivering in the solitude
of time while all the world is on the move toward
eternity.

Our attempt to classify society is now complete.
The result may be anything but perfect, yet better
• — to give it the very lowest phrase — than the an-
tique rule of the herald's office or the modern one
of the tax-gatherer, whereby the accidents and
superficial attributes with which the real nature of
individuals has least to do are acted upon as the
deepest characteristics of mankind. Our task is
done ! Now let the grand procession move !

Yet pause a while : we had forgotten the chief
marshal.

Hark ! That world-wide swell of solemn music
with the clang of a mighty bell breaking forth
through its regulated uproar announces his approach.
He comes, a severe, sedate, immovable, dark rider,
waving his truncheon of universal sway as he
passes along the lengthened line on the pale horse
of the Revelations. It is Death. Who else could
assume the guidance of a procession that compre-
hends all humanity ? And if some among these
many millions should deem themselves classed
amiss, yet let them take to their hearts the comfort-
able truth that Death levels us all into one great
brotherhood, and that another state of being will

248 fl&osses from an ©ID /fcanse.

surely rectify the wrong of this. Then breathe thy
wail \ipon the earth's wailing wind, thou band of
melancholy music made up of every sigh that the
human heart unsatisfied has uttered ! There is yet
triumph in thy tones.

And now we move, beggars in their rags and
kings trailing the regal purple in the dust, the war
rior's gleaming helmet, the priest in his sable robe,
the hoary grandsire who has run life's circle and
come back to childhood, the ruddy schoolboy with
his golden curls frisking along the march, the
artisan's stuff jacket, the noble's star-decorated coat,
the whole presenting a motley spectacle, yet with a
dusky grandeur brooding over it. Onward, onward,
into that dimness where the lights of time which
have blazed along the procession are flickering in
their sockets ! And whither ? We know not, and
Death, hitherto our leader, deserts us by the wayside
as the tramp of our innumerable footsteps passes
beyond his sphere. He knows not more than we
our destined goal, but God, who made us, knows,
and will not leave us on our toilsome and doubtful
march, either to wander in infinite uncertainty or
perish by the way.

FEATHERTOP.

A MORALIZED LEGEND.

" DICKON," cried Mother Rigby, "a coal for my
pipe ! •'

The pipe was in the old dame's mouth when she
said these words. She had thrust it there after
filling it with tobacco, but without stooping to light
it at the hearth — where, indeed, there was no appear-
ance of a fire having been kindled that morning.
Forthwith, however, as soon as the order was given,
there was an intense red glow out of the bowl of
the pipe and a whiff of smoke from Mother Rigby's
lips. Whence the coal came and how brought hither
by an invisible hand I have never been able to
discover.

" Good ! " quoth Mother Rigby, with a nod of her
head. "Thank ye, Dickon ! And now for making
this scarecrow. Be within call, Dickon, in case I
need you again."

The good woman had risen thus early (for as yet
it was scarcely sunrise) in order to set about making
a scarecrow, which she intended to put in the middle
of her corn-patch. It was now the latter week of
May, and the crows and blackbirds had already
discovered the little green, rolled-up leaf of the
Indian corn just peeping out of the soil. She was

249

250

flfcosaes from an ©Ifc rtbanse.

determined, therefore, to contrive as lifelike a
scarecrow as ever was seen, and to finish it imme-
diately, from top to toe, so that it should begin its
sentinel's duty that very morning. Now, Mother
Rigby (as everybody must have heard) was one of
the most cunning and potent witches in New England,
and might with very little trouble have made a
scarecrow ugly enough to frighten the minister him-
self. But on this occasion, as she had awakened
in an uncommonly pleasant humor, and was further
dulcified by her pipe of tobacco, she resolved to
produce something fine, beautiful and splendid rather
than hideous and horrible.

" I don't want to set up a hobgoblin in my own
cornpatch, and almost at my own doorstep,'' said
Mother Rigby to herself, puffing out a whiff of
smoke. " I could do it if I pleased, but I'm tired
of doing marvelous things, and so I'll keep within
the bounds of every-day business just for variety's
sake. Besides, there is no use in scaring the little
children for a mile round about, though 'tis true I'm
a witch." It was settled, therefore, in her own mind,
that the scarecrow should represent a fine gentleman
of the period, so far as the materials at hand would
allow.

Perhaps it may be as well to enumerate the chief
of the articles that went to the composition of this
figure. The most important item of all, probably,
although it made so little show, was a certain
broomstick on which Mother Rigby had taken many
an airy gallop at midnight, and which now served
the scarecrow by way of a spinal column — or, as the
unlearned phrase it, a backbone. One of its arms
was a disabled flail which used to be wielded by
Goodman Rigby before his spouse worried him out

ffeatbertop. 251

of this troublesome world ; the other, it I mistake
not, was composed of the pudding-stick and a broken
rung of a chair, tied loosely together at the elbow.
As for its legs, the right was a hoe-handle, and the
left an undistinguished and miscellaneous stick
from the wood-pile. Its lungs, stomach, and other
affairs of that kind, were nothing better than a meal-
bag stuffed with straw. Thus we have made out
ihe skeleton and entire corporosity of the scare-
crow, with the exception of its head, and this was
admirably supplied by a somewhat withered and
shriveled pumpkin, in which Mother Rigby cut two
holes for the eyes and a slit for the mouth, leaving
ft bluish-colored knob in the middle to pass for a
Hose. It was really quite a respectable face.

" I've seen worse ones on human shoulders, at
any rate," said Mother Rigby. " And many a fine
gentleman has a pumpkin head, as well as my scare-
crow."

But the clothes in this case were to be the making
of the man ; so the good old woman took down
from a peg an ancient plum-colored coat of London
make and with relics of embroidery on its seams,
cuffs, pocket-flaps and buttonholes, but lamentably
worn and faded, patched at the elbows, tattered at
the skirts, and threadbare all over. On the left
Breast was a round hole whence either a star of
nobility had been rent away or else the hot heart of
some former wearer had scorched it through and
through. The neighbors said that this rich garment
belonged to the Black Man's wardrobe, and that he
kept it at Mother Rigby's cottage for the conveni-
ence of slipping it on whenever he wished to make
a grand appearance at the governor's table. To
match the coat there was a velvet waistcoat of very

252 flfcosses from an ©ID /fcansc.

ample size, and formerly embroidered with foliage
that had been as brightly golden as the maple-leaves
in October, but which had now quite vanished out
of the substance of the velvet. Next came a pair
of scarlet breeches once worn by the French gov-
ernor of Louisbourg, and the knees of which had
touched the lower step of the throne of Louis le
Grand. The Frenchman had given these small-
clothes to an Indian pow-wow, who parted with
them to the old witch for a gill of strong waters at
one of their dances in the forest. Furthermore,
Mother Rigby produced a pair of silk stockings and
put them on the figure's legs, where they showed as
unsubstantial as a dream, with the wooden reality
of the two sticks making itself miserably apparent
through the holes. Lastly, she put her dead hus-
band's wig on the bare scalp of the pumpkin, and
surmounted the whole with a dusty three-cornered
hat, in which was stuck the longest tail-feather of
a rooster.

Then the old dame stood the figure up in a corner
of her cottage and chuckled to behold its yellow
semblance of a visage, with its nobby little nose
thrust into the air. It had a strangely self-sat-
isfied aspect, and seemed to say, " Come look at
me 1"

"And you are well worth looking at, that's a
fact ! " quoth Mother Rigby, in admiration at her
own handiwork. " I've made many a puppet since
I've been a witch, but methinks this is the finest of
them all. 'Tis almost too good for a scarecrow.
And, by the by, I'll just fill a fresh pipe of tobacco,
and then take him out to the corn-patch."

While filling her pipe the old woman continued to
gaze with almost motherly affection at the figure in

ffeatbertop. 255

the corner. To say the truth, whether it were chance
or skill or downright witchcraft, there was something
wonderfully human in this ridiculous shape bediz-
ened with its tattered finery, and, as for the counte-
nance, it appeared to shrivel its yellow surface into
a grin — a funny kind of expression betwixt scorn
and merriment, as if it understood itself to be a jest
at mankind. The more Mother Rigby looked, the
better she was pleased.

" Dickon," cried she, sharply, " another coal for
my pipe ! "

'Hardly had she spoken than, just as before, there
was a red-glowing coal on the top of the tobacco,
She drew in a long whiff, and puffed it forth again
into the bar of morning sunshine which struggled
through the one dusty pane of her cottage window.
Mother Rigby always liked to flavor her pipe with
a coal of fire from the particular chimney-corner
whence this had been brought. But where that
chimney-corner might be or who brought the coal
from it — further than that the invisible messenger
seemed to respond to the name of Dickon — 1 can-
not tell.

" That puppet yonder," thought Mother Rigbyr
still with her eyes fixed on the scarecrow, " is too
good a piece of work to stand all summer in a corn-
patch frightening away the crows and blackbirds,
He's capable of better things. Why, I've danced
with a worse one when partners happened to be
scarce at our witch-meetings in the forest ! What
if I should let him take his chance among the other
men of straw and empty fellows who go bustling
about the world?"

The old witch took three or four more whiffs of
'irx x>ipe and smiled.

254

fl&osses from an

" He'll meet plenty of his brethren at every street-
corner," continued she. " Well, I didn't mean to
dabble in witchcraft to-day further than the lighting
of my pipe, but a witch I am, and a witch Tin likely
to be, and there's no use trying to shirk it. I'll
make a man of my scarecrow, were it only for the
joke's sake."

While muttering these words Mother Rigby took
the pipe from her own mouth and thrust it into the
crevice which represented the same feature in the
pumpkin-visage of the scarecrow.

" Puff, darling, puff ! " said she. " Puff away, my
fine fellow 1 Your life depends on it ! "

This was a strange exhortation, undoubtedly, to
be addressed to a mere thing of sticks, straw and old
•clothes, with nothing better than a shriveled pump-
kin for a head, as we know to have been the scare-
crow's case. Nevertheless, as we must carefully
hold in remembrance, Mother Rigby was a witch of
singular power and dexterity ; and, keeping this fact
duly before our minds, we shall see nothing beyond
credibility in the remarkable incidents of our story.
Indeed, the great difficulty will be at once got over
if we can only bring ourselves to believe that as soon
as the old dame bade him puff there came a whiff of
smoke from the scarecrow's mouth. It was the
very feeblest of whiffs, to be sure, but it was followed
by another and another, each more decided than the
preceding one.

" Puff away, my pet ! Puff away, my pretty one ! ''
Mother Rigby kept repeating, with her pleasantest
smile. " It is the breath of life to ye, and that you
may take my word for it."

Beyond all question, the pipe was bewitched.
There must have been a spell either in the tobacco

^eatbertop. 255

or in the fiercely-glowing coal that so mysteriously
burned on top of it, or in the pungently-aromatic
smoke which exhaled from the kindled weed. The
figure, after a few doubtful attempts, at length blew
forth a volley of smoke extending all the way from
the obscure corner into the bar of sunshine. There
it eddied and melted away among the motes of dust.
It seemed a convulsive effort, for the two or three
next whiffs were fainter, although the coal still glowed
and threw a gleam over the scarecrow's visage.
The old witch clapped her skinny hands together
and smiled encouragingly upon her handiwork. She
saw that the charm had worked well. The shriveled
yellow face, which heretofore had been no face at all,
had already a thin fantastic haze, as it were, of
human likeness, shifting to and fro across it, some-
times vanishing entirely, but growing more percep-
tible than ever with the next whiff from the pipe.
The whole figure, in like manner, assumed a show
of life such as we impart to ill-defined shapes among;
the clouds, and half deceive ourselves with the pas-
time of our own fancy.

If we must needs pry closely into the matter, it
may be doubted whether there was any real change,
after all, in the sordid, worn-out, worthless and ill-
jointed substance of the scarecrow, but merely a
spectral illusion and a cunning effect of light and
shade, so colored and contrived as to delude the eyes
of most men. The miracles of witchcraft seem
always to have had a very shallow subtlety, and, at
least, if the above explanations do not hit the truth
of the process, I can suggest no better.

" Well puffed, my pretty lad 1 " still cried old
Mother Rigby. " Come ! another good, stout whiff,
and let it be with might and main. Puff for thy life,

256 /Bosses from an GU£> /fcanse.

I tell thee ! Puff out of the very bottom of thy heart,
if any heart thou hast, or any bottom to it. Well
done, again ! Thou didst suck in that mouthful as
if for the pure love of it."

And then the witch beckoned to the scarecrow,
throwing so much magnetic potency into her gesture
that it seemed as if it must inevitably be obeyed, like
the mystic call of the loadstone when it summons
the iron.

" Why lurkest thou in the corner, lazy one ? "
said she. " Step forth ! Thou hast the world be-
fore thee ! "

Upon my word, if the legend were not one which
I heard on my grandmother's knee, and which had
established its place among things credible before
my childish judgment could analyze its probability,
I question whether I should have the face to tell it
now.

In obedience to Mother Rigby's word, and ex-
tending its arm as if to reach her outstretched
hand, the figure made a step forward — a kind of
hitch and jerk, however, rather than a step — then
tottered, and almost lost its balance. What could
the witch expect ? It was nothing, after all, but a
scarecrow stuck upon two sticks. But the strong-
willed old beldam scowled and beckoned, and flung
the energy of her purpose so forcibly at this poor
combination of rotten wood and musty straw and
ragged garments that it was compelled to show itself
a man, in spite of the reality of things ; so it stepped
into the bar of sunshine. There it stood, pooi
devil of a contrivance that it was, with only the thin
nest vesture of human similitude about it, througl
which was evident the stiff, rickety, incongruous,
faded, tattered, good-for-nothing patchwork of it}

ffeatbertop. 257

substance, ready to sink in a heap upon the floor,
as conscious of its own unworthiness to be erect.
Shall I confess the truth ? At its present point of
vivification the scarecrow reminds me of some of
the lukewarm and abortive characters composed of
heterogeneous materials used for the thousandth
time, and never worth using, with which romance'
writers (and myself, no doubt, among the rest, have
so over-peopled the world of fiction.

But the fierce old hag began to get angry and
show a glimpse of her diabolic nature (like a snake's
head peeping with a hiss out of her bosom) at this
pusillanimous behavior of the thing which she had
taken the trouble to put together.

" Puff away, wretch ! " cried she, wrathfully.
" Puff, puff, puff, thou thing of straw and emptiness 1
thou rag or two ! thou meal-bag ! thou pumpkin-
head ! thou nothing ! Where shall I find a name
vile enough to call thee by ? Puff, I say, and suck
in thy fantastic life along with the smoke, else I
snatch the pipe from thy mouth and hurl thee where
that red coal came from."

Thus threatened, the unhappy scarecrow had
nothing for it but to puff away for dear life. As
need was, therefore, it applied itself lustily to the
pipe, and sent forth such abundant volleys of tobacco-
smoke that the small cottage-kitchen became all-
vaporous. The one sunbeam struggled mistily
through and could but imperfectly define the image
of the cracked and dusty window-pane on the op-
posite wall.

Mother Rigby, meanwhile, with one brown arm
akimbo and the other stretched toward the figure,
loomed grimly amid the obscurity with such port
and exoression as when she was wont to heave a

258 fl&osses from an ©to dfcanse.

ponderous nightmare on her victims and stand at
the bedside to enjoy their agony. In fear and
trembling did this poor scarecrow puff. But its
efforts, it must be acknowledged, served an excellent
purpose, for with each successive whiff the figure
lost more and more of its dizzy and perplexing
tenuity and seemed to take denser substance. Its
very garments, moreover, partook of the magical
change, and shone with the gloss of novelty, and
glistened with the skillfully-embroidered gold that
had long ago been rent away. And, half revealed
among the smoke, a yellow visage bent its lusterless
eyes on Mother Rigby.

At last the old witch clenched her fist and shook
it at the figure. Not that she was positively angry,
but merely acting on the principle — perhaps untrue
or not the only truth, though as high a one as Mother
Rigby could be expected to attain — that feeble and
torpid natures, being incapable of better inspiration,
must be stirred up by fear. But here was the crisis.
Should she fail in what she now sought to effect, it
was her ruthless purpose to scatter the miserable
simulacre into its original elements.

" Thou hast a man's aspect," said she, sternly ;
" have also the echo and mockery of a voice. I bid
thee speak ! "

The scarecrow gasped, struggled, and at length
emitted a murmur which was so incorporated with
its smoky breath that you could scarcely tell whether
it were indeed a voice or only a whiff of tobacco.
Some narrators of this legend held the opinion that
Mother Rigby's conjurations and the fierceness of
her will had compelled a familiar spirit into the
figure, and that the voice was his.

" Mother," mumbled the poor stifled voice, " be

ffeatbertop. 259

not so awful with me ! I would fain speak, but, be ng
without wits, what can I say ? "

" Thou canst speak, darling, canst thou ? " cried
Mother Rigby, relaxing her grim countenance into a
smile. "And what shalt thou say, quotha? Say,
indeed ! Art thou of the brotherhood of the empty
skull and demandest of me what thou shalt say ?
Thou shalt say a thousand things, and, saying them
a thousand times over, thou shalt still, have said
nothing. Be not afraid, I tell thee ! When thou
comest into the world — whither I purpose sending
thee forthwith — thou shalt not lack the wherewithal
to talk. Talk ! Why, thou shalt babble like a mill-
stream, if thou wilt. Thou hast brains enough for
that, I trow."

"At your service, mother," responded the figure.

" And that was well said, my pretty one ! "
answered Mother Rigby. " Then thou spakest like
thyself, and meant nothing. Thou shalt have a hun-
dred such set phrases, and five hundred to the boot
of them. And now, darling, I have taken so much
pains with thee, and thou art so beautiful, that, by
my troth, I love thee better than any witch's puppet
in the world ; and I've made them of all sorts — clay,
wax, straw, sticks, night fog, morning mist, sea-foam
and chimney-smoke. But thou art the very best ;
so give heed to what I say."

"Yes, kind mother," said the figure, " with all my
heart ! "

" With all thy heart ! " cried the old witch, setting
her hands to her sides and laughing loudly. " Thou
hast such a pretty way of speaking ! With all thy
heart ! And thou didst put thy hand to the left side
of thy waistcoat, as if thou really hadst one ! "

So, now, in high good humor with this fantastic

260 dfcosses trom an Old dfcanse.

contrivance of hers, Mother Rigby told the scarecrow
that it must go and play its part in the great world,
where not one man in a hundred, she affirmed, was
gifted with more real substance than itself. And,
that he might hold up his head with the best of them,
she endowed him on the spot with an unreckonable
amount of wealth. It consisted partly of a gold-
mine in Eldorado, and of ten thousand shares in i
broken bubble, and of half a million acres of vii: •-
yard at the North Pole, and of a castle in the air,
and a chateau in Spain, together with all the rents
and income therefrom accruing. She further made
over to him the cargo of a certain ship laden with
salt of Cadiz which she herself by her necromantic
arts had caused to founder ten years before in the
deepest part of mid-ocean. If the salt were not dis-
solved and could be brought to market, it would fetch
a pretty penny among the fishermen. That he might
not lack ready money, she gave him a copper far-
thing of Birmingham manufacture, being all the coin
she had about her, and likewise a great deal of brass,
which she applied to his forehead, thus making it
yellower than ever.

" With that brass alone," quoth Mother Ri.^by,
" thou canst pay thy way all over the earth. Kiss
me, pretty darling! I have done my best for thee."

Furthermore, that the adventurer might lack no
possible advantage toward a fair start in life, this
excellent old dame gave him a token by which he
was to introduce himself to a certain magistrate,
member of the council, merchant and elder of the
church (the four capacities constituting but one
man) who stood at the head of society in the neigh-
boring metropolis. The token was neither more nor
less than a single word which Mother Rigby whis-

ffeatbcrtop. 261

pered to the scarecrow, and which the scarecrow
was to whisper to the merchant.

" Gouty as the old fellow is, he'll run thy errands
for thee when once thou hast given him that word
in his ear," said the old witch. " Mother Rigby
knows the worshipful Justice Gookin, and the wor-
shipful justice knows Mother Rigby ! "

Here the witch thrust her wrinkled face close to
the puppet's, chuckling irrepressibly, and fidgeting
all through her system with delight at the idea which
she meant to communicate.

"The worshipful Master Gookin," whispered she,
" hath a comely maiden to his daughter. And hark
ye, my pet. Thou hast a fair outside, and a pretty
wit enough of thine own. Yea, a pretty wit enough I
Thou wilt think better of it when thou hast seen
more of other people's wits. Now, with thy outside
and thy inside, thou art the very man to win ayoung
girl's heart. Never doubt it ; I tell thee it shall be
so. Put but a bold face on the matter, sigh, smile,
flourish thy hat, thrust forth thy leg like a dancing-
master, put thy right hand to the left side of thy
waistcoat, and pretty Polly Gookin is thine own."

All this while the new creature had been sucking
in and exhaling the vapory fragrance of his pipe,
and seemed now to continue this occupaiion as much
for the enjoyment it afforded as because it was an
essential condition of his existence. It was wonder-
ful to see how exceedingly like a human being it
behaved. Its eyes (for it appeared to possess a
pair) were bent on Mother Rigby, and at suitable
junctures it nodded or shook its head. Neither did
it lack words proper for the occasion — " Really ! " — •
" Indeed ! "— " Pray tell me ! "— " Is it possible ! "—
" Upon my word ! "— " By no means 1 "— " Oh ! "—

262 dfcosees from an ©ID flfcanse.

" Ah ! "— " Hem 1 " and other such weighty utter-
ances as imply attention, inquiry, acquiescence or
dissent on the part of the auditor. Even had you
stood by and seen the scarecrow made you could
scarcely have resisted the conviction that it perfectly
understood the cunning counsels which the old witch
poured into its counterfeit of an ear. The more
earnestly it applied its lips to the pipe, the more
distinctly was its human likeness stamped among
visible realities, the more sagacious grew its expres-
sion, the more lifelike its gestures and movements,
and the more intelligibly audible its voice. Its gar-
ments, too, glistened so much the brighter with an
illusory magnificence. The very pipe in which
burned the spell of all this wonder-work ceased to
appear as a smoke-blackened earthen stump, and
became a meerschaum with painted bowl and amber
mouthpiece.

It might be apprehended, however, that, as the
life of the illusion seemed identical with the vapor
of the pipe, it would terminate simultaneously with
the reduction of the tobacco to ashes. But the bel-
dam foresaw the difficulty.

" Hold thou the pipe, my precious one," said she.
" while I fill it for thee again."

It was sorrowful to behold how the fine gentle-
man began to fade back into a scarecrow while
Mother Rigby shook the ashes out of the pipe and
proceeded to replenish it from her tobacco-box.

" Dickon," cried she, in her high, sharp tone,
" another coal for this pipe."

No sooner said than the intensely red speck of
fire was glowing within the pipe-bowl, and the scare-
crow, without waiting for the witch's bidding, applied
th<* tube to his lips and drew in a few short, convul'

tfeatbertop. 263

sive whiffs, which soon, however, became regular
and equable.

" Now, mine own heart's darling," quoth Mother
Rigby, " whatever may happen to thee, thou must
stick to thy pipe. Thy life is in it ; and that, at
least, thou knowest well, if thou knowest naught
besides. Stick to thy pipe, I say ! Smoke, puff,
blow thy cloud, and tell the people, if any question
be made, that it is for thy health, and that so the
physician orders thee to do. And, sweet one, when
thou shalt find thy pipe getting low, go apart into
some corner, and — first filling thyself with smoke —
cry sharply, ' Dickon, a fresh pipe of tobacco ! ' and
* Dickon, another coal for my pipe ! ' and have it
into thy pretty mouth as speedily as may be, else,
instead of a gallant gentleman in a gold-laced coat,
thou wilt be but a jumble of sticks and tattered
clothes, and a bag of straw and a withered pumpkin.
Now depart, my treasure, and good luck go with
thee ! "

" Never fear, mother," said the figure, in a stout
voice, and sending forth a courageous whiff of
smoke. " I will thrive if an honest man and a
gentleman may."

" Oh, thou wilt be the death of me ! " cried the
old witch, convulsed with laughter. "That was
well said ! If an honest man and a gentleman may I
Thou playest thy part to perfection. Get along
with thee for a smart fellow, and I will wager on
thy head, as a man of pith and substance, with a
brain and what they call a heart, and all else
that a man should have, against any other thing
on two legs. I hold myself a better witch than
yesterday, for thy sake. Did I not make thee?
And I defy any witch in New England to make

264 flfcosscs trom an

such another ! Here ! take my stuff along with
thee."

The staff, though it was but a plain oaken stick,
immediately took the aspect of a gold- headed cane.

"That gold head has as much sense in it as thine
own," said Mother Rigby, " and it will guide thee
straight to worshipful Master Gookin's door. Gel
thee gone, my pretty pet, my darling, my precious
one, my treasure ; and if any ask thy name, it is
; Feathertop,' for thou hast a feather in thy hat, and
I have thrust a handful of feathers into the hollow
of thy head. And thy wig, too, is of the fashion
they call * feathertop ; ' so be * Feathertop ' thy
name."

And, issuing from the cottage, Feathertop strode
manfully toward town. Mother Rigby stood at the
threshold, well pleased to see how the sunbeams
glistened on him, as if all his magnificence were
real, and how diligently and lovingly he smoked his
pipe, and how handsomely he walked, in spite of a
little stiffness of his legs. She watched him until
out. of sight, and threw a witch-benediction after
her darling when a turn of the road snatched him
from her view.

Betimes in the forenoon, when the principal street
of the neighboring town was just at its acme of life
and bustle, a stranger of very distinguished figure
was seen on the sidewalk. His port as well as his
garments betokened nothing short of nobility. He
wore a richly-embroidered plum-colored coat, a
waistcoat of costly velvet magnificently adorned
with golden foliage, a pair of splendid scarlet
breeches and the finest and glossiest of white silk
stockings. His head was covered with a peruque
so daintily powdered and adjusted that it would

jfeatbertop. 265

have been sacrilege to disorder it with a hat, which,
therefore (and it was a gold-laced hat set off with a
snowy feather), he carried beneath his arm. On
the breast of his coat glistened a star. He managed
his gold-headed cane with an airy grace peculiar to
the fine gentleman of the period, and, to give the
highest possible finish to his equipment, he had
lace ruffles at his wrist of a most ethereal delicacy,
sufficiently avouching how idle and aristocratic
must be the hands which they half concealed.

It was a remarkable point in the accouterment of
this brilliant personage that he held in his left hand
a fantastic kind of a pipe with an exquisitely-painted
bowl and an amber mouthpiece. This he applied
to his lips as often as every five or six paces, and
inhaled a deep whiff of smoke, which after being
retained a moment in his lungs might be seen to
eddy gracefully from his mouth and nostrils.

As may well be supposed, the street was all astir
to find out the stranger's name.

" It is some great nobleman, beyond question,"
said one of the townspeople. " Do you see the star
at his breast ? "

" Nay, it is too bright to be seen," said another.
" Yes, he must needs be a nobleman, as you say.
But by what conveyance, think you, can His Lord-
ship have voyaged or traveled hither ? There has
been no vessel from the old country for a month
past , and if he have arrived overland from the sourl-
ward, pray where are his attendants and equipage ? '

" He needs no equipage to set off his rank," re-
marked a third. " If he came among us in rags,
nobility would shine through a hole in his elbow. I
never saw such dignity of aspect. He has the old
Norman blood in his veins, I warrant him."

266 dbo00es from an ©ID /fcanse.

" I rather take him to be a Dutchman or one of
your High Germans," said another citizen. " The
men of those countries have always the pipe at their
mouths."

" And so has a Turk," answered his companion.
"But, in my judgment, this stranger hath been bred
at the French court, and hath there learned polite-
ness and grace of manner, which none understand
so well as the nobility of France. That gait, now 1
A vulgar spectator might deem it stiff — he might
call it a hitch and jerk — but, to my eye, it hath an
unspeakable majesty, and must have been acquired
by constant observation of the deportment of the
Grand Monarque. The stranger's character and
office are evident enough. He is a French ambas-
sador come to treat with our rulers about the cession
of Canada."

44 More probably a Spaniard," said another, " and
hence his yellow complexion. Or, most likely, he
is from the Havana or from some port on the Span-
ish main, and comes to make investigation about
the piracies which our governor is thought to con-
nive at. Those settlers in Peru and Mexico have
skins as yellow as the gold which they dig out of
their mines."

"Yellow or not," cried a lady, "he is a beautiful
man 1 So tall, so slender ! Such a fine, noble face,
with so well shaped a nose and all that delicacy of
expression about the mouth ! And, bless me ! how
bright his star is ! It positively shoots out flames. ';

" So do your eyes, fair lady," said the stranger,
with a bow and a flourish of his pipe, for he was
just passing at the instant. " Upon my honor, they
have quite dazzled me ! "

" Was ever so original and exquisite a compli

ffeatbertop. 267

ment?" murmured the lady, in an ecstasy of de-
light.

Amid the general admiration excited by the
stranger's appearance there were only two dissent-
ing voices. One was that of an impertinent cur
which, after snuffing at the heels of the glistening
figure, put its tail between its legs and skulked into
its master's back yard, vociferating an execrable
howl. The other dissentient was a young child who
squalled at the fullest stretch of his lungs and bab-
bled some unintelligible nonsense about a pumpkin.

Feathertop, meanwhile, pursued his way along
the street. Except for the few complimentary words-
to the lady, and now and then a slight inclination
of the head in requital of the profound reverences of
the bystanders, he seemed wholly absorbed in his
pipe. There needed no other proof of his rank and
consequence than the perfect equanimity with which
he comported himself while the curiosity and ad-
miration of the town swelled almost into clamor
around him. With a crowd gathering behind his
footsteps, he finally reached the mansion-house of
the worshipful Justice Gookin, entered the gate, as-
cended the steps of the front door and knocked.
In the interim before his summons was answered
the stranger was observed to shake the ashes out of
his pipe.

" What did he say in that sharp voice ? " inquired
one of the spectators.

" Nay, I know not," answered his friend. " But
the sun dazzles my eyes strangely. How dim and
faded His Lordship looks all of a sudden ! Bless
my wits, what is the matter with me ? "

" The wonder is," said the other, " that his pipe,
which was out only an instant ago, should be all

268 &caae3 from an OiD /Hban»c.

alight -again, and with the reddest coal I ever saw.
There is something mysterious about this stranger.
What a whiff of smoke was that ! * Dim and faded,'
did you call him ? Why, as he turns about the star
on his breast is all ablaze."

" It is, indeed," said his companion, " and it will
go near to dazzle pretty Polly Gookin, whom I see
peeping at it out of the chamber window."

The door being now opened, Feathertop turned
to the crowd, made a stately bend of his body, like
a great man acknowledging the reverence of the
meaner sort, and vanished into the house. There
was a mysterious kind of a smile — if it might not
better be called a grin or grimace — upon his visage,
but, of all the throng that beheld him, not an in-
dividual appears to have possessed insight enough
to detect the illusive character of the stranger,
except a little child and a cur-dog.

Our legend here loses somewhat of its continuity,
and, passing over the preliminary explanation be-
tween Feathertop and the merchant, goes in quest
of the pretty Polly Gookin. She was a damsel of a
soft, round figure, with light hair and blue eyes, and
a fair rosy face which seemed neither very shrewd
nor very simple. This young lady had caught a
glimpse of the glistening stranger while standing at
the threshold, and had forthwith put on a laced
cap, a string of beads, her finest kerchief and her
stiffest damask petticoat, in preparation for the in-
terview. Hurrying from her chamber to the parlor,
she had ever since been viewing herself in the large
looking-glass and practicing pretty airs — now a
smile, now a ceremonious dignity of aspect, and
now a softer smile than the former, kissing her
hand, likewise, tossing her head and managing her

Jeatbertop. 269

fan, while within the mirror an unsubstantial little
maid repeated every gesture and did all the foolish
things that Polly did, but without making her
ashamed of them. In short, it was the fault of
Pretty Polly's ability, rather than her will, if she
failed to be as complete an artifice as the illustrious
Feathertop himself ; and when she thus tampered
with her own simplicity, the witch's phantom might
well hope to win her.

No sooner did Polly hear her father's gouty foot-
steps approaching the parlor door, accompanied
with the stiff clatter of Feathertop's high-heeled
shoes, than she seated herself bolt upright and
innocently began warbling a song.

" Polly ! Daughter Polly ! " cried the old mer-
chant. " Come hither, child."

Master Gookin's aspect, as he opened the door,
was doubtful and troubled.

" This gentleman," continued he, presenting the
stranger, " is the chevalier Feathertop — nay, I beg
his pardon, My Lord Feathertop — who hath brought
me a token of remembrance from an ancient friend
of mine. Pay your duty to His Lordship, child, and
honor him as his quality deserves."

After these few words of introduction the wor-
shipful magistrate immediately quitted the room.
But even in that brief moment, had the fair Polly
glanced aside at her father instead of devoting her-
self wholly to the brilliant guest, she might have
taken warning of some mischief nigh at hand. The
old man was nervous, fidgety and very pale.
Purposing a smile of courtesy, he had deformed hig
face with a sort of galvanic grin which, when
Feathertop's back was turned, he exchanged for a
scowl, at the same time shaking his fist and stamp-
18

270 flfcoeses from an ©ID dfcanse.

ing his gouty foot — an incivility which brought its
retribution along with it. The truth appears to have
been that Mother Rigby's word of introduction,
whatever it might be, had operated far more on the
rich merchant's fears than on his good-will. More-
over, being a man of wonderfully acute observation,
he had noticed that the painted figures on the bowl
of Feathertop's pipe were in motion. Looking more
closely, he became convinced that these figures were
a party of little demons, each duly provided with
horns and a tail, and dancing hand in hand with
gestures of diabolical merriment round the circum-
ference of the pipe-bowl. As if to confirm his
suspicions, while Master Gookin ushered his guest
along a dusky passage from his private room to the
parlor, the star on Feathertop's breast had scintil-
lated actual flames, and threw a flickering gleam
upon the wall, the ceiling and the floor.

With such sinister prognostics manifesting them-
selves on all hands, it is not to be marveled at that
the merchant should have felt that he was commit-
ting his daughter to a very questionable acquaint-
ance. He cursed in his secret soul the insinuating
elegance of Feathertop's manners as this brilliant
personage bowed, smiled, put his hand on his heart,
inhaled a long whiff from his pipe and enriched the
atmosphere with the smoky vapor of a fragrant and
visible sigh. Gladly would poor Master Gookin
have thrust his dangerous guest into the street, but
there was a restraint and terror within him. This
respectable old gentleman, we fear, at an earlier
period of life had given some pledge or other to the
Evil Principle, and perhaps was now to redeem it
by the sacrifice of his daughter.

It so happened that the parlor door was partly of

ffeatbectop. 271

glass, shaded by a silken curtain the folds of which
hung a little awry. So strong was the merchant's
interest in Witnessing what was to ensue between
the fair Polly and the gallant Feathertop that after
quitting the room he could by no means refrain from
peeping through the crevice of the curtain. But
there was nothing very miraculous to be seen — •
nothing, except the trifles previously noticed, to con-
firm the idea of a supernatural peril environing the
pretty Polly. The stranger, it is true, was evidently
a thorough and practiced man of the world, system-
atic and self-possessed, and therefore the sort of
person to whom a parent ought not to confide a sim-
ple young girl without due watchfulness for the
result. The worthy magistrate, who had been con-
versant with all degrees and qualities of mankind,
could not but perceive every motion and gesture of
the distinguished Feathertop came in its proper
place. Nothing had been left rude or native in him ;
a well-digested conventionalism had incorporated
itself thoroughly with his substance and transformed
him into a work of art. Perhaps it was this peculi-
arity that invested him with a species of ghastliness
and awe. It is the effect of anything completely
and consummately artificial in human shape that the
person impresses us as an unreality, and as having
hardly pith enough to cast a shadow upon the floor.
As regarded Feathertop, all this resulted in a wild,
extravagant and fantastical impression, as if his life
and being were akin to the smoke that curled up-
ward from his pipe.

But pretty Polly Gookin felt not thus. The pair
.were now promenading the room — Feathertop with
.his dainty stride, and no less dainty grimace, the
girl with a native maidenly grace just touched, not

272

from an OLD IRanse.

spoiled, by a slightly-affected manner which seemed
caught from the perfect artifice of her companion.
The longer the interview continued, the more charmed
was pretty Polly, until within the first quarter of an
hour (as the old magistrate noted by his watch) she
was evidently beginning to be in love. Nor need it
have been witchcraft that subdued her in such a
hurry : the poor child's heart, it may be, was so
very fervent that it melted her with its own warmth,
as reflected from the hollow semblance of a lover.
No matter what Feathertop said, his words found
depth and reverberation in her ear ; no matter what
he did, his action was very heroic to her eye. And
by this time, it is to be supposed, there was a blush
on Polly's cheek, a tender smile about her mouth
and a liquid softness in her glance, while the star
kept coruscating on Feathertop's breast, and the
little demons careered with more frantic merriment
than ever about the circumference of his pipe-bowl.
Oh, pretty Polly Gookin ! why should these imps
rejoice so madly that a silly maiden's heart was
about to be given to a shadow ? Is it so unusual a
misfortune — so rare a triumph ?

By and by Feathertop paused, and, throwing him-
self into an imposing attitude, seemed to summon
the fair girl to survey his figure and resist him
longer if she could. His star, his embroidery, his
buckles, glowed at that instant with unutterable
splendor ; the picturesque hues of his attire took a
richer depth of coloring; there was a gleam and
polish over his whole presence betokening the per-
fect witchery of well-ordered manners. The maiden
raised her eyes and suffered them to linger upon
her companion with a bashful and admiring gaze.
Then, as if desirous of judging what value her own

ffcatbcrtop. 273

simple comeliness might have side by side with so
much brilliancy, she cast a glance toward the full-
length looking-glass in front of which they happened
to be standing. It was one of the truest plates in
the world, and incapable of flattery. No sooner did
the images therein reflected meet Polly's eye than
she shrieked, shrank from the stranger's' side, gazed
at him for a moment in the wildest dismay, and
sank insensible upon the floor. Feathertop, like-
wise, had looked toward the mirror, and there be-
held, not the glittering mockery of his outside show,
but a picture of the sordid patchwork of his real
composition stripped of all witchcraft. •

The wretched simulacrum ! We almost pity him.
He threw up his arms with an expression of despair
that went farther than any of his previous manifesta-
tions toward vindicating his claims to be reckoned
human. For perchance the only time since this so
often empty and deceptive life of mortals began its
course, an illusion had seen and fully recognized
itself.

Mother Rigby was seated by her kitchen hearth
in the twilight of this eventful day, and had just
shaken the ashes out of a new pipe, when she heard
a hurried tramp along the road. Yet it did not seem
so much the tramp of human footsteps as the clatter
of sticks or the rattling of dry bones.

" Ha ! " thought the old witch ; " what step is that ?
Whose skeleton is out of its grave now, I wonder ? "

A figure burst headlong into the cottage door. It
was Feathertop. His pipe was still alight, the star
still flamed upon his breast, the embroidery still
glowed upon his garments, nor had he lost in any
degree or manner that could be estimated the aspect
that assimilated him with our mortal brotherhood.

274 /Bosses from an OLD flbanse.

But yet, in some indescribable way (as is the case
with all that has deluded us when once found out),
the poor reality was felt beneath the cunning arti-
fice.

"What has gone wrong?" demanded the witch.
" Did yonder sniffling hypocrite thrust my darling
from his door? The villain ! I'll set twenty fiends
to torture him till hs offer thee his daughter on his.
bended knees ! "

" No, mother," said Feathertop, despondingly ;
"it was not that."

"Did the girl scorn my precious one ?" asked
Mother Rigby, her fierce eyes glowing like two coals
of Tophet. " I'll cover her face with pimples ! Her
nose shall be as red as the coal in thy pipe ! Her
front teeth shall drop out! In a week hence she
shall not be worth thy having."

" Let her alone, mother," answered poor Feather-
top. "The girl was half won, and methinks a kiss
from her sweet lips might have made me altogether
human. But," he added, after a brief pause and
then a howl of self-contempt, " I've seen myself,
mother ! I've seen myself for the wretched, ragged,
empty thing I am. I'll exist no longer."

Snatching the pipe from his mouth, he flung it
with all his might against the chimney, and at the
same instant sank upon the floor, a medley of straw
and tattered garments, with some sticks protruding
from the heap and a shriveled pumpkin in the
midst. The eyeholes were now lusterless, but the
rudely-carved gap that just before had been a mouth
Still seemed to twist itself into a despairing grin, and
was so far human.

" Poor fellow! " quoth Mother Rigby, with a rue-
ful glance at the relics of her ill-fated contrivance.

fcatbertop. 275

" My poor dear, pretty Feathertop ! There are thou-
sands upon thousands of coxcombs and charlatans
in the world made up of just such a jumble of worn-
out, forgotten and good-for-nothing trash as he was,
yet they live in fair repute and never see themselves
for what they are. And why should my poor puppet
be the only one to know himself and perish for it ? "

While thus muttering the witch had filled a fresh
pipe of tobacco, and held the stem between her
fingers, as doubtful whether to thrust it into her own
mouth or Feathertop's.

" Poor Feathertop ! " she continued. " I could
easily give him another chance and send him forth
again to-morrow. But no ! His feelings are too
tender — his sensibilities too deep. He seems to have
too much heart to bustle for his own advantage in
such an empty and heartless world. Well, well !
I'll make a scarecrow of him, after all. Tis an in-
nocent and useful vocation, and will suit my darling
well ; and if each of his human brethren had as
fit a one, 'twould be the better for mankind. And,
as for this pipe of tobacco, I need it more than he."

So saying, Mother Rigby put the stem between
her lips.

" Dickon," cried she, in her high, sharp tone,
K another coal for my pipe 1 "

THE NEW ADAM AND EVE.

WE who are born into the world's artificial system
can never adequately know how little in our pres-
ent state and circumstances is natural and how
much is merely the interpolation of the perverted
mind and heart of man. Art has become a second
and stronger Nature ; she is a stepmother whose
crafty tenderness has taught us to despise the bounti-
ful and wholesome ministrations of our true parent.
It is only through the medium of the imagination
that we can lessen those iron fetters which we call
truth and reality and make ourselves even partially
sensible what prisoners we are. For instance, let
us conceive good Father Miller's interpretation of
the prophecies to have proved true. The day of doom
has burst upon the globe and swept away the whole
race of men. From cities and fields, seashore and
midland mountain-region, vast continents, and even
the remotest islands of the ocean, each living thing
is gone. No breath of a created being disturbs this
earthly atmosphere. But the abodes of man and
all that he has accomplished, the footprints of his
wanderings and the results of his toil, the visible
symbols of his intellectual cultivation and moral
progress — in short, everything physical that can give
evidence of his present position — shall remain un-
touched by the hand of Destiny. Then to inherit
276

Gbe flew Bfcam anfc Bve. 277

and repeople this waste and deserted earth we will
suppose a new Adam and a new Eve to have been
created in the full development of mind and heart,
but with no knowledge of their predecessors, nor
of the diseased circumstances that had become en-
crusted around them. Such a pair would at once
distinguish between Art and Nature. Their in-
stincts and intuitions would immediately recognize
the wisdom and simplicity of the latter, while the
former, with its elaborate perversities, would offer
them a continual succession of puzzles.

Let us attempt, in a mood half sportive and half
thoughtful, to track these imaginary heirs of our
mortality through their first day's experience. No
longer ago than yesterday the flame of human life
was extinguished ; there has been a breathless night,
and now another morn approaches, expecting to
find the earth no less desolate than at eventide.

It is dawn. The east puts on its immemorial
blush, although no human eye is gazing at it ; for
all the phenomena of the natural world renew them-
selves, in spite of the solitude that now broods
around the globe. There is still beauty of earth,
sea and sky for beauty's sake. But soon there are
to be spectators. Just when the earliest sunshine
gilds earth's mountain-tops two beings have come
into life — not in such an Eden as bloomed to wel-
come our first parents, but in the heart of a modern
city. They find themselves in existence and gazing
into one another's eyes. Their emotion is not
astonishment, nor do they perplex themselves with
efforts to discover what and whence and why they
are. Each is satisfied to be because the other exists
likewise, and their first consciousness is of calm and
mutual enjoyment which seems not 10 have been the

278 /Bosses from an QIC> /fcansc.

birth of that very moment, but prolonged fiom a
past eternity. Thus content with an inner sphere
which they inhabit together, it is not immediately
that the outward world can obtrude itself upon
their notice.

Soon, however, they feel the invincible necessity
of this earthly life, and begin to make acquaintance
with the objects and circumstances that surround
them. Perhaps no other stride so vast remains to
be taken as when they first turn from the reality of
their mutual glance to the dreams and shadows that
perplex them everywhere else.

" Sweetest Eve, where are we ? " exclaims the new
Adam : for speech, or some equivalent mode of ex-
pression, is born with them and comes just as natural
as breath. " Methinks I do not recognize this
place."

" Nor I, dear Adam," replies the new Eve. " And
what a strange place too 1 Let me come closer to
thy side and behold thee only, for all other sights
trouble and perplex my spirit."

" Nay, Eve," replies Adam, who appears to have
the stronger tendency toward the material world ;
"it were well that we gain some insight into these
matters. We are in an odd situation here. Let us
look about us."

Assuredly, there are sights enough to throw the
new inheritors of earth into a state of hopeless
perplexity — the long lines ot edifices, their windows
glittering in the yellow sunrise, and the narrow street
between, with its barren pavement tracked and
battered by wheels that have now rattled into an
irrevocable past ; the signs with their unintelligible
hieroglyphics ; the squareness and ugliness and reg-
ular or irregular deformity of everything that meets

"Hew Bfcam artf Eve. 279

the eye : the marks of wear and tear and unrenewed
decay which distinguish the works of man from the
growth of nature. What is there in all this capable
of the slightest significance to minds that know
nothing of the artificial system which is implied
in every lamp-post and each brick of the houses ?
Moreover, the utter loneliness and silence in a scene
that originally grew out of noise and bustle must
needs impress a feeling of desolation even upon
Adam and Eve, unsuspicious as they are of the
recent extinction of human existence. In a forest
solitude would be life ; in the city it is death.

The new Eve looks round with a sensation of
doubt and distrust such as a city dame, the daughter
of numberless generations of citizens, might ex-
perience if suddenly transported to the garden of
Eden. At length her downcast eye discovers a
small tuft of grass just beginning to sprout among
the stones of the pavement ; she eagerly grasps it,
and is sensible that this little herb awakens some
response within her heart. Nature finds nothing
else to offer her. Adam, after staring up and down
the street without detecting a single object that his
comprehension can lay hold of, finally turns his fore*
head to the sky. There, indeed, is something which
the soul within him recognizes.

" Look up yonder, mine own Eve 1 " he cries.
" Surely we ought to dwell among those gold-tinged
clouds or in the blue depths beyond them. I know
not how nor when, but evidently we have strayed
away from our home, for I see nothing hereabouts
ihat seems to belong to us."

" Can we not ascend thither ? " inquires Eve.

"Why not?" answers Adam, hopefully. "But
no ; something drags us down in spite of our best

280 /Rosses Trom an DID dfcanse.

efforts. Perchance we may find a path here*
after."

In the energy of new life it appears no such im-
practicable feat to climb into the sky ! But they
have already received a woful lesson which may
finally go far toward reducing them to the level of the
departed race when they acknowledge the necessity
of keeping the beaten track of earth. They now set
forth on a ramble through the city, in the hope of
making their escape from this uncongenial sphere.
Already in the fresh elasticity of their spirits they
have found the idea of weariness. We will watch
them as they enter some of the shops and public or
private edifices, for every door, whether of alderman
or beggar, church or hall of state, has been flung
•wide open by the same agency that swept away the
inmates.

It so happens, and not unluckily for an Adam and
Eve who are still in the costume that might better
have befitted Eden — it so happens that their first
visit is to a fashionable dry-goods store. No court-
eous and importunate attendants hasten to receive
their orders ; no throng of ladies are tossing over the
rich Parisian fabrics. All is deserted ; trade is at
a standstill, and not even an echo of the national
watchword — " Go ahead 1 " disturbs the quiet of the
new customers. But specimens of the latest earthly
fashions, silks of every shade, and whatever is most
delicate or splendid for the decoration of the human
form, lie scattered around profusely as bright au-
tumnal leaves in a forest. Adam looks at a few of
the articles, but throws them carelessly aside with
whatever exclamation may correspond to ** Pish ! "
or "Pshaw!" in the new vocabulary of nature.
Eve, however — be it said without offense to her

Gbe Hew B&am an£» Bve. 28 1

native modesty — examines these treasures of her sex
with somewhat livelier interest. A pair of corsets
chance to lie upon the counter ; she inspects them
curiously, but knows not what to make of them.
Than she handles a fashionable silk with dim
yearnings — thoughts that wander hither and thither,
instincts groping in the dark.

" On the whole, I do not like it," she observes,
laying the glossy fabric upon the counter. " But,
Adam, it is very strange ! What can these things
mean ? Surely I ought to know ; yet they put me in
a perfect maze ! "

44 Pooh, my dear Eve ! Why trouble thy little
head about such nonsense ? " cries Adam, in a fit of
impatience. " Let us go somewhere else. But stay !
How very beautiful ! My loveliest Eve, what a
charm you have imparted to that robe by merely
throwing it over your shoulders ! "

For Eve, with the taste that Nature molded into
her composition, has taken a remnant of exquisite
silver gauze and drawn it around her form with an
effect that gives Adam his first idea of the witchery of
dress. He beholds his spouse in a new light and
with renewed admiration, yet is hardly reconciled to
any other attire than her own golden locks. How-
ever, emulating Eve's example, he makes free with
a mantle of blue velvet, and puts it on so pictur-
esquely that it might seem to have fallen from
heaven upon his stately figure. Thus garbed, they
go in search of new discoveries.

They next wander into a church — not to make a
display of their fine clothes, but attracted by its
spire pointing upward to the sky whither they have
already yearned to climb. As they enter the portal
a clock which it was the last earthly act of the sextoo

282 flfcosses from an ©U> flfcanse.

to wind up repeats the hour in deep and reverberat-
ing tones, for Time has survived his former progeny,
and with the iron tongue that man gave him is now
speaking to his two grandchildren. They listen, but
understand him not. Nature would measure time
by the succession of thoughts and acts which con-
stitute real life, and not by hours of emptiness. They
pass up the church aisle and raise their eyes to the
ceiling. Had our Adam and Eve become' mortal in
some European city and strayed into the vastness
and sublimity of an old cathedral, they might have
recognized the purpose for which the deep-souled
founders reared it. Like the dim awfulness of an
ancient forest, its very atmosphere would have
incited them to prayer. Within the snug walls of a
metropolitan church there can be no such influence.

Yet some odor of religion is still lingering here,
the bequest of pious souls who had grace to enjoy a
foretaste of immortal life. Perchance they breathe
a prophecy of a better world to their successors, who
have become obnoxious to all their own cares and
calamities in the present one.

" Eve, something impels me to look upward,'' says
Adam. " But it troubles me to see this roof be-
tween us and the sky. Let us go forth, and perhaps
we shall discern a great face looking down upon us."

" Yes, a great face with a beam of love brighten-
ing over it like sunshine," responds Eve. " Surely
we have seen such a countenance somewhere 1 "

They go out of the church, and, kneeling at its
threshold, give way to the spirit's natural instinct of
adoration to a beneficent Father. But, in truth,
their life thus far has been a continual prayer.
Purity and simplicity hold converse at every moment
with their Creator.

flew BDam and five. 283

We now observe them entering a court of justice.
But what remotest conception can they attain of the
purposes of such an edifice ? How should the idea
occur to them that human brethren, of like nature
with themselves, and originally included in the same
law of love which is their only rule of life, should
ever need an outsvard enforcement of the true voice
within their souls ? And what save a woful ex-
perience the dark result of many centuries could
teach them the sad mysteries of crime ? — Oh, judg-
ment seat, not by the pure in heart wast thou
established, nor in the simplicity of nature, but by
hard and wrinkled men and upon the accumulated
heap of earthly wrong ! Thou art the very symbol
of man's perverted state.

On as fruitless an errand our wanderers next visit
a hall of legislature, where Adam places Eve in the
Speaker's chair, unconscious of the moral which he
thus exemplifies. Man's intellect moderated by
woman's tenderness and moral sense ! Were such
the legislation of the world, there would be no need
of state-houses, capitols, halls of parliament, nor
even of those little assemblages of patriarchs beneath
the shadowy trees by whom freedom was first inter-
preted to mankind on our native shores.

Whither go they next ? A perverse destiny seems
to perplex them with one after another of the riddles
which mankind put forth to the wondering universe
and left unsolved in their own destruction. They
enter an edifice of stern gray stone standing in-
sulated in the midst of others and gloomy even
in the sunshine, which it barely suffers to penetrate
through its iron-grated windows. It is a prison.
The jailer has left his post at the summons of a
stronger authority than the sheriff's. But the pris-

284 /Bosses from an ©ID flfoanse.

oners ? Did the messenger of fate, when he shook
open all the doors, respect the magistrate's warrant
and the judge's sentence, and leave the inmates of
the dungeons to be delivered by due course of earthly
law ? No ; a new trial has been granted in a higher
court which may set judge, jury and prisoner at its
bar all in a row, and perhaps find one no less guilty
than another. The jail, like the whole earth, is now
a solitude, and has thereby lost something of its
dismal gloom. But here are the narrow cells, like
tombs, only drearier and deadlier, because in these
the immortal spirit was buried with the body. In-
scriptions appear on the walls scribbled with a pencil
or scratched with a rusty nail — brief words of agony,
perhaps, or guilt's desperate defiance to the world,
or merely a record of a date by which the writer
strove to keep up with the march of life. There is
not a living eye that could now decipher these
memorials.

Nor is it while so fresh from their Creator's hand
that the new denizens of earth — no, nor their
descendants for a thousand years — could discover
that this edifice was a hospital for the direst disease
which could afflict their predecessors. Its patients
bore the outward marks of that leprosy with which
all were more or less infected. They were sick —
and so were the purest of their brethren — with the
plague of sin. A deadly sickness indeed ! Feeling
its symptoms within the breast, men concealed it
with fear and shame, and were only the more cruel
to those unfortunates whose pestiferous sores were
flagrant to the common eye. Nothing save a
rich garment could ever hide the plague-spot. In
the course of the world's lifetime every remedy was
tried for its cure and extirpation except the single

Cbe "Wew 2l&am anD £v>e* 285

one, the flower that grew in heaven and was sover-
eign for all the miseries of earth. Man never had
attempted to cure sin by Love. Had he but once
made the effort, it might well have happened that
there would have been no more need of the dark
lazar-house into which Adam and Eve have wan-
dered.— Hasten forth with your native innocence,
lest the damps of these still conscious walls infect
you likewise, and thus another fallen race be propa-
gated.

Passing from the interior of the prison into the
space within its outward wall, Adam pauses beneath
a structure of the simplest contrivance, yet altogether
unaccountable to him. It consists merely of two
upright posts supporting a transverse beam from
which dangles a cord.

" Eve, Eve ! " cries Adam, shuddering with a
nameless horror ; " what can this thing be ? "

" I know not," answered Eve. " But, Adam, my
heart is sick. There seems to be no more sky — no
more sunshine."

Well might Adam shudder and poor Eve be sick
at heart, for this mysterious object was the type of
mankind's whole system in regard to the great
difficulties which God had given to be solved — a
system of fear and vengeance, never successful, yet
followed to the last. Here, on the morning when the
final summons came, a criminal — one criminal where
none were guiltless — had died upon the gallows.
Had the world heard the footfall of its own approach-
ing doom, it would have been no inappropriate act
thus to close the record of its deeds by one so char-
acteristic.

The two pilgrims now hurry from the prison.
Had they known how the former inhabitants of
19

286 /Bosses trom an ©ID dfcanse.

earth were shut up in artificial error and cramped
and chained by their perversions, they might have
compared the whole moral world to a prison-house
and have deemed the removal of the race a general
jail-delivery.

They next enter — unannounced, but they might
have rung at the door in vain — a private mansion,
one of the stateliest in Beacon Street. A wild and
plaintive strain of music is quivering through the
house, now rising like a solemn organ-peal, and now
dying into the faintest murmur, as if some spirit that
had felt an interest in the departed family were
bemoaning itself in the solitude of hall and chamber.
Perhaps a virgin, the purest of mortal race, has been
left behind to perform a requiem for the whole kin-
dred of humanity. Not so ; these are the tones of
an ^olian harp, through which Nature pours the
harmony that lies concealed in her every breath,
whether of summer breeze or tempest. Adam and Eve
are lost in rapture unmingled with surprise. The
passing wind that stirred the harpstrings has been
hushed before they can think of examining the
splendid furniture, the gorgeous carpets and the
architecture of the rooms. These things amuse
their unpracticed eyes, but appeal to nothing within
their hearts. Even the pictures upon the walls
scarcely excite a deeper interest, for there is some-
thing radically artificial and deceptive in painting
with which minds in the primal simplicity cannot
sympathize. The unbidden guests examine a row
of family portraits, but are too dull to recognize them
as men and women beneath the disguise of a pre-
posterous garb, and with features and expression
debased because inherited through ages of moral and
physical decay.

flew BOam an& £ve. 287

Chance, however, presents them with pictures of
human beauty fresh from the hand of Nature. As
they enter a magnificent apartment they are aston-
ished, but not affrighted, to perceive two figures
advancing to meet them. Is it not awful to imagine
that any life save their own should remain in the
wide world ?

" How is this ? " exclaims Adam. " My beautiful
Eve, are you in two places at once ? "

" And you, Adam ! " answers Eve, doubtful yet
delighted. " Surely that noble and lovely form is
yours ? Yet here you are by my side ! I am
content with one ; methinks there should not be
two."

This miracle is wrought by a tall looking-glass,
the mystery of which they soon fathom, because
Nature creates a mirror for the human face in every
pool of water, and for her own great features in
waveless lakes. Pleased and satisfied with gazing
at themselves, they now discover the marble statue
of a child in a corner of the room, so exquisitely
idealized that it is almost worthy to be the prophetic
likeness of their first-born. Sculpture in its highest
excellence is more genuine than painting, and might
seem to be evolved from a natural germ by the same
law as a leaf or flower. The statue of the child im-
presses the solitary pair as if it were a companion ;
it likewise hints at secrets both of the past and
future.

" My husband ! " whispers Eve.

" What would you say, dearest Eve ? " inquires
Adam.

" I wonder if we are alone in the world ? " she
continues, with a sense of something like fear at the
thought of other inhabitants. "This lovely little

233 /Bosses trom an QU> d&ansc.

form ! Did it ever breathe ? Or is it only the
shadow of something real, like our pictures in the
mirror ? "

" It is strange," replies Adam, pressing his hand
to his brow. "There are mysteries all around us.
An idea flits continually before me : would that I
could seize it ! Eve, Eve ! are we treading in the
footsteps of beings that bore a likeness to ourselves ?
If so, whither are they gone, and why is their world
so unfit for our dwelling-place ? "

"Our great Father only knows," answers Eve.
" But something tells me that we shall not always
be alone. And how sweet if other beings were to
visit us in the shape of this fair image ! "

Then they wander through the house, and every-
where find tokens of human life which now, with
the idea recently suggested, excite a deeper curiosity
in their bosoms. Woman has here left traces of her
delicacy and refinement, and of her gentle labors.
Eve ransacks a work-basket, and instinctively thrusts
the rosy tip of her finger into a thimble. She takes
up a piece of embroidery glowing with mimic flowers,
in one of which a fair damsel of the departed race
has left her needle. Pity that the day of doom
should have anticipated the completion of such a
useful task ! Eve feels almost conscious of the skill
to finish it. A piano-forte has been left open. She
flings her hand carelessly over the keys, and strikes
out a sudden melody no less natural than the strains
of the ^Eolian harp, but joyous with the dance of
her yet unburdened life. Passing through a dark
entry, they find a broom behind the door, and Eve,
who comprises the whole nature of womanhood, has
a dim idea that it is an instrument proper for her
hand. In another apartment they behold a canopied

Cbe Hew BOam and Bv>e. 289

bed and all the appliances of luxurious repose ; a
heap of forest-leaves would be more to the purpose.
They enter the nursery and are perplexed with the
sight of little gowns and caps, tiny shoes and »
cradle, amid the drapery of which is still to be seen
the impress of a baby's form. Adam slightly notices
these trifles, but Eve becomes involved in a fit of
mute reflection from which it is hardly possible tc
rouse her.

By a most unlucky arrangement there was to have
been a grand dinner-party in this mansion on the
very day when the whole human family, including
the invited guests, were summoned to the unknown
regions of illimitable space. At the moment of fate
the table was actually spread and the company on
the point of sitting down. Adam and Eve came un-
bidden to the banquet ; it has now been some time
cold, but otherwise furnishes them with highly-
favorable specimens of the gastronomy of their
predecessors. But it is difficult to imagine the
perplexity of the unperverted couple in endeavoring
to find proper food for their first meal at a table
where the cultivated appetites of a fashionable party
were to have been gratified. Will nature teach them
the mystery of a plate of turtle-soup ? Will she em-
bolden them to attack a haunch of venison ? Will
she initiate them into the merits of a Parisian pasty
imported by the last steamer that ever crossed the
Atlantic ? Will she not, rather, bid them turn with
disgust from fish, fowl and flesh which to their pure
nostrils steam with a loathsome odor of death and
corruption ? Food ? The bill of fare contains noth-
ing" which they recognize as such.

Fortunately, however, the dessert is ready upon
a neighboring table. Adam, whose appetite and

390 /Bosses from an ®(t> /fcanse.

animal instincts are quicker than those of Eve,
discovers this fitting banquet.

" Here, dearest Eve ! " he exclaims ; " here is
food."

" Well," answered she, with the germ of a house-
wife stirring within her, " we have been so busy to-
day that a picked-up dinner must serve."

So Eve comes to the table, and receives a red-
cheeked apple from her husband's hand in requital
of her predecessor's fatal gift to our common grand-
father. She eats it without sin, and, let us hope, with
no disastrous consequences to her future progeny.
They make a plentiful yet temperate meal of fruit,
which, though not gathered in Paradise, is legiti-
mately derived from the seeds that were planted there.
Their primal appetite is satisfied.

" What shall we drink, Eve ? " inquires Adam.

Eve peeps among some bottles and decanters
which, as they contain fluids, she naturally conceives
must be proper to quench thirst. But never before
did claret, hock and Madeira of rich and rare perfume
excite such disgust as now.

" Pah ! " she exclaims, after smelling at various
wines. " What stuff is here ? The beings who have
gone before us could not have possessed the same
nature that we do, for neither their hunger nor thirst
were like our own ! "

" Pray hand me yonder bottle," says Adam. " If
it be drinkable by any manner of mortal, I must
moisten my throat with it."

After some remonstrances, she takes up a
champagne-bottle, but is frightened by the sudden
explosion of the cork, and drops it upon the floor.
There the untasted liquor effervesces. Had they
quaffed it, they would have experienced that brief

"Hew B&am and Bve. 291

delirium whereby, whether excited by moral or
physical causes, man sought to recompense himself
for the calm, lifelong joys which he had lost by his
revolt from nature. At length, in a refrigerator,
Eve finds a glass pitcher of water, pure, cold and
bright as ever gushed from a fountain among the
hills. Both drink, and such refreshment does it
bestow that they question one another if this
precious liquid be not identical with the stream of
life within them.

" And now," observes Adam, " we must again try
to discover what sort of a world this is and why we
have been sent hither."

" Why ? To love one another ! " cries Eve. " Is
not that employment enough ? "

" Truly is it," answers Adam, kissing her; " but
still — I know not — something tells us there is labor
to be done. Perhaps our allotted task is no other
than to climb into the sky, which is so much more
beautiful than earth."

" Then would we were there now," murmurs Eve,
" that no task or duty might come between us ! "

They leave the hospitable mansion, and we next
see them passing down State Street. The clock on
the old State-House points to high noon, when the
Exchange should be in its glory and present the live-
liest emblem of what was the sole business of life
as regarded a multitude of the foregone worldings.
It is over now. The Sabbath of eternity has shed
its stillness along the street. Not even a newsboy
assails the two solitary passers-by with an extra
penny paper from the office of the Times or Mail
containing a full account of yesterday's terrible catas-
trophe. Of all the dull times that merchants and
speculators have known, this is the very worst, for, so

292 /Bosses from an ©lo flfcanse.

far as they were concerned, creation itself has taken
the benefit of the bankrupt act. After all, it is a
pity. Those mighty capitalists who had just attained
the wished-for wealth, those shrewd men of traffic
who had devoted so many years to the most intricate
and artificial of sciences, and had barely mastered it
when the universal bankruptcy was announced by
peal of trumpet, — can they have been so incautious
as to provide no currency of the country whither they
have gone, nor any bills of exchange or letters of
credit from the needy on earth to the cash-keepers of
heaven ?

Adam and Eve enter a bank. Start not, ye whose
funds are treasured there ; you will never need them
now. Call not for the police ; the stones of the
street and the coin of the vaults are of equal value
to this simple pair. Strange sight ! They take up
the bright gold in handfuls, and throw it sportively
into the air for the sake of seeing the glittering worth-
lessness descend again in a shower. They know not
that each of those small yellow circles was once a
magic spell potent to sway men's hearts and mystify
their moral sense. Here let them pause in the in-
vestigation of the past. They have discovered the
mainspring, the life, the very essence, of the system
that had wrought itself into the vitals of mankind
and choked their original nature in its deadly grip.
Yet how powerless over these young inheritors of
earth's hoarded wealth ! And here, too, are huge
packages of bank-notes, those talismanic slips of
paper which once had the efficacy to build up en-
chanted palaces like exhalations, and work all kinds
of perilous wonders, yet were themselves but the
ghosts of money, the shadows of a shade. How
like is this vault to a magician's cave when the all-

"Hew Bdam anD jeve. 293

powerful wand is broken, and the visionary splendor
vanished, and the floor strewn with fragments of
shattered spells and lifeless shapes once animated
by demons !

" Everywhere, my dear Eve," observes Adam,
" we find heaps of rubbish of one kind or another.
Somebody, I am convinced, has taken pains to col
lect them, but for what purpose ? Perhaps hereafter
we shall be moved to do the like. Can that be our
business in the world ? "

"Oh no, no, Adam ! " answers Eve. "It would be
better to sit down quietly and look upward to the
sky."

They leave the bank, and in good time ; for had
they tarried later, they would probably have encoun-
tered some gouty old goblin of a capitalist whose
soul could not long be anywhere save in the vault
•with his treasure.

Next they drop into a jeweler's shop. They are
pleased with the glow of gems, and Adam twines a
string of beautiful pearls around the head of Eve
and fastens his own mantle with a magnificent dia-
mond brooch. Eve thanks him, and views herself
with delight in the nearest looking-glass. Shortly
afterward, observing a bouquet of roses and other
brilliant flowers in a vase of water, she flings away
the inestimable pearls and adorns herself with these
lovelier gems of Nature. They charm her with
sentiment as well as beauty.

" Surely they are living beings," she remarks to
Adam.

4' I think so," replies Adam, " and they seem to be
as little at home in the world as ourselves."

We must not attempt to follow every footstep of
these investigators whom their Creator has commis-

294 ^Bosses from an ©ID

sioned to pass unconscious judgment upon the works
and ways of the vanished race. By this time, being
endowed with quick and accurate perceptions, they
begin to understand the purpose of the many things
around them. They conjecture, for instance, that
the edifices of the city were erected — not by the
immediate Hand that made the world, but by beings
somewhat similar to themselves — for shelter and
convenience. But how will they explain the mag-
nificence of one habitation as compared with the
squalid misery of another ? Through what medium
can the idea of servitude enter their minds ? When
will they comprehend the great and miserable fact —
the evidences of which appeal to their senses every-
where— that one portion of earth's lost inhabitants
was rolling in luxury while the multitude was toiling
for scanty food ? A wretched change indeed must
be wrought in their own hearts ere they can conceive
the primal decree of Love to have been so com-
pletely abrogated that a brother should ever want
what his brother had. When their intelligence shall
have reached so far, Earth's new progeny will have
little reason to exult over her old rejected one.

Their wanderings have now brought them into the
suburbs of the city. They stand on a grassy brow
of a hill, at the foot of a granite obelisk which points
its great finger upward, as if the human family had
agreed by a visible symbol of age-long endurance to
offer some high sacrifice of thanksgiving or supplica-
tion. The solemn height of the monument, its deep
simplicity and the absence of any vulgar and practi-
cal use, all strengthen its effect upon Adam and Eve
and lead them to interpret it by a purer sentiment
than the builders thought of expressing.

" Eve, it is a visible prayer," observed Adam.

Gbe flew BDam anD five. 295

" And we will pray too," she replies.

Let us pardon these poor children of neither father
nor mother for so absurdly mistaking the purport
of the memorial which man founded and woman
finished on far-famed Bunker Hill. The idea of
war is not native to their souls. Nor have they
sympathies for the brave defenders of liberty,
since oppression is one of their unconjectural
mysteries. Could they guess that the green sward
on which they stand so peacefully was once strewn
with human corpses and purple with their blood, it
would equally amaze them that one generation of
men should perpetrate such carnage, and that a sub-
sequent generation should triumphantly commemo-
rate it.

With a sense of delight they now .stroll across
green fields and along the margin of a quiet river.
Not to track them too closely, we next find the
wanderers entering a Gothic edifice of gray stone
where the bygone world has left whatever it deemed
worthy of record in the rich library of Harvard
University. No student ever yet enjoyed such soli-
tude and silence as now broods within its deep
alcoves. Little do the present visitors understand
what opportunities are thrown away upon them. Yet
Adam looks anxiously at the long rows of volumes
— those storied heights of human lore — ascending
1 one above another from floor to ceiling. He takes
up a bulky folio. It opens in his hands, as if
spontaneously to impart the spirit of its author to
the yet unworn and untainted intellect of the fresh-
created mortal. He stands poring over the regular
columns of mystic characters, seemingly in studious
mood, for the unintelligible thought upon the page
has a mysterious relation to his mind, and makes

296 dfcosses from an Ott> /fcansc.

itself felt as if it were a burden flung upon him.
He is even painfully perplexed, and grasps vainly
at he knows not what. — Oh, Adam, it is too soon
— too soon by at least five thousand years — to put
on spectacles and busy yourself in the alcoves of
a library !

" What can this be ? " he murmurs, at last. —
*' Eve, methinks nothing is so desirable as to line!
out the mystery of this big and heavy object with
its thousand thin divisions. See ! it stares me in
the face as if it were about to speak."

Eve, by a feminine instinct, is dipping into a
volume of fashionable poetry, the production of cer-
tainly the most fortunate of earthly bards, since his
lay continues in vogue when all the great masters
of the lyre have passed into oblivion. But let not
his ghost be too exultant. The world's one lady
tosses the book upon the floor and laughs meirily
at her husband's abstracted mien.

" My dear Adam," cries she, " you look pensive
and dismal ! Do fling down that stupid thing; for
even if it should speak, it would not be worth at-
tending to. Let us talk with one another, and with
the sky, and the green earth and its trees and flowers.
They will teach us better knowledge than we can
find here."

"Well, Eve, perhaps you are right," replies Adam,
with a sort of sigh. " Still, I cannot help thinking
that the interpretation of the riddles amid which we
have been wandering all day long might here be
discovered."

" It may be better not to seek the interpretation,"
persists Eve. " For my part, the air of this place
does not suit me. If you love me, come away."

She prevails, and rescues him from the mysterious

Cbe Hew Bfcam anS Hx>e. 297

perils of the library. Happy influence of woman !
Had he lingered there long enough to obtain a clue
to its treasures, as was not impossible, his intellect
being of human structure, indeed, but with an un-
transmitted vigor and acuteness — had he then and
there become a student, the annalist of our poor
world would soon have recorded the downfall of
i second Adam. The fatal apple of another tree
of knowledge would have been eaten. All the per-
versions and sophistries and false wisdom so aptly
mimicking the true ; all the narrow truth so partial
that it becomes more deceptive than falsehood ; all
the wrong principles and worse practice, the perni-
cious examples and mistaken rules of life ; all the
specious theories which turn earth into cloudland
and men into shadows ; all the sad experience which
it took mankind so many ages to accumulate, and
from which they never drew a moral for their future
guidance, — the whole heap of this disastrous lore
would have tumbled at once upon Adam s head.
There would have been nothing left for him but to
take up the already abortive experiment of life
where we had dropped it, and toil onward with it a
little farther.

But, blessed in his ignorance, he may still enjoy
a new world in our worn-out one. Should he fall
short of good even as far as we did, he has at least
the freedom — no worthless one — to make errors for
himself. And his literature, when the progress of
centuries shall create it, will be no interminably-
repeated echo of our own poetry and reproduction
of the images that were molded by our great fathers
of song and fiction, but a melody never yet heard
on earth, and intellectual forms unbreathed upon by
our conceptions. Therefore let the dust of ages

298 losses from an ©ID dfcanse.

gather upon the volumes of the library and in due
season the roof of the edifice crumble down upon
the whole. When the second Adam's descendants
shall have collected as much rubbish of their own,
it will be time enough to dig into our ruins and com-
pare the literary advancement of two independent
races.

But we are looking forward too far. It seems to
be the vice of those who have a long past behind
them. We will return to the new Adam and Eve,
who, having no reminiscences save dim and fleeting
visions of a pre-existence, are content to live and
be happy in the present.

The day is near its close when these pilgrims, who
derive their being from no dead progenitors, reach
the cemetery of Mount Auburn. With light hearts
— for earth and sky now gladden each other with
beauty — they tread along the winding paths, among
marble pillars, mimic temples, urns, obelisks and
sarcophagi, sometimes pausing to contemplate these
fantasies of human growth, and sometimes to admire
the flowers wherewith kind Nature converts decay
to loveliness. Can Death, in the midst of his old
triumphs, make them sensible that they have taken
up the heavy burden of mortality which a whole
species had thrown down ? Dust kindred to their
own has never lain in the grave. Will they, then,
recognize, and so soon, that Time and the elements
have an indefeasible claim upon their bodies ? Not
improbably they may. There must have been shad-
ows enough even amid the primal sunshine of their
existence to suggest the thought of the soul's incon-
gruity with its circumstances. They have already
learned that something is to be thrown aside. The
ic^of Death is in them, or not far off, but, were

Cbe "Hew a&am anfc

299

they to choose a symbol for him, it would be the
butterfly soaring upward, or the bright angel beck-
oning them aloft, or the child asleep with soft
dreams visible through her transparent purity.

Such a child, in whitest marble, they have found
among the monuments of Mount Auburn.

" Sweetest Eve," observes Adam while hand in
hand they contemplate this beautiful object, " yonder
sun has left us, and the whole world is fading from
our sight. Let us sleep as this lovely little* figure is
sleeping. Our Father only knows whether what
outward things we have possessed to-day are to be
snatched from us forever. But, should our earthly
life be leaving us with the departing light, we need
not doubt that another morn will find us somewhere
beneath the smile of God. I feel that he has im-
parted the boon of existence, never to be resumed."

"And no matter where we exist," replies Eve,
" for we shall always be together."

I-GOTISM;* OR, THE BOSOM-
SERPENT.

*-ROM THE UNPUBLISHED " ALLEGORIES OF TH1
HEART."

" HERE he comes ! " shouted the boys along the
street. " Here comes the man with a snake in his
bosom ! "

This outcry, saluting Herkimer's ears as he was
about to enter the iron gate of the Elliston mansion,
made him pause. It was not without a shudder that
he found himself on the point of meeting his former
acquaintance, whom he had known in the glory of
youth, and whom now, after an interval of five. years,
he was to find the victim either of a diseased fancy
or a horrible physical misfortune.

" * A snake in his bosom ' ! " repeated the young
sculptor to himself. " It must be he ; no second
man on earth has such a bosom-friend ! — And now,
my poor Rosina, Heaven grant me wisdom to dis-
charge my errand aright ! Woman's faith must be
strong indeed, since thine has not yet failed."

Thus musing, he took his stand at the entrance

* The physical fact to which it is here attempted to give a
moral signification has been known to occur in more than
one instance.
300

or, Cbe J8osom*Serpent. 301

of the gate and waited until the personage so sin-
gularly announced should make his appearance.
After an instant or two he beheld the figure of a
lean man of unwholesome look, with glitteiing eyes
and long black hair, who seemed to imitate the mo-
tion of a snake, for, instead of walking straight for-
\v.ird with open front, he undulated along the pave-
ment in a curved line. It may be too fanciful to say
:hat something either in his moral or material aspect
suggested the idea that a miracle had been wrought
by transforming a serpent into a man, but so imper-
fectly that the snaky nature was yet hidden, and
scarcely hidden, under the mere outward guise of
humanity. Herkimer remarked that his complexion
had a greenish tinge over its sickly white, remind-
ing him of a species of marble out c f which he had
once wrought a head of Envy with her snaky locks.

The wretched being approached the gate, but, in-
stead of entering, stopped short and fixed the glitter
of his eye full upon the compassionate yet steady
countenance of the sculptor.

" It gnaws me ! It gnaws me ! " he exclaimed.

And then there was an audible hiss, but whether
it came from the apparent lunatic's own lips or was
the real hiss of a serpent might admit of discussion.
At all events, it made Herkimer shudder to his
heart's core.

" Do you know me, George Herkimer ? " asked
the snake-possessed.

Herkimer did know him, but it demanded all the
intimate and practical acquaintance with the human
face acquired by modeling actual likenesses in clay
to recognize the features of Roderick Elliston in the
visage that now met the sculptor's gaze. Yet it was
he. It added nothing to the wonder to reflect that
20

3oi dfcosses trom an SID /fcanse.

the once brilliant young man had undergone this
odious and fearful change during the no more than
five brief years of Herkimer's abode at Florence.
The possibility of such a transformation being
granted, it was as easy to conceive it effected in a
moment as in an age. Inexpressibly shocked and
startled, it was still the keenest pang when Herkimer
remembered that the fate of his Cousin Rosina, the
ideal of gentle womanhood, was indissolubly inter-
woven with that of a being whom Providence seemed
to have unhumanized.

" Elliston— Roderick," cried he—" I had heard of
this, but my conception came far short of the truth.
What has befallen you ? Why do I find you thus ? "

" Oh, 'tis a mere nothing. A snake, a snake —
the commonest thing in the world. A snake in the
bosom, that's all," answered Roderick Elliston.
" But how is your own breast ?" continued he, look-
ing the sculptor in the eye with the most acute and
penetrating glance that it had ever been his fortune
to encounter. " All pure and wholesome ? Xo
reptile there ? By my faith and conscience and by
the devil within me, here is a wonder ! A man with-
out a serpent in his bosom ! "

" Be calm, Elliston," whispered George Herkimer,
laying his hand upon the shoulder of the snake-
possessed. " I have crossed the ocean to meet you.
Listen — let us be private — I bring a message from
Rosina — from your wife ! "

" It gnaws me ! It gnaws me ! " muttered Rod-
erick.

With this exclamation, the most frequent in his
mouth, the unfortunate man clutched both hands
upon his breast, as if an intolerable sting or torture
impelled him to rend it open and let out the living

or, Cbe JBoaom^Serpent. 303

mischief even where it intertwined with his own life.
He then freed himself from Herkimer's grasp by
a subtle motion, and, gliding through the gate, took
refuge in his antiquated family-residence. The
sculptor did not pursue him. He saw that no avail-
able intercourse could be expected at such a moment,
ind was desirous, before another meeting, to inquire
closely into the nature of Roderick's disease and the
circumstances that had reduced him to so lamentable
a condition. He succeeded in obtaining the nec-
essary information from an eminent medical gentle-
man.

Shortly after Elliston's separation from his wife
— now nearly four years ago — his associates had ob-
served a singular gloom spreading over his daily life
like those chill gray mists that sometimes steal away
the sunshine from a summer's morning. The symp-
toms caused them endless perplexity. They knew
not whether ill-health were robbing his spirits of
elasticity, or whether a canker of the mind was
gradually eating, as such cankers do, from his moral
system into the physical frame, which is but the
shadow of the former. They looked for the root of
this trouble in his shattered schemes of domestic
bliss — willfully shattered by himself — but could not
bi satisfied of its existence there. Some thought
t!i it th.'ir once brilliant friend was in an incipient
• >f insanity of which his passionate impulses
: i p :rh.\ps been the forerunners ; others prognos-
:: ; it jyl a general blight and gradual decline. From
R jd jriok's own lips they could learn nothing. More
tli in once, it is true, he had been heard to say,
clutching his hands convulsively upon his breast,
" It gnaws me ! It gnaws me ! " but by different
auditors a great diversity of explanation was assigned

3°4

from an Olfc /fcanse.

to this ominous expression. What could it be that
gnawed the breast of Roderick Elliston ? Was it
sorrow ? Was it merely the tooth of physical disease ?
Or in his reckless course, often verging upon prof-
ligacy, if not plunging into its depths, had he been
guilty of some deed which made his bosom a prey
to the deadlier fangs of remorse ? There was
plausible ground for each of these conjectures, but
it must not be concealed that more than one elderly
gentleman, the victim of good cheer and slothful
habits, magisterially pronounced the secret of the
whole matter to be dyspepsia.

Meanwhile, Roderick seemed aware how generally
he had become the subject of curiosity and con-
jecture, and with a morbid repugnance, to such
notice, or to any notice whatsoever, estranged him-
self from all companionship. Not merely the eye of
man was a horror to him, not merely the light of a
friend's countenance, but even the blessed sunshine
likewise, which in its universal beneficence typifies
the radiance of the Creator's face, expressing his love
for all the creatures of his hand. The dusky twilight
was now too transparent for Roderick Elliston ; the
blackest midnight was his chosen hour to steal
abroad; and if ever he were seen, it was when the
watchman's lantern gleamed upon his figure gliding
along the street with his hands clutched upon his
bosom, still muttering, " It gnaws me ! It gnaws
me ! " What could it be that gnawed him ?

After a time it became known that Elliston was in
the habit of resorting to all the noted quacks that
infested the city or whom money would tempt to
journey thither from a distance. By one of these
persons, in the exultation of a supposed cure, it was
proclaimed far and wide, by dint of hand-bills and

or, £be iBosomsSerpent. 305

little pamphlets on dingy paper, that a distinguished
gentleman, Roderick Elliston, Esq., had been relieved
of a snake in his stomach. So here was a monstrous
secret ejected from its lurking-place into public view
in all its horrible deformity. The mystery was out.
but not so the bosom-serpent. He, if it were any-
thing but a delusion, still lay coiled in his living den
The empiric's cure had been a sham, the effect, it
was supposed, of some stupefying drug which more
nearly caused the death of the patient than of the
odious reptile that possessed him. When Roderick
Elliston regained entire sensibility, it was to find
his misfortune the town-talk — the more than nine
days' wonder and horror — while at his bosom he felt
the sickening motion of a thing alive, and the gnaw-
ing of that restless fang which seemed to gratify at
once a physical appetite and a fiendish spite.

He summoned the old black servant who had
been bred up in his father's house and was a middle-
aged man while Roderick lay in his cradle.

" Scipio — '' he began, and then paused with his
arms folded over his heart. " What do people say
of me, Scipio ? "

" Sir ! my poor master ! that you had a serpent in
your bosom," answered the servant, with hesitation.

" And what else ? " asked Roderick, with a ghastly
look at the man.

" Nothing else, dear master," replied Scipio :
"only that the doctor gave you a powder, and that
the snake leaped out upon the floor."

" No, no ! " muttered Roderick to himself as he
shook his head and pressed his hands with a more
convulsive force upon his breast ; " I feel him still
It gnaws me ! It gnaws me ! "

From this time the miserable sufferer ceased to

306 flfcosses trom an CIS /fcanse.

shun the world, but rather solicited and forced him-
self upon the notice of acquaintances and strangers.
It was partly the result of desperation on finding
that the cavern of his own bosom had not proved
deep and dark enough to hide the secret, even while
it was so secure a fortress for the loathsome fiend
lhat had crept into it. But, still more, this craving for
notoriety was a symptom of the intense morbidness
which now pervaded his nature. All persons chroni-
cally diseased are egotists, whether the disease be
of the mind or body — whether sin, sorrow or merely
the more tolerable calamity of some endless pain
or mischief among the cords of mortal life. Such
individuals are made acutely conscious of a self
by the torture in which it dwells. Self, therefore,
grows to be so prominent an object with them that
they cannot but present it to the face of every
casual passer-by. There is a pleasure — perhaps the
greatest of which the sufferer is susceptible — in dis-
playing the wasted or ulcerated limb or the cancer
in the breast ; and the fouler the crime, with so
much the more difficulty does the perpetrator prevent
it from thrusting up its snake-like head to frighten
the world, for it is that cancer or that crime which
constitutes their respective individuality. Roderick
Elliston, who a little while before had held himself
so scornfully above the common lot of men, now
paid full allegiance to this humiliating law. The
snake in his bosom seemed the symbol of a monstrous
egotism to which everything was referred, and which
he pampered night and day with a continual and
exclusive sacrifice of devil-worship.

He soon exhibited what most people considered
indubitable tokens of insanity. In some of his
moods, strange to say, he prided and gloried himself

£0otism , or, Cbe JBosom*Serpent. 307

:>n being marked out from the ordinary experience
of mankind by the possession of a double nature
and a life within a life. He appeared to imagine
that the snake was a divinity — not celestial, it is
true, but darkly infernal — and that he thence derived
*.n eminence and a sanctity, horrid, indeed, yet more
•^sirable than whatever ambition aims at. Thus
He drew his misery around him like a regal mantle
\nd looked down triumphantly upon those whose
fitals nourished no deadly monster. Oftener, how-
ever, his human nature asserted its empire over him
n the shape of a yearning for fellowship. It grew
to be his custom to spend the whole day in wander-
ing about the streets — aimlessly, unless it might be
:alled an aim to establish a species of brotherhood
between himself and the world. With cankered
-.ngenuity he sought out his own disease in every
breast. Whether insane or not, he showed so keen
a perception of frailty, error and vice that many
persons gave him credit for being possessed not
merely with a serpent, but with an actual fiend who
imparted this evil faculty of recognizing whatever
was ugliest in man's heart.

For instance, he met an individual who for thirty
years had cherished a hatred against his own
brother. Roderick, amidst the throng of the street,
laid his hand on this man's chest, and, looking full
into his forbidding face, " How is the snake to-
day ? " he inquired, with a mock-expression of sym-
pathy.

" * The snake ' ! " exclaimed the brother-hater.
" What do you mean ? "

" The snake ! The snake ! Does he gnaw you ? "
persisted Roderick. " Did you take counsel with
him this morning when you should have been saying

3oS ^Bosses from an ©U>

your prayers ? Did he sting when you thought of
your brother's health, wealth and good repute ?
Did he caper for joy when you remembered the
profligacy of his only son ? And, whether he stung
or whether he frolicked, did you feel his poison
throughout your body and soul, converting every
thing to sourness and bitterness? That is the way
of such serpents. I have learned the whole nature
of them from my own."

" Where is the police ? " roared the object of
Roderick's persecution, at the same time giving an
instinctive clutch to his breast. " Why is this lunatic
allowed to go at large ? "

" Ha, ha ! " chuckled Roderick, releasing his grasp
of the man. " His bosom-serpent has stung him,
then ! "

Often it pleased the unfortunate young man to
vex people with a lighter satire, yet still characterized
by somewhat of snake-like virulence. One day he
encountered an ambitious statesman, and gravely
inquired after the welfare of his boa-constrictor ; for
of that species, Roderick affirmed, this gentleman's
serpent must needs be, since its appetite was enor-
mous enough to devour the whole country and con-
stitution. At another time he stopped a close-
fisted old fellow of great wealth, but who skulked
about the city in the guise of a scarecrow, with a
patched blue surtout. brown hat and moldy boots,
scraping pence together and picking up rusty nails.
Pretending to look earnestly at this respectable per-
son's stomach, Roderick assured him that his snake
was a copperhead and had been generated by the
immense quantities of that base metal with which
he daily defiled his fingers. Again, he assaulted
a man of rubicund visage, and told him that few

; or, Cte ;JBosom*Scrpent. 309

bosom-serpents had more of the devil in them than
those that breed in the vats of a distillery. The
next whom Roderick honored with his attention was
a distinguished clergyman who happened just then
to be engaged in a theological controversy where
human wrath was more perceptible than divine
inspiration.

44 You have swallowed a snake in a cup of sacra-
mental wine/? quoth he.

" Profane wretch ! " exclaimed the divine, but,
nevertheless, his hand stole to his breast.

He met a person of sickly sensibility who on some
early disappointment had retired from the world,
and thereafter held no intercourse with his fellow-
men, but brooded sullenly or passionately over the
irrevocable past. This man's very heart, if Rod-
erick might be believed, had been changed into a
serpent which would finally torment both him and
itself to death. Observing a married couple whose
domestic troubles were matter of notoriety, he con-
doled with both on having mutually taken a house-
adder to their bosoms. To an envious author who
deprecated works which he could never equal he
said that his snake was the slimiest and filthiest of
all the reptile tribe, but was fortunately without a
sting. A man of impure life and a brazen face
asking Roderick if there were any serpent in his
breast, he told him that there was, and of the same
species that once tortured Don Rodrigo the Goth.
He took a fair young girl by the hand, and. gazing
sadly into her eyes, warned her that she cherished
a serpent of the deadliest kind within her gentle
breast ; and the world found the truth of those
ominous words when, a few months afterward, the
poor girl died of love and shame. Two ladies,

3io Aoases from an ©ID /fo.nnse.

rivals in fashionable life, who tormented one anothei
with a thousand little stings of womanish spite, were
given to understand that each of their hearts was a
nest of diminutive snakes which did quite as much
mischief as one great one.

But nothing seemed to please Roderick better than
to lay hold of a person infected with jealousy, which
he represented as an enormous green reptile with an
ice-cold length of body and the sharpest sting of
any snake save one.

" And what one is that ? " asked a bystander,
overhearing him.

It was a dark-browed man who put the question ;
he had an evasive eye which in the course of a
dozen years had looked no mortal directly in the
face. There was an ambiguity about this person's
character, a stain upon his reputation, yet none
could tell precisely of what nature, although the city
gossips, male and female, whispered the most
atrocious surmises. Until a recent period he had
followed the sea, and was, in fact, the very ship-
master whom George Herkimer had encountered
under such singular circumstances in the Grecian
Archipelago.

" What bosom serpent has the sharpest sting? "
repeated this man, but he put the question as if by
a reluctant necessity, and grew pale while he was
uttering it.

" Why need you ask ? " replied Roderick, with
a look of dark intelligence. ** Look into your own
breast. Hark! my serpent bestirs himself. He
acknowledges the presence of a master-fiend."

And then, as the bystanders afterward affirmed, a
hissing sound was heard, apparently in Roderick
Elliston's breast. It was said, too, that an answer-

or, Cbe ^BoeomsSerpent. 311

ing hiss came from the vitals of the shipmaster, as
if a snake were actually lurking there and had been
aroused by the call of its brother reptile. If there
were, in fact, any such sound, it might have been
caused by a malicious exercise of ventriloquism on
the part of Roderick.

Thus, making his own actual serpent — if a serpent
there actually was in his bosom — the type of each
man's fatal error or hoarded sin or unquiet con-
science, and striking his sting so unremorsef ully into
the sorest spot, we may well imagine that Roderick
became the pest of the city. Nobody could elude
him ; none could withstand him. He grappled with
the ugliest truth that he could lay his hand on, and
compelled his adversary to do the same. Strange
spectacle in human life, where it is the instinctive
effort of one and all to hide those sad realities, and
leave them undisturbed beneath a heap of superficial
topics which constitute the materials of intercourse
between man and man I It was not to be tolerated
that Roderick Elliston should break through the
tacit compact by which the world has done its best
to secure repose without relinquishing evil. The
victims of his malicious remarks, it is true, had
brothers enough to keep them in countenance, for,
by Roderick's theory, every mortal bosom harbored
either a brood of small serpents or one overgrown
monster that had devoured all the rest. Still, the
city could not bear this new apostle. It was
demanded by nearly all, and particularly by the most
respectable inhabitants, that Roderick should no
longer be permitted to violate the received rules of
decorum by obtruding his own bosom-serpent to the
public gaze and dragging those of decent people
from their lurking-places. Accordingly, his relative*

3i2 fl&osses from an ©ID /ifcanse.

interfered, and placed him in a private asylum for the
insane. When the news was noised abroad, it was
observed that many persons walked the streets with
freer countenances, and covered their breasts less
carefully with their hands.

His confinement, however, although it contributed
not a little to the peace of the town, operated un-
favorably upon Roderick himself. In solitude his
melancholy grew more black and sullen. He spent
whole days — indeed, it was his sole occupation — in
communing with the serpent. A conversation was
sustained in which, as it seemed, the hidden monster
bore a part, though unintelligibly to the listeners,
and inaudible except in a hiss. Singular as it may
appear, the sufferer had now contracted a sort of
affection for his tormentor, mingled, however, with
the intensest loathing and horror. Nor were such
discordant emotions incompatible ; each, on the
contrary, imparted strength and poignancy to its
opposite. Horrible love, horrible antipathy, embrac-
ing one another in his bosom, and both concentrat-
ing themselves upon a being that had crept into his
vitals or been engendered there, and which was
nourished with his food and lived upon his life, and
was as intimate with him as his own heart, and yet
was the foulest of all created things ! But not the
less was it the true type of a morbid nature.

Sometimes, in his moments of rage and bitter
hatred against the snake and himself, Roderick
determined to be the death of him, even at the
expense of his own life. Once he attempted it by
staivation, but, while the wretched man was on the
point of famishing, the monster seemed to feed upon
his heart and to thrive and wax gamesome, as if il
were his sweetest and most congenial diet. Then

or, Cbe J8o3om*5erpent. 313

he privily took a dose of active poison, imagining
that it would not fail to kill either himself or the
devil that possessed him, or both together. Another
mistake ; for if Roderick had not yet been destroyed
by his own poisoned heart, nor the snake by gnaw
ing it, they had little to fear from arsenic or corro-
sive sublimate. Indeed, the venomous pest appeared
to operate as an antidote against all other poisons.
The physicians tried to suffocate the fiend with
tobacco-smoke ; he breathed it as freely as if it were
his n Alive atmosphere. Again, they drugged their
patient with opium and drenched him with intoxicat-
ing liquors, hoping that the snake might thus be
reduced to stupor, and perhaps be ejected from the
stomach. They succeeded in rendering Roderick
insensible, but, placing their hands upon his breast,
they were inexpressibly horror-stricken to feel the
monster wriggling, twining and darting to and fro
witlrin his narrow limits, evidently enlivened by the
opium or alcohol and incited to unusual feats of
activity. Thenceforth they gave up all attempts at
cure or palliation. The doomed sufferer submitted
to his fate, resumed his former loathsome affection
for the bosom-fiend, and spent whole miserable days
before a looking-glass with his mouth wide open,
watching, in hope and horror, to catch a glimpse of
the snake's head far down within his throat. It is
supposed t'^at he succeeded, for the attendants once
heard a frenzied shout, and, rushing into the room,
found Roderick lifeless upon the floor.

He was kept but little longer under restraint.
After minute investigation the medical directors of
the asylum decided that his mental disease did not
amount to insanity nor would warrant his confine-
ment, especially as its influence upon his spirits was

3i4 ^Bosses trom an ©IS flfcanse.

unfavorable and might produce the evil which it was
meant to remedy. His eccentricities were doubtless
great; he had habitually violated many of the cus-
toms and prejudices of society, but the world was
not, without surer ground, entitled to treat him as
a madman. On this decision of such competent
authority Roderick was released, and had returned
to his native city the very day before his encounter
with George Herkimer.

As soon as possible after learning these particulars
the sculptor, together with a sad and tremulous com-
panion, sought Elliston at his own house. It was a
large, somber edifice of wood with pilasters and a
balcony, and was divided from one of the principal
streets by a terrace of three elevations, which was
ascended by successive flights of stone steps. Some
immense old elms almost concealed the front of the
mansion. This spacious and once magnificent
family-residence was built by a grandee of the race
early in the past century, at which epoch, land being
of small comparative value, the garden and other
grounds had formed quite an extensive domain.
Although a portion of the ancestral heritage had
been alienated, there was still a shadowy inclosure
in the rear of the mansion where a student or a
dreamer or a man of stricken heart might lie all day
upon the grass amid the solitude of murmuring
boughs and forget that a city had grown up around
him.

Into this retirement the sculptor and his compan-
ion were ushered by Scipio, the old black servant,
whose wrinkled visage grew almost sunny with intel-
ligence and joy as he paid his humble greetings to
one of the two visitors.

" Remain in the arbor," whispered the sculptor

; Or, Cbc JBo6om=Serpent. 315

to the figure that leaned upon his arm ; " you will
know whether, and when, to make your appear-
ance."

" God will teach me," was the reply. " May he
support me too ! "

Roderick was reclining on the margin of a fount-
ain which gushed into the fleckered sunshine with
the same clear sparkle and the same voice of airy
quietude as when trees of primeval growth flung
their shadows across its bosom. How strange is
the life of a fountain, born at every moment, yet of
an age coeval with the rocks, and far surpassing the
venerable antiquity of a forest.

" You are come ! I have expected you," said
Elliston, when he became aware of the sculptor's
presence.

His manner was very different from that of the
preceding day — quiet, courteous, and, as Herkimer
thought, watchful both over his guest and himself.
This unnatural restraint was almost the only trait that
betokened anything amiss. He had just thrown a
book upon the grass, where it lay half-opened, thus
disclosing itself to be a natural history of the ser-
pent tribe illustrated by lifelike plates. Near it lay
that bulky volume \hzDuctor Dubitantittm oi]Qizmy
Taylor, full of cases of conscience, and in which
most men possessed of a conscience may find some-
thing applicable to their purpose.

" You see," observed Elliston, pointing to the book
of serpents, while a smile gleamed upon his lips, " I
am making an effort to become better acquainted
with my bosom-friend. But I find nothing satisfac-
tory in this volume. If I mistake not, he will prove
to be sui generis and akin to no other reptile in

316 dBseses from an

" Whence came this strange calamity ? " inquired
the sculptor.

lk My sable friend, Scipio, has a story," replied
Roderick, "of a snake that had lurked in this fount-
ain— pure and innocent as it looks — ever since it
was known to the first settlers. This insinuating
personage once crept into the vitals of my great-
grandfather, and dwelt there many years, tormenting
the old gentleman beyond mortal endurance. In
short, it is a family peculiarity. But, to tell you the
truth, I have no faith in this idea of the snake's being
an heirloom. He is my own snake, and no man's
else."

" But what was his origin ? " demanded Her-
kimer.

" Oh, there is poisonous stuff in any man's heart
sufficient to generate a brood of serpents," said
Elliston, with a hollow laugh. " You should have
heard my homilies to the good townspeople. Pos-
itively, I deem myself fortunate in having bred but
a single serpent. You, however, have none in your
bosom, and therefore cannot sympathize with the
rest of the world. It gnaws me ! It gnaws me ! "

With this exclamation Roderick lost his self-
control and threw himself upon the grass, testifying
his agony by intricate writhings in which Herkimer
could not but fancy a resemblance to the motions of
a snake. Then, likewise, was heard that frightful
hiss which often ran through the sufferer's speech,
and crept between the words and syllables without
interrupting their succession.

" This is awful, indeed," exckirred the sculptor—
"an awful infliction, whether it be actual or im-
aginary ! Tell me, Roderick Elliston, is there any
remedy for this loathsome evil ? "

Egotism; or, Gbe 3Bogom=Serpent. 317

" Yes, but an impossible one," muttered Roderick
as he lay wallowing with his face in the grass.
" Could I for one instant forget myself, the serpent
might not abide within me. It is my diseased self-
contemplation that has engendered and nourished
him."

'' Then forget yourself, my husband," said a gen-
tle voice above him — "forget yourself in the idea of
another."

Rosina had emerged from the arbor, and was
bending over him with the shadow of his anguish
reflected in her countenance, yet so mingled with
hope and unselfish love that all anguish seemed but
an earthly shadow and a dream. She touched Rod-
erick with her hand; a tremor shivered through his
frame. At that moment, if report be trustworthy,
the sculptor beheld a waving motion through the
grass and heard a tinkling sound, as if something
had plunged into the fountain. Be the truth as it
might, it is certain that Roderick Elliston sat up
like a man renewed, restored to his right mind and
rescued from the fiend which had so miserably over-
come him in the battle-field of his own breast.

" Rosina," cried he, in broken and passionate
tones, but with nothing of the wild wail that had
haunted his voice so long, "forgive, forgive 1 "

Her happy tears bedewed his face.

" The punishment has been severe," observed
the sculptor. "Even justice might now forgive;
how much more a woman's tenderness I Roderick
Elliston, whether the serpent was a physical reptile
or whether the morbidness of your nature suggested
that symbol to your fancy, the moral of the story is
not the less true and strong. A tremendous egotism
— manifesting itself, in your case, in the form of

21

3i8 ^Bosses from an ©ID /fcansc.

jealousy — is as fearful a fiend as ever stole into the
human heart. Can a breast where it has dwelt so
long be purified ? "

" Oh yes ! " said Rosina, with a heavenly smile
" The serpent was but a dark fantasy, and what it
typified was as shadowy as itself. The past, dismal
as it seems, shall fling no gloom upon the future.
To give it its due importance, we must think of fl
but as an anecdote in our eternity."

THE CHRISTMAS BANQUET.

FROM THE UNPUBLISHED "ALLEGORIES OF THB

" I HAVE here attempted," said Roderick, unfold-
ing a few sheets of manuscript, as he sat with Rosina
and the sculptor in the summer-house — " I have
attempted to seize hold of a personage who glides
past me occasionally in my walk through life. My
former sad experience, as you know, has gifted me
with some degree of insight into the gloomy mys-
teries of the human heart, through which I have
wandered like one astray in a dark cavern with his
torch fast flickering to extinction. But this man —
this class of men — is a hopeless puzzle."

" Well, but propound him," said the sculptor.
" Let us have an idea of him, to begin with."

"Why, indeed," replied Roderick, "he is such a
being as I could conceive you to carve out of marble,
and some yet unrealized perfection of human
science to endow with an exquisite mockery of
intellect ; but still there lacks the last inestimable
touch of a divine Creator. He looks like a man,
and perchance like a better specimen of man than
you ordinarily meet. You might esteem him wise —
he is capable of cultivation and refinement, and has
at least an external conscience — but the demands

3*9

320

/fcoaaee from an ©ID /fcanse.

that spirit makes upon spirit are precisely those to
which he cannot respond. When, at last, you come
close to him, you find him chill and unsubstantial —
a mere vapor."

" I believe," said Rosina, " I have a glimmering
idea of what you mean."

" Then be thankful," answered her husband, smil
ing, " but do not anticipate any further illumination
from what I am about to read. I have here imagined
such a man to be — what, probably, he never is —
conscious of the deficiency in his spiritual organiza-
tion. Methinks the result would be a sense of cold
unreality wherewith he would go shivering through
the world, longing to exchange his load of ice for
any burden of real grief that fate could fling upon a
human being."

Contenting himself with this preface, Roderick
began to read.

In a certain old gentleman's list will and testa
ment there appeared a bequest which, as his final
thought and deed, was singularly in keeping with a
long life of melancholy eccentricity. He devised a
considerable sum for establishing a fund the inter-
est of which was to be expended annually forever
in preparing a Christmas banquet for ten of tluj
most miserable persons that could be found. It
seemed not to be the testator's purpose to make
these half a score of sad hearts merry, but to pro-
vide that the stern or fierce expression of human
discontent should not be drowned, even for that one
holy and joyful day, amid the acclamations of festal
gratitude which all Christendom sends up. And he
desired, likewise, to perpetuate his own remonstrance
against the earthly course of Providence, and his

CDristmas Banquet. 321

sad and sour dissent from those systems of religion
or philosophy which either find sunshine in the
world or draw it down from heaven.

The task of inviting the guests or of selecting
among such as might advance their claims to par-
take of this dismal hospitality was confided to the
two trustees, or stewards, of the fund. These gentle-
men, like their deceased friend, were somber humor
ists who made it their principal occupation to
number the sable threads in the web of human life
and drop all the golden ones out of the reckoning.
They performed their present office with integrity
and judgment. The aspect of the assembled com-
pany on the day of the first festival might not, it is
true, have satisfied every beholder that these were
especially the individuals, chosen forth from all the
world, whose griefs were worthy to stand as indi-
cators of the mass of human suffering. Yet, after
due consideration, it could not be disputed that here
was a variety of hopeless discomfort which, if it
sometimes arose from causes apparently inadequate,
was thereby only the shrewder imputation against
the nature and mechanism of life.

The arrangements and decorations of the banquet
were probably intended to signify that death in life
which had been the testator's definition of existence.
The hall, illuminated by torches, was hung round
with curtains of deep and dusky purple and adorned
with branches of cypress and wreaths of artificial
flowers imitative of such as used to be strewn over
the dead. A sprig of parsley was laid by every
plate. The main reservoir of wine was a sepulchral
urn of silver, whence the liquor was distributed
around the table in small vases accurately copied
from those that held the tears of ancient mourners.

from an ©U> dfcanse,

Neither had the stewards — if it were their taste that
arranged these details — forgotten the fantasy of the
old Egyptians, who seated a skeleton at every festive
board and mocked their own merriment with the
imperturbable grin of a death's-head. Such a fear-
ful guest, shrouded in a black mantle, sat now at
the head of the table. It was whispered — I know
not with what truth — that the testator himself had
once walked the visible world with the machinery of
that same skeleton, and that it was one of the stip-
ulations of his will that he should thus be permitted
to sit, from year to year, at the banquet which he
had instituted. If so, it was perhaps covertly im-
plied that he had cherished no hopes of bliss be-
yond the grave to compensate for the evils which he
felt or imagined here. And if, in their bewildered
conjectures as to the purpose of earthly existence,
the banqueters should throw aside the veil and cast
an inquiring glance at this figure of Death, as seek-
ing thence the solution otherwise unattainable, the
only reply would be a stare of the vacant eye-cav-
erns and a grin of the skeleton jaws. Such was the
response that the dead man had fancied himself to
receive when he asked of Death to solve the riddle
of his life, and it was his desire to repeat it when
the guests of his dismal hospitality should find
themselves perplexed with the same question.

" What means that wreath ? " asked several of the
company while viewing the decorations of the table.
They alluded to a wreath of cypress which was held
on high by a skeleton arm protruding from within
the black mantle.

" It is a crown," said one of the stewards — " not
for the worthiest, but for the wofullest when he shall
prove his claim to it."

Consrmas Banquet. 323

The guest earliest bidden to the festival was a
man of soft and gentle character who had not energy
to struggle against the heavy despondency to which
his temperament rendered him liable, and therefore,
with nothing outwardly to excuse him from happi-
ness, he had spent a life of quiet misery that made
his blood torpid, and weighed upon his breath, and
sat like a ponderous night-fiend upon every throb of
his unresisting heart ; his wretchedness seemed as
deep as his original nature, if not identical with it.
It was the misfortune of a second guest to cherish
within his bosom a diseased heart which had become
so wretchedly sore that the continual and unavoid-
able rubs of the world, the blow of an enemy, the
careless jostle of a stranger, and even the faithful
and loving touch of a friend, alike made ulcers in it ;
as is the habit of people thus afflicted, he found his
chief employment in exhibiting these miserable
sores to any who would give themselves the pain of
viewing them. A third guest was a hypochondriac,
whose imagination wrought necromancy in his out-
ward and inward world, and caused him to see mon-
strous faces m the household fire, and dragons in
the clouds of sunse', and fiends in the guise ,f beau-
tiful women, and something ugly or wicked beneath
all the pleasant surfaces of nature. His neighbor at
table was on v/ho in hir early youth had trusted
mankin too much and h ped too highly in their
behalf, and, meeting with many disappointments,
had become desperately soured ; for several years
back this misanthrope had employed himself in
accumulating motives for hating and despising his
race, such as murder, lust, treachery, ingratitude,
faithlessness of trusted friends, instinctive vices of
children, impurity of women, hidden guilt in men of

324

trom an ©tt> dfcanse.

saintlike aspect, and, in short, all manner of black
realities that sought to decorate themselves with
outward grace or glory. But at every atrocious fact
that was added to his catalogue — at every increase
of the sad knowledge which he spent his life to col-
lect— the native impulses of the poor man's loving
and confiding heart, made him groan with anguish.
Next, with his heavy brow bent downward, there
stole into the hall a man naturally earnest and im-
passioned who from his immemorial infancy had
felt the consciousness of a high message to the
world, but, essaying to deliver it, had found either
no voice or form of speech, or else no ears to listen ;
therefore his whole life was a bitter questioning of
himself : " Why have not men acknowledged my
mission ? Am I not a self-deluding fool ? \Yhat
business have I on earth ? Where is my grave ? "
Throughout the festival he quaffed frequent draughts
from the sepulchral urn of wine, hoping thus to
quench the celestial fire that tortured his own breast
and could not benefit his race. Then there entered,
having flung away a ticket for a ball, a gay gallant
of yesterday, who had found four or five wrinkles in
his brow, and more gray hairs than he could well
number on his head. Endowed with sense and
feeling, he had nevertheless spent his youth in folly,
but had reached at last that dreary point in life
where Folly quits us of her own accord, leaving us
to make friends with Wisdom if we can. Thus, cold
and desolate, he had come to seek Wisdom at the
banquet, and wondered if the skeleton were she.
To eke out the company, the stewards had invited
a distressed poet from his home in the almshouse,
and a melancholy idiot from the street-corner. The
latter had just the glimmering of sense that was suffi-

Cbrfstmas ^Banquet. 325

cient to make him conscious of a vacancy which
the poor fellow all his life long had mistily sought
to fill up with intelligence, wandering up and down
the streets and groaning miserably because his at-
tempts were ineffectual. The only lady in the hall
was one who had fallen short of absolute and per-
fect beauty merely by the trifling defect of a slight
cast in her left eye ; but this blemish, minute as it
was, so shocked the pure ideal of her soul, rather
than her vanity, that she passed her life in solitude
and veiled her countenance even from her own gaze.
So the skeleton sat shrouded at one end of the
table, and this poor lady at the other.

One other guest remains to be described. He was
a young man of smooth brow, fair cheek and fashion-
able mien. So far as his exterior developed him,
he might much more suitably have found a place at
some merry Christmas-table than have been num-
bered among the blighted, fate-stricken, fancy-tort-
ured set of ill-starred banqueters. Murmurs arose
among the guests as they oted the glance of general
scrutiny which the intruder threw over his com-
panions. What had he to do among them ? Why
did not the skeleton of 'he dead founder of the
feast unbend its rattling joints, arise and motion
the unwelcome stranger from the board ?

" Shameful 1 " said the morbid man, while a new
ulcer broke out in his heart. " He comes to mock
us ; we shall be the jest of his tavern friends. He
will make a farce of our miseries and bring it out
upon the stage. '

" Oh, never mind him," said the hypochondriac,
smiling sourly. " He shall feast from yonder tureen
of viper-soup ; and if there is a fricassee of scorpions
on the table, pray let him have his share of it. For

326 /fcos0e0 from an ©l& dfcanse.

the dessert he shall taste the apples of Sodom.
Then, if he like our Christmas fare, let him return
again next year."

"Trouble him not," murmured the melancholy
man, with gentleness. " What matters it whether
the consciousness of misery come a few years sooner
or later ? If this youth deem himself happy now,
yet let him sit with us, for the sake of the wretched-
ness to come."

The poor idiot approached the young man with
that mournful aspect of vacant inquiry which his
face continually wore, and which caused people to
say that he was always in search of his missing wits.
After no little examination he touched the stranger's
hand, but immediately drew back his own, shaking
his head and shivering.

" Cold ! cold ! cold ! " muttered the idiot.

The young man shivered too, and smiled.

" Gentlemen — and you, madam," said one of the
stewards of the festival — " do not conceive so ill
either of our caution or judgment as to imagine
that we have admitted this young stranger — Ger-
vayse Hastings by name — without a full investiga-
tion and thoughtful balance of his claims. Trust
me, not a guest at the table is better entitled to his
seat."

The steward's guarantee was perforce satisfac-
tory. The company, therefore, took their places and
addressed themselves to the serious business of the
feast, but were soon disturbed by the hypochondriac,
who thrust back his chair, complaining that a dish
of stewed toads and vipers was set before him, and
that there was green ditch-water in his cup of wine.
This mistake being amended, he quietly resumed
his seat. The wine, as it flowed freely from the

Gbrtetmas ^Banquet. 327

sepulchral urn, seemed to come imbued with all
gloomy inspirations ; so that its influence was not
to cheer, but either to sink the revelers into a deeper
melancholy or elevate their spirits to an enthusiasm
of wretchedness. The conversation was various.
They told sad stories about people who might have
been worthy guests at such a festival as the present.
They talked of grisly incidents in human history—
of strange crimes which, if truly considered, were
but convulsions of agony ; of some lives that had
been altogether wretched, and of others which,
wearing a general semblance of happiness, had
yet been deformed sooner or later by misfortune as
by the intrusion of a grim face at a banquet ; of
death-bed scenes and what dark intimations might
be gathered from the words of dying men ; of
suicide, and whether the more eligible mode were
by halter, knife, poison, drowning, gradual starva-
tion, or the fumes of charcoal. The majority of the
guests, as is the custom with people thoroughly and
profoundly sick at heart, were anxious to make
their own woes the theme of discussion and
prove themselves most excellent in anguish. The
misanthropist went deep into the philosophy of evil,
and wandered about in the darkness with now and
then a gleam of discolored light hovering on ghastly
shapes and horrid scenery. Many a miserable
thought such as men have stumbled upon from age
to age did he now rake up again, and gloat over it
as an inestimable gem, a diamond, a treasure far
preferable to those bright, spiritual revelations of a
better world which are like precious stones from
heaven's pavement. And then, amid his lore of
Wretchedness, he hid his face and wept.

It was a festival at which the woful man of "U>

3*8 fl&ossee trom an ©U>

might suitably have been a guest, together with all
in each succeeding age who have tasted deepest of
the bitterness of life. And be it said, too, that every
son or daughter of woman, however favored with
happy fortune, might at one sad moment or another
have claimed the privilege of a stricken heart to sit
down at this table. But throughout the feast it was
remarked that the young stranger, Gervayse Hast-
ings, was unsuccessful in his attempts to catch its
pervading spirit. At any deep, strong thought that
found utterance and which was torn out, as it were,
from the saddest recesses of human consciousness,
he looked mystified and bewildered — even more than
the poor idiot, who seemed to grasp at such things
with his earnest heart, and thus occasionally to con-
prehend them. The young man's conversation was
of a colder and lighter kind, often brilliant, but lack-
ing the powerful characteristics of a nature that had
been developed by suffering.

" Sir," said the misanthropist, bluntly, in reply
to some observation by Gervayse Hastings, " pray
do not address me again. We have no right to talk
together; our minds have nothing in common. By
what claim you appear at this banquet I cannot
guess, but methinks, to a man who could say what
you have just now said, my companions and myself
must seem no more than shadows flickering on the
wall. And precisely such a shadow are you to us."

The young man smiled and bowed, but, drawing
himself back in his chair, he buttoned his coat over
his breast, as if the banqueting-hall were growing
chill. Again the idiot fixed his melancholy stare
upon the youth and murmured, " Cold 1 cold 1
cold I"

The banquet drew to its conclusion, and the guests

Cbrtetmas ^Banquet. 329

departed. Scarcely had they stepped across the
threshold of the hall, when the scene that had there
passed seemed like the vision of a sick fancy or an
exhalation from a stagnant heart. Now and then,
however, during the year that ensued, these melan-
choly people caught glimpses of one another — tran-
sient, indeed, but enough to prove that they walked
the earth with the ordinary allotment of reality.
Sometimes a pair of them came face to face while
stealing through the evening twilight enveloped in
their sable cloaks. Sometimes they casually met in
church-yards. Once, also, it happened that two of
the dismal banqueters mutually started at recogniz-
ing each other in the noonday sunshine of a crowded
street, stalking there like ghosts astray. Doubtless
they wondered why the skeleton did not come
abroad at noonday, too.

But, whenever the necessity of their affairs com-
pelled these Christmas guests into the bustling
world, they were sure to encounter the young man
who had so unaccountably been admitted to the
festival. They saw him among the gay and fortu-
nate, they caught the sunny sparkle of his eye, they
heard the light and careless tones of his voice, and
muttered to themselves with such indignation as only
the aristocracy of wretchedness could kindle : " The
traitor ! The vile impostor ! Providence in its own
good time may give him a right to feast among us."
But the young man's unabashed eye dwelt upon their
gloomy figures as they passed him, seeming to say,
perchance with somewhat of a sneer, " First know
my secret, then measure your claims with mine."

The step of time stole onward, and soon brought
merry Christmas round again, with glad and solemn
worship in the churches, and sports, games, festivals,

33°

flfcosses from an ©ID /feanse.

and everywhere the bright face of Joy beside the
household fire. Again, likewise, the hall, with its
curtains of dusky purple, was illuminated by the
death-torches gleaming on the sepulchral decorations
of the banquet. The veiled skeleton sat in state,
lifting the cypress-wreath above its head as the guer-
don of some guest illustrious in the qualifications
which there claimed precedence. As the stewards
deemed the world inexhaustible in misery and were
desirous of recognizing it in all its forms, they had
not seen fit to reassemble the company of the former
year. New faces now threw their gloom across the
table.

There was a man of nice conscience who bore
a bloodstain in his heart — the death of a fellow-
creature — which for his more exquisite torture had
chanced with such a peculiarity of circumstances
that he could not absolutely determine whether his
will had entered into the deed or not. Therefore
.his whole life was spent in the agony of an inward
trial for murder, with a continual sifting of the de-
tails of his terrible calamity, until his mind had no
longer any thought nor his soul any emotion discon-
nected with it. There was a mother, too — a mother
once, but a desolation now — who many years before
had gone out on a pleasure-party, and, returning,
found her infant smothered in its little bed, and ever
since she has been tortured with the fantasy that
her buried baby lay smothering in its coffin. Then
there was an aged lady who had lived from time im-
memorial with a constant tremor quivering through
her frame. It was terrible to discern her dark
shadow tremulous upon the wall. Her lips, likewise,
were tremulous, and the expression of her eye
seemed to indicate that her soul was trembling toa

ilbe Cbrtetmas JBanquet. 331

Owing to the bewilderment and confusion which
made almost a chaos of her intellect, it was impos-
sible to discover what dire misfortune had thus
shaken her nature to its depths ; so that the stewards
had admitted her to the table, not from any acquaint-
ance with her history, but on the safe testimony of
her miserable aspect. Some surprise was expressed
at the presence of a bluff, red-faced gentleman, a
certain Mr. Smith, who had evidently the fat of
many a rich feast within him, and the habitual
twinkle of whose eye betrayed a disposition to break
forth into uproarious laughter for little cause, or
none. It turned out, however, that with the best
possible flow of spirits our poor friend was afflicted
with a physical disease of the heart which threatened
instant death on the slightest cachinnatory indul-
gence, or even that titillation of the bodily frame
produced by merry thoughts. In this dilemma he
had sought admittance to the banquet on the osten-
sible plea of his irksome and miserable state, but,
in reality, with the hope of imbibing a life-preserving
melancholy.

A married couple had been invited from a motive of
bitter humor, it being well understood that they ren-
dered each other unutterably miserable whenever they
chanced to meet, and therefore must necessarily be
fit associates at the festival. In contrast with these
was another couple, still unmarried, who had inter-
changed their hearts in early life, but had been
divided by circumstances as impalpable as morning
mist, and kept apart so long that their spirits now
found it impossible to meet. Therefore, yearning
for communion, yet shrinking from one another, and
choosing none besides, they felt themselves com-
panionless in life and looked upon eternity as a

332 /fto08c0 from an ©ID flfcanee.

boundless desert. Next to the skeleton ^at a mere
son of earth — a hunter of the Exchange, a gatherer
of shining dust, a man whose life's record was in his
ledger, and whose soul's prison-house the vaults of
the bank where he kept his deposits. This person
had been greatly perplexed at his invitation deem-
ing himself one of the most fortunate men in the
::itv ; but the stewards persisted in demanding his
presence, assuring him that he had no conception
how miserable he was.

And now appeared a figure which we must
acknowledge as our acquaintance of the former
festival. It was Gervayse Hastings, whose presence
had then caused so much question and criticism,
and who now took his place with the composure of
one whose claims were satisfactory to himself and
must needs be allowed by others. Yet his easy and
unruffled face betrayed no sorrow. The well-skilled
beholders gazed a moment into his eyes and shook
their heads to miss the unuttered sympathy — the
countersign, never to be falsified, of those whose
hearts are cavern-mouths through which they descend
into a region of illimitable woe and recognize other
wanderers there.

" Who is this youth ? " asked the man with a
blood-stain on his conscience. " Surely he has
never gone down into the depths ? I know all the
aspects of those who have passed through the dark
valley. By what right is he among us ? "

" Ah ! it is a sinful thing to come hither without
a sorrow," murmured the aged lady, in accents that
partook of the eternal tremor which pervaded her
whole being. " Depart, young man ! Your *oul
has never been shaken, and therefore I tremble so
much the more to look at you."

Cbrtetmas ^Banquet. 333

" His soul shaken ! No : I'll answer for it," said
bluff Mr. Smith, pressing his hand upon his heart
and making himself as melancholy as he could, for
fear of a fatal explosion of laughter. " I know the
lad well; he has as fair prospects as any young
man about town, and has no more right among us
miserable creatures than the child unborn. He
never was miserable, and probably never will be."

" Our honored guests," interposed the stewards,
" pray have patience with us, and believe, at least,
that our deep veneration for the sacredness of this
solemnity would preclude any willful violation of it.
Receive this young man to your table. It may not
be too much to say that no guest here would ex-
change his own heart for the one that beats within
that youthful bosom."

" I'd call it a bargain, and gladly too," muttered
Mr. Smith, with a perplexing nurture of sadness
and mirthful conceit. "A plague upon their non-
sense ! My own heart is the only really miserable
one in the company. It will certainly be the death
of me at last."

Nevertheless, as on the former occasion, the
judgment of the stewards being without appeal, the
company sat down. The obnoxious guest made no
more attempt to obtrude his conversation on those
about him, but appeared to listen to the table-talk
with peculiar assiduity, as if some inestimable
secret, otherwise beyond his reach, might be con-
veyed in a casual word. And, in truth, to those
who could understand and value it, there was rich
matter in the upgushings and outpourings of these
initiated souls to whom sorrow had been a talis-
man admitting them into spiritual depths which
no other spell can open. Sometimes out of the
22

334 /Bosses from an ©ID /fcansc.

midst of densest gloom there flashed a momentary
radiance pure as crystal, bright as the flame of stars
and shedding such a glow upon the mysteries of life
that the guests were ready to exclaim, " Surely the
riddle is on the point of being solved ! " At such
illuminated intervals the saddest mourners felt it
to be revealed that mortal griefs are but shadowy
and external — no more than the sable robes volumi-
nously shrouding a certain divine reality, and thus
indicating what might otherwise be altogether in-
visible to mortal eye.

" Just now," remarked the trembling old woman,
" I seemed to see beyond the outside, and then my
everlasting tremor passed away."

" Would that I could dwell always in these mo-
mentary gleams of light ! " said the man of stricken
conscience. "Then the blood-stain in my heart
would be washed clean away."

This strain of conversation appeared so unintel-
ligibly absurd to good Mr. Smith that he burst into
precisely the fit of laughter which his physicians
had warned him against as likely to prove instan-
taneously fatal. In effect, he fell back in his chair
a corpse with a broad grin upon his face, while his
ghost, perchance, remained beside it, bewildered
at its unpremeditated exit. This catastrophe, of
course, broke up the festival.

" How is this? You do not tremble," observed
the tremulous old woman to Gervayse Hastings, who
was gazing at the dead man with singular intentness.
" Is it not awful to see him so suddenly vanish out
of the midst of life — this man of flesh and blood
whose earthly nature was so warm and strong ?
There is a never-ending tremor in my soul, but it
trembles afresh at this. And you are calm ! "

Cbe Cbrfgtmas Banquet. 335

" Would that he could teach me somewhat ! n
said Gervayse Hastings, drawing a long breath.
" Men pass before me like shadows on the wall ;
their actions, passions, feelings, are flick^rings of
the light, and then they vanish ! Neither tne corpse
nor yonder skeleton nor this old woman's everlast-
ing tremor can give me what I seek."

And then the company departed.

We cannot linger to narrate in such detail more
circumstances of these singular festivals, which, in
accordance v^th the founder's will, continued to be
kept with the regularity of an established institution,
In process of time the stewards adopted the custom
of inviting from far and near those individuals
whose misfortunes were prominent above other
men's, and whose mental and moral development
might, therefore, be supposed to possess a corro
spending interest. The exiled noble of the Fiench
Revolution and the broken soldier of the Empire
were alike represented at the table. Fallen mon-
archs wandering about the earth have found places
at that forlorn and miserable feast. The statesman,
when his party flung him off, might, if he chose it,
be once more a great man for the space of a single
banquet. Aaron Burr's name appears on the record
at a period when his ruin — the profoundest and
most striking, with more of moral circumstance in it
than that of almost any other man — was complete,
in his lonely age. Stephen Girard, when his wealth
weighed upon him like a mountain, once sought
admittance of his own accord. It is not probable,
however, that these men had any lesson to teach in
the lore of discontent and misery which might not
equally well have been studied in the common walks
of life. Illustrious unfortunates attract a wider

330 /fcoeses trom an Ott> fl&anse.

sympathy, not because their griefs are more intense,
but because, being set on lofty pedestals, they the
better serve mankind as instances and by-words of
calamity.

It concerns our present purpose to say that at
each successive festival Gervayse Hastings showed
his face gradually changing from the smooth beauty
of his youth to the thoughtful comeliness of man-
hood, and thence to the bald, impressive dignity of
age. He was the only individual invariably present,
yet on every occasion there were murmurs, both
from those who knew his character and position and
from them whose hearts shrank back, as denying
h's companionship in their mystic fraternity.

k< Who is this impassive man ? " had been asked
a hundred times. " Has he suffered ? Has he
sinned ? There are no traces of either. Then
wherefore is he here ? "

" You must inquire of the stewards or of himself, '*
was the constant reply. " We seem to know him
well here in our city, and know nothing of him but
what is creditable and fortunate. Yet hither he
comes, year after year, to this gloomy banquet, and
sits among the guests like a marble statue. Ask
yonder skeleton; perhaps that may solve the riddle."

It was, in truth, a wonder. The life of Gervayse
Hastings was not merely a prosperous but a brilliant
one. Everything had gone well with him. He was
wealthy far beyond the expenditure that was re-
quired by habits of magnificence, a taste of rare
purity and cultivation, a love of travel, a scholar's
instinct to collect a splendid library, and, moreover,
what seemed a munificent liberality to the distressed.
He had sought domestic happiness, and not vainly
if a lovely and tender wife and children of fair

Gbe Cbrtetmaa JBanquet. 337

promise could insure it. He had, besides, ascended
above the limit which separates the obscure from the
distinguished, and had won a stainless reputation in
affairs of the widest public importance. Not that he
was a popular character or had within him the mys-
terious attributes which are essential to that species
of success. To the public he was a cold abstraction
wholly destitute of those rich hues of personality,
chat living warmth and the eculiar faculty of stamp-
ng his own heart's impression on a multitude of hearts
DV which the peopl rec gn^ze heir favorites. And it
must be ^wned thr-, after his most intimate asso-
ciate, had done their best o now him thoroughly
and love him warmly, they were startled to find how
little hoid he had upon their affections. They
approved, they admired, but still, in those moments
when the human spirit most craves reality, they
shrank back from Gervayse Hastings as powerless
to give them what they sought. It was the feeling
of distrustful regret with which we should draw back
the hand after extending it in an illusive twilight to
grasp the hand of a shadow upon the wall.

As the superficial fervency of youth decayed this
peculiar effect of Gervayse Hastings's character
grew more perceptible. His children, when he
extended his arms, came coldly to his knees, but
never climbed them of their own accord. His \\ife
wept secretly and almost adjudged herself a criminal
because she shivered in the chill of his bosom. He,
too, occasionally appeared not unconscious of the
chillness of his moral atmosphere, and willing, if it
might be so, to warm himself at a kindly fire. But
age stole onward and benumbed him more and more.
As the hoar-frost began to gather on him his wife
went to her grave, and was doubtless warmer there ;

338 /Bosses from an ©ID flfcanse.

his children either died or were scattered to different
homes of their own; and old Gervayse Hastings —
unscathed by grief, alone, but needing no compan-
ionship— continued his steady walk through life
and still on every Christmas-day attended at the
dismal banquet. His privilege as a guest had
become prescriptive now. Had he claimed the head
of the table, even the skeleton would have beer
rejected from its seat.

Finally, at the merry Christmas-tide when he had
numbered fourscore years complete, this pale, high-
browed, marble-featured old man once more entered
the long-frequented hall with the same impassive
aspect that had called forth so much dissatisfied
remark at his first attendance. Time, except in
matters merely external, had done nothing for him,
either of good or evil. As he took his place he
threw a calm inquiring glance around the table, as if
to ascertain whether any guest had yet appeared
after so many unsuccessful banquets, who might
impart to him the mystery, the deep warm secret, the
life within the life, which, whether manifested in joy
or sorrow, is what gives substance to a world of
shadows.

" My friends," said Gervayse Hastings, assuming
a position which his long conversance with the
festival caused to appear natural, "you are wel-
come ! I drink to you all in this cup of sepulchral
wine/'

The guests replied courteously, but still in a
manner that proved them unable to receive the old
man as a member of their sad fraternity.

It may be well to give the reader an idea of the
present company at the banquet. One was formerly
a clergyman enthusiastic in his profession, and

Gbristmas banquet. 339

apparently of the genuine dynasty of those old
Puritan divines whose faith in their calling and
stern exercise of it had placed them among the
mighty of the earth. But, yielding to the specula
tive tendency of the age, he had gone astray from
the firm foundation of an ancient faith and wan-
dered into a cloud-region where everything was
misty and deceptive, ever mocking him with a
semblance of reality, but still "dissolving when he
flung himself upon it for support and rest. His
instinct and early training demanded something
steadfast, but, looking forward, he beheld vapors
piled on vapors, and behind him an impassable gulf
between the man of yesterday and to-day, on the
borders of which he paced to and fro sometimes
wringing his hands in agony and often making his
own woe a theme of scornful merriment. This
surely was a miserable man. Next, there was a
theorist, one of a numerous tribe, although he
deemed himself unique since the creation — a theo-
rist who had conceived a plan by which all the
wretchedness of earth, moral and physical, might be
done away and the bliss of the millennium at once
accomplished. But, the incredulity of mankind de-
barring him from action, he was smitten with as
much grief as if the whole mass of woe which he
was denied the opportunity to remedy were crowded
into his own bosom. A plain old man in black
attracted much of the company's notice on the sup-
position that he was no other than Father Miller,
who, it seemed, had given himself up to despair at
the tedious delay of the final conflagration. Then
there was a man distinguished for native pride and
obstinacy who a little while before had possessed
immense wealth and held the control of a vast

340 bosses from an

moneyed interest, which he had wielded in the same
spirit as a despotic monarch would wield the power
of his empire, carrying on a tremendous moral war-
fare the roar and tremor of which was felt at every
fireside in the land. At length came a crushing
ruin — a total overthrow of fortune, power and charac-
ter— the effect of which on his imperious and in
many respects noble and lofty nature might have
entitled him to a place not merely at our festival,
but among the peers of Pandemonium. There was a
modern philanthropist who had become so deeply
sensible of the calamities of thousands and millions
of his fellow-creatures, and of the impracticableness
of any general measures for their relief, that he had
no heart to do what little good lay immediately
within his power, but contented himself with being
miserable for sympathy. Near him sat a gentleman
in a predicament hitherto unprecedented, but of
which the present epoch probably affords numerous
examples. Ever since he was of capacity to read a
newspaper this person had prided himself on his
consistent adherence to one political party, but in
the confusion of these latter days had got bewil-
dered, and knew not whereabouts his party was.
This wretched condition, so morally desolate and
disheartening to a man who has long accustomed
himself to merge his individuality in the mass of a
great body, can only be conceived by such as have
experienced it. His next companion was a popular
orator who had lost his voice, and, as it was pretty
much all that he had to lose, had fallen into a state
of hopeless melancholy. The table was likewise
graced by two of the gentler sex — one, a half-starved,
consumptive seamstress, the representative of thou-
sands just as wretched ; the other, a woman of

Cbristmas JBanquet. 341

unei»»pfoyed energy who found herself in the world
with nothing to achieve, nothing to enjoy and noth-
ing even to suffer. She had, therefore, driven her-
self to the verge of madness by dark broodings
over the wrongs of her sex and its exclusion from a
proper field of action. The roll of guests being thus
complete, a side-table had been set for three or four
disappointed office-seekers with hearts as sick as
death whom the stewards had admitted partly
because their calamities really entitled them to
entrance here, and partly that they were in especial
need of a good dinner. There was likewise a home-
less dog with his tail between his legs, licking up
the crumbs and gnawing the fragments of the feast —
such a melancholy cur as one sometimes sees about
the streets without a master and willing to follow
the first that will accept his service.

In their own way these were as wretched a set of
people as ever had assembled at the festival. There
they sat with the veiled skeleton of the founder,
holding aloft the cypress wreath, at one end of the
table, and at the other, wrapped in furs, the withered
figure of Gervayse Hastings, stately, calm and cold,
impressing the company with awe, yet so little in-
teresting their sympathy that he might have ran-
ished into thin air without their once exclaiming,
"Whither is he gone?"

" Sir," said the philanthropist, addressing the old
man, " you have been so long a guest at this annual
festival, and have thus been conversant with so
many varieties of human affliction, that not improb-
ably you have thence derived some great and import-
ant lessons. How blessed were your lot could you
reveal a secret by which all this mass of woe might
be removed 1 "

342

trom an ©ID /fcanse.

" I know of but one misfortune," answered Ger-
vayse Hastings, quietly, " and that is my own."

" Your own ! " rejoined the philanthropist. " And,
looking back on your serene and prosperous life,
how can you claim to be the sole unfortunate of the
human race ? "

" You will not understand it," replied Gervayse
Hastings, feebly and with a singular inefficiency of
pronunciation, and sometimes putting one word for
another. " None have understood it — not even those
who experience the like. It is a chilliness, a want
of earnestness, a feeling as if what should be my
heart were a thing of vapor, a haunting perception
of unreality. Thus, seeming to possess all that other
men have, all that men aim at, I have really
possessed nothing — neither joy nor griefs. All
things, all persons — as was truly said to me at this
table long and long ago — have been like shadows
flickering on the wall. It was so with my wife and
children, with those who seemed my friends ; it is so
with yourselves, whom I see now before me. Neither
have I myself any real existence, but am a shadow
like the rest."

" And how is it with your views of a future life ? "
inquired the speculative clergyman.

" Worse than with you," said the old man, in a
hollow and feeble tone, "for I cannot conceive it
earnestly enough to feel either hope or fear. Mine
— mine is the wretchedness ! This cold heart — this
unreal life ! Ah ! it grows colder still."

It so chanced that at this juncture the decayed
ligaments of the skeleton gave way and the dry bones
fell together in a heap, thus causing the dusty
wreath of cypress to drop upon the table. The
attention of the company being thus diverted for a

Cbe Cbristmas JBanquet, 343

single instant from Gervayse Hastings, they per-
ceived, on turning again toward him, that the old
man had undergone a change : his shadow had
ceased to flicker on the wall.

" Well, Rosina, what is your criticism ? " asked
Roderick as he rolled up the manuscript.

" Frankly, your success is by no means complete,"
replied she. " It is true I have an idea of the
character you endeavor to describe, but it is rather
by dint of my own thought than your expression."

"That is unavoidable," observed the sculptor,
"because the characteristics are all negative. If
Gervayse Hastings could have imbibed one human
grief at the gloomy banquet, the task of describing
him would have been infinitely easier. Of such
persons — and we do meet with these moral mon-
sters now and then — it is difficult to conceive how
they came to exist here or what there is in them
capable of existence hereafter. They seem to be
on the outside of everything, and nothing wearies
the soul more than an attempt to comprehend them
within its grasp.

DROWNE'S WOODEN IMAGE.

ONE sunshiny morning in the good old times oi
the, town of Boston a young carver in wood well
known by the name of Drowne stood contemplating
a large oaken log which it was his purpose to con-
vert into the figure-head of a vessel, and while he
discussed within his own mind what sort of shape
or similitude it were well to bestow upon this excel-
lent piece of timber there came into Drowne's work-
shop a certain Captain Hunnewell, owner and com-
mander of the good brig called the Cynosure, which
had just returned from her first voyage to Fayal.

" Ah ! that will do, Drowne, that will do ! " cried
the jolly captain, tapping the log with his rattan,,
" I bespeak this very piece of oak for the figure-
head of the Cynosure. She has shown herself the
sweetest craft that ever floated, and I mean to dec-
orate her prow with the handsomest image that the
skill of man can cut out of timber. And, Drowne,
you are the fellow to execute it."

" You give me more credit than I deserve, Cap-
tain Hunnewell," said the carver, modestly, yet as
one conscious of eminence in his art, " but for the
sake of the good brig I stand ready to do my best.
And which of these designs do you prefer ? Here,"
pointing to a staring half-length figure in a white
wig and scarlet coat — " here is an excellent model,
3' 4

Drowne's IflaooOen Image. 345

the likeness of our gracious king. Here is the
valiant Admiral Vernon. Or if you prefer a female
figure, what say you to Britannia with the trident ? "

" All very fine, Drowne — all very fine," answered
the mariner — " but, as nothing like the brig ever
swam the ocean, so I am determined she shall have
such a figure-head as old Neptune never saw in his
life. And, what is more, as there is a secret in the
matter, you must pledge your credit not to betray
it."

" Certainty," said Drowne, marveling, however,
what possible mystery there could be in reference
to an affair so open, of necessity, to the inspection
of all the world as the figure-head of a vessel.
" You may depend, captain, on my being as secret
as the nature of the case will permit."

Captain Hunnewell then took Drowne by the but-
ton, and communicated his wishes in so low a tone
that it would be unmannerly to repeat what was
evidently intended for the carver's private ear. We
shall, therefore, take the opportunity to give the
reader a few desirable particulars about Drowne
himself.

He was the first American who is known to have
Attempted — in a very humble line, it is true — that
art in which we can now reckon so many names
already distinguished or rising to distinction. From
his earliest boyhood he had exhibited a knack — for
it would be too proud a word to call it genius : a
knack, therefore — for the imitation of the human
figure in whatever material came most readily to
hand. The snows of a New England winter had
often supplied him with a species of marble as daz-
zlingly white, at least, as the Parian or the Carrara,
and, if less durable, yet sufficiently so to correspond

346 /B000C6 from an ©Ifc dfcanse.

with any claims to permanent existence possessed
by the boy's frozen statues. Yet they won admira-
tion from maturer judges than his schoolfellows,
and were, indeed, remarkably clever, though destitute
of the native warmth that might have made the snow
melt beneath his hand. As he advanced in life the
young man adopted pine and oak as eligible ma-
terials for the display of his skill, which now began
to bring him a return of solid silver, as well as the
empty praise that had been an apt reward enough
for his productions of evanescent snow. He be-
came noted for carving ornamental pump-heads, and
wooden urns for gate-posts, and decorations more
grotesque than fanciful for mantel-pieces. No
apothecary would have deemed himself in the way
of obtaining custom without setting up a gilded mor-
tar, if not a head of Galen or Hippocrates, from the
skillful hand of Drowne. But the great scope of his
business lay in the manufacture of figure-heads for
vessels. Whether it were the monarch himself or
some famous British admiral or general or the gover-
nor of the province, or, perchance, the favorite
daughter of the ship-owner, there the image stood
above the prow decked out in gorgeous colors, mag-
nificently gilded and staring the whole world out of
countenance, as if from an innate consciousness
of its own superiority. These specimens of native
sculpture had crossed the sea in all directions, and
been not ignobly noticed among the crowded ship-
ping of the Thames and wherever else the hardy
mariners of New England had pushed their advent-
ures. It must be confessed that a family likeness
pervaded these respectable progeny of Browne's
skill— that the benign countenance of the king
resembled those of his subjects, and that Miss

Drowne's lidoofcen Image. 347

Peggy Hobart, the merchant's daughter, bore a re-
markable similitude to Britannia, Victory, and other
ladies of the allegoric sisterhood ; and finally, that
they all had a kind of wooden aspect which proved
an intimate relationship with the unshaped blocks
of timber in the carver's workshop. But, at least,
there was no inconsiderable skill of hand, nor a defi-
ciency of any attribute to render them really works
of art except that deep quality, be it of soul or in-
tellect, which bestows life upon the lifeless and
warmth upon the cold, and which, had it been pres-
ent, would have made Browne's wooden image
instinct with spirit.

The captain of the Cynosure had now finished his
instructions.

" And, Drowne," said he, impressively, " you
must lay aside all other business and set about this
forthwith. And, as to the price, only do the job in
first-rate style and you shall settle that point your-
self."

" Very well, captain," answered the carver, who
looked grave and somewhat perplexed, yet had a sort
of smile upon his visage. " Depend upon it, I'll do
my utmost to satisfy you."

From that moment the men of taste about Long
Wharf and the town dock, who were wont to show
their love for the arts by frequent visits to Browne's
workshop and admiration of his wooden images,
began to be sensible of a mystery in the carver's
conduct. Often he was absent in the daytime.
Sometimes, as might be judged by gleams of light
from the shop windows, he was at work until a late
hour of the evening, although neither knock nor
voice on such occasions could gain admittance for a
visitor or elicit any word of response. Nothing

348 bosses from an ©U>

remarkable, however, was observed in the sh >p at
those hours when it was thrown open. A fine piece
of timber, indeed, which Drowne was known to have
reserved for some work of especial dignity, was
seen to be gradually assuming shape. What shape
it was destined ultimately to take was a problem
to his friends and a point on which the carver him-
self preserved a rigid silence. But day after day,
though Drowne was seldom noticed in the act of
working upon it, this rude form began to be de-
veloped until it became evident to all observers
that a female figure was growing into mimic life.
At each new visit they beheld a larger pile of
wooden chips and a nearer approximation to some-
thing beautiful. It seemed as if the hamadryad of
the oak had sheltered herself from the unimaginative
world within the heart of her native tree, and that it
was only necessary to remove the strange shape-
lessness that had encrusted her and reveal the
grace and loveliness of a divinity. Imperfect as the
design, the attitude, the costume, and especially the
face, of the image, still remained, there was already
an effect that drew the eye from the wooden clever-
ness of Drowne's earlier productions and fixed it
upon the tantalizing mystery of this new project.

Copley, the celebrated painter, then a young man
and a resident of Boston, came one day to visit
Drowne, for he had recognized so much of moder-
ate ability in the carver as to induce him, in the
dearth of any professional sympathy, to cultivate his
acquaintance. On entering the shop the artist
glanced at the inflexible image of king, commander,
dame and allegory that stood around, on the best
of which might have been bestowed the question-
able praise that it looked as if a living man had here

Drowne's Tixaoofcen Ifmaae. 349

been changed to wood, and that not only the phys-
ical, but the intellectual and spiritual, part partook
of the stolid transformation. But in not a single
instance did it seem as if the wood were imbibing
the ethereal essence of humanity. What a wide
distinction is here ! and how far would the slightest
portion of the latter merit have outvalued the utmost
degree of the former !

" My friend Drowne," said Copley, smiling to
himself, but alluding to the mechanical and wooden
cleverness that so invariably distinguished the
images, " you are really a remarkable person. I
have seldom met with a man in your line of business
that could do so much, for one other touch might
make this figure of General Wolfe, for instance, a
breathing and intelligent human creature."

" You would have me think that you are praising
me highly, Mr. Copley," answered Drowne, turning
his back upon Wolfe's image in apparent disgust,
" but there has come a light into my mind. I know
what you know as well — that the one touch which
you speak of as deficient is the only one that would
be truly valuable, and that without it these works of
mine are no better than worthless abortions. There
is the same difference between them and the works of
an inspired artist as between a sign-post daub and
one of your best pictures."

" This is strange," cried Copley, looking him in
the face, which now, as the painter fancied, had a
singular depth of intelligence, though hitherto it had
not given him greatly the advantage over his own
family of wooden images. " What has come over
you ? How is it that, possessing the idea which
you have now uttered, you should produce only such
works as these ? "
23

350 bosses trom an DID

The carver smiled, but made no reply. Cople>
turned again to the images, conceiving that the sense
of deficiency so rare in a merely mechanical char-
acter must surely imply a genius the tokens of which
had been overlooked. But no ; there was not a trace
of it. He was about to withdraw, when his eyes
chanced to fall upon a half-developed figure which
lay in the corner of the workshop surrounded by
scattered chips of oak. It arrested him at once.

" What is here ? Who has done this ? " he broke
out, after contemplating it in speechless astonish-
ment for an instant. " Here is the divine, the life-
giving touch ! What inspired hand is beckoning
this wood to arise and live ? Whose work is this ? "

" No man's work," replied Drowne. " The figure
lies within that block of oak, and it is my business
to find it."

" Drowne," said the true artist, grasping the carver
fervently by the hand, " you are a man of genius ! "

As Copley departed, happening to glance back-
ward from the threshold, he beheld Drowne bending
over the half-created shape, and stretching forth his
arms as if he would have embraced and drawn it to
his heart, while, had such a miracle been possible,
his countenance expressed passion enough to com-
municate warmth and sensibility to the lifeless
oak.

" Strange enough ! " said the artist to himself.
" Who would have looked for a modern Pygmalion
in the person of a Yankee mechanic ? "

As yet the image was but vague in its outward
presentment ; so that, as in the cloud-shapes around
the western sun, the observer rather felt or was led
to imagine than really saw what was intended by it.
Day by day, however, the work assumed greater

H>rowne'6 "Waoofcen Image. 351

precision and settled its irregular and misty outline
into distincter grace and beauty. The general design
was now obvious to the common eye. It was a
female figure in what appeared to be a foreign dress,
the gown being laced over the bosom and opening
in front, so as to disclose a skirt or petticoat the
folds and inequalities of which were admirably repre-
sented in the oaken substance. She wore a hat of
singular gracefulness and abundantly laden with
flowers such as never grew in the rude soil of
New England, but which, with all their fanciful luxu-
riance, had a natural truth that it seemed impossible
for the most fertile imagination to have attained. with-
out copying from real prototypes. There were several
little appendages to this dress, such as a fan, a pair
of ear-rings, a chain about the neck, a watch in the
bosom and a ring upon the finger, all of which
would have been deemed beneath the dignity of
sculpture. They were put on, however, with as
much taste as a lovely woman might have shown in
her attire, and could therefore have shocked none
but a judgment spoiled by artistic rules.

The face was still imperfect, but gradually, by a
magic touch, intelligence and sensibility brightened
through the features with all the effect of light
gleaming forth from within the solid oak. The face
became alive. It was a beautiful, though not pre-
cisely regular and somewhat haughty, aspect, but with
a certain piquancy about the eyes and mouth which,
of all expressions, would have seemed the most
impossible to throw over a wooden countenance.
And now, so far as carving went, this wonderful
production was complete.

" Drowne," said Copley, who had hardly missed a
single day in his visits to the carver's workshop, " ii

352 flfcosses from an QID /toansc.

this work were in marble, it would make you famous
at once ; nay, I would almost affirm that it would
make an era in the art. It is as ideal as an antique
statue, yet as real as any lovely woman whom one
meets at a fireside or in the street. But I trust
you do not mean to desecrate this exquisite creature
with paint, like those staring kings and admirals
yonder ? "

" Not paint her ? " exclaimed Captain Hunnewell,
who stood by. " Not paint the figure-head of the
Cynosure ? And what sort of a figure should I cut
in a foreign port with such an unpainted oaken stick
as this over my prow ? She must, and she shall,
be painted to the life, from the topmost flower
in her hat down to the silver spangles on her slip-
pers."

" Mr. Copley," said Drowne, quietly, " I know
nothing of marble statuary, and nothing of the
sculptor's rules of art, but of this wooden image, this
work of my hands, this creature of my heart " — and
here his voice faltered and choked in a very singular
manner — " of this — of her— I may say that I know
something. A well-spring of inward wisdom gushed
within me as I wrought upon the oak with my whole
strength and soul and faith. Let others do what
they may with marble and adopt what rules they
choose ; if I can produce my desired effect by
painted wood, those rules are not for me, and I have
a right to disregard them."

" The very spirit of genius ! " muttered Copley to
himself. " How otherwise should this carver feel
himself entitled to transcend all rules and make me
ashamed of quoting them ? "

He looked earnestly at Drowne, and again saw
that expression of human love which in a spiritual

Browne's TttHoofcen ITmaac. 353

sense, as the artist could not help imagining, was
the secret of the life that had been breathed into
this block of wood.

The carver, still in the same secrecy that marked
all his operations upon this mysterious image, pro-
ceeded to paint the habiliments in their proper colors
and the countenance with nature's red and white.
When all was finished, he threw open his workshop
and admitted the townspeople to behold what he
had done. Most persons at their first entrance felt
impelled to remove their hats and pay such reverence
as was due to the richly-dressed and beautiful young
lady who seemed to stand in a corner of the room
with oaken chips and shavings scattered at her feet.
Then came a sensation of fear — as if, not being
actually human, yet so like humanity, she must
therefore be something preternatural. There was,
in truth, an indefinable air and expression that might
reasonably induce the query who and from what
sphere this daughter of the oak should be. The
strange rich flowers of Eden on her head ; the com-
plexion, so much deeper and more brilliant than
those of our native beauties ; the foreign, as it seemed,
and fantastic garb, yet not too fantastic to be worn
decorously in the street ; the delicately-wrought
embroidery of the skirt ; the broad gold chain about
her neck ; the curious ring upon her finger ; the fan
so exquisitely sculptured in open-work and painted
to resemble pearl and ebony, — where could Drowne
in his sober walk of life have beheld the vision here
so matchlessly embodied ? And then her face ! In
the dark eyes and around the voluptuous mouth
there played a look made up of pride, coquetry and
a gleam of mirthfulness which impressed Copley
with the idea that the image was secretly enjoying

354 dfcosses from an ©U> flfcansc.

the perplexing admiration of himself and other bfr
holders.

"And will you," said he to the carver, " permit this
masterpiece to become the figure-head of a vessel ?
Give the honest captain yonder figure of Britannia
— it will answer his purpose far better — and send
this fairy-queen to England, where, for aught I know,
it may bring you a thousand pounds/'

'* I have not wrought it for money,'' said Drowne.

" What sort of a fellow is this ? " thought Copley.
" A Yankee, and throw away the chance of making
his fortune ! He has gone mad, and thence has
come this gleam of genius."

There was still further proof of Drowne's lunacy,
if credit were due to the rumor that he had been
seen kneeling at the feet of the oaken lady and
gazing with a lover's passionate ardor into the face
that his own hands had created. The bigots of the
day hinted that it would be no matter of surprise if
an evil spirit were allowed to enter this beautiful
form and seduce the carver to destruction.

The fame of the image spread far and wide.
The inhabitants visited it so universally that after a
few days of exhibition there was hardly an old man
or a child who had not become minutely familiar
with its aspect. Had the story of Drowne's wooden
image ended here, its celebrity might have been
prolonged for many years by the reminiscences of
those who looked upon it in their childhood and
saw nothing else so beautiful in after-life. But the
town was now astounded by an event the narrative
of which has formed itself into one of the most
singular legends that are yet to be met with in the
traditionary chimney-corners of the New England
metropolis, where old men and women sit dreaming

Browne's "Uaoofcen Image. 355

of the past and wag their heads at the dreamers ot
the present and the future.

One fine morning, just before the departure of the
Cynosure on her second voyage to Fayal, the com-
mander of that gallant vessel was seen to issue from
his residence in Hanover Street. He was stylishly
dressed in a blue broadcloth coat with gold lace at
the seams and buttonholes, an embroidered scarlet
waistcoat, a triangular hat with a loop and broad
binding of gold, and wore a silver-hilted hanger at his
side. But the good captain might have been arrayed
in the robes of a prince or the rags of a beggar without
in either case attracting notice while obscured by such
a companion as now leaned on his arm. The people
in the street started, rubbed their eyes, and either
leaped aside from their path or stood as if transfixed
to wood or marble in astonishment.

" Do you see it ? do you see it ? " cried one, with
tremulous eagerness. " It is the very same ! "

" The same ? " answered another, who had arrived
in town only the night before. " Who do you
mean ? I see only a sea-captain in his shore-going
clothes, and a young lady in a foreign habit with a
bunch of beautiful flowers in her hat. On my word,
she is as fair and bright a damsel as my eyes have
looked on this many a day ! "

" Yes, the same — the very same ! " repeated the
other. " Browne's wooden image has come to
life."

Here was a miracle indeed ! Yet, illuminated by
the sunshine or darkened by the alternate shade of
the houses, and with its garments fluttering lightly
in the morning breeze, there passed the image along
the street. It was exactly and minutely the shape,
the garb and the face which the townspeople had so

356 flfco00C5 trom an ©U> /fcanse.

recently thronged to see and admire. Not a rich
flower upon her head, not a single leaf, but had had
its prototype in Drowne's wooden workmanship, al-
though now their fragile grace had become flexible
and was shaken by every footstep that the wearer
made. The broad gold chain upon the neck was
identical with the one represented on the image,
and glistened with the motion imparted by the rise
and fall of the bosom which it decorated. A real
diamond sparkled on her finger. In her right hand
she bore a pearl-and-ebony fan, which she flourished
with a fantastic and bewitching coquetry that was
likewise expressed in all her movements, as well as
in the style of her beauty and the attire that so well
harmonized with it. The face, with its brilliant
depth of complexion, had the same piquancy of
mirthful mischief that was fixed upon the countenance
of the image, but which was here varied and con-
tinually shifting, yet always essentially the same,
like the sunny gleam upon a bubbling fountain. On
the whole, there was something so airy, and yet so
real, in the figure, and withal so perfectly did it
represent Drowne's image, that people knew not
whether to suppose the magic wood etherealized
into a spirit or warmed and softened into an actual
woman.

" One thing is certain," muttered a Puritan of the
old stamp : " Drowne has sold himself to the devil ;
and doubtless this gay Captain Hunnewell is a party
to the bargain."

" And I," said a young man who overheard him,
" would almost consent to be the third victim for
the liberty of saluting those lovely lips."

" And so would I," said Copley, the painter, "foi
the privilege of taking her picture."

Drowne'0 Udoofcen Image. 357

The image — or the apparition, whichever it might
be — still escorted by the bold captain, proceeded
from Hanover Street through some of the cross-
lanes that make this portion of the town so intricate,
to Ann Street, thence into Dock Square, and so
downward to Browne's shop, which stood just on
the water's edge. The crowd still followed, gather-
ing volume as it rolled along. Never had a modern
miracle occurred in such broad daylight, nor in the
presence of such a multitude of witnesses. The
airy image, as if conscious that she was the object
of the murmurs and disturbance that swelled behind
her, appeared slightly vexed and flustered, yet still
in a manner consistent with the light vivacity and
sportive mischief that were written in her counte-
nance. She was observed to flutter her fan with
such vehement rapidity that the elaborate delicacy
of its workmanship gave way, and it remained bro-
ken in her hand.

Arriving at Browne's door, while the captain
threw it open the marvelous apparition paused an
instant on the threshold, assuming the very attitude
of the image and casting over the crowd that glance
of sunny coquetry which all remembered on the face
of the oaken lady. She and her cavalier then dis-
appeared.

" Ah ! " murmured the crowd, drawing a deep
breath, as with one vast pair of lungs.

" The world looks darker now that she has van-
ished," said some of the young men.

But the aged, whose recollections dated as far
back as witch-times, shook their heads and hinted
that our forefathers would have thought it a pious
deed to burn the daughter of the oak with fire.

" If she be other than a bubble of the elements,"

358 /Bosses from an

exclaimed Copley, " I must look upon her face
again."

He accordingly entered the shop, and there, in
her usual corner, stood the image, gazing at him, as
it might seem, with the very same expression of
mirthful mischief that had been the farewell look
of the apparition when, but a moment before, she
turned her face toward the crowd. The carver stood
beside his creation, mending the beautiful fan, which
by some accident was broken in her hand. But
there was no longer any motion in the lifelike image
nor any real woman in the workshop, nor even the
witchcraft of a sunny shadow that might have de-
luded people's eyes as it flitted along the street.
Captain Hunnewell, too, had vanished. His hoarse,
seabreezy tones, however, were audible on the other
side of a door that opened upon the water.

" Sit down in the stern-sheets, My Lady," said
the gallant captain. — " Come ! bear a hand, you
lubbers, and set us on board in the turning of a
minute-glass."

And then was heard the stroke of oarn.

" Drowne," said Copley, with a smile of intelli-
gence, " you have been a truly fortunate man. What
painter or statuary ever had such a subject ? No
wonder that she inspired a genius into you, and first
created the artist who afterward created her image."

Drowne looked at him with a visage that bore the
traces of tears, but from which the light of imagina-
tion and sensibility, so recently illuminating it, had
departed. He was again the mechanical carver
that he had been known to be all his lifetime.

" I hardly understand what you mean, Mr.
Copley," said he, putting his hand to his brow.
" This image ! Can it have been my work ? Well,

Browne's "UJlooOen Image. 359

I have wrought it in a kind of dream, and now that
I am broad awake I must set about finishing yon-
der figure of Admiral Vernon."

And forthwith he employed himself on the stolid
countenance of one of his wooden progeny, and
completed it in his own mechanical style, from which
he was never known afterward to deviate. He
followed his business industriously for many years,
acquired a competence, and in the latter part of his
life attained to a dignified station in the church,
being remembered in records and traditions as
Deacon Drowne the carver. One of his produc-
tions— an Indian chief gilded all over — stood during
the better part of a century on the cupola of the
province-house, bedazzling the eyes of those who
looked upward like an angel of the sun. Another
work of the good deacon's hand — a reduced like-
ness of friend Captain Hunnewell holding a tele-
scope and quadrant — may be seen to this day at the
corner of Broad and State streets, serving in the
useful capacity of sign to the shop of a nautical-
instrument maker. We know not how to account
for the inferiority of this quaint old figure as compared
with the recorded excellence of the oaken lady,
unless on the supposition that in every human spirit
there is imagination, sensibility, creative power,
genius, which according to circumstances may either
be developed in this world or shrouded in a mask of
dullness until another state of being. To our friend
Drowne there came a brief season of excitement
kindled by love. It rendered him a genius for that
one occasion, but, quenched in disappointment, left
him again the mechanical carver in wood without
the power even of appreciating the work that his
own hands had wrought. Yet who can doubt that

360 d&osses from an ©K> flfcanse.

the very highest state to which a human spirit can
attain in its loftiest aspirations is its truest and most
natural state, and that Drowne was more consistent
with himself when he wrought the admirable figure
of the mysterious lady than when he perpetrated a
whole progeny of blockheads ?

There was a rumor in Boston about this period
that a young Portuguese lady of rank, on some
occasion of political or domestic disquietude, had
fled from her home in Fayal and put herself under
the protection of Captain Hunnewell, on board of
whose vessel and at whose residence she was
sheltered until a change of affairs. This fair
stranger must have been the original of Drowne'a
wooden image.

THE INTELLIGENCE-OFFICE.

A GRAVE figure with a pair of mysterious spectacles
:>n his nose and a pen behind his ear was seated at
a desk in the corner of a metropolitan office. The
apartment was fitted up with a counter and furnished
with an oaken cabinet and a chair or two, in simple
and business-like style. Around the walls were
stuck advertisements of articles lost or articles wanted
or articles to be disposed of, in one or another of
which classes were comprehended nearly all the con-
veniences, or otherwise, that the imagination of man
has contrived. The interior of the room was thrown
into shadow, partly by the tall edifices that rose on
the opposite side of the street and partly by the
immense showbills of blue and crimson paper that
were expanded over each of the three windows.
Undisturbed by the tramp of feet, the rattle of
wheels, the hum of voices, the shout of the city crier,
the scream of the newsboys, and other tokens of the
multitudinous life that surged along in front of the
office, tne figure at the desk pored diligently over a
folio volume of ledger-like size and aspect. He
looked like the spirit of a record — the soul of his
own great volume — made visible in mortal shape.

But scarcely an instant elapsed without the
appearance at the door of some individual from the
busy population whose vicinity was manifested by

361

362 Obossea from an ©to /fcanse.

so much buzz and clatter and outcry. Now it was
a thriving mechanic in quest of a tenement that
should come within his moderate means of rent, now
a ruddy Irish girl from the banks of Killarney
wandering from kitchen to kitchen of our land while
her heart still hung in the peat-smoke of her native
cottage, now a single gentleman looking out for
economical board, and now — for this establishment
offered an epitome of worldly pursuits — it was a
faded beauty inquiring for her lost bloom, or Peter
Schlemihl for his lost shadow, or an author of ten
years' standing for his vanished reputation, or a
moody man for yesterday's sunshine.

At the next lifting of the latch there entered a
person with his hat awry upon his head, his clothes
perversely ill-suited to his form, his eyes staring in
directions opposite to their intelligence and a certain
odd unsuitableness pervading his whole figure.
Wherever he might chance to be — whether in palace
or cottage, church or market, on land or sea, or even
at his own fireside — he must have worn the charac-
teristic expression of a man out of his right place.

" This," inquired he, putting his question in the
form of an assertion — " this is the Central Intelli-
gence-Office ? "

" Even so," answered the figure at the desk, turn-
ing another leaf of his volume. He then looked
the applicant in the face and said briefly, •" Your
business ? "

" I want," said the latter, with tremulous earnest-
ness, " a place."

" A place ! And of what nature ? " asked the
intelligencer. " There are many vacant, or soon to
be so, some of which will probably suit, since they
range from that of a footman up to a seat at the

Gbe 1ntelU0ence*©ffice. 363

council-board or in the cabinet or a throne or a pres-
idential chair."

The stranger stood pondering before the desk with
an unquiet, dissatisfied air, a dull, vague pain of
heart, expressed by a slight contortion of the brow,
an earnestness of glance that asked and expected,
yet continually wavered, as if distrusting. In short
he evidently wanted — not in a physical or intellectual
sense, but with an urgent moral necessity that is the
hardest of all things to satisfy, since it knows not its
own object.

" Ah ! you mistake me," said he, at length, with a
gesture of nervous impatience. " Either of the places
you mention, indeed, might answer my purpose — or,
more probably, none of them. I want my place — my
own place, my true place in the world, my proper
sphere, my thing to do which nature intended me to
perform when she fashioned me thus awry, and which
I have vainly sought all my lifetime. Whether it be
a footman's duty or a king's is of little consequence,
so it be naturally mine. Can you help me here ? "

" I will enter your application," answered the intelli-
gencer, at the same time writing a few lines in his
volume. " But to undertake such a business, I tell
you frankly, is quite apart from the ground covered
by my official duties. Ask for something specific,
and it may doubtless be negotiated for you on your
compliance with the conditions. But were I to go
farther, I should have the whole population of the
city upon my shoulders, since far the greater pro-
portion of them are more or less in your predica-
ment."

The applicant sank into a fit of despondency, and
passed out of the door without again lifting his eyes;
and if he died of the disappointment, he was prob-

364 /Bosses from an ©ID flfcanse.

ably buried in the wrong tomb, inasmuch as the
fatality of such people never deserts them, and
whether alive or dead, they are invariably out of
place.

Almost immediately another foot was heard on the
threshold. A youth entered hastily, and threw a
glance around the office to ascertain whether the
man of intelligence was alone. He then approached
close to the desk, blushed like a maiden and seemed
at a loss how to broach his business.

"You come upon an affair of the heart," said the
official personage, looking into him through his
mysterious spectacles. " State it in as few words as
may be."

" You are right," replied the youth. " I have a
heart to dispose of."

" You seek an exchange ? " said the intelligencer.
" Foolish youth 1 Why not be contented with your
own ? "

" Because," exclaimed the young man, losing his
embarrassment in a passionate glow — " because my
heart burns me with an intolerable fire ; it tortures
me all day long with yearnings for I know not what,
and feverish throbbings, and the pangs of a vague
sorrow, and it awakens me in the night-time with a
quake when there is nothing to be feared. I cannot
endure it any longer. It were wiser to throw away
such a heart, even if it brings me nothing in
return ! "

" Oh, very well," said the man of office, making
an entry in his volume. " Your affair will be easily
transacted. This species of brokerage makes no
inconsiderable part of my business, and there is
always a large assortment of the article to select from.
Here, if I mistake not, comes a pretty fair sample."

f ntelltaence*©fRce. 365

Even as he spoke the door was gently and slowly
thrust ajar, affording a glimpse of the slender figure
of a young girl who as she timidly entered seemed to
bring the light and cheerfulness of the outer atmos-
phere into the somewhat gloomy apartment. We
know not her errand there, nor can we reveal whether
the young man gave up his heart into her custody.
If so, the arrangement was neither better nor worse
than in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred where the
parallel sensibilities of a similar age, importunate
affections and the easy satisfaction of characters not
deeply conscious of themselves supply the place of
any profounder sympathy.

Not always, however, was the agency of the pas-
sions and affections an office of so little trouble. It
happened — rarely, indeed, in proportion to the cases
that came under an ordinary rule, but still it did
happen — that a heart was occasionally brought
hither of such exquisite material, so delicately attem-
pered and so curiously wrought, that no other heart
could be found to match it. It might almost be
considered a misfortune, in a worldly point of view,
to be the possessor of such a diamond of the purest
water, since in any reasonable probability it could
only be exchanged for an ordinary pebble or a bit of
cunningly-manufactured glass, or, at least, for a jewel
of native richness, but ill-set or with some fatal flaw
or an earthy vein running through its central luster.
To choose another figure, it is sad that hearts which
have their well-spring in the infinite and contain
inexhaustible sympathies should ever be doomed to
pour themselves into shallow vessels, and thus lavish
their rich affections on the ground. Strange that the
finer and deeper nature, whether in man or woman,
while possessed of every other delicate instinct,
24

366 /Rosses from an ©to /fcanse.

should so often lack that most invaluable one of
preserving itself from contamination with what is of a
baser kind 1 Sometimes, it is true, the spiritual fount-
ain is kept pure by a wisdom within itself, and spark-
les into the light of heaven without a stain from the
earthy strata through which it had gushed upward.
And sometimes, even here on earth, the pure mingles
with the pure and the inexhaustible is recompensed
with the infinite. But these miracles, though he
should claim the credit ot them, are far beyond the
scope of such a superficial agent in human affairs as
the figure in the mysterious spectacles.

Again the door was opened, admitting the bustle
of the city with a fresher reverberation into the in-
telligence-office. Now entered a man of woe-begone
and downcast look ; it was such an aspect as if he
had lost the very soul out of his body, and had trav-
ersed all the world over, searching in the dust of
the highways, and along the shady footpaths, and
beneath the leaves of the forest, and among the
sands of the seashore, in hopes to recover it again.
He had bent an anxious glance along the pavement
of the street as he came hitherward ; he looked,
also, in the angle of the doorstep and upon the floor
of the room, and finally, coming up to the man of
intelligence, he gazed through the inscrutable spec-
tacles which the latter wore, as if the lost treasure
might be hidden within his eyes.

" I have lost " he began, and then he paused.

"Yes," said the intelligencer; "I see that you
have lost. But what ? "

" I have lost a precious jewel," replied the unfort-
unate person, " the like of which is not to be found
among any prince's treasures. While I possessed it,
the contemplation of it was my sole and sufficient

happiness. No price should have purchased it of
me, but it has fallen from my bosom, where I wore
it, in my careless wanderings about the city."

After causing the stranger to describe the marks
of his lost jewel, the intelligencer opened a drawer
of the o.iken cabinet which has been mentioned as
forming a part of the furniture of the room. Here
were deposited whatever articles had been picked
up in the streets, until the right owners should claim
them. It was a strange and heterogeneous collec-
tion. Not the least remarkable part of it was a
great number of wedding-rings, each one of which
had been riveted upon the ringer with holy vows
and all the mystic potency that the most solemn
rites could attain, but had, nevertheless, proved too
slippery for the wearer's vigilance. The gold of
some was worn thin, betokening the attrition of
years of wedlock ; others, glittering from the jewel-
er's shop, must have been lost within the honey-
moon. There were ivory tablets, the leaves scrib-
bled over with sentiments that had been the deepest
truths of the writer's earlier years, but which were
now quite obliterated from his memory. So scru-
pulously were articles preserved in this depository
that not even withered flowers were rejected ; white
roses and blush-roses and moss-roses — fit emblems
of virgin purity and shamefacedness — which had
been lost or flung away and trampled into the pollu-
tion of the streets — locks of hair the golden and the
glossy dark, the long tresses of woman and the crisp
curls of man, signified that lovers were now and then
so heedless of the faith entrusted to them as to drop
its symbol from the treasure-place of the bosom.
Many of these things were imbued with perfumes,
and perhaps a sweet scent had departed from the

368 flfcosees from an ©ID fl&anse.

lives of their former possessors ever since they had
so willfully or negligently lost them. Here were
gold pencil-cases, little ruby hearts with golden
arrows through them, bosom-pins, pieces of coin, and
small articles of every description, comprising nearly
all that have been lost since a long while ago.
Most of them, doubtless, had a history and a mean-
ing, if there were time to search it out and room to
tell it. Whoever has missed anything valuable,
whether out of his heart, mind or pocket, would do
well to make inquiry at the Central Intelligence-
Office.

And in the corner of one of the drawers of the
oaken cabinet, after considerable research was found
a great pearl looking like the soul of celestial purity
congealed and polished.

" There is my jewel — my very pearl ! " cried the
stranger, almost beside himself with rapture. " It is
mine 1 Give it me this moment, or I shall perish ! "

" I perceive," said the man of intelligence, ex-
amining it more closely, " that this is the pearl of
great price."

" The very same," answered the stranger.
" Judge, then, of my misery at losing it out of my
bosom ! Restore it to me ! I must not live with-
out it an instant longer ! "

"Pardon me," rejoined the intelligencer, calmly;
" you ask what is beyond my duty. This pearl, as
you well know, is held upon a peculiar tenure, and,
having once let it escape from your keeping, you
have no greater claim to it — nay, not so great — as
any other person. I cannot give it back."

Nor could the entreaties of the miserable man—
who saw before his eyes the jewel of his life, without
the power to reclaim it — soften the heart of this

C'oc 1ntelU0ence*©fJSce. 369

stern being impassive to human sympathy, though
exercising such an apparent influence over human
fortunes. Finally the loser of the inestimable pearl
clutched his hands among his hair and ran madly
forth into the world, which was affrighted at his
desperate looks.

There passed him on the doorstep a fashionable
young gentleman whose business was to inquire foi
a damask rosebud, the gift of his lady-love, which
he had lost out of his button-hole within an hour
after receiving it. So various were the errands of
those who visited this central office where all human
wishes seemed to be made known, and, so far
as destiny would allow, negotiated to their fulfill-
ment.

The next that entered was a man beyond the
middle age bearing the look of one who knew the
world and his own course in it. He had just alighted
from a handsome private carriage, which had orders
to wait in the street while its owner transacted his
business. This person came up to the desk with a
quick, determined step, and looked the intelligencer
in the face with a resolute eye, though, at the same
time, some secret trouble gleamed from it in red
and dusky light.

" I have an estate to dispose of," said he, with a
brevity that seemed characteristic.

" Describe it," said the intelligencer.

The applicant proceeded to give the boundaries
of his property, its nature, comprising tillage, pasture,
woodland and pleasure-grounds in ample circuit, to-
gether with a mansion-house in the construction of
which it had been his object to realize a castle in the
air, hardening its shadowy walls into granite and
rendering its visionary splendor perceptible to the

37°

Mosses trom an ©to Manse.

awakened eye. Judging from his description, it
was beautiful enough to vanish like a dream, yet
substantial enough to endure for centuries. He
spoke, too, of the gorgeous furniture, the refinements
oi upholstery, and all the luxurious artifices that
combined to render this a residence where life
might flow onward in a stream of golden days un-
disturbed by the ruggedness which fate loves to
fling into it.

" I am a man of strong will," said he, in conclu-
sion, " and at my first setting out in life as a poor
unfriended youth I resolved to make myself the
possessor of such a mansion and estate as this,
together with the abundant revenue necessary to
uphold it. I have succeeded to the extent of my
utmost wish, and this is the estate which I have
now concluded to dispose of."

" And your terms ? " asked the intelligencer, after
taking down the particulars with which the stranger
had supplied him.

" Easy — abundantly easy," answered the success-
ful man, smiling, but with astern and almost fright-
ful contraction of the brow, as if to quell an inward
pang. " I have been engaged in various sorts of
business — a distiller, a trader to Africa, an East
India merchant, a speculator in the stocks — and in
the course of these affairs have contracted an in-
cumbrance of a certain nature. The purchaser of
the estate shall merely be required to assume this
burden to himself."

" I understand you," said the man of intelligence,
putting his pen behind his ear. " I fear that no
bargain can be negotiated on these conditions.
Very probably the next possessor may acquire the
estate with a similar incumbrance, but it will be of

1fntelli0ence*©fRce. 371

his own contracting, and will not lighten your burden
in the least."

44 And am I to live on," fiercely exclaimed the
stranger, " with the dirt of these accursed acres and
the granite of this infernal mansion crushing down
my soul ? How if I should turn the edifice into an
almshouse or a hospital or tear it down and build a
church ? "

** You can at least make the experiment," said
the intelligencer, " but the whole matter is one
which you must settle for yourself."

The man of deplorable success withdrew and got
into his coach, which rattled off lightly over the
wooden pavements, though laden with the weight
of much land, a stately house and ponderous heaps
of gold, all compressed into an evil conscience.

There now appeared many applicants for places.
Among the most noteworthy of whom was a small,
smoke-dried figure who gave himself out to be one
of the bad spirits that had waited upon Doctor
Faustus in his laboratory. He pretended to show a
certificate of character, which, he averred, had been
given him by that famous necromancer, and coun-
tersigned by several masters whom he had subse-
quently served.

" I am afraid, my good friend," observed the
intelligencer, " that your chance of getting a service
is but poor. Nowadays men act the evil spirit for
themselves and for their neighbors, and play the
part more effectually than ninety-nine out of a
hundred of your fraternity."

But just as the poor fiend was assuming a vapor-
ous consistency, being about to vanish through the
floor in sad disappointment and chagrin, the editor
of a political newspaper chanced to enter the office

372

from an

in quest of a scribbler of party paragraphs. Tha
former servant of Doctor Faustus, with some mis-
givings as to his sufficiency of venom, was allowed
to try his hand in this capacity. Next appeared,
likewise seeking a service, the mysterious Man in
Red who had aided Bonaparte in his ascent to im-
perial power. He was examined as to his qualifica-
tions by an aspiring politician, but finally rejected
as lacking familiarity with the cunning tactics of the
present day.

People continued to succeed each other with as
much briskness as if everybody turned aside out of
the roar and tumult of the city to record here some
want or superfluity or desire. Some had goods or
possessions of which they wished to negotiate the
sale. A China merchant had lost his health by a
long residence in that wasting climate ; he very liber-
ally offered his disease, and his wealth along with it,
to any physician who would rid him of both together.
A soldier offered his wreath of laurels for as good a
leg as that which it had cost him on the battle-field.
One poor weary wretch desired nothing but to be
accommodated with any creditable method of laying
down his life, for misfortune and pecuniary troubles
had so subdued his spirits that he could no longer
conceive the possibility of happiness, nor had the
heart to try it. Nevertheless, happening to over-
hear some conversation in the intelligence-office
respecting wealth to be rapidly accumulated by a
certain mode of speculation, he resolved to live
out this one other experiment of better fortune
Many persons desired to exchange their youthful
vices for others better suited to the gravity of ad-
vancing age; a few, we are glad to say, made
earnest efforts to exchange vice for virtue, and.

Gbe lntelltaence*©fBce. 373

fiard as che bargain was, succeeded in effecting it.
But it was remarkable that what all were the least
willing to give up, even on the most advantageous
terms, were the habits, the oddities, the character-
istic traits, the little ridiculous indulgences some-
where between faults and follies, of which nobody
but themselves could understand the fascination.

The great folio in which the man of intelligence
recorded all these freaks of idle hearts and aspira-
tions of deep hearts and desperate longings of miser-
able hearts and evil prayers of perverted hearts
would be curious reading were it possible to obtain
it for publication. Human character in its individual
developments, human nature in the mass, may best
be studied in its wishes ; and this was the record of
them all. There was an endless diversity of mode
and circumstance, yet, withal, such a similarity in the
real ground-work that any one page of the volume,
whether written in the days before the Flood, or the
yesterday that is just gone by, or to be written on
the morrow that is close at hand or a thousand ages
hence, might serve as a specimen of the whole.
Not but that there were wild sallies of fantasy that
could scarcely occur to more than one man's brain,
whether reasonable or lunatic. The strangest wishes
— yet most incident to men who had gone deep into
scientific pursuits and attained a high intellectual
stage, though not the loftiest — were to contend with
Nature and wrest from her some secret or some
power which she had seen fit to withhold from
mortal grasp. She loves to delude her aspiring
students and mock them with mysteries that seem
but just beyond their utmost reach. To concoct
new minerals, to produce new forms of vegetable
life, to create an insect, if nothing higher in the

374

/Bosses from an

living scale, is a sort of wish that has often reveled
in the breast of a man of science. An astronomer
who lived far more among the distant worlds of
space than in this lower sphere recorded a wish to be-
hold the opposite side of the moon, which, unless the
system of the firmament be reversed, she can never
turn toward the earth. On the same page of the
volume was written the wish of a little child to have
the stars for playthings.

The most ordinary wish that was written down
with wearisome recurrence was, of course, for wealth,
wealth, wealth, in sums from a few shillings up to
unreckonable thousands. But, in reality, this often-
repeated expression covered as many different de-
sires. Wealth is the golden essence of the outward
world, embodying almost everything that exists be-
yond the limits of the soul, and therefore it is the
natural yearning for the life in the midst of which
we find ourselves, and of which gold is the condition
of enjoyment, that men abridge into this general wish.
Here and there, it is true, the volume testified to
some heart so perverted as to desire gold for its own
sake. Many wished for power — a strange desire
indeed, since it is but another form of slavery.
Old people wished for the delights of youth; a fop,
for a fashionable coat ; an idle reader, for" a new
novel ; a versifier, for a rhyme to some stubborn
word; a painter, for Titian's secret of coloring; a
prince, for a cottage ; a republican, foi a kingdom
and a palace ; a libertine, for his neighbor's wife ; a
man of palate, for green peas ; and a poor man, for
a crust of bread. The ambitious desires of public
men, elsewhere so craftily concealed, were here ex-
pressed openly and boldly side by side with the
unselfish wishes of the philanthropist for the welfare

Cbe 1ntelU0ence*©flBce. 375

of the race, so beautiful, so comforting, in contrast
with the egotism that continually weighed self against
the world. Into the darker secrets of the book of
wishes we will not penetrate.

It would be an instructive employment for a stu-
dent of mankind, perusing this volume carefully and
comparing its records with men's perfected designs
as expressed in their deeds and daily life, to ascer-
tain how far the one accorded with the other. Un-
doubtedly, in most cases, the correspondence would
be found remote. The holy and generous wish that
rises like incense from a pure heart toward heaven
often lavishes its sweet perfume on the blast of evil
times. The foul, selfish, murderous wish that steams
forth from a corrupted heart often passes into the
spiritual atmosphere without being concreted into
an earthly deed. Yet this volume is probably truer,
as a representation of the human heart, than is the
living drama of action as it evolves around us.
There is more of good and more of evil in it, more
redeeming points of the bad and more errors of the
virtuous, higher upsoarings and baser degradation
of the soul — in short, a more perplexing amalgama-
tion of vice and virtue — than we witness in the out-
ward world. Decency and external conscience often
produce a far fairer outside than is warranted by the
stains within. And be it owned, on the other hand,
that a man seldom repeats to his nearest iriend, any
more than he realizes in act, the purest wishes which
at some blessed time or other have arisen from the
depths of his nature and witnessed for him in this
volume. Yet there is enough on every leaf to make
the good man shudder for his own wild and idle
wishes, as well as for the sinner whose whole life is
the incarnation of a wicked desire-

37» /Bosses from au Old /fcanse.

But again the door is opened and we hear the
tumultuous stir of the world— a deep and awful
sound expressing in another form some portion of
what is written in the volume that lies before the
man of intelligence. A grandfatherly personage tot-
tered hastily into the office with such an earnestness
in his infirm alacrity that his white hair floated back
ward as he hurried up to the desk, while his dim
eyes caught a momentary luster from his vehemence
of purpose. This venerable figure explained that he
was in search of to-morrow.

" I have spent all my life in pursuit of it," added
the sage old gentleman, " being assured that to-
morrow has some vast benefit or other in store
for me. But I am now getting a little in years
and must make haste, for, unless I overtake to-
morrow soon, I begin to be afraid it will finally es*
cape me."

" This fugitive to-morrow, my venerable friend,"
said the man of intelligence, "is a stray child of
Time, and is flying from his father into the region
of the infinite. Continue your pursuit, and you will
doubtless come up with him ; but, as to the earthly
gifts which you expect, he has scattered them all
among a throng of yesterdays."

Obliged to content himself with this enigmatical
response, the grandsire hastened forth with a quick
clatter of his staff upon the floor, and as he disap-
peared a little boy scampered through the door in
chase of a butterfly which had got astray amid the
barren sunshine of the city. Had the old gentleman
been shrewder, he might have detected to-morrow
under the semblance of that gaudy insect. The
golden butterfly glistened through the shadowy
apartment and brushed its wings against the book

Cbe f ntclU0cnce*©tHce. 377

of wishes, and fluttered forth again with the child
still in pursuit.

A man now entered in neglected attire, with the
aspect of a thinker, but somewhat too rough-hewn
and brawny for a scholar. His face was full of
sturdy vigor, with some finer and keener attribute
beneath ; though harsh at first, it was tempered with
the glow of a large, warm heart which had force
enough to heat his powerful intellect through and
through. He advanced to the intelligencer and
looked at him with a glance of such stern sincerity
that perhaps few secrets were beyond its scope.

" I seek for Truth," said he.

" It is precisely the most rare pursuit that has
ever come under my cognizance," replied the intel-
ligencer as he made the new inscription in his
volume. " Most men seek to impose some cunning
falsehood upon themselves for truth. But I can
lend no help to your researches ; you must achieve
the miracle for yourself. At some fortunate moment
you may find Truth at your side, or perhaps she
may be mistily discerned far in advance, of possibly
behind you."

" Not behind me," said the seeker, " for I have
left nothing on my track without a thorough invest-
igation. She flits before me, passing now through a
naked solitude, and now mingling with the throng of
a popular assembly, and now writing with the pen
of a French philosopher, and now standing at the
altar of an old cathedral in the guise of a Catholic
priest performing the high mass. Oh, weary search !
But I must not falter, and surely my heart-deep
quest of Truth shall avail at last."

He paused and fixed his eyes upon the intelli-
gencer with a depth of investigation that seemed to

378 d&ogses trom an ©U> /Ranee.

hold co.nmerce with the inner nature of this being,
wholly regardless of his external development.

"And what are you? "said he. "It will not
satisfy me to point to this fantastic show of an
intelligence-office and this mockery of business.
Tell me what is beneath it, and what your real
agency in life and your influence upon mankind ? "

" Yours is a mind," answered the man of intelli-
gence, " before which the forms and fantasies that
conceal the inner idea from the multitude vanish at
once and leave the naked reality beneath. Know,
then, the secret. My agency in worldly action — rny
connection with the press and tumult and intermin-
gling and development of human affairs — is merely
delusive. The desire of man's heart does for him
whatever I seem to do. I am no minister of action,
but the Recording Spirit."

What further secrets were then spoken remains a
mystery, inasmuch as the roar of the city, the bustle
of human business, the outcry of the jostling
masses, the rush and tumult of man's life in its
noisy and brief career, arose so high that it drowned
the words of these two talkers. And whether they
stood talking in the moon or in Vanity Fair or in a
city of this actual world is more than I can say.

ROGER MALVIN'S BURIAL.

ONE of the few incidents of Indian warfare nat-
urally susceptible of the moonlight of romance was
that expedition undertaken for the defense of the
frontiers in the year 1725 which resulted in the well-
remembered " Lovell's Fight." Imagination, by
casting certain circumstances judiciously into the
shade, may see much to admire in the heroism of a
little band who gave battle to twice their number in
the heart of the enemy's country. The open bravery
displayed by both parties was in accordance with
civilized ideas of valor, and chivalry itself might not
blush to record the deeds of one or two individuals.
The battle, though so fatal to those who fought, was
not unfortunate in its consequences to the country,
for it broke the strength of a tribe and conduced to
the peace which subsisted during several ensuing
years. History and tradition are unusually minute
in their memorials of this affair, and the captain of
a scouting-party of frontiermen has acquired as
actual a military renown as many a victorious leader
of thousands. Some of the incidents contained in
the following pages will be recognized, notwith-
standing the substitution of fictitious names, by such
as have heard from old men's lips the fate of the
few combatants who were in a condition to retreat
after " Lovell's Fight."

379

380 /Bosses from an Olo /fcansc.

The early sunbeams hovered cheerfully upon the
treetops beneath which two weary and wounded men
had stretched their limbs the night before. Their
bed of withered oak-leaves was strewn upon the
small level space at the foot of a rock situated near
the summit of one of the gentle swells by which the
face of the country is there diversified. The mass
of granite rearing its smooth, flat surface fifteen or
twenty feet above their heads was not unlike a gi-
gantic gravestone, upon which the veins seemed to
form an inscription in forgotten characters. On a
tract of several acres around this rock oaks and
other hardwood trees had supplied the place of the
pines which were the usual growth of the land, and
a young and vigorous sapling stood close beside the
travelers.

The severe wound of the elder man had probably
deprived him of sleep, for so soon as the first ray of
sunshine rested on the top of the highest tree he
reared himself painfully from his recumbent posture
and sat erect. The deep lines of his countenance
and the scattered gray of his hair marked him
as past the middle age, but his muscular frame
would, but for the effects of his wound, have
been as capable of sustaining fatigue as in the
early vigor of life. Languor and exhaustion now
sat upon his haggard features, and the despairing
glance which he sent forward through the depths of
the forest proved his own conviction that his pil-
grimage was at an end He next turned his eyes to
the companion who reclined by his side. The youth
— for he had scarcely attained the years of manhood
— lay with his head upon his arm in the embrace of
an unquiet sleep which a thrill of pain from his
wounds seemed each moment on the point of break-

fl&alvtrTs JBurtal. 381

ing. His right hand grasped a musket, and, to
judge from the violent action of his features, his
slumbers were bringing back a vision of the conflict
^t which he was one of the few survivors. A shout
— deep and loud in his dreaming fancy — found its
way in an imperfect murmur to his lips, and, start-
ing even at the slight sound of his own voice, he
suddenly awoke. The first act of reviving recol-
lection was to make anxious inquiries respecting
the condition of his wounded fellow-traveler.

The latter shook his head. " Reuben, my boy,"
said he, " this rock beneath which we sit will serve
for an old hunter's gravestone. There is many and
many a long mile of howling wilderness before us
yet ; nor would it avail me anything if the smoke of
my own chimney were but on the other side of that
swell of land. The Indian bullet was deadlier than
I thought."

" You are weary with our three days' travel,"
replied the youth, "and a little longer rest will re-
cruit you. Sit you here while I search the woods
for the herbs and roots that must be our sustenance,
and, having eaten, you shall lean on me, and we will
turn our faces homeward. I doubt not that with
my help you can attain to some one of the frontier
garrisons."

" There is not two days' life in me, Reuben," said
the other, calmly, " and I will no longer burden you
with my useless body, when you can scarcely sup-
port your own. Your wounds are deep and your
strength is failing fast ; yet if you hasten onward
alone, you may be preserved. For me there is no
hope, and I will await death here."

" If it must be so, I will remain and watch by
you," said Reuben, resolutely.
25

382 /Bosses trom an ©ID flbanse.

" No, my son — no," rejoined his companion. *' Let
the wish of a dying man have weight with you ; give
me one grasp of your hand, and get you hence.
Think you that my last moments will be eased by
the thought that I leave you to die a more lingering
death ? I have loved you like a father, Reuben,
and at a time like this I should have something of
a father's authority. I charge you to be gone, that
I may die in peace."

"And because you have been a father to me,
should I therefore leave you to perish and to lie
unburied in the wilderness ? " exclaimed the youth.
"No ! If your end be, in truth, approaching/ 1 will
Watch by you and receive your parting words. I
will dig a grave here by the rock, in which, if my
Weakness overcome me, we will rest together ; or
If Heaven gives me strength, I will seek my way
home."

" In the cities and wherever men dwell,'' replied
the other, " they bury their dead in the earth ; they
hide them from the sight of the living; but here
where no step may pass perhaps for a hundred
years, wherefore should I not rest beneath the open
sky, covered only by the oak-leaves when the autumn
winds shall strew them ? And for a monument here
is this gray rock, on which my dying-hand shall
carve the name of Roger Malvin, and the traveler
in days to come will know that here sleeps a huntei
and a warrior. Tarry not, then, for a folly like this,
but hasten away — if not for your own sake, for hers
who will else be desolate."

Malvin spoke the last few words in a faltering
voice, and their effect upon his companion was
strongly visible. They reminded him that there
were other and less questionable duties than that of

jflfcalvtn's Burial. 383

slv.iring the fate of a man whom his death could not
benefit. Nor can it be affirmed that no selfish feel-
ing strove to enter Reuben's heart, though the con-
sciousness made him more earnestly resist his com-
panion's entreaties.

" How terrible to wait the slow approach of death
in this solitude ! " exclaimed he. " A brave man
does not shrink in the battle, and when friends
stand round the bed even women may die compos-
edly ; but here "

" I shall not shrink even here, Reuben Bourne,"
interrupted Malvin. " I am a man of no weak heart ;
and if I were, there is a surer support than that of
earthly friends. You are young, and life is dear to
you. Your last moments will need comfort far more
than mine ; and when you have laid me in the earth
and are alone and night is settling on the forest,
you will feel all the bitterness of the death that may
now be escaped. But I will urge no selfish motive
to your generous nature. Leave me for my sake,
that, having said a prayer for your safety, I may
have space to settle my account undisturbed by
worldly sorrows."

" And your daughter ! How shall I dare to meet
her eye ? " exclaimed Reuben. " She will ask the
fate of her father, whose life I vowed to defend with
my own. Must I tell her that he traveled three
days' march with me from the field of battle and that
then I left him to perish in the wilderness ? Were
it not better to lie down and die by your side than
to return safe and say this to Dorcas ? "

" Tell my daughter," said Roger Malvin, " that,
though yourself sore wounded and weak and weary,
you led my tottering footsteps many a mile and left
me only at my earnest entreaty because I would not

384 flfcosses from an ©ID flfcanse.

have your blood upon my soul. Tell her that through
pain and danger you were faithful, and that if your
life-blood could have saved me it would have flowed
to its last drop. And tell her that you will be some-
thing dearer than a father, and that my blessing is
with you both, and that my dying eyes can see a
long and pleasant path in which you will journey
together."

As Marvin spoke he almost raised himself from
the ground, and the energy of his concluding words
seemed to fill the wild and lonely forest with a vision
of happiness. But when he sank exhausted upon
his bed of oak-leaves, the light which had kindled
in Reuben's eye was quenched. He felt as if it
were both sin and folly to think of happiness at such
a moment. His companion watched his changing
countenance, and sought with generous art to wile
him to his own good.

" Perhaps I deceive myself in regard to the time
I have to live," he resumed. " It may be that with
speedy assistance I might recover of my wound.
The former fugitives must ere this have carried
tidings of our fatal battle to the frontiers, and parties
will be out to succor those in like condition with
ourselves. Should you meet one of these and guide
them hither, who can tell but that I may sit by my
own fireside again ? "

A mournful smile strayed across the features of
the dying mar as he insinuated that unfounded hope
— which, however, was not without its effect on
Reuben. No merely selfish motive, nor even the
desolate condition of Dorcas, could have induced
him to desert his companion at such a moment
But his wishes seized upon the thought that Malvin's
life might be preserved, and his sanguine nature

Aalvtn's DBurtat. 385

heightened almost to certainty the remote possibility
of procuring human aid.

" Surely there is reason — weighty reason — to hope
that friends are not far distant," he said, half aloud,
" There fled one coward unwounded in the beginning
of the fight and most probably he made good speed.
Every true man on the frontier would shoulder his
musket at the news, and, though no party may range
so far into the woods as this, I shall perhaps encoun-
ter them in one day's march. Counsel me faith-
fully." he added, turning to Malvin in distrust of his
own motives. " Were your situation mine, would
you desert me while life remained ? "

" It is now twenty years," replied Roger Malvin,
sighing, however, as he secretly acknowledged the
•wide dissimilarity between the two cases — " it is now
twenty years since I escaped with one dear friend
from Indian captivity near Montreal. We journeyed
many days through the woods, till at length, over-
come with hunger and weariness, my friend lay down
and besought me to leave him ; for he knew that if
I remained we both must perish. And, with but
little hope of obtaining succor, 1 heaped a pillow of
dry leaves beneath his head and hastened on."

" And did you return in time to save him ? '' asked
Reuben, hanging on Malvin's words as if they were
to be prophetic of his own success.

'• I did," answered the other. " I came upon the
camp of a hunting-party before sunset of the same
day ; I guided them to the spot where my comrade
was expecting death, and he is now a hale and hearty
man upon his own farm, far within the frontiers,
while I lie wounded here in the depths of the wil-
derness."

This example, powerful in effecting Reuben's

386 dfcoeses rrom an OlD flfcansc.

decision, was aided, unconsciously to himself, by the
hidden strength of many another motive.

Roger Malvin perceived that the victory was
nearly won.

" Now go, my son, and Heaven prosper you ! '' he
said. " Turn not back with your friends when you
meet them, lest your wounds and weariness over-
come you, but send hitherward two or three that
may be spared to search for me. And believe me,
Reuben, my heart will be lighter with every step
you take toward home." Yet there was perhaps a
change both in his countenance and voice as he
spoke thus ; for, after all, it was a ghastly fate to be
1 jft expiring in the wilderness.

Reuben Bourne, but half convinced that he was
acting rightly, at length raised himself from the
ground and prepared for his departure. And first,
though contrary to Malvin's wishes, he collected a
stock of roots and herbs, which had been their only
food during the last two days. This useless supply
he placed within reach of the dying man, for whom,
also, he swept together a fresh bed of dry oak-leaves.
Then, climbing to the summit of the rock, which on
one side was rough and broken, he bent the oak
sapling downward and bound his handkerchief to
the topmost branch. This precaution was not un-
necessary to direct any who might come in search
of Malvin, for every part of the rock except its
broad, smooth front was concealed at a little dis-
tance by the dense undergrowth of the forest. The
handkerchief had been the bandage of a wound upon
Reuben's arm, and as he bound it to the tree he
vowed by the blood that stained it that he would
return either to save his companion's life or to lay
his body in the grave. He then descended, and

"Roger /fcaivln'3 JSurial. 387

stood with downcast eyes to receive Roger Malvin's
parting words.

The experience of the latter suggested much and
minute advice respecting the youth's journey through
the trackless forest. Upon this subject he spoke
with calm earnestness, as if he were sending Reu-
ben to the battle or the chase, while he himself re-
mained secure at home, and not as if the human
countenance that was about to leave him were the
last he would ever behold. But his firmness was
shaken before he concluded.

" Carry my blessing to Dorcas, and say that my
last prayer shall be for her and you. Bid her to
have no hard thoughts because you left me here " —
Reuben's heart smote him — "for that your life
would not have weighed with you if its sacrifice
could have done me good. She will marry you
after she has mourned a little while for her father,
and Heaven grant you long and happy days, and
may your children's children stand round your
death-bed ! And, Reuben," added he as the weak-
ness of mortality made its way at last, " return when
your wounds are healed and your weariness re-
freshed— return to this wild rock and lay my bones
in the grave and say a prayer over them."

An almost superstitious regard — arising, perhaps,
from the customs of the Indians, whose war was
with the dead, as well as the living — was paid by
the frontier inhabitants to the rites of sepulture ;
and there are many instances of the sacrifice of life
in the attempt to bury those who had fallen by the
"sword of the wilderness." Reuben, therefore, felt
the full importance of the promise which he most
solemnly made to return and perform Roger Mal-
vin's obsequies. It was remarkable that the lattery

38* dfcosses from an CIS /fcanse.

speaking his whole heart in his parting words, no
longer endeavored to persuade the youth that even
the speediest succor might avail to the preservation
of his life. Reuben was internally convinced that
he should see Malvin's living face no more. His
generous nature would fain have delayed him, at
whatever risk, till the dying scene were past, but the
desire of existence and the hope of happiness had
strengthened in his heart, and he was unable to
resist them.

" It is enough," said Roger Malvin, having listened
to Reuben's promise. " Go, and God speed you ! "

The youth pressed his hand in silence, turned, and
was departing. His slow and faltering steps, how-
ever, had borne him but a little way, before Malvin's
voice recalled him.

" Reuben, Reuben 1 " said he, faintly ; and Reuben
returned and knelt down by the dying man.

" Raise me and let me lean against the rock," was
his last request. " My face will be turned toward
home, and I shall see you a moment longer as you
pass among the trees."

Reuben, having made the desired alteration in his
companion's posture, again began his solitary pil-
grimage. He walked more hastily at first than was
consistent with his strength ; for a sort of guilty feel-
ing which sometimes torments men in their most
justifiable acts caused him to seek concealment from
Malvin's eyes. But after he had trodden far upon
the rustling forest-leaves he crept back, impelled by
a wild and painful curiosity, and, sheltered by the
earthy roots of an uptorn tree, gazed earnestly at the
desolate man. The morning sun was unclouded, and
the trees and shrubs imbibed the sweet air of the
month of May ; yet there seemed a gloom on Nature's

"Roger fl&alvtn's JBurtai. 389

face, as if she sympathized with mortal pain and
sorrow. Roger Malvin's hands were uplifted in a
fervent prayer, some of the words of which stole
through the stillness of the woods and entered Reu-
ben's heart, torturing it with an unutterable pang.
They were the broken accents of a petition for his
own happiness and that of Dorcas ; and, as the youth
listened, conscience, something in its similitude,
pleaded strongly with him to return and lie down
again by the rock. He felt how hard was the doom
of the kind and generous being whom he had de-
serted in his extremity. Death would come like the
slow approach of a corpse, stealing gradually to-
ward him through the forest and showing its ghastly
and motionless features from behind a nearer, and
yet a nearer, tree. But such must have been Reu-
ben's own fate had he tarried another sunset ; and
who shall impute blame to him if he shrink from so
useless a sacrifice ? As he gave a parting look a
breeze waved the little banner upon the sapling oak
and reminded Reuben of his vow.

Many circumstances contributed to retard the
wounded traveler in his way to the frontiers. On
the second day the clouds, gathering densely over
the sky, precluded the possibility of regulating his
course by the position of the sun, and he knew not
but that every effort of his almost exhausted strength
was removing him farther from the home he sought.
His scanty sustenance was supplied by the berries
and other spontaneous products of the forest. Herds
of deer, it is true, sometimes bounded past him, and
partridges frequently whirred up before his footsteps,
but his ammunition had been expended in the fight,
and he had no means of slaying them. His wounds,

390 dfcosses from an ©l£> flfcanee.

irritated by the constant exertion in which lay the
only hope of life, wore away his strength, and at in-
tervals confused his reason. But even in the wander-
ings of intellect Reuben's young heart clung strongly
to existence, and it was only through absolute inca-
pacity of motion that he at last sank down beneath
a tree, compelled there to await death.

In this situation he was discovered by a party who
upon the first intelligence of the fight had been dis-
patched to the relief of the survivors. They conveyed
him to the nearest settlement, which chanced to be
that of his own residence.

Dorcas, in the simplicity of the olden time, watched
by the bedside of her wounded lover, and adminis-
tered all those comforts that are in the sole gift of
woman's heart and hand. During several days Reu-
ben's recollection strayed drowsily among the perils
and hardships through which he had passed, and
he was incapable of returning definite answers to
the inquiries with which many were eager to harass
him. No authentic particulars of the battle had
yet been circulated, nor could mothers, wives and
children tell whether their loved ones were detained
by captivity or by the stronger chain of death.

Dorcas nourished her apprehensions in silence till
one afternoon when Reuben awoke from an unquiet
sleep and seemed to recognize her more perfectly
than at any previous time. She saw that his intel-
lect had become composed, and she could no longer
restrain her filial anxiety.

*' My father, Reuben ? " she began ; but the
change in her lover's countenance made her
pause.

The youth shrank as if with a bitter pain, and the
blood gushed vividly into his wan and hollow cheeks.

/fcalvin'0 JBunal.

39!

His first impulse was to cover his face, but, appar-
ently with a desperate effort, he half raised himself,
and spoke vehemently, defending himself against an
imaginary accusation.

" Your father was sore wounded in the battle, Dor-
cas. and he bade me not burden myself with him,
but only to lead him to the lakeside, that he might
quench his thirst and die. But I would not desert
the old man in his extremity, and, though bleeding
myself, I supported him ; I gave him half my
strength and led him away with me. For three
days we journeyed on together, and your father was
sustained beyond my hopes, but, awaking at sunrise
on the fourth day, I found him faint and exhausted.
He was urfable to proceed ; his life had ebbed away
fast, and - "

*' He died ! " exclaimed Dorcas, faintly.

Reuben felt it impossible to acknowledge that his
selfish love of life had hurried him away before her
father's fate was decided. He spoke not, he only
bowed his head, and between shame and exhaustion
sank back and hid his face in the pillow. Dorcas
wept, when her fears were thus confirmed ; but the
shock, as it had been long anticipated, was on that
account the less violent.

" You dug a grave for my poor father in the wilder-
ness, Reuben ? " was the question by which her
filial piety manifested itself.

" My hands were weak, but I did what I could,"
replied the youth, in a smothered tone. "There
stands a noble tombstone above his head, and I
would to Heaven I slept as soundly as he ! "

Dorcas, perceiving the wildness of his latter words,
inquired no further at that time, but her heart found
ease in the thought that Roger Malvin had not

.392

from an ©ID flfcanse.

lacked such funeral rites as it was possible to bestow.
The tale of Reuben's courage and fidelity lost noth-
ing when she communicated it to her friends, and
the poor youth, tottering from his sick-chamber to
breathe the sunny air, experienced from every tongue
the miserable and humiliating torture of unmerited
praise. All acknowledged that he might worthily
demand the hand of the fair maiden to whose father
he had been " faithful unto death ; " and, as my
tale is not of love, it shall suffice to say that in the
space of two years Reuben became the husband
of Dorcas Malvin. During the marriage ceremony
the bride was covered with blushes, but the bride-
groom's face was pale.

There was now in the breast of Reuben Bourne
an incommunicable thought — something which he
was to conceal most needfully from her whom he
most loved and trusted. He regretted deeply and
bitterly the moral cowardice that had restrained his
words when he was about to disclose the truth to
Dorcas ; but pride, the fear of losing her affection,
the dread of universal scorn, forbade him to rectify
this falsehood. He felt that for leaving Roger
Malvin he deserved no censure. His presence, the
gratuitous sacrifice of his own life, would have added
only another — and a needless — agony to the last
moments of the dying man. But concealment had
imparted to a justifiable act much of the secret effect
of guilt, and Reuben, while reason told him that he
had done right, experienced in no small degree the
mental horrors which punish the perpetrator of un-
discovered crime. By a certain association of ideas,
he at times almost imagined himself a murderer.
For years, also, a thought would occasionally recur
which, though he perceived all its folly and extrav-

flfcalvin's JSurial.

393

agance, he had not power to banish from his mind;
it was a haunting and torturing fancy that his father-
in-law was yet sitting at the foot of the rock, on
the withered forest-leaves, alive, and awaiting his
pledged assistance. These mental deceptions, how-
ever, came and went, nor did he ever mistake them
for realities ; but in the calmest and clearest moods
of his mind he was conscious that he had a deep
/ow unredeemed, and that an unburied corpse was
calling to him out of the wilderness. Yet such was
the consequence of his prevarication that he could
not obey the call. It was now too late to require the
assistance of Roger Malvin's friends in performing
his long-deferred sepulture, and superstitious fears
— of which none were more susceptible than the
people of the outward settlements — forbade Reuben
to go alone. Neither did he know where in the
pathless and illimitable forest to seek that smooth
and lettered rock at the base of which the body lay ;
his remembrance of every portion of his travel thence
was indistinct, and the latter part had left no im-
pression upon his mind. There was, however, a
continual impulse — a voice audible only to himself —
commanding him to go forth and redeem his vow,
and he had a strange impression that, were he to
make the trial, he would be led straight to Malvin's
bones. But year after year that summons, unheard
but felt, was disobeyed. His one secret thought
became like a chain binding down his spirit and like
a serpent gnawing into his heart, and he was trans-
formed into a sad and downcast yet irritable man.

In the course of a few years after their marriage
changes began to be visible in the external prosperity
of Reuben and Dorcas. The only riches of the
former had been his stout heart and strong arm, but

394

dfcosses from an ©to

the latter, her father's sole heiress, had made her
husband master of a farm, under older cultivation,
larger and better stocked than most of the frontier
establishments. Reuben Bourne, however, was a
neglectful husbandman, and, while the lands of the
other settlers became annually more fruitful, his
deteriorated in the same proportion. The dis-
couragements to agriculture were greatly lessened
by the cessation of Indian war, during which men
held the plow in one hand and the musket in the
other, and were fortunate if the products of their
dangerous labor were not destroyed either in the
field or in the barn by the savage enemy. But
Reuben did not profit by the altered condition of
the country ; nor can it be denied that his intervals of
industrious attention to his affairs were but scantily
rewarded with success. The irritability by which
he had recently become distinguished was another
cause of his declining prosperity, as it occasioned
frequent quarrels in his unavoidable intercourse with
the neighboring settlers. The results of these were
innumerable lawsuits, for the people of New Eng-
land, in the earliest stages and wildest circumstances
of the country, adopted, whenever attainable, the
legal mode of deciding their differences. To be
brief, the world did not go well with Reuben Bourne,
and, though not till many years after his marriage,
he was finally a ruined man, with but one remain-
ing expedient against the evil fate that had pursued
him. He was to throw sunlight into some deep
recess of the forest and seek subsistence from the
virgin bosom of the wilderness.

The only child of Reuben and Dorcas was a son,
now arrived at the age of fifteen years, beautiful in
youth and giving promise of a glorious manhood.

•Roger dfcalvfn's JBurial. 395

He was peculiarly qualified for, and already began
to excel in, the wild accomplishments of frontier life.
His foot was fleet, his aim true, his apprehension
quick, his heart glad and high, and all who an-
ticipated the return of Indian war spoke of Cyrus
Bourne as a future leader in the land. The boy was
loved by his father with a deep and silent strength,
as if whatever was good and happy in his own nature
had been transferred to his child, carrying his affec-
tions with it. Even Dorcas, though loving and
beloved, was far less dear to him, for Reuben's secret
thoughts and insulated emotions had gradually made
him a selfish man, and he could no longer love
deeply except where he saw or imagined some re-
flection or likeness of his own mind. In Cyrus he
recognized what he had himself been in other days,
and at intervals he seemed to partake of the boy's
spirit and to be revived with a fresh and happy life.
Reuben was accompanied by his son in the expedi-
tion for the purpose of selecting a tract of land and
felling and burning the timber, which necessarily
preceded the removal of the household goods. Two
months of autumn were thus occupied ; after which,
Reuben Bourne and his young hunter returned, to
spend their last winter in the settlements.

It was early in the month of May that the little
family snapped asunder whatever tendrils of afteo
tions had clung to inanimate objects and bade fare-
well to the few who in the blight of fortune called
themselves their friends. The sadness of the part-
ing moment had to each of the pilgrims its peculiar
alleviations. Reuben — a moody man, and misan-
thropic because unhappy — strode onward with his
usual stern brow and downcast eye, feeling few

396 flfcoases from an ©ID

regrets and disdaining to acknowledge any. Dorcas,
while she wept abundantly over the broken ties by
which her simple and affectionate nature had bound
itself to everything, felt that the inhabitants of her
inmost heart moved on with her, and that all else
Would be supplied wherever she might go. And
the boy dashed one teardrop from his eye and
thought of the adventurous pleasures of the un-
trodden forest. Oh, who, in the enthusiasm of a
day-dream, has not wished that he were a wanderer
in a world of summer wilderness with one fair
and gentle being hanging lightly on his arm ? In
youth his free and exulting step would know no
barrier but the rolling ocean or the snow-topped
mountains ; calmer manhood would choose a home
where Nature had strewn a double wealth in the
Vale of some transparent stream ; and when hoary
age, after long, long years of that pure life, stole on
and found him there it would find him the father
of a race, the patriarch of a people, the founder of
a mighty nation yet to be. When death, like the
sweet sleep which we welcome after a day of hap-
piness, came over him, his far descendants would
mourn over the venerated dust. Enveloped by
tradition in mysterious attributes, the men of future
generations would call him godlike, and remote
posterity would see him standing, dimly glorious,
far up the valley of a hundred centuries.

The tangled and gloomy forest through which
the personages of my tale were wandering differed
widely from the dreamer's Land of Fantasie ; yet
there was something in their way of life that Nature
asserted as her own, and the gnawing cares which
went with them from the world were all that now
obstructed their happiness. One stout and shaggy

•Roger /fcalvin's JBurial. 397

steed — the bearer of all their wealth — did not shrink
from the added weight of Dorcas, although her
hardy breeding sustained her, during the larger part
of each day's journey, by her husband's side. Reu-
ben and his son, their muskets on their shoulders
and their axes slung behind them, kept an unwearied
pace, each watching with a hunter's eye for the
game that supplied their food. When hunger bade,
they halted and prepared their meal on the bank of
some unpolluted forest-brook which, as they knelt
down with thirsty lips to drink, murmured a sweet
unwillingness, like a maiden at love's first kiss.
They slept beneath a hut of branches, and awoke
at peep of light refreshed for the toils of another
day. Dorcas and the boy went on joyously, and
even Reuben's spirit shone at intervals with an out-
ward gladness ; but inwardly there was a cold, cold
sorrow which he compared to the snow-drifts lying
deep in the glens and hollows of the rivulets, while
the leaves were brightly green above.

Cyrus Bourne was sufficiently skilled in the travel
of the woods to observe that his father did not
adhere to the course they had pursued in their ex-
pedition of the preceding autumn. They were
now keeping farther to the north, striking out more
directly from the settlements and into a region of
which savage beasts and savage men were as yet
the sole possessors. The boy sometimes hinted his
opinions upon the subject, and Reuben listened
attentively, and once or twice altered the direction
of their inarch in accordance with his son's counsel.
But, having so done, he seemed ill at ease. His
quick and wandering glances were sent forward ap-
parently in search of enemies lurking behind the
tree-trunks, and, seeing nothing there, he would cast
26

3QS /fco00e0 from an ©ID dfcanse.

his eyes backward, as if in fear of some pursuer.
Cyrus, perceiving that his father gradually resumed
the old direction, forbore to interfere ; nor, though
something began to weigh upon his heart, did his
adventurous nature permit him to regret the in-
creased length and the mystery of their way.

On the afternoon of the fifth day they halted, and
made their simple encampment nearly an hour before
sunset. The face of the country for the last few
miles had been diversified by swells of land resem-
bling huge waves of a petrified sea, and in one of the
corresponding hollows — a wild and romantic spot —
had the family reared their hut and kindled their
fire. There is something chilling, and yet heart-
warming, in the thought of three united by strong
bands of love and insulated from all that breathe
besides. The dark and gloomy pines looked down
upon them, and as the wind swept through their tops
a pitying sound was heard in the forest ; or did those
old trees groan in fear that men were come to lay
the ax to their roots at last ? Reuben and his son,
while Dorcas made ready their meal, proposed to
wander out in search of game, of which that day's
march had afforded no supply. The boy, promising
not to quit the vicinity of the encampment, bounded
off with a step as light and elastic as that of the
deer he hoped to slay, while his father, feeling a
transient happiness as he f^azed after him, was
about to pursue an opposite direction. Dorcas, in
the mean while, had seated herself near their fire of
fallen branches, upon the moss-grown and molder-
ing trunk of a tree uprooted years before. Her
employment, diversified by an occasional, glance at
the pot now beginning to simmer over the blaze,
was the perusal of the current year's Massachusetts

/fcalvtn'0 3Burfal. 399

Almanac, which, with the exception of an old black-
letter Bible, comprised all the literary wealth of the
family. None pay a greater regard to arbitrary
divisions of time than those who are excluded from
society, and Dorcas mentioned, as if the information
were of importance, that it was now the twelfth of
May. Her husband started.

" The twelfth of May ! I should remember it well,'-'
muttered he, while many thoughts occasioned a
momentary confusion in his mind. " Where am I ?
Whither am I wandering ? Where did I leave
him ? "

Dorcas, too well accustomed to her husband's
wayward moods to note any peculiarity of demeanor,
now laid aside the almanac, and addressed him in
that mournful tone which the tender-hearted ap-
propriate to griefs long cold and dead.

" It was near this time of the month, eighteen
years ago, that my poor father left this world for a
better. He had a kind arm to hold his head and a
kind voice to cheer him, Reuben, in his last mo-
ments, and the thought of the faithful care you took
of him has comforted me many a time since. Oh,
death would have been awful to a solitary man in a
wild place like this ! "

" Pray Heaven, Dorcas," said Reuben, in a broken
voice — " pray Heaven that neither of us three dies
solitary and lies unburied in this howling wilder-
ness ! " and he hastened away, leaving her to watch
the fire, beneath the gloomy pines.

Reuben Bourne's rapid pace gradually slackened
as the pang unintentionally inflicted by the words
of Dorcas became less acute. Many strange
reflections, however, thronged upon him, and, stray-
ing onward rather like a sleep-walker than a hunter,

400 /Bosses trom an ©ID flfcanse.

it was attributable to no care of his own that his.
devious course kept him in the vicinity of the encamp-
.nent. His steps were imperceptibly led almost in
a circle, nor d;d he observe that he was on the verge
of a tract of land heavily timbered, but not with
pine trees. The place of the latter was here
supplied Dy oaks and other of the harder woods, and
around their roots clustered a dense and bushy un-
dergrowth, leaving, however, barren spaces between
the trees thick-strewn with withered leaves. When-
ever the Bustling of the branches or the creaking
of the trunks made a sound as if the forest were
waking from slumber, Reuben instinctively raised
the musket that rested on his arm, and cast a quick,
sharp glance on every side ; but, convinced by a
partial observation that no animal was near, he would
again give himself up to his thoughts. He was
musing on the strange influence that had led him
away from his premeditated course and so far into
the depths of the wilderness. Unable to penetrate
to the secret place of his soul where his motives lay
hidden, he believed that a supernatural voice had
called him onward, and that a supernatural power
had obstructed his retreat. He trusted that it was
Heaven's intent to afford him an opportunity of ex-
piating his sin ; he hoped that he might find the bones
so long unburied, and that, having laid the earth
over them, peace would throw its sunlight into the
sepulcher of his heart. From these thoughts he was
aroused by a rustling in the forest at some distance
from the spot to which he had wandered. Perceiv-
ing the motion of some object behind a thick veil
of undergrowth, he fired with the instinct of a hunter
and the aim of a practiced marksman. A low moan
which told his success, and by which even animals

flfcalvtrTs JSurial* 401

can express their dying agony, was unheeded by
Reuben Bourne. What were the recollections no\v
breaking upon him ?

The thicket into which Reuben had fired was
near the summit of a swell of land, and was clustered
around the base of a rock which in the shape and
smoothness of one of its surfaces was not unlike
a gigantic gravestone. As if reflected in a mirror,
its likeness was in Reuben's memory. He even
recognized the veins which seemed to form an
inscription in forgotten characters; everything re-
mained the same except that a thick covert of bushes
shrouded the lower part of the rock, and would have
hidden Roger Malvin had he still been sitting there.
Yet in the next moment Reuben's eye was caught
by another change that time had effected since he
last stood where he was now standing again — behind
the earthy roots of the uptorn tree. The sapling to
which he had bound the blood-stained symbol of his
vow had increased and strengthened into an oak —
far, indeed, from its maturity, but with no mean
spread of shadowy branches. There was one sin-
gularity observable in this tree which made Reuben
tremble. The middle and lower branches were in
luxuriant life and an excess of vegetation had fringed
the trunk almost to the ground, but a blight had
apparently stricken the upper part of the oak, and
the very topmost bough was withered, sapless and
utterly dead. Reuben remembered how the little
banner had fluttered on that topmost bough when
it was green and lovely, eighteen years before.
Whose guilt had blasted it ?

Dorcas, after the departure of the two hunters,,
continued her preparations for their evening repast.

402

/fooases from an ©10 /Ranee.

Her sylvan table was the moss-covered trunk of a
large fallen tree, on the broadest part of which she
had spread a snow-white cloth and arranged what
were left of the bright pewter vessels that had been
her pride in the settlements. It had a strange
aspect — that one little spot of homely comfort in the
desolate heart of Nature. The sunshine yet lingered
upon the higher branches of the trees that grew on
rising ground, but the shadows of evening had
deepened into the hollow where the encampment
was made, and the firelight began to redden as it
gleamed up the tall trunks of the pines or hovered
on the dense and obscure mass of foliage that
circled round the spot. The heart of Dorcas was
not sad, for she felt it was better to journey in the
wilderness with two whom she loved than to be a
lonely woman in a crowd that cared not for her. As
she busied herself in arranging seats of moldering
wood covered with leaves for Reuben and her son
her voice danced through the gloomy forest in the
measure of a song that she had learned in youth.
The rude melody — the production' of a bard who
won no name — was descriptive of a winter evening
in a frontier cottage, when, secured from savage
inroad by the high-piled snowdrifts, the family
rejoiced by their own fireside. The whole song
possessed that nameless charm peculiar to unbor-
rowed thought, but four continually recurring lines
shone out from the rest like the blaze of the hearth
whose joys they celebrated. Into them, working
magic with a few simple words, the poet had instilled
the very essence of domestic love and household
happiness, and they were poetry and picture joined
in one. As Dorcas sang the walls of her forsaken
home seemed to encircle her ; she no longer saw the

flfcalvtn's JBurfal. 403

%

gloomy pines, nor heard the wind, which still, as
she began each verse, sent a heavy breath through
the branches apd died away in a hollow moan from
the burden of the song. She was aroused by the
report of a gun in the vicinity of the encampment,
and either the sudden sound or her loneliness by
the glowing fire caused her to tremble violently.
The next moment she laughed in the pride of a
mother's heart.

" My beautiful young hunter ! My boy has slain
a deer ! " she exclaimed, recollecting that in the
direction whence the shot proceeded Cyrus had gone
to the chase.

She waited a reasonable time to hear her son's
light step bounding over the rustling leaves to tell
of his success. But he did not immediately appear,
and she sent her cheerful voice among the trees in
search of him :

" Cyrus ! Cyrus ! "

His coming was still delayed, and she determined,
as the report of the gun had apparently been very
near, to seek for him in person. Her assistance,
also, might be necessary in bringing home the ven-
ison which she flattered herself he had obtained.
She therefore set forward, directing her steps by the
long-past sound, and singing as she went in order
that the boy might be aware of her approach and
run to meet her. From behind the trunk of every
tree, and from every hiding-place in the thick foliage
of the undergrowth, she hoped to discover the coun-
tenance of her son laughing with the sportive
mischief that is born of affection. The sun was
now beneath the horizon, and the light that came
down among the trees was sufficiently dim to create
many illusions in her expecting fancy. Several

404 /Bosses trom an ©ID

times she seemed indistinctly to see his face gazing
out from among the leaves, and once she imagined
that he stood beckoning to her at the base of a
craggy rock. Keeping her eyes on this object, how-
ever, it proved to be no more than the trunk of an
oak fringed to the very ground with little branches,
one of which, thrust out farther than the rest, was
shaken by the breeze. Making her way round the
foot of the rock, she suddenly found herself close
to her husband, who had approached in another
direction. Leaning upon the butt of his gun, the
muzzle of which rested upon the withered leaves,
he was apparently absorbed in the contemplation of
some object at his feet.

" How is this, Reuben ? Have you slain the deer
and fallen asleep over him ? " exclaimed Dorcas,
laughing cheerfully on her first slight observation
of his posture and appearance.

He stirred not, neither did he turn his eyes toward
her, and a cold, shuddering fear indefinite in its
source and object began to creep into her blood.
She now perceived that her husband's face was
ghastly pale and his features were rigid, as if inca-
pable of assuming any other expression than the
strong despair which had hardened upon them.
He gave not the slightest evidence that he was aware
of her approach.

" For the love of Heaven, Reuben, speak to me ! "
cried Dorcas, and the strange sound of her own
voice affrighted her even more than the dead
silence.

Her husband started, stared into her face, drew
her to the front of the rock and pointed with his
finger.

Oh, there lay the boy, asleep but dreamless, upon

1Ro$er flfcalxnn's ^Burial. 405

the fallen forest-leaves. His cheek rested upon his
arm, his curled locks were thrown back from his
brow, his limbs were slightly relaxed. Had a sudden
weariness overcome the youthful hunter? Would
his mother's voice arouse him ? She knew that it
was death.

" This broad rock is the gravestone of your near
kindred, Dorcas," said her husband. " Your tears
will fall at once over your father and your son."

She heard him not. With one wild shriek that
seemed to force its way from the sufferer's inmost
soul she sank insensible by the side of her dead boy.
At that moment the withered topmost bough of the
oak loosened itself in the stilly air and fell in soft,
light fragments upon the rock, upon the leaves, upon
Reuben, upon his wife and child and upon Roger
Malvin's bones. Then Reuben's heart was stricken,
and the tears gushed out like water from a rock.
The vow that the wounded youth had made the
blighted man had come to redeem. His sin was ex-
piated, the curse was gone from him ; and in the
hour when he had shed blood dearer to him than
his own a prayer — the first for years — went up to
Heaven from the lips of Reuben Bourne.

P.'S CORRESPONDENCE.

MY unfortunate friend P. has lost the thread of
his life by the interposition of long intervals of
partially disordered reason. The past and present
are jumbled -together in his mind in a manner often
productive of curious results, and which will be
better understood after the perusal of the following
letter than from any description that I could give.
The poor fellow, without once stirring from the
little whitewashed, iron-grated room to which he
alludes in his first paragraph, is nevertheless a great
traveler, and meets in his wanderings a variety of
personages who have long ceased to be visible to
any eye save his own. In my opinion, all this is
not so much a delusion as a partly willful and partly
involuntary sport of the imagination, to which his
disease has imparted such morbid energy that he
beholds these spectral scenes and characters with
no less distinctness than a play upon the stage, and
with somewhat more of illusive credence. Many of
his letters are in my possession, some based upon
the same vagary as the present one and others upon
hypotheses not a whit short of it in absurdity. The
whole form a series of correspondence which, should
fate seasonably remove my poor friend from what
is to him a world of moonshine, I promise myself
a pious pleasure in editing for the public eye. P.
406

p.'s Correspondence. 407

had always a hankering after literary reputation, and
has made more than one unsuccessful effort to
achieve it. It would not be a little odd if, after
missing his object while seeking it by the light of
reason, he should prove to have stumbled upon it in
his misty excursions beyond the limits of sanity.

LONDON, February 25, 1845.

MY DEAR FRIEND : Old associations cling to the
mind with astonishing tenacity. Daily custom grows
up about us like a stone wall and consolidates itself
into almost as material an entity as mankind's
strongest architecture. It is sometimes a serious
question with me whether ideas be not really visible
and tangible, and endowed with all the other qual-
ities of matter. Sitting, as I do at this moment, in
my hired apartment, writing beside the hearth over
which hangs a print of Queen Victoria, listening to
the muffled roar of the world's metropolis, and with
a window at but five paces distant, through which,
whenever I please, I can gaze out on actual London,
— with all this positive certainty as to my where-
abouts, what kind of notion, do you think, is just
now perplexing my brain ? Why — would you believe
it ? — that all this time I am still an inhabitant of
that wearisome little chamber — that whitewashed
little chamber, that little chamber with its one small
window, across which, from some inscrutable reason
of taste or convenience, my landlord had placed a
row of iron bars, — that same little chamber, in short,
whither your kindness has so often brought you to
visit me. Will no length of time or breadth of space
enfranchise me from that unlovely abode ? I travel,
but it seems to be like the snail — with my house
upon my head. Ah, well ! I am verging, I suppose,

408 dfcosses from an ©l& flbanse.

on that period of life when present scenes and
events make but feeble impressions in comparison
with those of yore ; so that 1 must reconcile myself
to be more and more the prisoner of memory, who
merely lets me hop about a little with her chain
around my leg.

My letters of introduction have been of the
utmost service, enabling me to make the acquaint
ance of several distinguished characters who until
now have seemed as remote from the sphere of my
personal intercourse as the wits of Queen Anne's
time or Ben Jonson's compotators at the Mermaid.
One of the first of which I availed myself was the
letter to Lord Byron. I found His Lordship look-
ing much older than I had anticipated, although,
considering his former irregularities of life and the
various wear and tear of his constitution, not older
than a man on the verge of sixty reasonably may
look. But I had invested his earthly frame, in my
imagination, with the poet's spiritual immortality.
He wears a brown wig very luxuriantly curled and
extending down over his forehead. The expression
of his eyes is concealed by spectacles. His early
tendency to obesity having increased, Lord Byron
is now enormously fat — so fat as to give the impres-
sion of a person quit overladen with his own rlesh
and without sufficient vigor to diffuse his personal
life through the great mass of corporeal substance
which weighs upon him so cruelly. You gaze at
the mortal heap, and, while it fills your eye with
what purports to be Byron, you murmur within your-
self, " For Heaven's sake, where is he ? " Were I
disposed to be caustic, I might consider this mass
of earthly matter as the symbol, in a material shape,
of those evil habits and carnal vices which unspirit-

p.'s CorresponDcncc. 409

ualize man's nature and clog up his avenues of com-
munication with the better life. But this would be
too harsh ; and, besides, Lord Byron's morals have
been improving, while his outward man has swollen
to such unconscionable circumference. Would that
he were leaner ! for, though he did me the honor to
present his hand, yet it was so puffed out with alien
substance that I could not. feel as if I had touched
the hand that wrote "Childe Harold."

On my entrance His Lordship had apologized for
not rising to receive me, on the sufficient plea that
the gout for several years past had taken up its con-
stant residence in his right foot, which, accordingly,
was swathed in many rolls of flannel and deposited
upon a cushion. The other foot was hidden in the
drapery of his chair. Do you recollect whether
Byron's right or left foot was the deformed one ?

The noble poet's reconciliation with Lady Byron
is now, as you are aware, of ten years' standing, nor
does it exhibit, I am assured, any symptom of breach
or fracture. They are said to be, if not a happy, at
least a contented — or, at all events, a quiet — couple,
descending the slope of life with that tolerable
degree of mutual support which will enable them to
come easily and comfortably to the bottom. It is
pleasant to reflect how entirely the poet has re-
deemed his youthful errors in this particular. Her
Ladyship's influence, it rejoices me to add, has been
productive of the happiest results upon Lord Byron
in a religious point of view. He now combines the
most rigid tenets of Methodism with the ultra doc-
trines of the Puseyites, the former being, perhaps,
due to the convictions wrought upon his mind by
his noble consort, while the latter are the embroidery
and picturesque illumination demanded by his im«

4io /Bosses from an Old

aginative character. Much of whatever expenditure
his increasing habits of thrift continue to allow him
is bestowed in the reparation or beautifying of places
of worship ; and this nobleman, whose name was
once considered a synonym of the foul fiend, is now
all but canonized as a saint in many pulpits of the
metropolis and elsewhere. In politics Lord Byron
is an uncompromising conservative, and loses no
opportunity, whether in the House of Lords or in
private circles, of denouncing and repudiating the
mischievous and anarchical notions of his earlier
day. Nor does he fail to visit similar sins in other
people with the sincerest vengeance which his some-
what blunted pen is capable of inflicting. Southey
and he are on the most intimate terms. You are
aware that, some little time before the death of
Moore, Byron caused that brilliant but reprehensible
man to be ejected from his house. Moore took the
insult so much to heart that it is said to have been
one great cause of the fit of illness which brought
him to the grave. Others pretend that the lyrist
died in a very happy state of mind, singing one of
his own sacred melodies and expressing his belief
that it would be heard within the gate of paradise
and gain him instant and honorable admittance. I
wish he may have found it so.

I failed not, as you may suppose, in the course of
conversation with Lord Byron, to pay the meed of
homage due to a mighty poet by allusions to pas-
sages in "Childe Harold" and "Manfred" and
" Don Juan " which have made so large a portion
of the music of my life. My words, whether apt or
otherwise, were at least warm with the enthusiasm
of one worthy to discourse of immortal poesy. It
was evident, however, that they did not go precisely

p/s Correspondence. 41 1

to the right spot. I could perceive that there was
some mistake or other, and was not a little angry
with myself and ashamed of my abortive attempt to
throw back from my own heart to the gifted author's
ear the echo of those strains that have resounded
throughout the world. But by and by the secret
peeped quietly out. Byron — I have the information
from his own lips, so that you need n^t hesitate to
repeat it in literary circles, — Byron is preparing a
new edition of his complete works, Carefully cor-
rected, expurgated and amended in ac< ordance with
his present creed of taste, morals, politics and
religion. It so happened that the ve> y passages of
highest inspiration to which I had illuded were
among the condemned and rejected rubbish which
it is his purpose to cast into the gulf of oblivion.
To whisper you the truth, it appears to me that, his
passions having burnt out, the extin< tion of their
vivid and riotous flame has deprived >,ord Byron of
the illumination by which he not merely wrote, but
was enabled to feel and comprehend what he had
written. Positively, he no longer understands his
own poetry.

This became very apparent on his {Coring me so
far as to read a few specimens of " Den Juan " in
the moralized version. Whatever is licentious, what
ever is disrespectful to the sacred mysteries of out
faith, whatever morbidly melancholic 01 splenetically
sportive, whatever assails settled constitutions of
government or systems of society, whatever could
wound the sensibility of any mortal except a pagan,
a republican or a dissenter, has been unrelentingly
blotted out, and its place supplied by unexceptional
verses in His Lordship's later style. You may judge
how much of the poem remains as hitherto pub-

^12 flbo09C0 from an ©ID fl&anse.

lished. The result is not so good as might be
wished ; in plain terms, it is a very sad affair indeed,
for, though the torches kindled in Tophet have been
extinguished, they leave an abominably ill odor and
are succeeded by no glimpses of hallowed fire. It
is to be hoped, nevertheless, that this attempt on
Lord Byron's part to atone for his youthful errors
will at length induce the Dean of Westminster, or
whatever churchman is concerned, to allow Thoi-
waldsen's statue of the poet its due niche in the
grand old abbey. His bones, you know, when
brought from Greece, were denied sepulture among
those of his tuneful brethren there.

What a vile slip of the pen was that ! How
absurd in me to talk about burying the bones of
Byron, whom I have just seen alive and encased in
a big round bulk of flesh ! But, to say the truth, a
prodigiously fat man always impresses me as a kind
of hobgoblin ; in the very extravagance of his
mortal system I find something akin to the immateri-
ality of a ghost. And then that ridiculous old story
darted into my mind how that Byron died of fever
at Missolonghi above twenty years ago. More and
more I recognize that we dwell in a world of shadows,
and, for my part, I hold it hardly worth the trouble to
attempt a distinction between shadows in the mind
and shadows out of it. If there be any difference,
the former are rather the more substantial.

Only think of my good fortune ! The venerable
Robert Burns — now, if I mistake not, in his eighty-
seventh year — happens to be making a visit to Lon-
don, as if on purpose to afford me an opportunity
of grasping him by the hand. For upward of twenty
years past he has hardly left his quiet cottage in
Ayrshire for a single night, and has only been drawn

LORD BYRON.

p.'s Correspondence,

hither now by the irresistible persuasions of all the
distinguished men in England. They wish to cele-
brate the patriarch's birthday by a festival. It will
be the greatest literary triumph on record. Pray
Heaven the little spirit of life within the aged bard's
bosom may not be extinguished in the luster of that
hour ! I have already had the honor of an intro-
duction to him at the British Museum, where he
was examining a collection of his own unpublished
letters interspersed with songs which have escaped
the notice of all his biographers.

Poh ! Nonsense ! What am I thinking of ? How
should Burns have been embalmed in biography,
when he is still a hearty old man ?

The figure of the bard is tall and in the highest
degree reverend — nor the less so that is much bent
by the burden of time. His white hair floats like a
snowdrift around his face, in which are seen the
furrows of intellect and passion, like the channels
of headlong torrents that had foamed themselves
away. The old gentleman is in excellent preserva-
tion, considering his time of life. He has that
crickety sort of liveliness — I mean the cricket's
humor of chirping for any cause or none — which is
perhaps the most favorable mood that can befall
extreme old age. Our pride forbids us to desire it
for ourselves, although we perceive it to be a be-
neficence of nature in the case of others. I was
surprised to find it in Burns. It seems as if his
ardent heart and brilliant imagination had both
burnt down to the last embers, leaving only a little
flickering flame in one corner, which keeps dancing
upward and laughing all by itself. He is no longer
capable of pathos. At the request of Allan Cun-
ningham he attempted to sing his own song " To
27

414 /Bosses from an ©l£> /fcanse.

Mary in Heaven," but it was evident that the feeling
of those verses, so profoundly true and so simply
expressed, was entirely beyond the scope of his
present sensibilities ; and when a touch of it did
partially awaken him, the tears immediately gushed
into his eyes and his voice broke into a tremulous
cackle. And yet he but indistinctly knew wherefore
he was weeping. Ah ! he must not think again of
Mary in heaven until he shake off the dull impedi-
ment of time and ascend to meet her there.

Burns then began to repeat " Tarn O'Shanter,"
but was so tickled with its wit and humor — of which,
however, I did suspect he had but a traditionary
sense — that he soon burst into a fit of chirruping
laughter, succeeded by a cough which brought his
not very agreeable exhibition to a close. On the
whole, I would rather not have witnessed it. It is
a satisfactory idea, however, that the last forty years
of the peasant-poet's life have been passed in com-
petence and perfect comfort. Having been cured
of his bardic improvidence for many a day past and
grown as attentive to the main chance as a canny
Scotsman should be, he is now considered to be
quite \vc.l off as to pecuniary circumstances. This,
I suppose, is worth having lived so long for.

I took occasion to inquire of some of the country-
men of Burns in regard to the health of Sir Walter
Scott. His condition, I am sorry to say, remains
the same as for ten years past : it is that of a hope-
less paralytic palsied not more in body than in those
nobler attributes of which the body is the instru-
ment. And thus he vegetates from day to day and
from year to year at that splendid fantasy of Abbots-
ford which grew out of his brain, and became a
symbol of the great romancer's tastes, feelings,

IV s Correspondence. 415

studies, prejudices and modes of intellect. Whether
in verse, prose or architecture, he could achieve but
one thing, although that one in infinite variety.
There he reclines on a couch in his library, and is
said to spend whole hours of every day in dictating
tales to an amanuensis. To an imaginary amanu-
ensis, for it is not deemed worth any one's trouble
now to take down what flows from that once brilliant
fancy, every image of which was formerly worth gold
and capable of being coined. Yet Cunningham,
who has lately seen him, assures me that there is
now and then a touch of the genius, a striking com-
bination of incident or a picturesque trait of charac-
ter, such as no other man alive could have hit off,
a glimmer from that ruined mind, as if the sun had
suddenly flashed on a half-rusted helmet in the
gloom of an ancient hall. But the plots of these
romances become inextricably confused ; the charac-
ters melt into one another, and the tale loses itself
like the course of a stream flowing through muddy
and marshy ground.

For my part, I can hardly regret that Sir Walter
Scott had lost his consciousness of outward things
before his works went out of vogue. It was good
that he should forget his fame rather than that Fame
should first have forgotten him. Were he still a
writer and as brilliant a one as ever, he could no
longer maintain anything like the same position in
literature. The world nowadays requires a more
earnest purpose, a deeper moral and a closer and
homelier truth than he was qualified to supply it
with. Yet who can be to the present generation
even what Scott has been to the past? Bulwer
nauseates me ; he is the very pimple of the age's
humbug. There is no hope of the public so long as

410 Jfcosses from an ©U> d&anse.

he retains an admirer, a reader or a publisher. 1
had expectations from a young man — one Dickens
— who published a few magazine articles very rich
in humor and not without symptoms of genuine
pathos, but the poor fellow died shortly after com-
mencing an odd series of sketches entitled, I think,
the " Pickwick Papers." Not impossibly the world
has lost more than it dreams of by the untimely
death of this Mr. Dickens.

Whom do you think I met in Pall Mall the other
day ? You would not hit it in ten guesses. Why,
no less a man than Napoleon Bonaparte, or all that
is now left of him — that is to say, the skin, bones
and corporeal substance, little cocked hat, green
coat, white breeches and small sword, which are still
known by his redoubtable name. He was attended
only by two policemen, who walked quietly behind
the phantasm of the old ex-empeior, appearing to
have no duty in regard to him except to see that
none of the light-fingered gentry should possess
themselves of the star of the Legion of Honor.
Nobody save myself so much as turned to look after
him ; nor, it grieves me to confess, could even I
contrive to muster up any tolerable interest, even by
all that the warlike spirit formerly manifested within
that now decrepit shape had wrought upon our
globe. There is no surer method of annihilating
the magic influence of a great renown than by ex-
hibiting the possessor of it in the decline, the over-
throw, the utter degradation, of his powers, buried
beneath his own mortality, and lacking even the
qualities of sense that enable the most ordinary men
to bear themselves decently in the eye of the world.
This is the state to which disease, aggravated by
long endurance of a tropical climate and assisted by

JVs Corresponocnce. 417

old age — for be is now above seventy — has reduced
Bonaparte. The British government has acted
shrewdly in retransporting him from St. Helena to
England. They should now restore him to Paris,
and there let him once again review the relics of his
armies. His eye is dull and rheumy; his nether lip
hung down upon his chin. While I was observing
him there chanced to be a little extra bustle in the
street, and he, the brother of Caesar and Hannibal —
the great captain who had veiled the world in battle-
smoke and tracked it round with bloody footsteps —
was seized with a nervous trembling, and claimed
the protection of the two policemen by a cracked
and dolorous cry. The fellows winked at one an-
other, laughed aside, and, patting Napoleon on the
back, took each an arm and led him away.

Death and fury ! Ha, villain ! how came you
hither ? Avaunt, or I fling my inkstand at your
head. Tush, tush ! It is all a mistake. Pray, my
dear friend, pardon this little outbreak. The fact
is the mention of those two policemen and their
custody of Bonaparte had called up the idea of that
odious wretch — you remember him well — who was
pleased to take such gratuitous and impertinent care
of my person before I quitted New England. Forth-
with uprose before my mind's eye that same little
whitewashed room with the iron-grated window —
strange that it should have been iron-grated — where,
in too easy compliance with the absurd wishes of
my relatives, I have wasted several good years of
my life. Positively, it seemed to me that I was still
sitting there, and that the keeper — not that he ever
was my keeper, neither, but only a kind of intrusive
devil of a body-servant — had just peeped in at the
door. The rascal 1 I owe him an old grudge, and

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will find a time to pay it yet. Fie, fie ! The mere
thought of him has exceedingly discomposed me.
Even now that hateful chamber — that iron-grated
window which blasted the blessed sunshine as it fell
through the dusty panes and made it poison to my
soul — looks more distinct to my view than does this
my comfortable apartment in the heart of London.
The reality — that which I know to be such — hangs
like remnants of tattered scenery over the intolerably
prominent illusion. Let us think of it no more.

You will be anxious to hear of Shelley. I need
not say what is known to all the world — that this
celebrated poet has for many years past been recon-
ciled to the Church of England. In his more recent
works he has applied his fine powers to the vindica-
tion of the Christian faith, with an especial view to
that particular development. Latterly — as you may
not have heard — he has taken orders and been in-
ducted to a small country living in the gift of the lord
chancellor. Just now, luckily for me, he has come
to the metropolis to superintend the publication of a
volume of discourses treating of the poetico-philo-
sophical proofs of Christianity on the basis of the
Thirty-nine Articles. On my first introduction I felt
no little embarrassment as to the mode of combining
what I had to say to the author of "Queen Mab,"
the " Revolt of Islam," and " Prometheus Un-
bound," with such acknowledgments as might be
acceptable to a Christian minister and zealous up-
holder of the Established Church. But Shelley soon
placed me at my ease. Standing where he now
does, and reviewing all his successive productions
from a higher point, he assures me that there is a
harmony, an order, a regular procession, which en-
ables him to lay his hand upon any one of the ear-

p.'s Correspondence. 419

Her poems and say, " This is my work ! " with pre-
cisely the same complacency of conscience where-
withal he contemplates the volume of discourses
above mentioned. They are like the successive
steps of a staircase, the lowest of which, in the depth
of chaos, is as essential to the support of the whole
as the highest and final one, resting upon the thresh-
old of the heavens. I felt half inclined to ask him
what would have been his fate had he perished on
the lower steps of his staircase instead of building
his way aloft into the celestial brightness.

How all this may be I neither pretend to under-
stand nor greatly care, so long as Shelley has really
climbed, as it seems he has, from a lower region to
a loftier one. Without touching upon their relig-
ious merits, I consider the productions of his matu-
rity superior, as poems, to those of his youth. They
are warmer with human love, which has served as
an interpreter between his mind and the multitude.
The author has learned to dip his pen oftener into
his heart, and has thereby avoided the faults into
which a too exclusive use of fancy and intellect are
wont to betray him. Formerly his page was often
little other than a concrete arrangement of crystalliza-
tions, or even of icicles, ar cold as they were brilliant.
Now you take it to your heart and are cr nscious
of a heart- warmth responsive to your own. In rrs
private character Shelley can hardly have grown
more gentle, kind and affectionate than his friends
always represented him to be up to that disastrous
night when he was drowned in the Mediterranean.
Nonsense again — sheer nonsense! What am I
babbling about ? I was thinking: of that old figment
of his being lost in the Bay of Spezia and washed
ashore near Via Reggio, and burned to ashes on a

420 dfcosaes tcom an OiO fl&ansc.

funeral pyre with wine and spices and frankincense,
while Byron stood on the beach and beheld a rlame
of marvelous beauty rise heavenward from the dead
poet's heart, and that his fire-purified relics were
finally buried near his child, in Roman earth. If
ill this happened three-and-twenty years ago, how
:ould I have met the drowned and burned and buried
nan here in London only yesterday ?

Before quitting the subject I may mention that
Dr. Reginald Heber, heretofore bishop of Calcutta,
but recently translated to a see in England, called
on Shelley while I was with him. They appeared to
be on terms of very cordial intimacy, and are said
to have a joint-poem in contemplation. What a
strange, incongruous dream is the life of man !

Coleridge has at last finished his poem of " Chris-
tabel ; " it will be issued entire by old John Murray
in the course of the present publishing season.
The poet, I hear, is visited with a troublesome
affection of the tongue which has put a period, or
some lesser stop, to the lifelong discourse that has
hitherto been flowing from his lips. He will not
survive it above a month unless his accumulation of
ideas be sluiced off in some other way. Words-
worth died only a week or two ago. Heaven rest
his soul and grant that he may not have completed
the " Excursion " ! Methinks I am sick of every-
thing he wrote, except his " Laodamia." It is very
sad, this inconstancy of the mind to the poets whom
it once worshiped. Southey is as hale as ever,
and writes with his usual diligence. Old Gifford is
otill alive, in the extremity of age, and with most
pitiable decay of what little sharp and narrow intel-
lect the devil had gifted him withal. One hates to
allow such a man the privilege of growing old and

p.'s Correspondence. 421

infirm. It takes away our speculative license ot
kicking him.

Keats ? No, I have not seen him, except across
a crowded street, with coaches, drays, horsemen,
cabs, omnibuses, foot-passengers, and divers other
sensual obstructions, intervening betwixt his small
and slender figure and my eager glance. I would
fain have met him on the seashore, or beneath a
natural arch of forest-trees or the Gothic arch of an
old cathedral, or among Grecian ruins, or at a glim-
mering fireside on the verge of evening, or at the
twilight entrance of a cave into the dreamy depths
of which he would have led me by the hand — any-
where, in short, save at Temple Bar, where his pres-
ence was blotted out by the porter-swollen bul*s of
these gross Englishmen. I stood and watched him
fading away, fading away, along the pavement, and
could hardly tell whether he were an actual man or
a thought that had slipped out of my own mind and
clothed itself in human form and habiliments merely
to beguile me. At one moment he put his hand-
kerchief to his lips, and withdrew it, I am almost
certain, stained with blood. You never saw any-
thing so fragile as his person. The truth is Keats
has all his life felt the effects of that terrible bleed
ing at the lungs caused by the article on his " Endy
mion " in the Quarterly Review, and which so near!)
brought him to the grave. Ever since he has glided
about the world like a ghost, sighing a melancholy
tone in the ear of here and there a friend, but nevei
sending forth his voice to greet the multitude. 1
can hardly think him a great poet. The burden ol
a mighty genius would not have been imposed upon
shoulders so physically frail and a spirit so infirmly
sensitive. Great poets should have iron sinews.

422 flfcosses from an ©ID flfcansc.

Yet Keats, though for so many years he has given
nothing to the world, is understood to have devoted
himself to the composition of an epic poem. Some
passages of it have been communicated to the inner
circle of his admirers, and impressed them as the
loftiest strains that have been audible on earth since
Milton's days. If I can obtain copies of these
specimens, 1 will ask you to present them to James
Russell Lowell, who seems to be one of the poet's
most fervent and worthiest worshipers. The infor-
mation took me by surprise. I had supposed that
all Keats's poetic incense, without being embodied
in human language, floated up to heaven and mingled
with the songs of the immortal choristers, who
perhaps were conscious of an unknown voice among
them and thought their melody the sweeter for it.
But it is not so ; he has positively written a poem
on the subject of " Paradise Regained," though in
another sense than that which presented itself to the
mind of Milton. In compliance, it may be imagined,
with the dogma of those who pretend that all epic
possibilities in the past history of the world are ex-
hausted, Keats has thrown his poem forward into
an indefinitely remote futurity. He pictures man-
kind amid the closing circumstances of the time-long
warfare between Good and Evil. Our race is on the
eve of its final triumph. Man is within the last
stride of perfection ; woman, redeemed from the
thralldom against which our sibyl uplifts so powerful
and so sad a remonstrance, stands equal by his side
or communes for herself with angels; the Earth,
sympathizing with her children's happier state, has
clothed herself in such luxuriant and loving beauty
as no eye ever witnessed since our first parents savr
*he sun rise over dewy Eden. Nor then, indeed, for

|V0 Correspondence. 423

this is the fulfillment of what was then but a golden
promise. But the picture has its shadows. There
remains to mankind another peril — a last encounter
with the Evil Principle. Should the battle go
against us, we sink back into the slime and misery of

ages. If we triumph But it demands a poet's

eye to contemplate the splendor of such a consum-
mation and not to be dazzled.

To this great work Keats is said to have brought
so deep and tender a spirit of humanity that the
poem has all the sweet and warm interest of a village
tale, no less than the grandeur which befits so high
a theme. Such, at least, is the perhaps partial rep-
resentation of his friends ; for I have not read or
heard even a single line of the performance in ques-
tion. Keats, I am told, withholds it from the press
under an idea that the age has not enough of
spiritual insight to receive it worthily. I do not like
this distrust ; it makes me distrust the poet. The
universe is waiting to respond to the highest word
that the best child of time and immortality can utter.
If it refuse to listen, it is because he mumbles and
stammers or discourses things unseasonable and
foreign to the purpose.

I visited the House of Lords the other day to
hear Canning, who, you know, is now a peer with —
I forget what title. He disappointed me. Time
blunts both point and edge and does great mischief
to men of his order of intellect. Then I stepped
into the Lower House and listened to a few words
from Cobbett, who looked as earthy as a real clod-
hopper— or, rather, as if he had lain a dozen years
beneath the clods. The men whom I meet nowa-
days often impress me thus — probably because my
spirits are not very good, and lead me to think

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much about graves with the long grass upon them,
and weather-worn epitaphs, and dry bones of peo-
ple who made noise enough in their day, but now
can only clatter, clatter, clatter, when the sexton's
spade disturbs them. Were it only possible to find
out who are alive and who dead, it would contribute
infinitely to my peace of mind. Every day of my
life somebody comes and stares me in the face
whom I had quietly blotted out of the tablet of
living men, and trusted never more to be pestered
with the sight or sound of him. For instance, going
to Drury Lane Theater a few evenings since, up
rose before me, in the ghost of Hamlet's father, the
bodily presence of the elder Kean, who did die, or
ought to have died, in some drunken fit or other so
long ago that his fame is scarcely traditionary now.
His powers are quite gone ; he was rather the ghost
of himself than the ghost of the Danish king.

In the stage-box sat several elderly and decrepit
people, and among them a stately ruin of a woman,
on a very large scale, with a profile — for I did not
see her front face — that stamped itself into my brain
as a seal impresses hot wax. By the tragic gesture
with *,vhich she took a pinch of snuff, I was sure it
must be Mrs. Siddons. Her brother, John Kemble,
sat behind, a broken-down figure, but still with a
kingly majesty about him. In lieu of all former
achievements, nature enables him to look the part
of Lear far better than in the meridian of his genius.
Charles Matthews was likewise there, but a para-
lytic affection has distorted his once mobile counte-
nance into a most disagreeable one-sidedness from
which he could no more wrench it into proper form
than he could rearrange the face of the great globe
itself. It looks as if, for the joke's sake, the poor

IV 8 Correspondence. 425

man had twisted his features into an expression
at once the most ludicrous and horrible that he
could contrive, and at that very moment, as a judg-
ment for making himself so hideous, an avenging
Providence had seen fit to petrify him. Since it is
out of his own power, I would gladly assist him to
change countenance, for his ugly visage haunts me
both at noontide and night-time. Some other players
of the past generation were present, but none that
greatly interested me. It behooves actors, more
than all other men of publicity, to vanish from the
scene betimes. Being, at best, but painted shadows
flickering on the wall and empty sounds that echo
another's thought, it is a sad disenchantment when
the colors being to fade and the voice to croak with
age.

What is there new in the literary way on your
side of the water ? Nothing of the kind has come
under my inspection, except a volume of poems
published above a year ago by Dr. Charming. I
did not before know that this eminent writer is a
poet, nor does the volume alluded to exhibit any of
the characteristics of the author's mind as displayed
in his prose works, although some of the poems
have a richness that is not merely of the surface,*
but glows 3till the brighter the deeper and morqj
faithfully you look into them. They seem care-*
lessly wrought, however, like those rings and orna-
ments of the very purest gold, but of rude nativa
manufacture, which are found among the gold-dust
from Africa. I doubt whether the American public
will accept them ; it looks less to the assay of metal
than to the neat and cunning manufacture. How
slowly our literature grows up ! Most of our writers
of promise have come to untimely ends. There

426 £fco00es from an ©ID /fcanse.

was that wild fellow John Neal, who almost turned
my boyish brain with his romances ; he surely has
long been dead, else he never could keep himself
so quiet. Bryant has gone to his last sleep with
the "Thanatopsis "gleaming over him like a sculpt-
ured marble sepulcher by moonlight. Halleck,
who used to write queer verses in the newspapers
and published a Don-Juanic poem called " Fanny,"
is defunct as a poet, though averred to be exemplify,
ing the metempsychosis as a man of business. Some-
what later there was Whittier, a fiery Quaker youth
to whom the Muse had perversely assigned a battle-
trumpet, and who got himself lynched ten years
agone in South Carolina. I remember, too, a lad
just from college, Longfellow by name, who scat-
tered some delicate verses to the winds, and went
to Germany, and perished, I think, of intense appli-
cation, at the University of Gottingen. Willis —
what a pity ! — was lost, if I recollect rightly, in 1833,
on his voyage to Europe, whither he was going to
give us sketches of the world's sunny face. If these
had lived, they might, one or all of them, have
grown to be famous men.

And yet — there is no telling — it may be as well
that they have died. I was myself a young man of
promise. Oh, shattered brain ! oh, broken spirit !
where is the fulfillment of that promise ? The sad
truth is that when fate would gently disappoint the
world it takes away the hopefullest mortals in their
youth ; when it would laugh the world's hopes
to scorn, it lets them live. Let me die upon
this apophthegm, for I shall never make a truer
one.

What a strange substance is the human brain !
Or, rather — for there is no need of generalizing the

p.'g Correspondence. 427

remark — what an odd brain is mine ! Would you
believe it ? Daily and nightly there come scraps of
poetry humming in my intellectual ear — some as
airy as bird-notes, and some as delicately neat as
parlor-music, and a few as grand as organ peals —
that seem just such verses as those departed poets
would have written had not an inexorable destiny
snatched them from their inkstands. They visit me
in spirit, perhaps desiring to engage my services as
the amanuensis of their posthumous productions,
and thus secure the endless renown that they have
forfeited by going hence too early. But I have my
own business to attend to, and, besides, a medical
gentleman who interests himself in some little ail-
ments of mine advises me not to make too free
use of pen and ink. There are clerks enough
out of employment who would be glad of such a
job.

Good-bye ! Are you alive or dead ? And what
are you about ? Still scribbing for the democratic ?
And do those infernal compositors and proof-readers
misprint your unfortunate productions as vilely as
ever ? It is too bad. Let every man manufacture
his own nonsense, say I. Expect me home soon,
and — to whisper you a secret — in company with the
poet Campbell, who purposes to visit Wyoming and
enjoy the shadow of the laurels that he planted
there. Campbell is now an old man. He calls
himself well — better than ever in his life — but looks
strangely pale, and so shadow-like that one might
almost poke a finger through his densest material.
I tell him by way of joke that he is as dim and
forlo/n as Memory, though as unsubstantial as
Hope.

Your true friend, P.

428 bosses from an $ld /fca se.

T.S. — Pray present my most respectful regards
to our venerable and revered friend Mr. Brockden
Brown. It gratifies me to learn that a complete
edition of his works in a double-columned octavo
volume is shortly to issue from the press at Phila-
delphia. Tell him that no American writer enjoys
a more classic reputation on this side of the water.
Is old Joel Barlow yet alive ? Unconscionable man !
Why, he must have nearly fulfilled his century.
And does he meditate an epic on the war between
Mexico and Texas, with machinery contrived on the
principle of the steam-engine, as being the nearest
to celestial agency that our epoch can boast ? How
can he expect ever to rise again if, while just sinking
into his grave, he persists in burdening himself with
such a ponderosity of leaden verses I

HARTH'S HOLOCAUST.

ONCE upon a time — but whether in the time past
or time to come is a matter of little or no moment — •
this wide world had become so overburdened with
an accumulation of worn-out trumpery that the in-
habitants determined to rid themselves of it by a
general bonfire. The site fixed upon at the repre-
sentation of the insurance companies, and as being
as central a spot as any other on the globe, was one
of the broadest prairies of the West, where no human
habitation would be endangered by the flames, and
where a vast assemblage of spectators might com-
modiously admire the show. Having a taste for
sights of this kind, and imagining, likewise, that the
illumination of the bonfire might reveal some pro-
fundity or moral truth heretofore hidden in mist or
darkness, I made it convenient to journey thither
and be present. At my arrival, although the heap
of condemned rubbish was as yet comparatively
small, the torch had already been applied. Amid
that boundless plain, in the dusk of the evening,
like a far-off star alone in the firmament, there was
merely visible one tremulous gleam whence none
could have anticipated so fierce a blaze as was
destined to ensue. With every moment, however,
there came foot-travelers, women holding up their
aprons, men on horseback, wheelbarrows, lumbering
28 429

430 /Bosses from an ©10 flfcanse.

baggage-wagons, and other vehicles, great and small
and from far and near, laden with articles that were
judged fit for nothing but to be burnt.

" What materials have been used to kindle the
flame ? " inquired I of a bystander, for I was desir-
ous of knowing the whole process of the affair from
beginning to end.

The person whom I addressed was a grave man,
fifty years old or thereabout, who had evidently come
thither as a looker-on ; he struck me immediately as
having weighed for himself the true value of life and
its circumstances, and therefore as feeling little per-
sonal interest in whatever judgment the world might
form of them. Before answering my question he
looked me in the face by the kindling light of the
fire.

"Oh, some very dry combustibles,*' replied he,
" and extremely suitable to the purpose — no other,
in fact, than yesterday's newspapers, last month's
magazines and last year's withered leaves. Here,
now, comes some antiquated trash that will take fire
like a handful of shavings."

As he spoke some rough-looking men advanced to
the verge of the bonfire and threw in, as it appeared,
all the rubbish of the herald's office — the blazonry
of coat-armor, the crests and devices of illustrious
families, pedigrees that extended back like lines of
light into the mist of the Dark Ages, together with
stars, garters and embroidered collars, each of
which, as paltry a bauble as it might appear to the
uninstructed eye, had once possessed vast signifi-
cance, and was still, in truth, reckoned amonL,r the
most precious of moral or material facts by the
worshipers of the gorgeous past. Mingled with
this confused heap— which was tossed into the

Bartb's "fcolocaust. 431

flames by armfuls at once — were innumerable badges
of knighthood, comprising those of all the European
sovereignties and Napoleon's decoration of the Legion
of Honor, the ribbons of which were entangled with
those of the ancient order of St. Louis. There, too
were the medals of our own society of Cincinnati,
by means of which, as history tells us, an order of
hereditary knights came near being constituted out
of the king-quellers of the Revolution. And, besides,
there were the patents of nobility of German counts
and barons, Spanish grandees and English peers,
from the worm-eaten instruments signed by William
the Conqueror down to the brand-new parchment
of the latest lord who has received his honors from
the fair hand of Victoria.

At sight of these dense volumes of smoke
mingled with vivid jets of flame that gushed and
eddied forth from this immense pile of earthly dis-
tinctions the multitude of plebeian spectators set up
a joyous shout and clapped their hands with an
emphasis that made the welkin echo. That was
their moment of triumph achieved after long ages
over creatures of the same clay and the same spir-
itual infirmities who had dared to assume the
privileges due only to Heaven's better workman-
ship.

But now there rushed toward the blazing heap a
gray-haired man of stately presence, wearing a coat
from the breast of which a star or other badge of
rank seemed to have been forcibly wrenched away.
He had not the tokens of intellectual power in his
face, but still there was the demeanor — the habitual
and almost native dignity — of one who had been
born to the idea of his own social superiority, and
had never felt it questioned till that moment.

432 /Bosses from an Olo flfcanse.

" People," cried he, gazing at the ruin of what
was dearest to his eyes with grief and wonder, but,
nevertheless, with a degree of stateliness — '* people,
what have you done ? This fire is consuming all
that marked your advance from barbarism or that
could have prevented your relapse thither. We — the
men of the privileged orders — were those who kept
alive from age to age the old chivalrous spirit, the
gentle and generous thought, the higher, the purer,
the more refined and delicate, life. With the nobles,
too, you cast off the poet, the painter, the sculptor
— all the beautiful arts — for we were their patrons
and created the atmosphere in which they flourish.
In abolishing the majestic distinctions of rank, society
loses not only its grace, but its steadfastness —

More he would doubtless have spoken, but here
there arose an outcry, sportive, contemptuous and
indignant, that altogether drowned the appeal of the
fallen nobleman, insomuch that, casting one look of
despair at his own half-burnt pedigree, he shrunk
back into the crowd, glad to shelter himself under
his new-found insignificance.

" Let him thank his stars that we have not flung
him into the same fire ! " shouted a rude figure,
spurning the embers with his foot. " And hence-
forth let no man dare to show a piece of musty
parchment as his warrant for lording it over his
fellows. If he have strength of arm, well and good :
it is one species of superiority ; if he have wit,
wisdom, courage, force of character, let tru
tributes do for him what they may ; but from this
day forward no mortal must hope for place and con-
sideration by reckoning up the moldy bones of his
ancestors. That nonsense is done away."

" And in good time," remarked the grave observer

JEartb's Ibotocaust. 433

by my side — in a low voice, however — " if no worse
nonsense comes in its place. But, at all events, this
species of nonsense has fairly lived out its life."

There was little space to muse or moralize over
the embers of this time-honored rubbish, for before
it was half burned out there came another multitude
from beyond the sea, bearing the purple robes of
royalty and the crowns, globes and scepters of em-
perors and kings. All these had been condemned as
useless baubles — playthings, at best, fit only for the
infancy of the world, or rods to govern and chastise
it in its nonage, but with which universal manhood at
its full-grown stature could no longer brook to be in-
sulted. Into such contempt had these regal insignia
now fallen that the gilded crown and tinseled robes of
the player-king from Drury Lane Theater had been
thrown in among the rest, doubtless as a mockery
of his brother-monarchs on the great stage of the
world. It was a strange sight to discern the crown-
jewels of England glowing and flashing in the midst
of the fire. Some of them had been delivered down
from the time of the Saxon princes; others were
purchased with vast revenues, or, perchance, ravished
from the dead brows of the native potentates of
'Hindostan ; and the whole now blazed with a daz-
zling luster, as if a star had fallen in that spot and
been shattered into fragments. The splendor of the
ruined monarchy had no reflection save in those
inestimable precious stones. But enough on this
subject. It were but tedious to describe how the
emperor of Austria's mantle was converted to tinder,
and how the posts and pillars of the French throne
became a heap of coals which it was impossible to
distinguish from those of any other wood. Let me
add, however, that I noticed one of the exiled Poles

434 dfcos0es from an ©10 flfcanse

stirring up the bonfire with the czar of Russia'*
scepter, which he afterward flung into the flames.

" The smell of singed garments is quite intolerable
here," observed my new acquaintance as the breeze
enveloped us in the smoke of a royal wardrobe.
" Let us get to windward and see what they are
doing on the other side of the bonfire."

We accordingly passed around, and were just in
time to witness the arrival of a vast procession of
Washingtonians — as the votaries of temperance call
themselves nowadays — accompanied by thousands
of the Irish disciples of Father Mathew with that
great apostle at their head. They brought a rich
contribution to the bonfire, being nothing less than
all the hogsheads and barrels of liquor in the world,
which they rolled before them across the prairie.

" Now, my children," cried Father Mathew, when
they reached the verge of the fire, " one shove more,
and the work is done. And now let us stand off and
see Satan deal with his own liquor."

Accordingly, having placed their wooden vessels
within reach of the flames, the procession stood off
at a safe distance, and soon beheld them burst into
a blaze that reached the clouds and threatened to
set the sky itself on fire. And well it might, for
here was the whole world's stock of spirituous
liquors, which, instead of kindling a frenzied light
in the eyes of individual topers, as of yore, soared
upward with a bewildering gleam that startled all
mankind. It was the aggregate of that fierce fire
which would otherwise have scorched the hearts of
millions. Meantime, numberless bottles of precious
wine were flung into the blaze, which lapped up the
contents as if it loved them, and grew, like other
drunkards, the merrier and fiercer for what it quaffed.

f>olocau0t, 435

Never again will the insatiable thirst of the Fire-
fiend be so pampered. Here were the treasures of
famous bon-rivants — liquors that had been tossed
on ocean and mellowed in the sun and hoarded long
in the recesses of the earth, the pale, the gold, the
ruddy juice of whatever vineyards were most deli-
cate, the entire vintage of Tokay — all mingling in one
stream with the vile fluids of the common pot-house,
and contributing to heighten the selfsame blaze. And
while it rose in a gigantic spire that seemed to wave
against the arch of the firmament and combine itself
with the light of stars, the multitude gave a shout,
as if the broad earth were exulting in its deliverance
from the curse of ages.

But the joy was not universal. Many deemed
that human life would be gloomier than ever when
that brief illumination should sink down. While
the reformers were at work I overheard muttered
expostulations from several respectable gentlemen
with red noses and wearing gouty shoes, and a rag-
ged worthy whose face looked like a hearth where
the fire is burnt out now expressed his discontent
more openly and boldly.

" What is this world good for," said the last toper,
" now that we can never be jolly any more ? What
is to comfort the poor man in sorrow and perplexity ?
How is he to keep his heart warm against the cold
winds of this cheerless earth ? And what do you
propose to give him in exchange for the solace that
you take away ? How are old friends to sit together
by the fireside without a cheerful glass between
them ? A plague upon your reformation ! It is a
sad world, a cold world, a selfish world, a low world,
not worth an honest fellow's living in now that good
fellowship is gone forever."

436 dfcosses trom an ©ID flbanse.

This harangue excited great mirth among the ly
Btanders. But, preposterous as was the sentiment,
I could not help commiserating the forlorn condi-
tion of the last toper, whose boon-companions had
dwindled away from his side, leaving the poor fel-
low without a soul to countenance him in sipping
his liquor — nor, indeed, any liquor to sip. Not that
this was quite the true state of the case, for I had
observed him at a critical moment filch a bottle of
fourth-proof brandy that fell beside the bonfire, and
hide it in his pocket.

The spirituous and fermented liquors being thus
disposed of, the zeal of the reformers next induced
them to replenish the fire with all the boxes of tea
and bags of coffee in the world. And now came the
planters of Virginia, bringing their crops of tobacco.
These, being cast upon the heap of inutility, aggre-
gated it to the size of a mountain and incensed the
atmosphere with such potent fragrance that me-
thought we should never draw pure breath again.
The present sacrifice seemed to startle the lovers
of the weed more than any that they had hitherto
witnessed.

" Well, they've put my pipe out," said an old gen-
tleman, flinging it into the flames in a pet. "What
is this world coming to? Everything rich and racy
— all the spice of life — is to be condemned as use-
less. Now that they have kindled the bonfire, if
these nonsensical reformers would fling themselves
into it, all would be well enough."

" Be patient," responded a stanch conservative ;
41 it will come to that in the end. They will first
fling us in, and finally themselves."

From the general and systematic measures of re-
form, I now turned to consider the individual con-

JCartb's t>olocau0t, 437

tributions to this memorable bonfire. In many in-
stances these were of a very amusing character.
One poor fellow threw in his empty purse, and an-
other a bundle of counterfeit or insolvable bank-
notes. Fashionable ladies threw in their last season's
bonnets, together with heaps of ribbons, yellow
lace, and much other half-worn milliner's ware, all of
which proved even more evanescent in the fire than
it had been in the fashion. A multitude of lovers
of both sexes — discarded maids or bachelors and
couples mutually weary of one another — tossed in
bundles of perfumed letters and enamored sonnets.
A hack-politician, being deprived of bread by the
loss of office, threw in his teeth, which happened
to be false ones. The Rev. Sidney Smith, having
voyaged across the Atlantic for that sole purpose,
came up to the bonfire with a bitter grin and threw
in certain repudiated bonds, fortified though they
were with the broad seal of a sovereign State. A
little boy of five years old, in the premature manli-
ness of the present epoch, threw in his playthings ;
a college graduate, his diploma ; an apothecary,
ruined by the spread of homoeopathy, his whole
stock of drugs and medicines; a physician, his
library ; a parson, his old sermons ; and a fine gen-
tleman of the old school, his code of manners, which
he had formally written down for the benefit of the
next generation. A widow resolving on a second
marriage slyly threw in her dead husband's minia^
ture. A young man jilted by his mistress would
willingly nave flung his own desperate heart into
the flames, but could find no means to wrench it
out of his bosom. An American author whose
works were neglected by the public threw his pen
and paper into the bonfire, and betook himself ta

438 /Bosses from an ©ID /fcanse.

some less discouraging occupation. It somewhat
startled me to overhear a number of ladies highly
respectable in appearance proposing to fling their
gowns and petticoats into the flames, and assume
the garb, together with the manners, duties, offices
and responsibilities, of the opposite sex.

What favor was accorded to this scheme I am un-
able to say, my attention being suddenly drawn to
a poor deceived and half-delirious girl, who, exclaim-
ing that she was the most worthless thing alive or
dead, attempted to cast herself into the fire amid all
that wrecked and broken trumpery of the world. A
good man, however, ran to her rescue.

" Patience, my poor girl ! " said he as he drew
her back from the fierce embrace of the destroying
angel. " Be patient and abide Heaven's will. So
long as you possess a living soul, all may be re-
stored to its first freshness. These things of matter
and creations of human fantasy are fit for nothing
but to be burnt, when once they have had their day.
But your day is eternity."

" Yes," said the wretched girl, whose frenzy
seemed now to have sunk down into deep despond-
ency— " yes, and the sunshine is blotted out of
it!"

It was now rumored among the spectators that all
the weapons and munitions of war were to be thrown
into the bonfire, with the exception of the world's
stock of gunpowder, which, as the safest mode of
disposing of it, had already been drowned in the
sea. This intelligence seemed to awaken great
diversity of opinion. The hopeful philanthropist
esteemed it a token that the millennium was already
come, while persons of another stamp, in whose view
mankind was a breed of bull-dogs, prophesied that

Bartb's "fcolocaust. 439

all the old stoutness, fervor, nobleness, generosity
and magnanimity of the race would disappear, these
qualities, as they affirmed, requiring blood for their
nourishment. They comforted themselves, however,
in the belief that the proposed abolition of war was
impracticable for any length of time together.

Be that as it might, numberless great guns whose
thunder had long been the voice of battle — the artil-
lery of the Armada, the battering-trains of Marl-
borough and the adverse cannon of Napoleon and
Wellington — were trundled into the midst of the fire.
By the continual addition of dry combustibles it had
now waxed so intense that neither brass nor iron
could withstand it. It was wonderful to behold how
these terrible instruments of slaughter melted away
like playthings of wax. Then the armies of the
earth wheeled around the mighty furnace, with their
military music playing triumphant marches, and
flung in their muskets and swords. The standard-
bearers, likewise, cast one look upward at their ban-
ners, all tattered with shot-holes and inscribed with
the names of victorious fields, and, giving them a last
flourish on the breeze, they lowered them into the
flame, which snatched them upward in its rush
toward the clouds. This ceremony being over, the
world was left without a single weapon in its hands,
except, possibly, a few old king's arms and rusty
swords, and other trophies of the Revolution, in
some of our State armories. And now the drums
were beaten and the trumpets brayed all together,
as a prelude to the proclamation of universal and
eternal peace and the announcement that glory was
no longer to be won by blood, but that it would
henceforth be the contention of the human race to
work out the greatest mutual good, and that benefi-

440 /fcosees trom an ®io flfcanse.

cence in the future annals of the earth would claim
the praise of valor. The blessed tidings were ac-
cordingly promulgated, and caused infinite rejoic-
ings among those who had stood aghast at the
horror and absurdity of war.

But I saw a grim smile pass over the seared visage
of a stately old commander — by his war-worn figure
and rich military dress he might have been one ol
Napoleon's famous marshals — who, with the rest of
the world's soldiery, had just flung away the sword
that had been familiar to his right hand for half a
century.

" Ay, ay ! " grumbled he. " Let them proclaim
what they please, but in the end we shall find that
all this foolery has only made more work for the
armorers and cannon-founders."

" Why, sir," exclaimed I, in astonishment, *' do
you imagine that the human race will ever so far
return on the steps of its past madness as to weld
another sword or cast another cannon ? "

" There will be no need," observed, with a sneer,
one who neither felt benevolence nor had faith in it
" When Cain wished to slay his brother, he was at
no loss for a weapon. v

" We shall see," replied the veteran commander.
" If I am mistaken, so much the better ; but in my
opinion, without pretending to philosophize about the
matter, the necessity of war lies far deeper than
these honest gentlemen suppose. What ! Is there
a field for all the petty disputes of individuals, and
shall there be no great law-court for the settlement
of national difficulties ? The battle-field is the only
court where such suits can be tried."

" You forget, general," rejoined I, " that in this
advanced stage of civilization Reason and Philao-

Bartb'a fjolocaust. 441

thropy combined will constitute just such a tribunal
as is requisite."

" Ah ! I had forgotten that, indeed," said the old
warrior as he limped away.

The fire was now to be replenished with materials
that had hitherto been considered of even greater
importance to the well-being of society than the
warlike munitions which we had already seen con-
sumed. A body of reformers had traveled all over
the earth in quest of the machinery by which the
different nations were accustomed to inflict the
punishment of death. A shudder passed through
the multitude as these ghastly emblems were dragged
forward. Even the flames seemed at first to shrink
away, displaying the shape and murderous contriv-
ance of each in a full blaze of light which of itself
was sufficient to convince mankind of the long and
deadly error of human law. Those old implements
of cruelty — those horrible monsters of mechanism,
those inventions which it seemed to demand some-
thing worse than man's natural heart to contrive,
and which had lurked in the dusky nooks of ancient
prisons, the subject of terror-stricken legend — were
now brought forth to view. Headsmen's axes with
the rust of noble and royal blood upon them, and
a vast collection of halters that had choked the
breath of plebeian victims, were thrown in together.
A shout greeted the arrival of the guillotine, which
was thrust forward on the same wheels that had
borne it from one to another of the blood-stained
streets of Paris. But the loudest roar of applause
went up, telling the distant sky of the triumph of the
earth's redemption, when the gallows made its ap-
pearance. An ill-looking fellow, however, rushed
foi-ward, and, putting himself in the path of the

442 /Rosses from an ©ID flfcanse.

reformers, bellowed hoarsely and fought with brute-
fury to stay their progress.

It was little matter of surprise, perhaps, that the
executioner should thus do his best to vindicate and
uphold the machinery by which he himself had his
livelihood and worthier individuals their death. But
it deserved special note that men of a far different
sphere — even of that class in whose guardianship
the world is apt to trust its benevolence — were found
to take the hangman's view of the question.

" Stay, my brethren ! " cried one of them. " You
are misled by a false philanthropy ; you know not
what you do. The gallows is a Heaven-ordained
instrument ; bear it back, then, reverently and set it
up in its old place, else the world will fall to speedy
ruin and desolation ! "

" Onward, onward ! " shouted a leader in the
reform. " Into the flames with the accursed instru-
ment of man's bloody policy ! How can human law
inculcate benevolence and love while it persists
in setting up the gallows as its chief symbol ? One
heave more, good friends, and the world will be
redeemed from its greatest error."

A thousand hands, that, nevertheless, loathed the
touch, now lent their assistance, and thrust the
ominous burden far, far into the center of the raging
furnace. There its fatal and abhorred image was
beheld, first black, then a red coal, then ashes.

" That was well done ! " exclaimed I.

" Yes, it was well done," replied, but with less
enthusiasm than I expected, the thoughtful observer
who was still at my side — " well done if the world
be good enough for the measure. Death, however,
is an idea that cannot easily be dispensed with in
Any condition between the primal innocence and

jeartb's "foolocaust. 443

that other purity and perfection which, perchance,
we are destined to attain after traveling round the
full circle. But, at all events, it is well that the
experiment should now be tried."

" Too cold ! too cold ! " impatiently exclaimed the
young and ardent leader in this triumph. " Let the
heart have its voice here as well as the intellect.
And as for ripeness, and as for progress, let mankind
always do the highest, kindest, noblest thing that
at any given period it has attained the perception
of, and surely that thing cannot be wrong nor
wrongly timed."

I know not whether it were the excitement of the
scene or whether the good people around the bonfire
were really growing more enlightened every instant,
but they now proceeded to measures in the full length
of which I was hardly prepared to keep them company.
For instance, some threw their marriage certificates
into the flames, and declared themselves candidates
for a higher, holier and more comprehensive union
than that which had subsisted from the birth of time
under the form of the connubial tie. Others hastened
to the vaults of banks and to the coffers of the rich
— all of which were open to the first comer on this
fated occasion — and brought entire bales of paper
money to enliven the blaze, and tons of coin to be
melted down by its intensity. Henceforth, they
said, universal benevolence, uncoined and exhaust-
less, was to be the golden currency of the world.
At this intelligence the bankers and speculators in
the stocks grew pale, and a pickpocket who had
reaped a rich harvest among the crowd fell down in
a deadly fainting-fit. A few men of business burnt
their day-books and ledgers, the notes and obliga-
tions of their creditors, and all other evidences oi

444 ASosses froni an Old

debts due to themselves, while perhaps a somewhat
larger number satisfied their zeal for reform with the
sacrifice of any uncomfortable recollection of their
own indebtment. There was then a cry that the
period was arrived when the title-deeds of landed
property should be given to the flames and the whole
soil of the earth revert to the public from whom it
had been wrongfully abstracted and most unequally
distributed among individuals. Another party de-
manded that all written constitutions, set forms
of government, legislative acts, statute-books, and
everything else on which human invention had en-
deavored to stamp its arbitrary laws, should at once
be destroyed, leaving the consummated world as free
as the man first created.

Whether any ultimate action was taken with
regard to these propositions is beyond my knowl-
edge, for just then some matters were in progress
that concerned my sympathies more nearly.

" See ! see ! What heaps of books and pam-
phlets ! " cried a fellow who did not seem to be a
lover of literature. " Now we shall have a glorious
blaze ! "

" That's just the thing," said a modern philoso-
pher. *• Now we shall get rid of the weight of dead
men's thought which has hitherto pressed so heavily
on the living intellect that it has been incompetent
to any effectual self-exertion. — Well done, my lads!
Into the fire with them I Now you are enlightening
the world indeed ! "

" But what is to become of the trade ? " cried a
frantic bookseller.

" Oh, by all means let them accompany their
merchandise," coolly observed an author. " It
will be a noble funeral-pile."

.•-.,."

TH1. \VIIITi: MOI NTAINS

Eartb's "fcolocaust. 445

The truth was that the human race had now
reached a stage of progress so far beyond what the
wisest and wittiest men of former ages had ever
dreamed of that it would have been a manifest absurd-
ity to allow the earth to be any longer encumbered
with their poor achievements in the literary line.
Accordingly, a thorough and searching investigation
had swept the booksellers' shops, hawkers' stands,
public and private libraries, and even the little book-
shelf by the country fireside, and had brought the
world's entire mass of printed paper, bound or in
sheets, to swell the already mountain-bulk of our
illustrious bonfire. Thick, heavy folios containing
the labors of lexicographers, commentators and
encyclopedists were flung in, and falling among the
embers with a leaden thump, smoldered away to
ashes like rotten wood. The small richly-gilt
French tomes of the last age, with a hundred
volumes of Voltaire among them, went off in a
brilliant shower of sparkles and little jets of flame,
while the current literature of the same nation burnt,
red and blue and threw an infernal light over the
visages of the spectators, converting them all to the
aspect of parti-colored fiends. A collection of Ger-
man stories emitted a scent of brimstone. The
English standard authors made excellent fuel,
generally exhibiting the properties of sound oak
logs. Milton's works, in particular, sent up a
powerful blaze, gradually reddening into a coal
which promised to endure longer than almost any
other material of the pile. From Shakespeare there
gushed a flame of such marvelous splendor that
men shaded their eyes as against the sun's meridian
glory, nor even when the works of his own eluci-
'•iators were flung upon him did he cease to flash

446 &003C3 from an Oft flfcansc.

forth a dazzling radiance from beneath the ponder-
ous heap. It is my belief that he is still blazing as
fervidly as ever.

" Could a poet but light a lamp at that glorious
flame," remarked I, " he might then consume the
midnight oil to some good purpose."

" That is the very thing which modern poets have
been too apt to do — or, at least, to attempt," answered
a critic. " The chief benefit to be expected from this
conflagration of past literature undoubtedly is that
writers will henceforth be compelled to light their
lamps at the sun or stars."

" If they can reach so high," said I. " But that
task requires a giant who may afterward distribute
the light among inferior men. It is not every one
that can steal the fire from heaven, like Prometheus ;
but when once he had done the deed, a thousand
hearths were kindled by it."

It amazed me much to observe how indefinite was
the proportion between the physical mass of any
given author and the property of brilliant and long-
continued combustion. For instance, there was not
a quarto volume of the last century — nor, indeed, of
the present — that could compete in that particular
with a child's little gilt-covered book containing
Mother Goose's melodies. The Life and Death
of Tom Thumb outlasted the biography of Marl-
borough. An epic — indeed, a dozen of them — was
converted to white ashes before the single sheet of
an old ballad was half consumed. In more than
one case, too, when volumes of applauded verse
proved incapable of anything better than a stifling
smoke, an unregarded ditty of some nameless bard
— perchance in the corner of a newspaper — soared
up among the stars with a flame as brilliant as tbeir

Bartb's tolocauet. 447

own. Speaking of the properties of flame, me-
thought Shelley's poetry emitted a purer light than
almost any other productions of his day, contrasting
beautifully with the fitful and lurid gleams and
gushes of black vapor that flashed and eddied from
the volumes of Lord Byron. As for Tom Moore,
some of his songs diffused an odor like a burning
pastille.

I felt particular interest in watching the combus-
tion of American authors, and scrupulously noted
by my watch the precise number of moments that
changed most of them from shabbily-printed books
to indistinguishable ashes. It would be invidious,
however, if not perilous, to betray these awful
secrets ; so that I shall content myself with observ-
ing that it was not invariably the writer most frequent
in the public mouth that made the most splendid
appearance in the bonfire. I especially remember
that a great deal of excellent inflammability was
exhibited in a thin volume of poems by Ellery Chan-
ning, although, to speak the truth, there were certain
portions that hissed and spluttered in a very disa-
greeable fashion. A curious phenomenon occurred
in reference to several writers, native as well as
foreign. Their books, though of highly-respectable
figure, instead of bursting into a blaze, or even
smoldering out their substance in smoke, suddenly
melted away in a manner that proved them to be ice.

If it be no lack of modesty to mention my own
works, it must here be confessed that I looked for
them with fatherly interest, but in vain. Too prob-
ably they were changed to vapor by the first action
of the heat ; at best, I can only hope that in their
quiet way they contributed a glimmering spark or
two to the splendor of the evening.

448 dfco00es from an ©10 d&anse.

"Alas ! and woe is me ! " thus bemoaned himself
a heavy-looking gentleman in green spectacles.
" The world is utterly ruined, and there is nothing
to live for any longer. The business of my life is
snatched from me. Not a volume to be had for
love or money ! "

" This," remarked the sedate observer beside me,
"is a bookworm — one of those men who are born
to gnaw dead thoughts. His clothes, you see, are
covered with the dust of libraries. He has no in-
ward fountain of ideas, and, in good earnest, now that
the old stock is abolished, I do not see what is to
become of the poor fellow. Have you no word of
comfort for him ? "

" My dear sir," said I to the desperate bookworm,
"is not Nature better than a book? Is not the
human heart deeper than any system of philosophy ?
Is not life replete with more instruction than past
observers have found it possible to write down in
maxims ? Be of good cheer. The great book of
Time is still spread wide open before us ; and if we
read it aright, it will be to us a volume of eternal
truth."

" Oh, my books, my books ! my precious printed
books ! " reiterated the forlorn bookworm. " My
only reality was a bound volume, and now they will
not leave me even a shadowy pamphlet."

In fact, the last remnant of the literature of all the
ages was now descending upon the blazing heap in
the shape of a cloud of pamphlets from the press of
the New World. These, likewise, were consumed
in the twinkling of an eye, leaving the earth, for the
first time since the days of Cadmus, free from the
plague of letters — an enviable field for the authors
of the next generation.

jCartb's fjolocauat. 449

" Well, and does anything remain to be done ? "
inquired I, somewhat anxiously. " Unless we set
fire to the earth itself and then leap boldly off into
infinite space, I know not that we can carry reform
to any further point."

'• You are vastly mistaken, my good friend," said
the observer. " Believe me, the fire will not be
allowed to settle down without the addition of fuel
that will startle many persons who have lent a will-
ing hand thus far."

Nevertheless, there appeared to be a relaxation
of effort for a little time, during which, probably, the
leaders of the movement were considering what
should be done next. In the interval a philosopher
threw his theory into the flames — a sacrifice which,
by those who knew how to estimate it, was pro-
nounced the most remarkable that had yet been made.
The combustion, however, was by no means brilliant.
Some indefatigable people, scorning to take a mo-
ment's ease, now employed themselves in collecting
all the withered leaves and fallen boughs of the forest,
and thereby recruited the bonfire to a greater height
than ever. But this was mere by-play.

" Here comes the fresh fuel that I spoke of," said
my companion.

To my astonishment, the persons who now
advanced into the vacant space around the mountain-
fire bore surplices and other priestly garments,
miters, crosiers, and a confusion of Popish and Prot-
estant emblems with which it seemed their purpose
to consummate the greac Act of Faith. Crosses
from the spires of old cathedrals were cast upon the
heap with as little remorse as if the reverence of
centuries, passing in long array beneath the lofty
towers, had not looked up to them as the holiest of

450 /Bosses from an ©ID flfcanse.

symbols. The font in which infants were con-
secrated to God, the sacramental vessels whence
Piety received the hallowed draught, were given
to the same destruction. Perhaps it most nearly
touched my heart to see among these devoted relics
fragments of the humble communion-tables and
undecorated pulpits which I recognized as having
been torn from the meeting-houses of New England.
Those simple edifices might have been permitted to
retain all of sacred embellishments that their Puritan
founders had bestowed, even though the mighty
structure of St. Peter's had sent its spoils to the fire
of this terrible sacrifice. Yet I felt that these were
but the externals of religion, and might most safely
be relinquished by spirits that best knew their deep
significance.

" All is well," said I, cheerfully. " The wood-
paths shall be the aisles of our cathedral ; the firma-
ment itself shall be its ceiling. What needs an
earthly roof between the Deity and His worshipers ?
Our faith can well afford to lose all the drapery that
even the holiest men have thrown around it, and be
only the more sublime in its simplicity."

" True," said my companion. " But will they
pause here ? "

The doubt implied in his question was well found-
ed. In the general destruction of books already
described a holy volume that stood apart from the
catalogue of human literature, and yet in one sense
was at its head, had been spared. But the Titan of
innovation — angel or fiend, double in his nature and
capable of deeds befitting both characters — at first
shaking down only the old and rotten shapes of
things, had now, as it appeared, laid his terrible
hand upon the main pillars which supported the

J6artbr0 holocaust. 451

whole edifice of our moral and spiritual state. The
inhabitants of the earth had grown too enlightened
to define their faith within a form of words or to
limit the spiritual by any analogy to our material
existence. Truths which the heavens trembled at
were now but a fable of the world's infancy. There-
fore, as the final sacrifice of human error, what else
remained to be thrown upon the embers of that awful
pile except the Book which, though a celestial revela-
tion to past ages, was but a voice from a lower
sphere, as regarded the present race of man ? It
was done. Upon the blazing heap of falsehood and
worn-out truth — things that the earth had never
needed or had ceased to need or had grown child-
ishly weary of — fell the ponderous church Bible,
the great old volume that had lain so long on the
cushion of the pulpit, and whence the pastor's solemn
voice had given holy utterance on so many a Sab-
bath-day. There, likewise, fell the family Bible
which the long-buried patriarch had read to his
children — in prosperity or sorrow, by the fireside,
and in the summer shade of trees — and had be-
queathed downward as the heirloom of generations.
There fell the bosom Bible, the little volume that
had been the soul's friend of some sorely-tried child
of dust who thence took courage whether his trial
were for life or death, steadfastly confronting both
in the strong assurance of immortality.

All these were flung into the fierce and riotous
blaze, and then a mighty wind came roaring across
the plain with a desolate howl, as if it were the angry
lamentations of the earth for the loss of heaven's
sunshine, and it shook the gigantic pyramid of flame
and scattered the cinders of half-consumed abom-
inations around upon the spectators.

452 dfcossea trom an ©K> /Range.

" This is terrible ! " said I, feeling that my cheek
grew pale and seeing a like change in the visages
about me.

" Be of good courage yet," answered the man with
whom I had so often spoken. He continued to gaze
steadily at the spectacle with a singular calmness, as
if it concerned him merely as an observer. " Be of
good courage, nor yet exult too much ; for there is
far less both of good and evil in the effect of this
bonfire than the world might be willing to believe.''

"How can that be?" exclaimed I, impatiently.
" Has it not consumed everything ? Has it not
swallowed up or melted down every human or divine
appendage of our mortal state that had substance
enough to be acted on by fire ? Will there be anything
left us to-morrow morning better or worse than a
heap of embers and ashes ? "

" Assuredly there will," said my grave friend.
" Come hither to-morrow morning — or whenever the
combustible portion of the pile shall be quite burnt
out — and you will find among the ashes everything
really valuable that you have seen cast into the flames.
Trust me, the world of to-morrow will again enrich
itself with the gold and diamonds which have been
cast off by the world of to-day. Not a truth is de-
stroyed nor buried so deep among the ashes but it
will be raked up at last."

This was a strange assurance, yet I felt inclined
to credit it — the more especially as I beheld among
the wallowing flames a copy of the Holy Scriptures
the pages of which, instead of being blackened into
tinder, only assumed a more dazzling whiteness as
the finger-marks of human imperfection were purified
away. Certain marginal notes and commentaries,
h is true, yielded to the intensity of the fiery test,

Bartb'* 1>olocau3t. 453

but without detriment to the smallest syllable that
had flamed from the pen of inspiration.

M Yes, there is the proof of what you say," an-
swered I, turning to the observer. " But if only
what is evil can feel the action of the fire, then,
surely, the conflagration has been of inestimable
utility. Yet, if I understand aright, you intimate a
doubt whether the world's expectation of benefit
would be realized by it."

" Listen to the talk of these worthies," said he,
pointing to a group in front of the blazing pile.
" Possibly they may teach you something useful
without intending it."

The persons whom he indicated consisted of that
brutal and most earthy figure who had stood forth
so furiously in defense of the gallows — the hangman,
in short — together with the last thief and the last
murderer, all three of whom were clustered about
the last toper. The latter was liberally passing the
brandy-bottle which he had rescued from the general
destruction of wines and spirits. This little convivial
party seemed at the lowest pitch of despondency, as
considering that the purified world must needs be
utterly unlike the sphere that they had hitherto
known, and therefore but a strange and desolate
abode for gentlemen of their kidney.

" The best counsel for all of us is," remarked the
hangman, " that as soon as we have finished the last
drop of liquor I help you, my three friends, to a
comfortable end upon the nearest tree, and then
hang myself on the same bough. This is no ;rorld
for us any longer."

" Poh, poh, my good fellows ! " said a dark-com-
plexioned personage who now joined the group.
His complexion was indeed fearfully dark, and his

454 bosses from an QID /foanee.

eyes glowed with a redder light than thai of the
bonfire. " Be not so cast down, my dear friends ;
you shall see good days yet. There is one thing
that these wiseacres have forgotten to throw into the
fire, and without which all the rest of the conflagra-
tion is just nothing at all — yes, though they had
burnt the earth itself to a cinder."

*• And what may that be ? " eagerly demanded the
last murderer.

" What but the human heart itself ? " said the
dark-visaged stranger, with a portentous grin. '* And,
unless they hit upon some method of purifying that
foul cavern, forth from it will reissue all the shapes
of wrong and misery — the same old shapes, or worse
ones — which they have taken such a vast deal of
trouble to consume to ashes. I have stood by this
livelong night and laughed in my sleeve at the whole
business. Oh, take my word for it, it will be the old
world yet."

This brief conversation supplied me with a theme
for lengthened thought. How sad a truth — if true
it were — that man's age-long endeavor for perfec-
tion had served only to render him the mockery of
the Evil Principle from the fatal circumstance of an
error at the very root of the matter ! The heart —
the heart ! There was the little, yet boundless,
sphere wherein existed the original wrong of which
the crime and misery of this outward world were
merely types. Purify that inward sphere, and the
many shapes of evil that haunt the outward, and
which now seem almost our only realities, will turn
to shadowy phantoms and vanish of their own ac-
cord. But if we go no deeper than the intellect,
and strive with merely that feeble instrument to
discern and rectify what is wrong, our whole accom-

jCartb'0 l)olocaust. 455

plishment will be a dream so unsubstantial that it
matters little whether the bonfire which I have so
faithfully described were what we choose to call a
real event and a flame that would scorch the finger,
or only a phosphoric radiance and a parable of my
own brain.

SKETCHES FROM MEMORY,

BY A PEDESTRIAN.

"We are so fortunate as to have in our possession the
portrolio of a friend who traveled on foot in search of the
picturesque over New England and New York. It contains
many loose scraps and random sketches, which appear to have
been thrown off at different intervals, as tbe scenes once
observed were recalled to the mind of the writer by recent events
or associations. He kept no journal nor set down any notes
during his tour ; but his recollection seems to have been
faithful, and his powers of description as fresh and effective as
if they had been tasked on the very spot which he describes.
Some of his quiet delineations deserve rather to be c '.Hed
pictures than sketches, so lively are the colors shed over
them. The first which we select is a reminiscence of a day
and night spent among the White Mountains, and will revive
agreeable thoughts in the minds of those tourists who have
but just returned from a visit to their sublime scenery.

THE NOTCH OF THE WHITE MOUNTAINS.

IT was now the middle of September. We had
come since sunrise from Bartlett, passing up through
the valley of the Saco, which extends between
mountainous walls, sometimes with a steep ascent,
but often as level as a church-aisle. All that day and
two preceding ones we had been loitering toward
the heart of the White Mountains— those old crystal

*The following sketches appeared originally in the .\*<T<»
England Mag azinf, and are here for the first time reprinted
complete.

456

Sftetcbes from dfcemorE. 457

hills whose mysterious brilliancy had gleamed upon
our distant wanderings before we thought of visiting
them. Height after height had risen and towered
one above another, till the clouds began to hang below
the peaks. Down their slopes were the red pathways
of the slides, those avalanches of earth, stones and
trees which descend into the hollows, leaving
vestiges of their track hardly to be effaced by the
vegetation of ages. We had mountains behind us
and mountains on each side, and a group of mightier
ones ahead. Still our road went up along the Saco,
right toward the center of that group, as if to climb
above the clouds in its passage to the farther region.
In old times the settlers used to be astounded by
the inroads of the Northern Indians, coming down
upon them from this mountain-rampart, through
some defile known only to themselves. It is indeed
a wondrous path. A demon, it might be fancied,
or one of the Titans was traveling up the valley,
elbowing the heights carelessly aside as he passed,
till at length a great mountain took its stand directly
across his intended road. He tarries not for such
an obstacle, but, rending it asunder a thousand feet
from peak to base, discloses its treasures of hidden
minerals, its sunless waters, all the secrets of the
mountain's inmost heart, with a mighty fracture of
rugged precipices on each side. This is the Notch
of the White Hills. Shame on me that I have
attempted to describe it by so mean an image,
feeling, as I do, that it is one of those symbolic
'scenes which lead the mind to the sentiment, though
not to the conception, of Omnipotence.

We had now reached a narrow passage which
showed almost the appearance of having been cut

458 /Bosses trom an ©10 flfcanse.

by human strength and artifice in the solid rock.
There was a wall of granite on each side, high and
precipitous, especially on our right, and so smooth
that a few evergreens could hardly find foothold
enough to grow there. This is the entrance, or, in
the direction we were going, the extremity, of the
romantic defile of the Notch. Before emerging from
it the rattling of wheels approached behind us, and a
stage-coach rumbled out of the mountain, with seats
on top and trunks behind, and a smart driver in a drab
great-coat touching the wheel-horses with the whip-
stock and reining in the leaders. To my mind there
was a sort of poetry in such an incident hardly in-
ferior to what would have accompanied the painted
array of an Indian war-party gliding forth from the
same wild chasm. All the passengers except a very
fat lady on the back seat had alighted. One was a
mineralogist — a scientific, green-spectacled figure in
black — bearing a heavy hammer, with which he did
great damage to the precipices, and put the fragments
in his pocket. Another was a well-dressed young
man who carried an opera-glass set in gold, and
seemed to be making a quotation from some of
Byron's rhapsodies on mountain-scenery. There
was also a trader returning from Portland to the
upper part of Vermont, and a fair young girl with a
very faint bloom, like one of those pale and deli-
cate flowers which sometimes occur among Alpine
cliffs.

They disappeared, and we followed them, passing
through a deep pine-forest which for some miles
allowed us to see nothing but its own dismal shade.
Toward nightfall we reached a level amphitheater
surrounded by a great rampart of hills, which shut
out the sunshine long before it left the external

Sfeetcbes from flfcemor£. 459

jvorld. It was here that we obtained our first view,
except at a distance, of the principal group of mount-
ains. They are majestic, and even awful, when
contemplated in a proper mood, yet by their breadth
of base and the long ridges which support them give
the idea of immense bulk rather than of towering
height. Mount Washington, indeed, looked near to
heaven ; he was white with snow a mile downward,
and had caught the only cloud that was sailing
through the atmosphere to veil his head. Let us
forget the other names of American statesmen that
have been stamped upon these hills, but still call
the loftiest " WASHINGTON." Mountains are Earth's
undecaying monuments. They must stand while
she endures, and never should be consecrated to
the mere great men of their own age and country
but to the mighty ones alone whose glory is univer-
sal and whom all time will render illustrious.

The air — not often sultry in this elevated region,
nearly two thousand feet above the sea — was now
sharp and cold, like that of a clear November even-
ing in the lowlands. By morning, probably, there
would be a frost, if not a snow-fall, on the grass and
rye, and an icy surface over the standing water.
I was glad to perceive a prospect of comfortable
quarters in a house which we were approaching, and
of pleasant company in the guests who were as-
sembled at the door.

OUR EVENING-PARTY AMONG THE MOUNTAINS.

We stood in front of a good substantial farmhouse
of old date, in that wild country. A sign over the
door denoted it to be the White Mountain post-office
— an establishment which distributes letters and

460 &003C0 from an OlD

newspapers to perhaps a score of persons, compris
ing the population of two or three townships among
the hills. The broad and weighty antlers of a deer
• — " a stag of ten " — were fastened at the corner of
the house; a fox's bushy tail was nailed beneath
them, and a huge black paw lay on the ground, newly
severed and still bleeding, the trophy of a bear-hunt.
Among several persons collected about the door-
steps, the most remarkable was a sturdy mountaineer
of six feet two and corresponding bulk, with a heavy
set of features such as might be molded on his own
blacksmith's anvil, but yet indicative of mother-wit
and rough humor. As we appeared he uplifted a
tin trumpet four or five feet long and blew a tre-
mendous blast, either in honor of our arrival or to
awaken an echo from the opposite hill.

Ethan Crawford's guests were of such a motley
description as to form quite a picturesque group
seldom seen together except at some place like this,
at once the pleasure-house of fashionable tourists
and the homely inn of country travelers. Among
the company at the door were the mineralogist and
the owner of the gold opera-glass, whom we had
encountered in the Notch, two Georgian gentlemen
who had chilled their Southern blood that morning
on the top of Mount Washington, a physician and
his wife from Conway, a trader of Burlington and
an old squire of the Green Mountains, and two
young married couples all the way from Massa-
chusetts on the matrimonial jaunt. Besides these
strangers, the rugged county of Coos, in which we
were, was represented by half a dozen woodcutters,
who had slain a bear in the forest and smitten off
bis paw.

I had joined the party, and had a moment's

Sftetcbes from flfcemors. 461

leisure to examine them before the echo of Ethan's
blast returned from the hill. Not one but many
echoes had caught up the harsh and tuneless sound,
untwisted its complicated threads, and found a
thousand aerial harmonies in one stern trumpet-
tone. It was a distinct yet distant and dreamlike
symphony of melodious instruments, as if an airy
band had been hidden on the hillside and made
faint music at the summons. No subsequent trial
produced so clear, delicate and spiritual a concert
as the first. A field-piece was then discharged from
the top of a neighboring hill, and gave birth to one
long reverberation which ran round the circle of
mountains in an unbroken chain of sound and
rolled away without a separate echo. After these
experiments, the cold atmosphere drove us all into
the house with the keenest appetites for supper.

It did one's heart good to see the great fires that
were kindled in the parlor and bar-room, especially
the latter, where the fireplace was built of rough
stone and might have contained the trunk of an old
tree for a back-log. A man keeps a comfortable
hearth when his own forest is at his very door. In
the parlor, when the evening was fairly set in, we
held our hands before our eyes to shield them from
the ruddy glow, and began a pleasant variety of
conversation. The mineralogist and the physician
talked about the invigorating qualities of the mount-
ain-air and its excellent effect on Ethan Crawford's
father, an old man of seventy-five with the unbroken
frame of middle life. The two brides and the
doctor's wife held a whispered discussion, which,
by their frequent titterings and a blush or two,
seemed to have reference to the trials or enjoyments
of the matrimonial state. The bridegrooms sat
30

462 /Bosses trom an ©Ifc fl&ansc.

together in a corner, rigidly silent, like Quakers
whom the spirit moveth not, being still in the odd
predicament of blushing bashfulness toward their
own wives. The Green-Mountain squire chose me
for his companion, and described the difficulties he
had met with half a century ago in traveling from
the Connecticut River through the Notch to Con-
way, now a single day's journey, though it had cost
him eighteen. The Georgians held the album be-
tween them, and favored us with the few specimens of
its contents which they considered ridiculous enough
to be worth hearing. One extract met with deserved
applause. It was a " Sonnet to the Snow on Mount
Washington," and had been contributed that very
afternoon, bearing a signature of great distinctionin
magazines and annuals. The lines were elegant and
full of fancy, but too remote from familiar senti-
ment and cold as their subject, resembling those
curious specimens of crystallized vapor which I
observed next day on the mountain-top. The poet
was understood to be the young gentleman of the
gold opera-glass, who heard our laudatory remarks
with the composure of a veteran.

Such was our party, and such their ways of amuse-
ment. But on a winter evening another set of guests
assembled at the hearth where these summer-travel-
ers were now sitting. I once had it in contempla-
tion to spend a month hereabouts in sleighing-time
for the sake of studying the yeomen of New Eng-
land, who then elbow each other through the Notch
by hundreds on their way to Portland. There could
be no better school for such a place than Ethan
Crawford's inn. Let the student go thither in De-
cember, sit down with the teamsters at their meals,
share their evening merriment, and repose with

Sftetcbes from /fcemorg. 463

them at night, when every bed has its three occu-
pants and parlor, bar-room and kitchen are strewn
with slumberers around the fire. Then let him rise
before daylight, button his great-coat, muffle up
his ears, and stride with the departing caravan a
mile or two to see how sturdily they make head
against the blast. A treasure of characteristic traits
will repay all inconveniences, even should a frozen
taose be of the number.

The conversation of our party soon became more
animated and sincere, and we recounted some tradi-
tions of the Indians, who believed that the father
and mother of their race were saved from a deluge
by ascending the peak of Mount Washington. The
children of that pair have been overwhelmed, and
found no such refuge. In the mythology of the
savage these mountains were afterward considered
sacred and inaccessible, full of unearthly wonders
illuminated at lofty heights by the blaze of precious
stones, and inhabited by deities who sometimes
shrouded themselves in the snow-storm and came
down on the lower world. There are few legends
more poetical than that of the " Great Carbuncle "
of the White Mountains. The belief was commu-
nicated to the English settlers, and is hardly yet
extinct, that a gem of such immense size as to be
seen shining miles away hangs from a rock over a
clear, deep lake high up among the hills. They
who had once beheld its splendor were enthralled
with an unutterable yearning to possess it. But a
spirit guarded that inestimable jewel and bewildered
the adventurer with a dark mist from the enchanted
lake. Thus life was worn away in the vain search
for an unearthly treasure, till at length the deluded
one went up the mountain, still sanguine as in youth,

464 flfcoaae* trom an ©l& flfcansc.

but returned no more. On this theme, methinks, I
could frame a tale with a deep moral.

The hearts of the palefaces would not thrill to
these superstitions of the red men though we spoke
of them in the center of the haunted region. The
habits and sentiments of that departed people were
too distinct from those of their successors to find
much real sympathy. It has often been a matter
of regret to me that I was shut out from the most
peculiar field of American fiction by an inability to
see any romance or poetry or grandeur or beauty in
the Indian character — at least, till such traits were
pointed out by others. I do abhor an Indian story,
yet no writer can be more secure of a permanent place
in our literature than the biographer of the Indian
chiefs. His subject, as referring to tribes which
have mostly vanished from the earth, gives him a
right to be placed on a chssic shelf apart from the
merits which will sustain him there.

I made inquiries whether in his researches about
these parts our mineralogist had found the three
" silver hills " which an Indian sachem sold to an
Englishman nearly two hundred years ago, and the
treasure of which the posterity of the purchaser have
been looking for evei since. But the man of science
had ransacked every hill along the Snco, and knew
nothing of these prodigious piles of wealth.

By this time, as usual with n.en on the eve of
great adventure, we had prolonged our session deep
into the night, considering how early we were to set
out on our six miles' ride to the foot of Mount
Washington. There was now a general breaking
up. I scrutinized the faces of the two bride-
grooms, and saw but little probability of their leav-
ing the bosom of earthly bliss in the first week of

Sfcetcbes from dBemorg. 465

the honeymoon, and at the frosty hour of three, to
climb above the clouds. Nor, when I felt how sharp
the wind was as it rushed through a broken pane
and eddied between the chinks of my unplastered
chamber, did I anticipate much alacrity on my own
part, though we were to seek for the "Great Car-
buncle."

THE CANAL BOAT.

I was inclined to be poetical about the Grand
Canal. In my imagination De Witt Clinton was
an enchanter who had waved his magic wand from
the Hudson to Lake Erie and united them by a
watery highway crowded with the commerce of two
worlds till then inaccessible to each other. This
simple and mighty conception had conferred inesti-
mable value on spots which Nature seemed to have
thrown carelessly into the great body of the earth
without foreseeing that they could ever attain
importance. I pictured the surprise of the sleepy
Dutchmen when the new river first glittered by their
doors, bringing them hard cash or foreign commod«
ities in exchange for their hitherto unmarketable
produce. Surely the water of this canal must be the
most fertilizing of all fluids, for it causes towns, with
their masses of brick and stone, their churches and
theaters, their business and hubbub, their luxury
and refinement, their gay dames and polished
citizens, to spring up, till in time the wondrous
stream may flow between two continuous lines of
buildings, through one thronged street, from Buffalo
to Albany. I embarked about thirty miles below
Utica, determining to voyage along the whole ex-
tent of the canal at least twice in the course of th*
summer.

466 flfcosses trom an ©ID dfcanse.

Behold us, then, fairly afloat, with three horses
harnessed to our vessel, like the steeds of Neptune
to a huge scallop-shell in mythological pictures.
Bound to a distant port, we had neither chart nor
compass, nor cared about the wind, nor felt the heav-
ing of a billow, nor dreaded shipwreck, however
fierce the tempest, in our adventurous navigation of
an interminable mud-puddle ; for a mud-puddle it
seemed, and as dark and turbid as if every kennel in
the land paid contribution to it. With an imper-
ceptible current, it holds its drowsy way through all
the dismal swamps and unimpressive scenery that
could be found between the Great Lakes and the
seacoast. Yet there is variety enough, both on the
surface of the canal and along its banks, to amuse
the traveler, if an overpowering tedium did not
deaden his perceptions.

Sometimes we met a black and rusty-looking
vessel laden with lumber, salt from Syracuse or Gen-
esee flour, and shaped at both ends like a square-toed
boot, as if it had two sterns and were fated always
to advance backward. On its deck would be a
square hut and a woman seen through the window
at her household work, with a little tribe of children
who perhaps had been born in this strange dwelling
and knew no other home. Thus, while the husband
smoked his pipe at the helm and the eldest son rode
one of the horses, on went the family, traveling
hundreds of miles in their own house and carrying
their fireside with them. The most frequent species
of craft were the " line-boats," which had a cabin at
each end and a great bulk of barrels, bales and boxes
in the midst, or light packets like our own, decked all
over, with a row of curtained windows from stem to
stern and a drowsy face at everyone Once we er^

Sfcctcbes tvom flfccmorg. 467

countered a boat of rude construction, painted all in
gloomy black and manned by three Indians, who
gazed at us in silence and with a singular fixedness of
eye. Perhaps these three alone among the ancient
possessors of the land had attempted to derive
benefit from the white man's mighty projects and
float along the current of his enterprise. Not long
after, in the midst of a swamp and beneath a
clouded sky, we overtook a vessel that seemed full
of mirth and sunshine. It contained a little colony of
Swiss on their way to Michigan, clad in garments of
strange fashion and gay colors, scarlet, yellow and
bright blue, singing, laughing and making merry in
odd tones and a babble of outlandish words. One
pretty damsel with a beautiful pair of naked white
arms addressed a mirthful remark to me ; she spoke
in her native tongue and I retorted in good English
both of us laughing heartily at each other's unintel-
ligible wit. 1 cannot describe how pleasantly this
incident affected me. These honest Swiss were an
itinerant community of jest and fun journeying
through a gloomy land and among a dull race of
money-getting drudges, meeting none to understand
their mirth and only one to sympathize with it, yet
still retaining the happy lightness of their own
spirit.

Had I been on my feet at the time, instead of
sailing slowly along in a dirty canal-boat, I should
often have paused to contemplate the diversified
panorama along the banks of the canal. Some-
times the scene was a forest, dark, dense and imper-
vious, breaking away occasionally and receding from
a lonely tract covered with dismal black stumps,
where on the verge of the canal might be seen a log
cottage and a sallow-faced woman at the window.

468 rtbosses from an

Lean and aguish she looked, like Poverty personified
half clothed, half fed and dwelling in a desert while a.
tide of wealth was sweeping by her door. Two or
three miles farther would bring us to a lock where the
slight impediment to navigation had created a little
mart of trade. Here would be found commodities
of all sorts, enumerated in yellow letters on the win-
dow-shutters of a small grocery-store, the owner of
which had set his soul to the gathering of coppers
and small change, buying and selling through the
week and counting his gains on the blessed Sabbath.
The next scene might be the dwelling-houses and
stores of a thriving village, built of wood or small
gray stones, a church-spire rising in the midst, and
generally two taverns bearing over their piazzas the
pompous title of " Hotel," " Exchange," " Tontine "
or ** Coffee-house." Passing on, we glide now into
the unquiet heart of an inland city — of Utica, for
instance — and find ourselves amid piles of brick,
crowded docks and quays, rich warehouses and a
busy population. We feel the eager and hurrying
spirit of the place like a stream and eddy whirling
us along with it. Through the thickest of the tumult
goes the canal, flowing between lofty rows of build-
ings and arched bridges of hewn stone. Onward,
also, go we, till the hum and bustle of struggling
enterprise die away behind us and we are threading
an avenue of the ancient woods again.

This sounds not amiss in description, but was so
tiresome in reality that we were driven to the most
childish expedients for amusement. An English
traveler paraded the deck with a rifle in his walk-
ing-stick, and waged war on squirrels and wood-
peckers, sometimes sending an unsuccessful bullet
among flocks of tame ducks and geese which abound

Sfeetcbes trom flfcemorg. 469

in the dirty water of the canal. I also pelted these
foolish birds with apples, and smiled at the ridicu-
lous earnestness of their scrambles for the prize,
while the apple bobbed about like a thing of life.
Several little accidents afforded us good-natured
diversion. At the moment of changing horses the
tow-rope caught a Massachusetts farmer by the leg
and threw him down in a very indescribable posture,
leaving a purple mark around his sturdy limb. A
new passenger fell flat on his back in attempting to
step on deck as the boat emerged from under a bridge.
Another — in his Sunday clothes, as good luck would
have it — being told to leap aboard from the bank,
forthwith plunged up to his third waistcoat-button in
the canal, and was fished out in a very pitiable plight
not at all amended by our three rounds of applause.
Anon a Virginia schoolmaster too intent on a pocket
Virgil to heed the helmsman's warning — "Bridge!
bridge ! " — was saluted by the said bridge on his
knowledge-box. I had prostrated myself like a pagan
before his idol, but heard the dull leaden sound of
the contact, and fully expected to see the treasures
of the poor man's cranium scattered about the deck.
However, as there was no harm done except a large
bump on the head, and probably a corresponding
dent in the bridge, the rest of us exchanged glances
and laughed quietly. Oh how pitiless are idle
people !

The table being now lengthened through the cabin
and spread for supper, the next twenty minutes were
the pleasantest I had spent on the canal — the same
space at dinner excepted. At the close of the meal
it had become dusky enough for lamplight. The
rain pattered unceasingly on the deck, and some-
times came with a sullen rush against the windows,

470 /ftoases from an ©to flfcanse

driven by the wind as it stirred through an opening
of the forest. The intolerable dullness of the scene
engendered an evil spirit in me. Perceiving that the
Englishman was taking notes in a memorandum-
book, with occasional glances round the cabin, I
presumed that we were all to figure in a future vol
ume of travels, and amused my ill-humor by falling
into the probable vein of his remarks. He would
hold up an imaginary mirror wherein our reflected
faces would appear ugly and ridiculous, yet still re-
tain an undeniable likeness to the originals. Then,
with more sweeping malice, he would make these
caricatures the representatives of great classes of my
countrymen.

He glanced at the Virginia schoolmaster, a Yankee
by birth, who to recreate himself was examining a
freshman from Schenectady College in the conjuga-
tion of a Greek verb. Him the Englishman would
portray as the scholar of America, and compare his
erudition to a schoolboy's Latin theme made up of
scraps ill-selected and worse put together. Next
the tourist looked at the Massachusetts farmer,
who was delivering a dogmatic harangue on the
iniquity of Sunday mails. Here was the far-famed
yeoman of New England. His religion, writes the
Englishman, is gloom on the Sabbath, long prayers
every morning and eventide and illiberality at all
times ; his boasted information is merely an abstract
and compound of newspaper paragraphs, Congress
debates, caucus harangues, and the argument and
judge's charge in his own lawsuits. The book-
monger cast his eye at a Detroit merchant, and be-
gan scribbling faster than ever. In this sharp-eyed
man, this lean man of wrinkled brow, we see daring
enterprise and close-fisted avarice combined. Here

Sfcetcbes from flfcemorE, 47!

h the worshiper of Mammon at noonday ; here is
the three-times bankrupt, richer after every ruin ;
here in one word (oh, wicked Englishman, to say it !)
—here is the American ! He lifted his eye-glass to
inspect a Western lady, who at once became awar*
of the glance, reddened and retired deeper into the
female part of the cabin. Here was the pure,
modest, sensitive and shrinking woman of America
— shrinking when no evil is intended, and sensitive
like diseased flesh that thrills if you but point at
it, and strangely modest without confidence in the
modesty of other people, and admirably pure with
such a quick apprehension of all impurity.

In this manner I went all through the cabin, hit-
ting everybody as hard a lash as I could and laying
the whole blame on the infernal Englishman. At
length I caught the eyes of my own image in the
looking-glass, where a number of. the party were
likewise reflected, and among them the English-
man, who at that moment was intently observing
myself.

The crimson curtain being let down between the
ladies and gentlemen, the cabin became a bed-
chamber for twenty persons, who were laid on
shelves one above another. For a long time our
various incommodities kept us all awake, except five
or six, who were accustomed to sleep nightly amid
the uproar of their own snoring and had little to
dread from any other species of disturbance. It is
a curious fact that these snorers had been the most
quiet people in the boat while awake and became
peace-breakers only when other^ ceased to be so,
breathing tumult out of their repose. Would it
were possible to affix a wind-instrument to the nose,
and thus make melody of a snore, so that a sleer>

472 flfcosses from an ©ID /fcause.

ing lover might serenade his mistress or a congre-
gation snore a psalm-tune ! Other though fainter
sounds than these contributed to my restlessness.
My head was close to the crimson curtain — the
sexual division of the boat — behind which I con
tinually heard whispers and stealthy footsteps, the
noise of a comb laid on the table or a slipper
dropped on the floor, the twang like a broken harp-
string, caused by loosening a tight belt, the rustling
of a gown in its descent, and the unlacing of a pair
of stays. My ear seemed to have the properties of
an eye ; a visible image pestered my fancy in the
darkness : the curtain was withdrawn between me
and the Western lady, who yet disrobed herself
without a blush.

Finally all was hushed in that quarter. Still, I
was more broad awake than through the whole pre-
ceding day, and felt a feverish impulse to toss my
limbs miles apart and appease the unquietness of
mind by that of matter. Forgetting that my berth
was hardly so wide as a coffin, I turned suddenly
over and fell like an avalanche on the floor, to the
disturbance of the whole community of sleepers.
As there were no bones broken, I blessed the acci-
dent and went on deck. A lantern was burning
at each end of the boat, and one of the crew was
stationed at the bows, keeping watch as mariners do
on the ocean. Though the rain had ceased, the sky
was all one cloud, and the darkness so intense that
there seemed to bo no world except the little space
on which our lantern glimmered. Yet it was an
impressive scene. We were traversing the " long
level," a dead flat between Utica and Syracuse
where the canal has not rise or fall enough to require
a lock for nearly seventy miles. There can hardly

Shetcbes from dfcemorg. 473

be a more dismal tract of country. The forest which
covers it, consisting chiefly of white cedar, black ash,
and other trees that live in excessive moisture, is now
decayed and death-struck by the partial draining of
the swamp into the great ditch of the canal. Some-
times, indeed, our lights were reflected from pools
of stagnant water which stretched far in among the
trunks of the trees, beneath dense masses of dark
foliage. But generally the tall stems and inter-
mingled branches were naked, and brought into
strong relief amid the surrounding gloom by the
whiteness of their decay. Often we beheld the
prostrate form of some old sylvan giant which had
fallen and crushed down smaller trees under its
immense ruin. In spots where destruction had been
riotous the lanterns showed perhaps a hundred
trunks, erect, half overthrown, extended along the
ground, resting on their shattered limbs or tossing
them desperately into the darkness, but all of one
ashy white, all naked together in desolate confusion.
Thus growing out of the night as we drew nigh and
vanishing as we glided on, based on obscurity and
overhung and bounded by it, the scene was ghost-
like— the very land of unsubstantial things whither
dreams might betake themselves when they quit the
slumberer's brain.

My fancy found another emblem. The wild
nature of America had been driven to this desert
place by the encroachments of civilized man. And
even here, where the savage queen was throned on
the ruins of her empire, did we penetrate, a vulgar
and worldly throng intruding on her latest solitude.
In other lands Decay sits among fallen palaces, but
here her home is in the forests.

Looking ahead I discerned a distant light, an

474 bosses trom an ©ID

nouncing the approach of another boat, which soon
passed us, and proved to be a rusty old scow — just
such a craft as the " Flying Dutchman " would navi-
gate on the canal. Perhaps it was that celebrated
personage himself whom I imperfectly distinguished
at the helm in a glazed cap and rough great-coat,
with a pipe in his mouth, leaving the fumes of
tobacco a hundred yards behind. Shortly after, our
boatman blew a horn, sending a long and melancholy
note through the forest-avenue as a signal for some
watcher in the wilderness to be ready with a change
of horses.

We had proceeded a mile or two with our fresh
team, when the tow-rope got entangled in a fallen
branch on the edge of the canal and caused a
momentary delay, during which I went to examine
the phosphoric light of an old tree a little within
the forest. It was not the first delusive radiance
that I had followed. The tree lay along the ground
and was wholly converted into a mass of diseased
splendor which threw a ghastliness around. Being
full of conceits that night, I called it a frigid fire, a
funeral light illumining decay and death — an emblem
of fame that gleams around the dead man without
warming him, or of genius when it owes its brilliancy
to moral rottenness — and was thinking that such
ghost-like torches were just fit to light up this dead
forest or to blaze coldly in tombs, when, starting
from my abstraction, I looked up the canal. I rec-
ollected myself, and discovered the lanterns glimmer-
ing far away.

" Boat ahoy ! " shouted I, making a trumpet of
my closed fists.

Though the cry must have rung for miles along
that hollow passage of the woods, it produced no

Sfcetcbes from

475

effect. These packet-boats make up for their
snail-like pace by never loitering day nor night,
especially for those who have paid their fare. In-
deed, the captain had an interest in getting rid of
me, for I was his creditor for a breakfast.

" They are gone ! Heaven be praised," ejaculated
I, "for I cannot possibly overtake them ! Here am
I on the * long level ' at midnight with the comfortable
prospect of a walk to Syracuse, where my baggage
will be left. And now to find a house or shed wherein
to pass the night."

So thinking aloud, I took a flambeau from the
old tree — burning, but consuming not — to light my
steps withal, and like a jack-o'-the-lantern set out on
my midnight tour.

THE IXLAND PORT.

It was a bright forenoon when I set foot on the
beach at Burlington and took leave of the two boat-
men in whose little skiff I had voyaged since day-
light from Peru. Not that we had come that morning
from South America, but only from the New York
shore of Lake Champlain. The highlands of the
coast behind us stretched north and south in a
double range of bold blue peaks gazing over each
other's shoulders at the Green Mountains of Ver-
mont.

The latter are far the loftiest, and from the op-
posite side of the lake had displayed a more striking
outline. We were now almost at their feet, and
could see only a sandy beach sweeping beneath a
woody bank around the semicircular bay of Bur-
lington.

The painted lighthouse on a small green island,

476 d&osses trom an ©IS dfcanse.

the wharves and warehouses with sloops an<J
schooners moored alongside or at anchor or spread-
ing their canvas to the wind, and boats rowing from
point to point, reminded me of some fishing-town on
the seacoast. But I had no need of tasting the
water to convince myself that Lake Champlain was
not an arm of the sea ; its quality was evident
both by its silvery surface when unruffled and a faint
but unpleasant sickly smell forever steaming up in
the sunshine. One breeze from the Atlantic, with
its briny fragrance, would be worth more to these
inland people than all the perfumes of Arabia. On
closer inspection the vessels at the wharves looked
hardly seaworthy, there being a great lack of tar
about the seams and rigging, and perhaps other
deficiencies quite as much to the purpose.

I observed not a single sailor in the port. There
were men, indeed, in blue jackets and trousers, but
not of the true nautical fashion, such as dangle
before slop-shops ; others wore tight pantaloons and
coats preponderously long-tailed, cutting very queer
figures at the masthead ; and, in short, these fresh-
water fellows had about the same analogy to the
real " old salt," with his tarpaulin, pea-jacket and
sailor-cloth trousers, as a lake-fish to a Newfound-
land cod.

Nothing struck me more in Burlington than the
great number of Irish emigrants. They have filled
the British provinces to the brim, and still continue
to ascend the St. Lawrence in infinite tribes, over-
flowing by every outlet into the States. At Bur-
lington they swarm in huts and mean dwellings
near the lake, lounge about the wharves and elbow
the native citizens nearly out of competition in their
own line. Every species of mere bodily labor is the

Sfcetcbes trom flfcemors. 477

prerogative of these Irish. Such is their multitude,
in comparison with any possible demand for their
services, that it is difficult to conceive how a third
part of them should earn even a daily glass of
whiskey, which is doubtless their first necessary
of life, daily bread being only the second.

Some were angling in the lake, but had caught
only a few perch, which little fishes, without a miracle,
would be nothing among so many. A miracle there
certainly must have been, and a daily one, for the
subsistence of these wandering hordes. The men
exhibit a lazy strength and careless merriment,
as if they had fed well hitherto and meant to feed
better hereafter ; the women strode about uncovered
in the open air, with far' plumper waists and brawnier
limbs, as well as bolder faces, than our shy and
slender females; and their progeny, which was in-
numerable, had the reddest and the roundest cheeks
of any children in America.

While we stood at the wharf the bell of a steam-
boat gave two preliminary peals, and she dashed
away for Plattsburgh, leaving a trail of smoky breath
behind and breaking the glassy surface of the lake
before her. Our next movement brought us into a
handsome and busy square the sides of which were
filled up with white houses, brick stores, a church, a
court-house and a bank. Some of these edifices had
roofs of tin, in the fashion of Montreal, and glittered
in the sun with cheerful splendor, imparting a lively
effect to the whole square. One brick building des-
ignated in large letters as the custom-house reminded
us that this inland village is a port of entry largely
concerned in foreign trade and holding daily inter-
course with the British empire. In this border
country the Canadian bank-notes circulate as freely

478 flfco00es trom an ©10 dfcanse.

as our own, and British and American coin are
jumbled into the same pocket, the effigies of th«
King of England being made to kiss those of the
Goddess of Liberty. Perhaps there was an emblem
in the involuntary contact.

There was a pleasant mixture of people in the
square of Burlington such as cannot be seen else-
where at one view — merchants from Montreal, British
officers from the frontier garrisons, French Cana-
dians, wandering Irish, Scotchmen of a better class,
gentlemen of the South on a pleasure tour, country
squires on business, and a great throng of Green
Mountain boys with their horses, wagons and ox-
teams — true Yankees in aspect, looking more super-
latively so by contrast with' such a variety of for-
eigners.

ROCHESTER.

The gray but transparent evening rather shaded
than obscured the scene, leaving its stronger features
visible, and even improved by the medium through
which I beheld them. The volume of water is not
very great nor the roar deep enough to be termed
grand, though such praise might have been ap-
propriate before the good people of Rochester had
abstracted a part of the unprofitable sublimity of the
cascade. The Genesee has contributed so bounti-
fully to their canals and mill-dams that it approaches
the precipice with diminished pomp and rushes over
it in foaming streams of various wridth, leaving a
broad face of the rock insulated and unwashed
between the two main branches of the falling river.
Still, it was an impressive sight to one who had not
seen Niagara. I confess, however, that my chief
interest arose from a legend connected with these

Sfcetcbes from flfcemors. 479

falls which will become poetical in the lapse of
years, and was already so to me as I pictured the
catastrophe out of dusk and solitude. It was from
a platform raised over the naked island of the cliff
in the middle of the cataract that Sam Patch took
his last leap and alighted in the other world.
Strange as it may appear that any uncertainty should
rest upon his fate, which was consummated in the
sight of thousands, many will tell you that the
illustrious Patch concealed himself in a cave under
the falls, and has continued to enjoy posthumous
renown without foregoing the comforts of this present
life. But the poor fellow prized the shout of the
multitude too much not to have claimed it at the
instant had he survived. He will not be seen again,
unless his ghost, in such a twilight as when I was
there, should emerge from the foam and vanish
among the shadows that fall from cliff to cliff.

How stern a moral may be drawn from the story
of poor Sam Patch ! Why do we call him a
madman or a fool, when he has left his memory
around the Falls of the Genesee more permanently
than if the letters of his name had been hewn into-
the forehead of the precipice ? Was the leaper of
cataracts more mad or foolish than other men who-
throw away life or misspend it in pursuit of empty
fame, and seldom so triumphantly as he ? That
which he won is as invaluable as any except the
unsought glory spreading like the rich perfume of
ricner fruit from virtuous and useful deeds.

Thus musing — wise in theory, but practically as
great a fool as Sam — I lifted my eyes and beheld
the spires, warehouses and dwellings of Rochester,
half a mile distant, on both sides of the river, indis-
tinctly cheerful with the twinkling of many lights
amid the full of the evening.

480 ^Bosses from an ©Ifc fl&anse.

The town had sprung up like a mushroom, but no
presage of decay could be drawn from its hasty
growth. Its edifices are of dusky brick, and of stone
that will not be grayer in a hundred years than now ;
its churches are Gothic. It is impossible to look
at its worn pavements and conceive how lately the
forest-leaves have been swept away. The most
ancient town in Massachusetts appears quite like
an affair of yesterday compared with Rochester.
Its attributes of youth are the activity and eager life
with which it is redundant. The whole street, side-
walks and center, was crowded with pedestrians, horse-
men, stage-coaches, gigs, light wagons and heavy ox-
teams, all hurrying, trotting, rattling and rumbling in
a throng that passed continually, 1?ut never passed
away. Here a country wife was selecting a churn
from several gayly-painted ones on the sunny side-
walk ; there a farmer was bartering his produce, and
in two or three places a crowd of people were shower-
ing bids on a vociferous auctioneer. I saw a great
wagon and an ox-chain knocked off to a very pretty
woman. Numerous were the lottery-offices — those
true temples of Mammon — where red-and-yellow
bills offered splendid fortunes to the world at large,
and banners of painted cloth gave notice that the
" lottery draws next Wednesday." At the ringing
of a bell judges, jurymen, lawyers and clients elbowed
each other to the court-house to busy themselves
with cases that would doubtless illustrate the state
of society had I the means of reporting them. The
number of public-houses benefited the flow of tem-
porary population. Some were farmers' taverns —
cheap, homely and comfortable ; others were magnifi-
cent hotels with negro waiters, gentlemanly landlords
in black broadcloth and foppish barkeepers in

Sfcetcbes from rtbemors. 481

Broadway coats, with chased gold watches in their
waistcoat-pockets. I caught one of these felloWs
quizzing me through an eye-glass. The porters
were lumbering up the steps with baggage from the
packet-boats, while waiters plied the brush on dusty
travelers, who meanwhile glanced over the innumer-
able advertisements in the daily papers.

In short, everybody seemed to be there, and all
had something to do, and were doing it with all their
might, except a party of drunken recruits for the
Western military posts, principally Irish and Scotch^
though they wore Uncle Sam's gray jacket and
trousers. I noticed one other idle man. He carried
a rifle on his shoulder and a powder-horn across his
breast, and appeared to stare about him with
confused wonder, as if while he was listening to the
wind among the forest-boughs the hum and bustle
of an instantaneous city had surrounded him.

AN AFTERNOON SCENE.

There had not been a more delicious afternoon than
this in all the train of Summer, the air being a sunny
perfume made up of balm and warmth and gentle
brightness. The oak and walnut trees over my head
retained their deep masses of foliage, and the grass,
though for months the pasturage of stray cattle, had
been revived with the freshness of early June by th&
autumnal rains of the preceding week. The garb
of Autumn, indeed, resembles that of Spring. Dan-
delions and buttercups were sprinkled along the road-
side like drops of brightest gold in greenest grass,
and a star-shaped little flower with a golden center.
In a rocky spot, and rooted under the stone wall,
there was one wild-rose bush bearing three roses, very

482 flRosses from an ©to flfcanse.

faintly tinted, but blessed with a spicy fragrance.
The same tokens would have announced that the
year was brightening into the glow of Summer.
There were violets, too, though few and pale ones.
But the breath of September was diffused through
the mild air whenever a little breeze shook out the
latent coolness.

A NIGHT-SCENE.

The steamboat in which I was passenger for
Detroit had put into the mouth of a small river
where the greater part of the night would be spent
in repairing some damages of the machinery. As
the evening was warm, though .cloudy and very dark,
I stood on deck watching a scene that would not
have attracted a second glance in the daytime, but
became picturesque by the magic of strong light
and deep shade. Some wild Irishmen were replen-
ishing our stock of wood, and had kindled a great
fire on the bank to illuminate their labors. It was
composed of large logs and dry brushwood heaped
together with careless profusion, blazing fiercely,
spouting showers of sparks into the darkness and
gleaming wide over Lake Erie — a beacon for per-
plexed voyagers leagues from land.

All around and above the furnace there was total
obscurity. No trees or other objects caught and
reflected any portion of the brightness, which thus
wasted itself in the immense void of night, as if it
quivered from the expiring embers of the world after
the final conflagration. But the Irishmen were con-
tinually emerging from the dense gloom, passing
through the lurid glow and vanishing into the gloom
on the other side. Sometimes a whole figure would

Sfcetcbes from dfcemor£. 483

be made visible by the shirt-sleeves and light-colored
dress; others were but half seen, like imperfect
creatures ; many flitted shadow-like along the skirts
of darkness, tempting fancy to a vain pursuit ; and
often a face alone was reddened by the fire and
stared strangely distinct, with no traces of a body.
In short, these wild Irish, distorted and exaggerated
by the blaze, now lost in deep shadow, now bursting
into sudden splendor and now struggling between
light and darkness, formed a picture which might
have been transferred almost unaltered to a tale of
the supernatural. As they all carried lanterns of
wood and often flung sticks upon the fire, the least
imaginative spectator would at once compare them
to devils condemned to keep alive the flames of
their own torments.

fHE OLD APPLE-DEALER.

THE lover of the moral picturesque may some
times find what he seeks in a character which is,
nevertheless, of too negative a description to be
seized upon and represented to the imaginative vision
by word-painting. As an instance I remember an
old man who carries on a little trade of gingerbread
and apples at the depot of one of our railroads.
While awaiting the departure of the cars, my obser-
vation, flitting to and fro among the livelier char-
acteristics of the scene, has often settled insensibly
upon this almost hueless object. Thus, uncon-
sciously to myself and unsuspected by him, I have
studied the old apple-dealer until he has become a
naturalized citizen of my inner world. How little
would he imagine — poor, neglected, friendless, un-
appreciated and with little that demands appreci-
ation— that the mental eye of an utter stranger has so
often reverted to his figure ! Many a noble form,
many a beautiful face, has flitted before me and
vanished like a shadow ; it is a strange witchcraft
whereby this faded and featureless old apple-dealer
has gained a settlement in my memory.

He is a small man with gray hair and gray stubble-
beard, and is invariably clad in a shabby surtout of
snuff-color closely-buttoned and half concealing a
pair of gray pantaloons, the whole dress, though clean
484

and entire, being evidently flimsy with much wear.
His face, thin, withered, furrowed and with features
which even age has failed to render impressive, has
a frost-bitten aspect. It is a moral frost which no
physical warmth or comfortableness could counter-
act. The summer sunshine may fling its white heat
upon him, or the good fire of the de'pot-room may
make him the focus of its blaze on a winter's day,
but all in vain ; for still the old man looks as if he
were in a frosty atmosphere, with scarcely warmth
enough to keep life in the region about his heart.
It is a patient, long-suffering, quiet, hopeless, shiv-
ering aspect. He is not desperate — that, though
its etymology implies no more, would be too posi-
tive an expression — but merely devoid of hope.
As all his past life, probably, offers no spots of
brightness to his memory, so he takes his present
poverty and discomfort as entirely a matter of
course ; he thinks it the definition of existence, so
far as himself is concerned, to be poor, cold and
uncomfortable. It may be added that time has not
thrown dignity as a mantle over the old man's
figure. There is nothing venerable about him ;
you pity him without a scruple.

He sits on a bench in the de'pot-room, and before
him, on the floor, are deposited two baskets of a
capacity to contain his whole stock in trade. Across,
from one basket to the other, extends a board on
which is displayed a plate of cakes and gingerbread,
some russet and red-cheeked apples and a box con-
taining variegated sticks of candy, together with that
delectable condiment known by children as Gibral-
tar rock, neatly done up in white paper. There
is likewise a half-peck measure of cracked walnuts
and two or three tin half pints or gills filled with the

486 flfcosses from an ©ID dfcanse.

nut kernels, ready for purchasers. Such are the
small commodities with which our old friend comes
daily before the world, ministering to its petty needs
and little freaks of appetite, and seeking thence the
solid subsistence — so far as he may subsist — of his
life.

A slight observer would speak of the old man's
quietude, but on closer scrutiny you discover that
there is a continual unrest within him which some-
what resembles the fluttering action of the nerves in
a corpse from which life has recently departed.
Though he never exhibits any violent action, and,
indeed, might appear to be sitting quite still, yet
you perceive, when his minuter peculiarities begin
to be detected, that he is always making some little
movement or other. He looks anxiously at his
plate of cakes or pyramid of apples, and slightly
alters their arrangement, with an evident idea that
a great deal depends on their being disposed ex-
actly thus and so. Then for a moment he gazes out
of the window ; then he shivers quietly and folds
his arms across his breast, as if to draw himself
closer within himself, and thus keep a flicker of
warmth in his lonesome heart. Now he turns again
to his merchandise of cakes, apples and candy, and
discovers that this cake or that apple or yonder
stick of red-and-white candy has somehow got out
of its proper position. And is there not a walnut-
kernel too many or too few in one of those small tin
measures ? Again the whole arrangement appears
to be settled to his mind, but in the course of a
minute or two there will assuredly be something to
set right. At times, by an indescribable shadow
upon his features — too quiet, however, to be noticed
until you are familiar with his ordinary aspect — the

Gbe ©ID apple^Dealcr. 487

expression of frost-bitten, patient despondency be-
comes very touching. It seems as if just at that
instant the suspicion occurred to him that in his
chill decline of life, earning scanty bread by selling
cakes, apples and candy, he is a very miserable old
fellow.

But if he thinks so, it is a mistake. He can
never suffer the extreme of misery, because the tone
of his whole being is too much subdued for him to
feel anything acutely.

Occasionally one of the passengers, to while away
a tedious interval, approaches the old man, inspects
the articles upon his board, and even peeps curiously
into the two baskets. Another, striding to and fro
along the room, throws a look at the apples and
gingerbread at every turn. A third, it may be, of a
more sensitive and delicate texture of being, glances
shyly thitherward, cautious not to excite expecta-
tions of a purchaser, while yet undetermined whether
to buy. But there appears to be no need of such
a scrupulous regard to our old friend's feelings.
True, he is conscious of the remote possibility of
selling a cake or an apple, but innumerable disap-
pointments have rendered him so far a philosopher
that even if the purchased article should be returned
he will consider it altogether in the ordinary train
of events. He speaks to none and makes no sign
of offering his wares to the public ; not that he is
deterred by pride, but by the certain conviction
that such demonstrations would not increase his
custom. Besides, this activity in business would
require an energy that never could have been a
characteristic of his almost passive disposition even
in youth. Whenever an actual customer appears,
the old man looks up with a patient .eye. If the

488 rtbossea trom an OlD flfcanse.

price and the article are approved, he is ready to
make change ; otherwise, his eyelids droop again —
sadly enough, but with no heavier despondency
than before. He shivers, perhaps, folds his lean
arms around his lean body, and resumes the life-
long, frozen patience in which consists his strength.
Once in a while a schoolboy comes hastily up, places
a cent or two upon the board, and takes up a cake or
stick of candy or a measure of walnuts or an apple
as red-cheeked as himself. There are no words as
to price, that being as well known to the buyer as
to the seller. The old apple-dealer never speaks
an unnecessary word ; not that he is sullen and
morose, but there is none of the cheeriness and
briskness in him that stirs up people to talk.

Not seldom he is greeted by some old neighbor,
a man well-to-do in the world, who makes a civil,
patronizing observation about the weather, and then,
by way of performing a charitable deed, begins to
chaffer for an apple. Our friend presumes not on any
past acquaintance ; he makes the briefest possible
response to all general remarks and shrinks quietly
into himself again. After every diminution of his
stock he takes care to produce from the basket
another cake, another stick of candy, another apple
or another measure of walnuts to supply the place
of the article sold. Two or three attempts — or psr-
chance half a dozen — are requisite before the bo;rd
can be rearranged to his satisfaction. If he ha^j
received a silver coin, he waits till the purchaser i ;
out of sight, then examines it closely and tries to
bend it with his finger and thumb ; finally he puts
it into his waistcoat-pocket with seemingly a gentle
sigh. This sigh, so faint as to be hardly perceptible
and not expressive cf any definite emotion, is the

Cbe ©ID apple-Dealer.

accompaniment and conclusion of all his actions.
It is the symbol of the chillness and torpid melan-
choly of his old age, which only make themselves
felt sensibly when his repose is slightly disturbed.

Our man of gingerbread and apples is not a speci-
men of the " needy man who has seen better days."
Doubtless there have been better and brighter days
in the far-off time of his youth, but none with so
much sunshine of prosperity in them that the chill,
the depression, the narrowness of means, in his
declining years, can have come upon him by surprise.
His life has all been of a piece. His subdued and
nerveless boyhood prefigured his abortive prime,
which likewise contained within itself the prophecy
and image of his lean and torpid age. He was
perhaps a mechanic who never came to be a master
in his craft, or a petty tradesman rubbing onward
between passably-to-do and poverty. Possibly he
nay look back to some brilliant epoch of his career
when there were a hundred or two of dollars to his
credit in the savings-bank. Such must have been
the extent of his better fortune, his little measure of
'his world's triumphs — all that he has known of suc-
cess. A meek, downcast, humble, uncomplaining
creature, he probably has never felt himself entitled
:o more than so much of the gifts of Providence.
Is it not still something that he has never held
out his hand for charity nor has yet been driven to
that sad home and household of Earth's forlorn and
broken-spirited children, the almshouse ? He cher-
ishes no quarrel, therefore, with his destiny, nor
with the Author of it. All is as it should be.

If, indeed, he have been bereaved of a son, a bold,
energetic, vigorous young man on whom the father's
feeble nature leaned as on a staff of strength — in

490 /Ibo00cs from an QU> flfcanse.

that case he may have felt a bitterness that could
not otherwise have been generated in his heart.
But methinks the joy of possessing such a son and
the agony of losing him would have developed the
old man's moral and intellectual nature to a much
greater degree than we now find it. Intense grief
appears to be as much out of keeping with his life
as fervid happiness.

To confess the truth, it is not the easiest matter
in the world to define and individualize a character
like this which we are now handling. The portrait
must be so generally negative that the most delicate
pencil is likely to spoil it by introducing some too
positive tint. Every touch must be kept down, or
else you destroy the subdued tone which is abso-
lutely essential to the whole effect. Perhaps more
may be done by contrast than by direct description.
For this purpose I make use of another cake-and-
candy merchant who likewise infests the railroad
depot. This latter worthy is a very smart and well-
dressed boy of ten years old or thereabouts who
skips briskly hither and thither, addressing the pas-
sengers in a pert voice, yet with somewhat of good-
breeding in his tone and pronunciation. Now he
has caught my eye, and skips across the room wiih
a pretty pertness which I should like to correct with
a box on the ear : " Any cake, sir ? Any candy ? "

No, none for me, my lad. I did but glance at
your brisk figure in order to catch a reflected light
and throw it upon your old rival yonder.

Again, in order to invest my conception of the old
man with a more decided sense of reality, I look at
him in the very moment of intensest bustle — on the
arrival of the cars. The shriek of the engine as it
rushes into the car-house is the utterance of the

Cbe ©10 Bpple*2)ealer. 491

Steam-fiend whom man has subdued by magic spells
and compels to serve as a beast of burden. He
has skimmed rivers in his headlong rush, dashed
through forests, plunged into the hearts of mountains
and glanced from the city to the desert place, and
again to a far-off city, with a meteoric progress seen
and out of sight while his reverberating roar still
fills the ear. The travelers swarm forth from the
cars. All are full of the momentum which they have
caught from their mode of conveyance. It seems
as if the whole world, both morally and physically,
were detached from its old standfasts and set in
rapid motion. And in the midst of this terrible
activity there sits the old man of gingerbread, so
subdued, so hopeless, so without a stake in life, and
yet not positively miserable — there he sits, the for-
lorn old creature, one chill and somber day after
another, gathering scanty coppers for his cakes,
apples and candy, — there sits the old apple-dealer
in his threadbare suit of snuff-color and gray, and
his grisly stubble beard. See ! he folds his lean
arms around his lean figure with that quiet sigh and
that scarcely perceptible shiver which are the tokens
of his inward state. I have him now. He and the
Steam-fiend are each other's antipodes : the latter
is the type of all that go ahead, and the old man
the representative of that melancholy class who by
some sad witchcraft are doomed never to share in
the world's exulting progress. Thus the contrast
between mankind and this desolate brother becomes
picturesque, and even sublime.

And now farewell, old friend ! Little do you
suspect that a student of human life has made your
character the theme of more than one solitary and
thoughtful hour. Many would say that you have

492 /Rosses from an OlO /fcanse.

hardly individuality enough to be the object of yoi»»
own self-love. How, then, can a stranger's eye
detect anything in your mind and heart to study and
to wonder at ? Yet could I read but a tithe of what
is written there, it would be a volume of deeper and
more comprehensive import than all that the wisest
mortals have given to the world, for the soundless
depths of the human soul and of eternity have an
opening through your breast. God be praised, were
it only for your sake, that the present shapes of
human existence are not cast in iron nor hewn in
everlasting adamant, but molded of the vapors that
vanish away while the essence flits upward to the
Infinite. There is a spiritual essence in this gray
and lean old shape that shall flit upward too. Yes,
doubtless there is a region where the lifelong shiver
will pass away from his being, and that quiet sigh
which it has taken him so many years to breathe will
be brought to a close for good and all.

\

THE ARTIST OF THE BEAUT

Ax elderly man with his pretty daughter on his
arm was passing along the street, and emerged from
the gloom of the cloudy evening '.ito the light that
fell across the pavement from t'.e \vindowofasmall
shop. It was a projecting window, and on the inside
were suspended a variety of watches — pinchbeck,
silver, and one or two of gold — all with their faces
turned from the street, as if churlishly disinclined to
inform the wayfarers w'^at o'clock it was. Seated
within the shop, side) jng to the window, with his
pale face bent earneocly over some delicate piece of
mechanism on which was thrown the concentrated
luster of a shade-lamp, appeared a young man.

" What can Owen Warland be about ? " muttered
old Peter Hovenden, himself a retired watchmaker
and the former master of this same young man
whose occupation he was now wondering at. " What
can the fellow be about ? These six months past I
have never come by his shop without seeing him
just as steadily at work as now. It would be a
flight beyond his usual foolery to seek for the per-
petual motion. And yet I know enough of my old
business to be certain that what he is now so busy
with is no part of the machinery of a watch."

" Perhaps, father," said Annie, without showing
much interest in the question, " Owen is inventing a
32 493

494

from an ©U> dfcanse.

new kind of timekeeper. I am sure he has ingenuity
enough."

" Pooh, child ! He has not the sort of ingenuity
to invent anything better than a Dutch toy," an-
swered her father, who had formerly been put to
much vexation by Owen Warland's irregular genius.
" A plague on such ingenuity ! All the effect that
ever I knew of it was to spoil the accuracy of some
of the best watches in my shop. He would turn the
sun out of its orbit and derange the whole course of
time if, as I said before, his ingenuity could grasp
anything bigger than a child's toy."

" Hush, father ! he hears you," whispered Annie,
pressing the old man's arm. " His ears are as deli-
cate as his feelings, and you know how easily dis-
turbed they are. Do let us move on."

So Peter Hovenden and his daughter Annie
plodded on without further conversation, until in a
by-street of the town they found themselves passing
the open door of a blacksmith's shop. Within was
seen the forge, now blazing up and illuminating the
high and dusky roof, and now confining its luster to
a narrow precinct of the coal-strewn floor, according
as the breath of the bellows was puffed forth or again
inhaled into its vast leathern lungs. In the intervals
of brightness it was easy to distinguish objects in
remote corners of the shop and the horseshoes that
hung upon the wall ; in the momentary gloom the
fire seemed to be glimmering amidst the vagueness
of unenclosed space. Moving about in this red
glare and alternate dusk was the figure of the black-
smith, well worthy to be viewed in so picturesque
an aspect of light and shade, where the bright blaze
struggled with the black night, as if each would have
snatched his comely strength from the other. Anon

Cbe artist of tbe JBeautituL 495

he drew a _white-hot bar of iron from the coals, laid
it on the anvil, uplifted his arm of might, and was
seen enveloped in the myriads of sparks which the
strokes of his hammer scattered into the surround-
ing gloom.

" Now, that is a pleasant sight," said the old
watchmaker. " I know what it is to work in gold,
but give me the worker in iron, after all is said and
done. He spends his labor upon a reality. — What
say you, daughter Annie ? "

" Pray don't speak so loud, father," whispered
Annie. " Robert Danforth will hear you."

" And what if he should hear me ? " said Peter
Hovenden. " I say again it is a good and a whole-
some thing to depend upon main strength and reality,
and to earn one's bread with the bare and brawny
arm of a blacksmith. A watchmaker gets his brain
puzzled by his wheels within a wheel or loses his
health or the nicety of his eyesight, as was my case,
and finds himself at middle age or a little after past
labor at his own trade and fit for nothing else, yet
too poor to live at his ease. So I say once again,
give me main strength for my money. And then
how it takes the nonsense out of a man ! Did you
ever hear of a blacksmith being such a fool as Owen
Warland, yonder ? "

" Well said, Uncle Hovenden ! " shouted Robert
Danforth, from the forge, in a full, deep, merry voice
that made the roof re-echo. " And what says Miss
Annie to that doctrine ? She, I suppose, will think
it a genteeler business to tinker up a lady's watch
than to forge a horseshoe or make a gridiron ? "

Annie drew her father onward, without giving him
time for reply.

But we must return to Owen \Varland's shop, and

496 /Bosses from an OlD /fcanse.

spend more meditation upon his history and char-
acter than either Peter Hovenden, or probably his
daughter Annie, or Owen's old schoolfellow Robert
Danforth, would have thought due to so slight a
subject. From the time that his little fingers could
grasp a penknife Owen had been remarkable for a
delicate ingenuity which sometimes produced pretty
shapes in wood, principally figures of flowers and
birds, and sometimes seemed to aim at the hidden
mysteries of mechanism. But it was always for pur-
poses of grace, and never with any mockery of the
useful. He did not, like the crowd of schoolboy
artisans, construct little windmills on the angle of
a barn or watermills across the neighboring brook.
Those who discovered such peculiarity in the boy as
to think it worth their while to observe him closely
sometimes saw reason to suppose that he was
attempting to imitate the beautiful movements of
nature as exemplified in the flight of birds or the activ-
ity of little animals. It seemed, in fact, a new devel-
opment of the love of the Beautiful, such as might
have made him a poet, a painter or a sculptor, and
which was as completely refined from all utilitarian
coarseness as it could have been in either of the fine
arts. He looked with singular distaste at the stiff
and regular processes of ordinary machinery. Being
once carried to see a steam-engine in the expectation
that his intuitive comprehension of mechanical prin-
ciples would be gratified, he turned pale and grew
sick, as if something monstrous and unnatural had
been presented to him. This horror was partly ow-
ing to the size and terrible energy of the iron-laborer,
for the character of Owen's mind was microscopic
and tended naturally to the minute, in accordance
with his diminutive frame and the marvelous small-

Cbc Brtist ot tbe JBeautitul. 497

ness and delicate power of his fingers. Not that his
sense of beauty was thereby diminished into a sense
of prettiness. The beautiful idea has no relation to
size and may be as perfectly developed in a space
too mrnute for any but microscopic investigation as
within the ample verge that is measured by the arc
of the rainbow. But, at all events, this character-
istic minuteness in his objects and accomplishments
made the world even more incapable than it might
otherwise have been of appreciating Owen Warland's
genius. The boy's relatives saw nothing bette? to
be done — as, perhaps, there was not — than to bind
him apprentice to a watchmaker, hoping that his
strange ingenuity might thus be regulated and put
to utilitarian purposes.

Peter Hovenden's opinion of his apprentice has
already been expressed. He could make nothing
of the lad. Owen's apprehension of the professional
mysteries, it is true, was inconceivably quick, but he
altogether forgot or despised the grand object of a
watchmaker's business, and cared no more for the
measurement of time than if it had been merged into
eternity. So long, however, as he remained under
his old master's care, Owen's lack of slurdiness
made it possible, by strict injunctions and sharp
oversight, to restrain' his creative eccentricity within
bounds; but \vhcn his apprenticeship was served out
and he had taken the little shop which Peter Hoven-
den's failing eyesight compelled him to relinquish,
then did people recognize how unfit a person was
Owen Warlaml to lead old blind Father Time along
his daily course. One of his most rational projects
was to connect a musical operation with the ma-
chinery of his watches, so that all the harsh disso-
nances of life might be rendered tuneful and each

198 flfcosses from an ©ID flfcanse.

flitting moment fall into the abyss of the past in
golden drops of harmony. If a family-clock was
entrusted to him for repair — one of those tall an-
cient clocks that have grown nearly allied to human
nature by measuring out the lifetime of many genera-
tions— he would take upon himself to arrange a
dance or funeral procession of figures across its ven-
erable face, representing twelve mirthful or melan-
choly hours. Several freaks of this kind quite dj-
stroyed the young watchmaker's credit with that
steady and matter-of-fact class of people who hold
the opinion that time is not to be trifled with, whether
considered as the medium of advancement and pros-
perity in this world or preparation for the next.
His custom rapidly diminished — a misfortune, how-
ever, that was probably reckoned among his better
accidents by Owen Warland, who was becoming more
and more absorbed in a secret occupation which drew
all his science and manual dexterity into itself, and
likewise gave full employment to the characteristic
tendencies of his genius. This pursuit had alreadj
consumed many months.

After the old watchmaker and his pretty daughter
had gazed at him out of the obscurity of the street,
Owen Warland was seized with a fluttering of the
nerves which made his hand tremble too violently
to proceed with such delicate labor as he was now
,ed upon.

"It was Annie herself!" murmured he. "I
should have known by this throbbing of my heart,
before I heard her father's voice. Ah ! how it
throbs ! I shall scarcely be able to work again on
this exquisite mechanism to-night. Annie — dearest
Annie — thou shouldstgive firmness to my heart and
hand, and not shake them thus ; for if I strive to

Gbe artist ot tbe JBcautituU 499

put the very spirit of Beauty into form and give it
motion, it is for thy sake alone. — Oh, throbbing
heart, be quiet ! If my labor be thus thwarted,
there will come vague and unsatisfied dreams which
will leave me spiritless to-morrow."

As he was endeavoring to settle himself again to
his task the shop-door opened, and gave admittance
to no other than the stalwart figure which Peter
Hovenden had paused to admire as seen amid the
light and shadow of the blacksmith's shop. Robert
Danforth had brought a little anvil of his'own manu-
facture, and peculiarly constructed, which the young
artist had recently bespoken. Owen examined the
article, and pronounced it fashioned according to his
wish.

" \Vhy, yes," said Robert Danforth, his strong
voice filling the shop as with the sound of a bass-
viol ; " I consider myself equal to anything in the
way of my own trade, though I should have made
but a poor figure at yours, with such a fist as this,"
added he, laughing, as he laid his vast hand beside
the delicate one of Owen. " But what, then ? I
put more main strength into one blow of my sledge-
hammer than all that you have expended since you
were a 'prentice. Is not that the truth? "

" Very probably," answered the low and slender
voice of Owen. " Strength is an earthly monster ;
I make no pretensions to it. My force, whatever
there may be of it, is altogether spiritual."

" Well, but, Owen, what are you about ? " asked
his old schoolfellow, still in such a hearty volume
of tone that it made the artist shrink, especially as
the question related to a subject so sacred as the
absorbing dream of his imagination. " Folks do
say that you are trying to discover the perpetual

goo fwo»»e» from an QID /fcan?c.

" • The perpetual motion ' ? Nonsen^ ! " replied,
Owen \Varland, with a movement of disgust, for he
was full of little petulances. " It never can be dis-
covered. It is a dream that may delude men whose
brains are mystified with matter, but not me. Be-
sides, if such a discovery were possible, it would not
be worth my while to make it only to have the secret
turned to such purposes as are now effected by
ste.im and water-power. I am not ambitious to be
honored with the paternity of a new kind of cotton-
machine."*

'* That would be droll enough !" cried the black-
smith, breaking out into such an uproar of laughter
that Owen himself and the bell-glasses on his work-
board quivered in unison. " No, no, Owen ! No
child of yours will have iron joints and sinews.
Well, I won't hinder you any more. Good-night,
Owen, and success ! and if you need any assistance
so far as a downright blow of hammer upon anvil
will answer the purpose, I'm your man ; " and with
another laugh the man of main strength left the
shop.

" How strange it is," whispered Owen Warland to
himself, leaning his head upon his hand, "that all
my musings, my purposes, my passion for the Beau-
tiful, my consciousness of power to create it — a finer,
more ethereal power, of which this earthly giant can
have no conception — all, all, look so vain and idle
whenever my path is crossed by Robert Danforth !
He would drive me mad were I to meet him often.
His hard, brute force darkens and confuses the
spiritual element within me. But I too will be strong
in my own way. I will not yield to him ! "

He took from beneath a glass a piece of minute
machinery, which he set in the condensed light of

Hrttst ot tbe JSeauttful. 501

his lamp, and, looking intently at it through a
magnifying-glass, proceeded to operate with a delicate
instrument of steel. In an instant, however, he fell
back in his chair and clasped his hands with a look
of horror on his face that made its small features as
impressive as those of a giant would have been.

" Heaven ! What have I done ! " exclaimed he.
u The vapor ! the influence of that brute force ! It
has bewildered me and obscured my perception. I
have made the very stroke— the fatal stroke— that I
have dreaded from the first. It is all over — the toil
of months, the object of my life. I am ruined ! '

And there he sat in strange despair until his lamp
flickered in the socket and left the artist of the
Beautiful in darkness.

Thus it is that ideas which grow up within the
imagination and appear so lovely to it, and of a
value beyond whatever men call valuable, are ex-
posed to 'be shattered and annihilated by contact
with the practical. It is requisite for the ideal artist
to possess a force of character that seems hardly
compatible with its delicacy : he must keep his faith
in himself while the incredulous world assails him
with its utter disbelief ; he must stand up against
mankind and be his own sole disciple, both as
respects his genius and the objects to which it is
directed.

For a time Owen Warland succumbed to this
severe but inevitable test. He spent a few sluggish
weeks with his head so continually resting in his
hands that the townspeople had scarcely an oppor-
tunity to see his countenance. When, at last, it was
again uplifted to the light of day, a cold, dull, name-
less change was perceptible upon it. In the opinion
of Peter Hovenden, however, and that order of

502 /Bosses from an ©ID flfcanse.

sagacious understandings who think that life should
be regulated, like clock-work, with leaden weights,
the alteration was entirely for the better. Owen
now, indeed, applied himself to business with
dogged industry. It was marvelous to witness the
obtuse gravity with which he would inspect the
wheels of a great old silver watch, thereby delighting
the owner, in whose fob it had been worn till he
deemed it a portion of his own life, and was ac-
cordingly jealous of its treatment. In consequence
of the good report thus acquired, Owen Warland was
invited by the proper authorities to regulate the
clock in the church-steeple. He succeeded so
admirably in this matter of public interest that the
merchants gruffly acknowledged his merits on
'Change, the nurse whispered his praises as she gave
the potion in the sick-chamber, the lover blessed
him at the hour of appointed interview, and the
town in general thanked Owen for the punctuality
of dinner-time. In a word, the heavy weight upon
his spirits kept everything in order, not merely
within his own system, but wheresoever the iron
accents of the church-clock were audible. It was a
circumstance, though minute, yet characteristic of
his present state, that when employed to engrave
names or initials on silver spoons he now wrote the
requisite letters in the plainest possible style, omit-
ting a variety of fanciful flourishes that had hereto-
fore distinguished his work in this kind.

One day during the era of this happy transforma-
tion old Peter Hovenden came to visit his former
apprentice.

"Well, Owen," said he, " I am glad to hear such
good accounts of you from all quarters, and espe-
cially from the town-clock yonder, which speaks in

Sbe artist ot tbe JBeauttful. 503

your commendation every hour of the twenty-four.
Only get rid altogether of your nonsensical trash
about the Beautiful — which I nor nobody else, nor
yourself to boot, could ever understand — only free
yourself of that, and your success in life is as sure
as daylight. Why, if you go on in this way, I should
even venture to let you doctor this precious old
watch of mine ; though, except my daughter Annie,
I have nothing else so valuable in the world."

" I should hardly dare touch it, sir," replied Owen,
in a depressed tone, for he was weighed down by
his old master's presence.

" In time," said the latter — " in time, you will be
capable of it.''

The old watchmaker, with the freedom naturally
consequent on his former authority, went on inspect-
ing the work which Owen had in hand at the mo-
ment, together with other matters that were in pro-
gress. The artist, meanwhile, could scarcely lift his
head. There was nothing so antipodal to his nature
as this man's cold, unimaginative sagacity, by con-
tact with which everything was converted into a
dream except the densest matter of the physical
world. Owen groaned in spirit and prayed fervently
to be delivered from him.

" But what is this ? " cried Peter Hovenden, ab-
ruptly, taking up a dusty bell-glass beneath which
appeared a mechanical something as delicate and
minute as the system of a butterfly's anatomy.
" What have we here ! Owen, Owen ! there is witch-
craft in these little chains and wheels and paddles.
See ! with one pinch of my finger and thumb I am
going to deliver you from all future peril."

" For Heaven's sake," screamed Owen Warland,
springing up with wonderful energy, " as you would

504 /Bosses from an ©Ifc /Ranse.

not drive me mad, do not touch it ! The slight«trt
pressure of your ringer would ruin me forever."

" Aha, young man ! And is it so ? " said the old
watchmaker, looking at him with just enough of
penetration to torture Owen's soul with the bitter-
ness of worldly criticism. " Well, take your own
course. But I warn you again that in this small
piece of mechanism lives your evil spirit. Shall I
exorcise him ? "

"You are my evil spirit," answered Owen, much
excited — "you and the hard, coarse world. The
leaden thoughts and the despondency that you fling
upon me are my clogs, else I should long ago have
achieved the task that I was created for."

Peter Hovenden shook his head with the mixture
of contempt and indignation which mankind, of
whom he was partly a representative, deem them-
selves entitled to feel toward all simpletons who
seek other prizes than the dusty one along the high-
way. He then took his leave with an uplifted ringer
and a sneer upon his face that haunted the artist's
dreams for many a night afterward. At the time of
his old master's visit Owen was probably on the
point of taking up the relinquished task, but by this
sinister event he was thrown back into the state
•whence he had been slowly emerging.

But the innate tendency of his soul had only been
accumulating fresh vigor during its apparent slug-
gishness. As the summer advanced he almost totally
relinquished his business, and permitted Father
Time, so far as the old gentleman was represented
by the clocks and watches under his control, to
stray at random through human life, making infinite
confusion among the train of bewildered hours. He
wasted the sunshine, as people said, in wandering

Cbe Hrttet of tbe JBeautitul. 505

through the woods and fields and along the banks
of streams. There, like a child, he found amuse-
ment in chasing butterflies or watching the motions
of water-insects. There was something truly
mysterious in the intentness with which he con-
templated these living playthings as they sported on
the breeze, or examined the structure of an imperial
insect whom he had imprisoned. The chase of but-
terflies was an apt emblem of the ideal pursuit in
which he had spent so many golden hours. But
would the beautiful idea ever be yielded to his hand,
like the butterfly that symbolized it ? Sweet, doubt-
less, were these days, and congenial to the artist's
soul. They were full of bright conceptions which
gleamed through his intellectual world as the butter-
flies gleamed through the outward atmosphere, and
were real to him for the instant without the toil and
perplexity and many disappointments of attempting
to make them visible to the sensual eye. Alas that
the artist, whether in poetry or whatever other
material, may not content himself with the inward
enjoyment of the Beautiful, but must chase the flit-
ting mystery beyond the verge of his ethereal domain
and crush its frail being in seizing it with a material
grasp ! Owen Warland felt the impulse to give
external reality to his ideas as irresistibly as any of
the poets or painters who have arrayed the world in
a dimmer and fainter beauty imperfectly copied from
the richness of their visions.

The night was now his time for the slow progress
of re-creating the one idea to which all his intellect-
ual activity referred itself. Always at the approach
of dusk he stole into the town, locked himself within
his shop, and wrought with patient delicacy of
touch for many hours. Sometimes he was startled

506 flfcosses from an ©K> dfcanse.

by the rap of the watchman, who when all the world
should be asleep had caught the gleam of lamp-light
through the crevices of Owen Warland's shutters.
Daylight, to the morbid sensibility of his mind,
seemed to have an intrusiveness that interfered with
his pursuits. On cloudy and inclement days, there-
fore, he sat with his head upon his hands, muffling,
as it weie, his sensitive brain in a mist of indefinite
musings ; for it was a relief to escape from the sharp
distinctness with which he was compelled to shape
out his thoughts during his nightly toil.

From one of these fits of torpor he was aroused
by the entrance of Annie Hovenden, who came into
the shop with the freedom of a customer, and also
with something of the familiarity of a childish friend.
She had worn a hole through her silver thimble, and
wanted Owen to repair it.

" But I don't know whether you will condescend
to such a task," said she, laughing, " now that you
are so taken up with the notion of putting spirit into
machinery."

" Where did you get that idea, Annie ? " said Owen,
starting in surprise.

"Oh, out of my own head," answered she, "and
from something that I heard you say long ago, when
you were but a boy and I a little child. But come !
will you mend this poor thimble of mine ? "

" Anything for your sake, Annie," said Owen
Warland — " anything, even were it to work at Robert
Danforth's forge."

" And that would be a pretty sight ! " retorted
Annie, glancing with imperceptible slightness at the
artist's small and slender frame. " Well, here is the
thimble."

" But that is a strange idea of yours," said Owen,
"about the spiritualization of matter."

ttbe artist ot tbe Beautiful. 507

And then the thought stole into his mind that this
young girl possessed the gift to comprehend him
better than all the world besides. And what a help
and strength would it be to him in his lonely toil if
he could gain the sympathy of the only being whom
he loved ! To persons whose pursuits are insulated
from the common business of life — who are either in
advance of mankind or apart from it — there often
comes a sensation of moral cold that makes the
spirit shiver as if it had reached the frozen solitudes
around the pole. What the prophet, the poet, the
reformer, the criminal, or any other man with human
yearnings, but separated from the multitude by a
peculiar lot, might feel, poor Owen Warland felt.

" Annie," cried he, growing pale as death at the
thought, " how gladly would I tell you the secret of
my pursuit ! You, methinks, would estimate it
rightly ; you, I know, would hear it with a reverence
that I must not expect from the harsh, material
world."

" Would I not ? To be sure I would ! " replied
Annie Hovenden, lightly laughing. " Come ! explain
to me quickly what is the meaning of this little whirli-
gig, so delicately wrought that it might be a plaything
for Queen Mab. See ! I will put it in motion."

" Hold ! " exclaimed Owen ; " hold ! "

Annie had but given the slightest possible touch
with the point of a needle to the same minute portion
of complicated machinery which has been more
than once mentioned, when the artist seized her by
the wrist with a force that made her scream aloud.
She was affrighted at the convulsion of intense rage
and anguish that writhed across his features. The
next instant he let his head sink upon his hands.

"Go, Annie !" murmured he; "I have deceived

508 /Bosses from an ©lo /fcanse.

myself, and must suffer for it. I yearned for sym-
pathy, and thought and fancied and dreamed that
you might give it me. But you lack the talisman,
Annie, that should admit you into my secrets.
That touch has undone the toil of months and the
thought of a lifetime. It was not your fault, Annie,
but you have ruined me."

Poor Owen Warland ! He had indeed erred, yet
pardonably ; for if any human spirit could have
sufficiently reverenced the processes so sacred in
his eyes, it must have been a woman's. Even
Annie Hovenden, possibly, might not have disap-
pointed him had she been enlightened by the deep
intelligence of love.

The artist spent the ensuing winter in a way that
satisfied any persons who had hitherto retained a
hopeful opinion of him that he was, in truth, irrevo-
cably doomed to inutility as regarded the world, and
to an evil destiny on his own part. The decease of
a relative had put him in possession of a small inherit-
ance. Thus freed from the necessity of toil, and
having lost the steadfast influence of a great purpose
— great, at least, to him — he abandoned himself to
habits from which, it might have been supposed, the
mere delicacy of his organization would have availed
to secure him. But when the ethereal portion of a
man of genius is obscured, the earthly part assumes
an influence the more uncontrollable, because the
character is now thrown off the balance to which
Providence had so nicely adjusted it, and which in
coarser natures is adjusted by some other method.
Owen Warland made proof of whatever show of bliss
may be found in riot. He looked at the world
through the golden medium of wine, and contem-
plated the visions that bubble up so gayly around

Cbe Hrtiat of tbc JBeautitul. 509

the brim of the glass, and that people the air with
shapes of pleasant madness, which so soon grow
ghostly and forlorn. Even when this dismal and
inevitable change had taken place, the young man
might still have continued to quaff the cup of
enchantments, though its vapor did but shroud life
in gloom and fill the gloom with specters that
mocked at him. There was a certain irksomeness
of spirit which, being real and the deepest sensation
of which the artist was now conscious, was more
intolerable than any fantastic miseries and horrors
that the abuse of wine could summon up. In the
latter case he could remember, even out of the midst
of his trouble, that all was but a delusion ; in the
former, the heavy anguish was his actual life.

From this perilous state he was redeemed by an
incident which more than one person witnessed,
but of which the shrewdest could not explain nor
conjecture the operation on Owen Warland's mind.
It was very simple. On a warm afternoon of spring
as the artist sat among his riotous companions
with a glass of wine before him, a splendid butterfly
flew in at the open window and fluttered about his
head.

"Ah !" exclaimed Owen, who had drank freely;
" are you alive again, child of the sun and playmate
of the summer breeze, after your dismal winter's
nap ? Then it is time for me to be at work ; " and
leaving his unemptied glass upon the table, he de-
parted, and was never known to sip another drop
of wine.

And now again he resumed his wanderings in the

ivoods and fields. It might be fancied that the

bright butterfly which had come so spirit-like into

the window as Owen sat with the rude revelers was

33

5io

from an ©15 flfcanse.

indeed a spirit commissioned to recall him to the
pure ideal life that had so etherealized him among
men. It might be fancied that he went forth to
seek this spirit in its sunny haunts, for still, as in
the summer-time gone by, he was seen to steal gently
up wherever a butterfly had alighted and lose him-
self in contemplation of it. When it took flight,
his eyes followed the winged vision as if its airy
track would show the path to heaven. But what
could be the purpose of the unseasonable toil,
which was again resumed, as the watchman knew
by the lines of lamplight through the crevices of
Owen Warland's shutters ? The townspeople had
one comprehensive explanation of all these singu-
larities ; Owen Warland had gone mad. How
universally efficacious — how satisfactory, too, and
soothing to the injured sensibility of narrowness
and dullness — is this easy method of accounting for
whatever lies beyond the world's most ordinary
scope ! From St. Paul's days down to our poor
little artist of the Beautiful the same talisman had
been applied to the elucidation of all mysteries
in the words or deeds of men who spoke or acted
too wisely or too well. In Owen Warland's case
the judgment of his townspeople may have been
correct ; perhaps he was mad. The lack of sym-
pathy— that contrast between himself and his neigh-
bors which took away the restraint of example —
was enough to make him so. Or possibly he had
caught just so much of ethereal radiance as served
to bewilder him, in an earthly sense, by its inter-
mixture with the common daylight.

One evening, when the artist had returned from a
custrvmry ramble, and had just thrown the luster
of his lamp on the delicate piece of work so often

Cbe artist of tbe JBeautiful.

5 1

interrupted, but still taken up again, as if his fate
were embodied in its mechanism, he was surprised
by the entrance of old Peter Hovenden. Owen
never met this man without a shrinking of the heart.
Of all the world, he was most terrible, by reason of
a keen understanding which saw so distinctly what
it did see and disbelieved so uncompromisingly
in what it could not see. On this occasion the old
watchmaker had merely a gracious word or two to
say.

** Owen, my lad," said he, " we must see you at
my house to-morrow night."

The artist began to mutter some excuse.

" Oh, but it must be so," quoth Peter Hovenden,
"for the sake of the da) 3 when you were one of the
household. V^hat, my boy ! don't you know that
my daughter Annie is engaged to Robert Danforth ?
We are making an entertainment in our humble way
to celebrate the event."

" Ah ! " said Owen.

That little monosyllable was all he uttered ; its
tone seemed cold and unconcerned to an ear like
Peter Hovenden's, and yet there was in it the stifled
outcry of the poor artist's heart, which he compressed
within him like a man holding down an evil spirit.
One slight outbreak, however, imperceptible to the
old watchmaker, he allowed himself. Raising the
instrument with which he was about to begin his
work, he let it fall upon the little system of machinery
that had anew cost him months of thought and toil.
It was shattered by the stroke.

Owen VVarland's story would have been no toler-
able representation of the troubled life of those who
strive to create the Beautiful if amid all other thwart-
ing influences love had not interposed to steal the

5i2 dfcosses from an ©ID

cunning from his hand. Outwardly he had been no
ardent or enterprising lover — the career of his pas-
sion had confined its tumults and vicissitudes so
entirely within the artist's imagination that Annie
herself had scarcely more than a woman's intuitive
perception of it — but in Owen's view it covered the
whole field of his life. Forgetful of the time when
she had shown herself incapable of any deep re
sponse, he had persisted in connecting all his dreams
of artistical success with Annie's image ; she was
the visible shape in which the spiritual power that
he worshiped, and on whose altar he hoped to lay
a not unworthy offering, was made manifest to him.
Of course he had deceived himself : there were no
such attributes in Annie Hovenden as his imagina-
tion had endowed her with. She, in the aspect
which she wore to his inward vision, was as much a
creation of his own as the mysterious piece of mech-
anism would be were it ever realized. Had he be-
come convinced of his mistake through the medium
of successful love, had he won Annie to his bosom
and there beheld her fade from angel into ordin iry
woman, the disappointment might have driven him
back with concentrated energy upon his sole remain-
ing object. On the other hand, had he found Annie
what he fancied, his lot would have been so rich in
beauty that out of its mere redundancy he might
have wrought the Beautiful into many a worthiet
type than he had toiled for. But the guise in which
his sorrow came to him, the sense that the angel of
his life had been snatched away and given to a rude
man of earth and iron who could neither need nor
appreciate her ministrations — this was the very per-
versity of fate that makes human existence appear
too absurd and contradictory to be the scene of one

artist of tbe JBcautttut.

5'3

other hope or one other fear. There was nothing
left for Owen Warland but to sit down like a man that
had been stunned.

He went through a fit of illness. After his re-
covery his small and slender frame assumed an ol>
tuser garniture of flesh than it had ever before worn.
His thin cheeks became round ; his delicate little
hand, so spiritually fashioned to achieve fairy task-
work, grew plumper than the hand of a thriving
infant. His aspect had a childishness such as might
have induced a stranger to pat him on the head,
pausing, however, in the act to wonder what manner
of child was here. It was as if the _ spirit had
gone out of him, leaving the body to flourish in a
sort of vegetable existence. Not that Owen War-
land was idiotic. He could talk, and not irrationally.
Somewhat of a babbler, indeed, did people begin to
think him, for he was apt to discourse at wearisome
length of marvels of mechanism that he had read
about in books, but which he had learned to consider
as absolutely fabulous. Among them he enumerated
the Man of Brass constructed by Albertus Magnus,
and the Brazen Head of Friar Bacon, and, coming
down to later times, the automata of a little coach and
horses which it was pretended had been manufactured
for the dauphin of France, together with an insect
that buzzed about the ear like a living fly, and yet
\\"!s but a contrivance of minute steel springs.
There was a story, too, of a duck that waddled and
quacked and ate, though had any honest citizen
purchased it for dinner he would have found himself
cheated with the mere mechanical apparition of a
duck.

" But all these accounts/' said Owen Warland, " I
am now satisfied are mere impositions."

514 /fco00e0 from an ©U> flbanse.

Then, in a mysterious way, he would confess that
he once thought differently. In his idle and dreamy
days he had considered it possible, in a certain sense,
to spiritualize machinery, and to combine with the
new species of life and motion thus produced a
beauty that should attain to the ideal which Nature
has proposed to herself in all her creatures, but has
never taken pains to realize. He seemed, however,
to retain no very distinct perception either of the
process of achieving this object or of the design
itself.

" I have thrown it all aside now," he would say.
" It was a dream such as young men are always mys-
tifying theVnselves with. Now that I have acquired
a little common sense, it makes me laugh to think of
it."

Poor, poor, and fallen Owen Warland ! These
were the symptoms that he had ceased to be an in-
habitant of the better sphere that lies unseen around
us. He had lost his faith in the invisible, and now
prided himself, as such unfortunates invariably do,
in the wisdom which rejected much that even his
eye could see, and trusted confidently in nothing but
what his hand could touch. This is the calamity of
men whose spiritual part dies out of them and leaves
the grosser understanding to assimilate them more
and more to the things of which alone it can take
cognizance. But in Owen Warland the spirit was
not dead nor past away : it only slept.

How it awoke again is not recorded. Perhaps the
torpid slumber was broken by a convulsive pain ;
perhaps, as in a former instance, the butterfly came
and hovered about his head, and reinspired him, as,
indeed, this creature of the sunshine had always a
mysterious mission for the artist — reinspired him

ttbe Brttet ot tbc JBeautfful. 515

with the former purpose of his life. Whether it were
pain or happiness that thrilled through his veins, his
first impulse was to thank Heaven for rendering him
again the being of thought, imagination and keenest
sensibility that he had long ceased to be.

• Row for my task," said he. "Never did I feel
such strength for it as now."

Yet, strong as he felt himself, he was incited to
toil the more diligently by an anxiety lest d ath
should surprise him in the midst of his lalors. This
anxiety, perhaps, is common to all men who set their
hearts'upon anything so high, in their own view of
it, that life becomes of importance only as condi-
tional to its accomplishment. So long as we love
life for itself we seldom dread the losing it ; when
we desire life for the attainment of an object, we rec-
ognize the frailty of its texture, But side by side
with this sense of insecurity there is a vital faith in our
invulnerability to the shaft of death while engaged i-»
any task that seems assigned by Providence as ou;
proper thing to do, and which the world would hav:
cause to mourn for should we leave it unaccom-
plished. Can the philosopher big wii'i the inspira-
tion of an idea that is to reform mankind believe
that he is to be beckoned from this sensible existence
at the very instant when he is mustering his breath
to speak the word of light ? Should he perish so, the
weary ages may pass away — the world's whole life-
sand may fall drop by drop — before another intellect
is prepared to develop the truth that might have been
uttered then. But history affords many an example
where the most precious spirit, at any particular
epoch manifested in human shape, has gone hence
untimely without space allowed him, so far as mortal
judgment could discern, to perform his mission on

516 bosses rrom an ©tt> /foanse.

the earth. The prophet dies, and the man of torpid
heart and sluggish brain lives on. The poet leaves his
song half sung or finishes it beyond the scope of mor-
tal ears in a celestial choir. The painter — as Allston
did — leaves half his conception on the canva^ t<>
sadden us with its imperfect beauty, and goes to
picture fTth the whole — if it be no irreverence to
say so — i'i t^ •* hues of heaven. But, rather, such
incomplete designs of this life will be perfected no-
where This so frequent abortion of man's dearest
projects must be taken as a proof that the deeds of
earth, however etherealized by piety or genius, are
without value except as exercises and manifestations
of the spirit. In heaven all ordinary thought is
higher and more melodious than Milton's song.
Then would he add another verse to any strain that
he had left unfinished here ?

But to return to Owen Warland. It was his fort-
une, good ill, to achieve the purpose of his life.
Pass we over a long space of intense thought, yearn-
ing effort, minute toil and wasting anxiety, succeeded
by an instant of solitary triumph; let all this be
imagined, and then behold the artist on a winter
evening seeking admittance to Robert Danforth'sfire-
Sid : circle. There he found the man of iron with his
massiv substance thoroughly warmed and attem-
pered by domestic influences. And there was Annie,
too, now transformed into a matron with much of
her husband's plain and sturdy nature, but imbued,
as Owen Warland still believed, with a finer grace
that might enable her to be the interpreter between
strength and beauty. It happened, ..kcwise, that
old Peter Hovenden was a guest this evening at his
daughter's fireside, and it was his weM-remembered
expression of keen, cold criticism that first encoun
tered the artist's glance.

Cbe artist of tbc beautiful. 517

•« My old friend Owen ! " cried Robert Danforth,
starting up and compressing the artist's delicate
fingers within a hand that was accustomed to grip
bars of iron. " This is kind and neighborly to come
to us at last ! I was afraid your perpetual motion
had bewitched you out of the remembrance of old
times. '

"We are glad to see you ! " said Annie, while a
blush reddened her matronly cheek. "It was not
like a friend to stay from us so long."

" Well, Owen," inquired the old watchmaker as
his first greeting, " how comes on the Beautiful ?
Have you created it at last ? "

The artist did not immediately reply, being startled
by the apparition of a young child of strength that
was tumbling about on the carpet — a little person-
age who had come mysteriously out of the infinite,
but with something so sturdy and real in his com-
position that he seemed molded out of the densest
substance which earth could supply. This hopeful
infant crawled toward the new-comer, and, setting him-
self on end— as Robert Danforth expressed the post-
ure— stared at Owen with a look of such sagacious
observation that the mother could not help exchang-
ing a proud glance with her husband. But the artist
was disturbed by the child's look, as imagining a
resemblance between It and Peter Hovenden's
habitual expression. He could have fancied that the
old watchmaker was compressed into this baby-
shape, and looking out of those baby-eyes, and
repeating, as he now did, the malicious question :

" The Beautiful, Owen ! How comes on the
Beautiful ? Have you succeeded in creating the
Beautiful ? "

"I have succeeded," replied the artist, with a

518 flfco00e0 from an ©U> dfcanse.

momentary light of triumph in his eyes, and a smile
of sunshine, yet steeped in such depth of thought
that it was almost sadness. " Yes, my friends, it is
the truth. I have succeeded."

" Indeed ! " cried Annie, a look of maiden mirthful-
ness peeping out of her face again. " And is it
lawful now to inquire what the secret is ? "

" Surely ; it is to disclose it that I have come,"
answered Owen Warland. " You shall know and
see and touch and possess the secret. For, Annie
— if by that name I may still address the friend of.
my boyish years — Annie, it is for your bridal-gift
that I have wrought this spiritualized mechanism,
this harmony of motion, this mystery of beauty. It
comes late, indeed, but it is as we go onward in life,
when objects begin to lose their freshness of hue and
our souls their delicacy of perception, that the spirit
of Beauty is most needed. It — forgive me, Annie
— if you know how to value this gift, it can never
come too late."

He produced, as he spoke, what seemed a jewel-
box. It was carved richly out of ebony by his own
hand, and inlaid with a fanciful tracery of pearl
representing a boy in pursuit of a butterfly which
elsewhere had become a winged spirit and was fly-
ing heavenward, while the boy, or youth, had found
such efficacy in his strong desire that he ascended
from earth to cloud and from cloud to celestial-
atmosphere to win the Beautiful. This case of
ebony the artist opened, and bade Annie place her
finger on its edge. She did so, but almost screamed
as a butterfly fluttered forth, and, alighting on her
finger's tip, sat waving the ample magnificence of its

§urple-and-gold-speckled wings as if in prelude to a
ight. It is impossible to express by words the

artist of tbc beautiful. 519

glory, the splendor, the delicate gorgeousness, which
were softened into the beauty of this object. Nat-
ure's ideal butterfly was here realized in all its per-
fection— not in the pattern of such faded insects as
flit among earthly flowers, but of those which hover
across the meads of Paradise for child-angels and
the spirits of departed infants to disport themselves
with. The rich down was visible upon its wings ;
the luster of its eyes seemed instinct with spirit.
The firelight glimmered around this wonder, the
candles gleamed upon it, but it glistened apparently
by its own radiance, and illuminated the finger and
outstretched hand on which it rested with a white
gleam like that of precious stones. In its perfect
beauty the consideration of size was entirely lost.
Had its wings overreached the firmament, the mind
could not have been more filled or satisfied.

" Beautiful ! Beautiful ! " exclaimed Annie. " Is
it alive ? Is it alive ? "

" ' Alive ' ? To be sure it is," answered her hus-
band. " Do you suppose any mortal has skill enough
to make a butterfly, or would put himself to the
trouble of making one, when any child may 'catch a
score of them in a summer's afternoon ? ' Alive' ?
Certainly ! But this pretty box is undoubtedly of
our friend Owen's manufacture, and really it does
him credit."

At this moment the butterfly waved its wings
anew with a motion so absolutely lifelike that Annie
was startled, and even awe-stricken, for, in spite of
her husband's opinion, she could not satisfy herself
whether it was indeed a living creature or a piece
of wondrous mechanism.

" Is it alive ? " she repeated, more earnestly than
before.

520 dfcogsee from an Ql£> dfcanse.

"Judge for yourself," said Owen Warland, who
stood gazing in her face with fixed attention.

The butterfly now flung itself upon the air. flut-
tered round Annie's head and soared into a distant
region of the parlor, still making itself perceptible
to sight by the starry gleam in which the motion of
its wings enveloped it. The infant, on the floor,
followed its course with his sagacious little eyes.
After flying about the room, it returned in a spiral
curve and settled again on Annie's finger.

" But is it alive ? " exclaimed she, again ; and the
finger on which the gorgeous mystery had alighted
was so tremulous that the butterfly was forced to
balance himself with his wings. " Tell me if it be
alive, or whether you created it."

" Wherefore ask who created it, so it be beauti-
ful ?" replied Owen Warland. " ' Alive '? Yes,
Annie ; it may well be said to possess life, for it
has absorbed my own being into itself, and in the
secret of that butterfly, and in its beauty — which is
not merely outward, but deep as its whole system — is
represented the intellect, the imagination, the sensi-
bility, the soul, of an artist of the Beautiful. Yes, I
created it. But " — and her his ountenance some-
what changed — " this butterfly is not now to me
what it was when I beheld it afar off in the day-
dreams of my youth."

" Be what it may, it *s a pretty plaything," sa'd
the blacksmith, grinning with childlike delight. " I
wonder whether i would condescend to alight on
such a great clumsy finger as mine ? — Hold it hither,
Annie."

By the artist's direction, Annie touched her finger's
tip to that of her husband, and after a momentary
delay the butterfly fluttered from one to the other.

Cbe Brtiet ot tbe JBcautiful. 521

It preluded a second flight by a similar yet not pre-
cisely the same waving of wings as in the first experi-
ment. Then, ascending from the blacksmith's stal-
wart finger, it rose in a gradually enlarging curve to
the ceiling, made one wide sweep around the room,
and returned with an undulating movement to the
point whence it had started.

" Well, that does beat all nature ! " cried Robert
Danforth, bestowing the heartiest praise that he
could find expression for ; and, indeed, had he
paused there, a man of finer words and nicer per-
ception could not easily have said more. "That
goes beyond me, I confess. But what then ? There
is more real use in one downright blow of my sledge-
hammer than in the whole five years' labor that our
friend Owen has wasted on this butterfly."

Here the child clapped his hands and made a
great babble of indistinct utterance, apparently de-
manding that the butterfly should be given him for
a plaything.

Owen Warland, meanwhile, glanced sidelong at
Annie to discover whether she sympathized in her
husband's estimate of the comparative value of the
Beautiful and the Practical. There was amid all
her kindness toward himself, amid all the wonder
and admiration with which she contemplated the
marvelous work of his hands and incarnation of his
idea, a secret scorn — too secret, perhaps, for her
own consciousness, and perceptible only to such
intuitive discernment as that of the artist. But
Owen, in the latter stages of his pursuit, had risen
out of the region in which such a discovery might
have been torture. He knew that the world, and
Annie as the representative of the world, whatever
praise might be bestowed, could never say the fitting

522 /Bosses from an ©ID flfcanse.

word nor feel the fitting sentiment which should be
the perfect recompense of an artist who, symbolizing
a lofty moral by a material trifle — converting what
was earthly to spiritual gold — had won the Beautiful
into his handiwork. Not at this latest moment was
he to learn that the reward of all high performance
must be sought within itself, or sought in vain.
There was, however, a view of the matter which
Annie and her husband, and even Peter Hovenden,
might fully have understood, and which would have
satisfied them that the toil of years had here been
worthily bestowed. Owen Warland might have told
them that this butterfly, this plaything, this bridal-
gift of a poor watchmaker to a blacksmith's wife,
was, in truth, a gem of art that a monarch would
have purchased with honors and abundant wealth,
and have treasured it among the jewels of his king-
dom as the most unique and wondrous of them all
But the artist smiled and kept the secret to himself.

" Father," said Annie, thinking that a word of
praise from the old watchmaker might gratify his
former apprentice, " do come and admire this pretty
butterfly ! "

" Let us see," said Peter Hovenden, rising from
his chair with a sneer upon his face that always
made people doubt, as he himself did, in everything
but a material existence. " Here is my finger for it
to alight upon. I shall understand it better when
once I have touched it."

But, to the increased astonishment of Annie, when
the tip of her father's finger was pressed against that
of her husband, on which the butterfly still rested,
the insect drooped its wings and seemed on the
point of falling to the floor. Even the bright spots
of gold upon its wings and body, unless her eyes

Hrtist of tbc JScautitul. 523

deceived her, grew dim, and the glowing purple took
a dusky hue, and the starry luster that gleamed
around the blacksmith's hand became faint and
vanished.

44 It is dying ! It is dying ! " cried Annie, in
alarm.

" It has been delicately wrought," said the artist,
calmly. " As I told you, it has imbibed a spiritual
essence — call it magnetism, or what you will. In
an atmosphere of doubt and mockery its exquisite
susceptibility suffers torture, as does the soul of him
•who instilled his own life into it. It has already lost
Us beauty ; in a few moments more its mechanism
would be irreparably injured."

" Take away your hand, father," entreated Annie,
turning pale. " Here is my child ; let it rest on his
innocent hand. There, perhaps, its life will revive
and its colors grow brighter than ever."

Her father, with an acrid smile, withdrew his
ringer. The butterfly then appeared to recover the
power of voluntary motion, while its hues assumed
much of their original luster, and the gleam of star-
light which was its most ethereal attribute again
formed a halo round about it. At first, when trans-
ferred from Robert Danforth's hand to the small
finger of the child, this radiance grew so powerful
that it positively threw the little fellow's shadow
back against the wall. He, meanwhile, extended
his plump hand as he had seen his father and mother
do, and watched the waving of the insect's wings
with infantine delight. Nevertheless, there was
a certain odd expression of sagacity that made Owen
Warland feel as if here were old Peter Hovenden
partially, and but partially, redeemed from his hard
skepticism into childish faith.

from an ©U> /fcan$e.

524

" How wise the little monkey looks ! " whispered
Robert Danforth to his wife.

" I never saw such a look on a child's face,"
answered Annie, admiring her own infant, and with
good reason, far more than the artistic butterfly.
"The darling knows more of the mystery than we
do."

As if tne butterfly, like the artist, were conscious
of something not entirely congenial in the child's
nature, it alternately sparkled and grew dim. At
length it arose from the small hand of the infant
with an airy motion that seemed to bear it upward
without an effort, as if the ethereal instincts with
which its master's spirit had endowed it impelled
this fair vision involuntarily to a higher sphere.
Had there been no obstruction, it might have soared
into the sky and grown immortal, but its luster
gleamed upon the ceiling ; the exquisite texture of
its wings brushed against that earthly medium, and
a sparkle or two, as if star-dust, floated downward
and lay glimmering on the carpet. Then the butter-
fly came fluttering down, and, instead of returning
to the infant, wis apparently attracted toward the
artist's hand.

" Not so ! not so ! " murmured Owen Warland,
as if his handiwork could have understood him.
" Thou hast gone forth out of thy master's heart.
There is no return for thee."

With a wavering movement, and emitting a tremu-
lous radiance, the butterfly struggled, as it were,
toward the infant, and was about to alight upon his
finger. But while it still hovered in the air the little
child of strength, with his grandsire's sharp and
shrewd expression in his face, made a snatch at the
marvelous' insect and compressed it in his hand.

artist of tbe JScautifut. 525

Annie screamed; old Peter Ho venden burst into a
cold and scornful laugh. The blacksmith by main
force unclosed the infant's hand, and found within
the palm a small heap of glittering fragments whence
the mystery of beauty had fled forever. And, as
for Owen Warland, he looked placidly at what
seemed the ruin of his life's labor, and which yet
was no ruin. He had caught a far other butterfly
than this. When the artist rose high enough to
achieve the Beautiful, the symbol by which he made
it perceptible to mortal senses became of little value
in his eyes while his spirit possessed itself in the
enjoyment of the reality.

34

A VIRTUOSO'S COLLECTION.

THE other day, having a leisure-hour at my dis-
posal, I stepped into a new museum to which my
notice was casually drawn by a small and unobtru-
sive sign: "To BE SEEN HERE A VIRTUOSO'S COL-
LECTION." Such was the simple yet not altogether
unpromising announcement that turned my steps
aside for a little while from the sunny sidewalk of
our principal thoroughfare. Mounting a somber
staircase, I pushed open a door at its summit, and
found myself in the presence of a person who men-
tioned the moderate sum that would entitle me to
admittance.

" Three shillings, Massachusetts tenor," said he.
" No, I mean half a dollar, as you reckon in these
days."

While searching my pocket for the coin I glanced
at the doorkeeper, the marked character and indi-
viduality of whose aspect encouraged me to expect
something not quite in the ordinary way. He wore
an old-fashioned great-coat, much faded, within
which his meager person was so completely enveloped
that the rest of his attire was undistinguishable.
But his visage was remarkably wind-flushed, sun-
burnt and weather-worn, and had a most unquiet,
nervous and apprehensive expression. It seemed
as if this man had some all-important object in view,

526

B Virtuoso's Collection. 527

some point of deepest interest to be decided, some
momentous question to ask might he but hope for
a reply. As it was evident, however, that I could
have nothing to do with his private affairs, I passed
through an open doorway which admitted me into
the extensive hall of the museum.

Directly in front of the portal was the bronze
statue of a youth with winged feet. He was repre-
sented in the act of flitting away from earth, yet wore
such a look of earnest invitation that it impressed
me like a summons to enter the hall.

" It is the original statue of Opportunity, by th
ancient sculptor Lysippus," said a gentleman who
now approached me. " I place it at the entrance of
my museum because it is not at all times that one
can gain admittance to such a collection."

The speaker was a middle-aged person of whom it
was not easy t determine whether he had spent his
life as a scholar or as a man of action ; in truth, all
outward and obvious peculiarities had been worn
away by an extensive and promiscuous intercourse
with the world. There was no mark about him of
profession, individual habits, or scarcely of country,
although his dark complexion and high features
made me conjecture that he was a native of some
southern clime of Europe. At all events, he was
evidently the Virtuoso in person.

" With your permission," said he, " as we have
no descriptive catalogue, I will accompany you
through the museum and point out whatever may
be most worthy of attention. In the first place,
here is a choice collection of stuffed animals."

Nearest the door stood the outward semblance of
a wolf — exquisitely prepared, it is true, and showing
a. very wolfish fierceness in the large glass eyes which

trom an ©10 dfcanse.

were inserted into its wild and crafty head. Still,
it was merely the skin of a wolf, with nothing to
distinguish it irom other individuals of that unlovely
breed.

44 How does this animal deserve a place in your
collection ? " inquired I.

" It is the wolf that devoured Little Red Riding-
Hood," answered the Virtuoso ; " and by his side
— with a milder and more matronly look, as you
perceive — stands the she-wolf that suckled Romulus
and Remus."

" Ah, indeed '. " exclaimed I. " And what lovely
lamb is this with the snow-white fleece which seems
to be of as delicate a texture as innocence itself ? "

" Methinks you have but carelessly read Spenser,"
replied my guide, " or you would at once recognize
the ' milk-white lamb ' which Una led. But I set
no great value upon the lamb. The next specimen
is better worth our notice."

" What ! " cried I ; " this strange animal with the
black head of an ox upon the body of a white
horse ? Were it possible to suppose it, I should say
that this was Alexander's steed Bucephalus."

" The same," said the Virtuoso. " And can you
likewise give a name to the famous charger that
stands beside him ? "

Next to the renowned Bucephalus stood the mere
skeleton of a horse with the white bones peeping
through his ill-conditioned hide. But if my heart
had not warmed toward that pitiful anatomy, I might
as well have quitted the museum at once. Its rari-
ties had not been collected with pain and toil from
the four quarters of the earth and from the depths
of the sea and from the palaces and sepulchers of
ages for those who could mistake this illustrious
steed.

a IDtrtuogo's Collection. 529

" It is Rosinante ! " exclaimed I, with enthusiasm.

And so it proved. My admiration for the noble
and gallant horse caused me to glance with less in-
terest at the other animals, although many of them
might have deserved the notice of Cuvier himself.
There was the donkey which Peter Bell cudgeled
so soundly, and a brother of the same species who
had suffered a similar infliction from the ancient
prophet Balaam. Some doubts were entertained,
however, as to the authenticity of the latter beast.
My guide pointed out the venerable Argus — that
faithful dog of Ulysses — and also another dog (for
so the skin bespoke it), which, though imperfectly
preserved, seemed once to have had three heads.
It was Cerberus. I was considerably amused at
detecting in an obscure corner the fox that became
so famous by the loss of his tail. There were
several stuffed cats which as a dear lover of that
comfortable beast attracted my affectionate regards.
One was Dr. Johnson's cat Hodge, and in the same
row stood the favorite cats of Mohammed, Gray and
Walter Scott, together with Puss in Boots and a cat
of very noble aspect who had once been a deity oi
ancient Egypt. Byron's tame bear came next. I
must not forget to mention the Erymanthean boar,
the skin of St. George's dragon and that of the ser-
pent Python, and another skin, with beautifully
variegated hues, supposed to have been the garnu-nt
of the "spirited sly snake" which tempted Eve.
Against the walls were suspended the horns of a
stag that Shakespeare shot, and on the floor lay the
ponderous shell of the tortoise which fell upon the
head of ^Eschylus. In one row, as natural as
life, stood the sacred bull Apis, the " cow with the
crumpled horn," and a very wild looking young

530 d&osses from an ©l& /Bans:.

heifer, which I guessed to be the cow that jumped
over the moon. She was probably killed by the
rapidity of her descent. As I turned away, my eyes
fell upon an indescribable monster which proved to
be a griffin.

" I look in vain," observed I, " for the skin of an
animal which might well deserve the closest study
of a naturalist — the winged horse Pegasus."

" He is not yet dead," replied the Virtuoso, "but
he is so hard ridden by many young gentlemen of
the day that I hope soon to add his skin and skele-
ton to my collection."

We now passed to the next alcove of the hall, in
which was a multitude of stuffed birds. They were
very prettily arranged — some upon the branches of
trees, others brooding upon nests, and others sus'
pended by wires so artfully that they seemed in the
very act of flight. Among them was a white dove
with a withered branch of olive-leaves in her mouth.

" Can this be the very dove," inquired I, " that
brought the message of peace and hope to the tem-
pest-beaten passengers of the ark ? "

" Even so," said my companion.

"And this raven, I suppose," continued I, "is
the same that fed Elijah in the wilderness ? "

" The raven ? No," said the Virtuoso ; " it is a
bird of modern date. He belonged to one Barnaby
Rudge, and many people fancied that the devil him-
self was disguised under his sable plumage. But
poor Grip has drawn his last cork, and has been
forced to * say die ' at last. This other raven, hardly
less curious, is that in which the soul of King
George I. revisited his lady-love the Duchess of
Kendall."

My guide next pointed out Minerva's owl and the

B Wrtuoso's Collection. 531

vulture that preyed upon the liver of Prometheus.
There was likewise the sacred ibis of Egypt, and
one of the. Stymphalides, which Hercules shot in
his sixth labor. Shelley's skylark, Bryant's water-
fowl and a pigeon from the belfry of the Old South
Church, preserved by N. P. Willis, were placed on
the same perch. I could not but shudder on behold-
ing Coleridge's albatross transfixed with the Ancient
Mariner's crossbow shaft. Beside this bird of awful
poesy stood a gray goose of very ordinary aspect.

** Stuffed goose is no such rarity," observed I.
" Why do you preserve such a specimen in your
museum ? "

" It is one of the flock whose cackling saved the
Roman Capitol," answered the Virtuoso. " Many
geese have cackled and hissed both before and since,
but none, like those, have clamored themselves into
immortality."

There seemed to be little else that demanded
notice in this department of the museum, unless we
except Robinson Crusoe's parrot, a live phcenix, a
footless bird of paradise, and a splendid peacock
supposed to be the same that once contained the
soul of Pythagoras. I therefore passed to the next
alcove, the shelves of which were covered with a
miscellaneous collection of curiosities such as are
usually found in similar establishments. One of
the first things that took my eye was a strange-
looking cap woven of some substance that appeared
to be neither woolen, cotton nor linen.

" Is this a magician's cap? " I asked.

" No," replied the Virtuoso ; " it is merely Dr.
Franklin's cap of asbestos. But here is one which
perhaps may suit you better. It is the wishing-cap
of Fortunatus. Will you try it on ? "

532 /Bosses from an ©la flfcanse.

" By no means," answered I, putting it aside with
my hand. " The day of wild wishes is past with
me ; I desire nothing that may not come in the
ordinary course of Providence."

" Then, probably," returned the Virtuoso, " you
will not be tempted to rub this lamp ? "

While speaking he took from the shelf an antique
brass lamp curiously wrought with embossed figures,
but so covered with verdigris that the sculpture was
almost eaten away.

" It is a thousand years," said he, " since the
genius of this lamp constructed Aladdin's palace in
a single night. But he still retains his power, and
the man who rubs Aladdin's lamp has but to desire
either a palace or a cottage."

" I might desire a cottage," replied I, " but I
would have it founded on sure and stable truth, not
on dreams and fantasies. I have learned to look for
the real and the true."

My guide next showed me Prospero's magic wand,
broken into three fragments by the hand of its
mighty master. On the same shelf lay the gold
ring of ancient Gyges, which enabled the wearer to
walk invisible. On the other side of the alcove
was a tall looking-glass in a frame of ebony, but
veiled with a curtain of purple silk, through the
rents of which the gleam of the mirror was percep-
tible.

" This is Cornelius Agrippa's magic glass," ob
served the Virtuoso. " Draw aside the curtain and
picture any human form within your mind, and it will
be reflected in the mirror."

" It is enough if I can picture it within my mind,"
answered I. " Why should I wish it to be repeated
in the mirror? But, indeed, these works of magic

# Dirtuoao's Collection. 533

have grown wearisome to me. There are so many
greater wonders in the world, to those who keep their
eyes open and their sight undimmed by custom, that
all the delusions of the old sorcerers seem flat and
stale. Unless you can show me something really
curious, I care not to look farther into your museum.'*

" Ah, well, then," said the Virtuoso, composedly,
" perhaps you may deem some of my antiquarian
rarities deserving of a glance."

He pointed out the Iron Mask, now corroded with
rust, and my heart grew sick at the sight of this
dreadful relic which had shut out a human being
from sympathy with his race. There was nothing
half so terrible in the ax that beheaded King
Charles, nor in the dagger that slew Henry of Na-
varre, nor in the arrow that pierced the heart of
William Ruf us, all of which were shown to me. Many
of the articles derived their interest — such as it was
— from having been formerly in the possession of
royalty. For instance, here was Charlemagne's
sheepskin cloak, the flowing wig of Louis Quatorze,
the spinning-wheel of Sardanapalus and King
Stephen's famous breeches, which cost him but a
crown. The heart of the Bloody Mary, with the
word " Calais " worn into its diseased substance, was
preserved in a bottle of spirits, and near it lay the
golden case in which the queen of Gustavus Adol-
phus treasured up that hero's heart. Among these
relics and heirlooms of kings I must not forget the
long hairy ears of Midas and a piece of bread which
had been changed to gold by the touch of that un-
lucky monarch. And, as Grecian Helen was a queen,
it may here be mentioned that I was permitted to
take into my hand a lock of her golden hair, and
the bowl which a sculptor modeled from the curve

534 fl&o00es from an QID /fcanse.

of her perfect breast. Here, likewise, was the robe
that smothered Agamemnon, Nero's riddle, the czar
Peter's brandy-bottle, the crown of Semiramis and
Canute's scepter which he extended over the sea.
That my own land may not deem itself neglected,
let me add that I was favored with a sight of the
skull of King Philip, the famous Indian chief whose
head the Puritans smote off and exhibited upon a
pole.

" Show me something else," said I to the Virtuoso.
" Kings are in such an artificial position that people
in the ordinary walks of life cannot feel an interest
in their relics. If you could show me the straw hat
of sweet little Nell, I would far rather see it than a
king's golden crown."

" There it is," said my guide, pointing carelessly
wtth his staff to the straw hat in question. " But
indeed you are hard to please. Here are the seven-
league boots ; will you try them on ? "

" Our modern railroads have superseded their
use," answered I, " and, as to these cowhide boots,
I could show you quite as curious a pair at the tran-
scendental community in Roxbury."

We next examined a collection of swords and other
weapons belonging to different epochs, but thrown
together without much attempt at arrangement.
Here was Arthur's sword Excalibar and that of the
Cid Campeador, and the sword of Brutus rusted with
Caesar's blood and his own, and the sword of Joan
of Arc, and that of Horatius, and that with which
Virginius slew his daughter, and the one which
Dionysius suspended over the head of Damocles.
Here, also, was Arria's sword, which she plunged
into her own breast in order to taste of death before
her husband.' The crooked blade of Saladin's scym-

Dirtuoao's Collection.

535

itar next attracted my notice. I knew not by what
chance, but it so happened that the sword of one of
our own militia generals was suspended between Don
Quixote's lance and the brown blade of Hudibras.
My heart throbbed high at the sight of the helmet
of Miltiades and the spear that was broken in the
breast of Epaminondas. I recognized the shield of
Achilles by its resemblance to the admirable cast in
the possession of Professor Felton. Nothing in this
apartment interested me more than Major Pitcairn's
pistol, the discharge of which at Lexington began
the war of the Revolution and was reverberated in
thunder around the land for seven long years. The
bow of Ulysses, though unstrung for ages, was placed
against the wall, together with a sheaf of Robin
Hood's arrows and the rifle of Daniel Boone.

" Enough of weapons," said I, at length, " al-
though I would gladly have seen the sacred shield
which fell from heaven in the time of Numa. And
surely you should obtain the sword which Washing-
ton unsheathed at Cambridge. But the collection
does you much credit. Let us pass on."

In the next alcove we saw the golden thigh of
Pythagoras, which had so divine a meaning, and, by
one of the queer analogies to which the Virtuoso
seemed to be addicted, this ancient emblem lay on
the same shelf with Peter Stuyvesant's wooden leg,
that was fabled to be of silver. Here was a rem-
nant of the Golden Fleece, and a sprig of yellow
leaves that resembled the foliage of a frost-bitten
elm, but was duly authenticated as a portion of the
golden branch by which ^-Eneas gained admittance
to the realm of Pluto. Atalanta's golden apple and
one of the apples of discord were wrapped in the
capkin of gold which Rampsinitus brought from

536 ^Bosses from an ©U>

Hades, and the whole were deposited in the golden
vase of Bias, with its inscription : " To THE WISKS r."

" And how did you obtain this vase ? " said I to
the Virtuoso.

" It was given me long ago," replied he, with a
scornful expression in his eye, " because I had
learned to despise all things."

It had not escaped me that though the Virtuoso
was evidently a man of high cultivation, yet he
seemed to lack sympathy with the spiritual, the sub-
lime and the tender. Apart from the whim that
had led him to devote so much time, pains and ex-
pense to the collection of this museum, he impressed
me as one of the hardest and coldest men of the
world whom I had ever met.

"To despise all things," repeated I — "this, at
best, is the wisdom of the understanding. It is
the creed of a man whose soul — whose better and
diviner part — has never been awakened or has died
out of him."

" I did not think that you were still so young,"
said the Virtuoso. " Should you live to my years,
you will acknowledge that the vase of Bias was not
ill bestowed."

Without further discussion of the point, he directed
my attention to other curiosities. I examined Cin-
derella's little glass slipper and compared it with
one of Diana's sandals, and with Fanny Elssler's
shoe, which bore testimony to the muscular charac
ter of her illustrious foot. On the same shelf were
Thomas the Rhymer's green velvet shoes and the
brazen shoe of Empedocles, which was thrown out
of Mount ^Etna. Anacreon's drinking-cup was
placed in apt juxtaposition with one of Tom Moore's
wine-glasses and Circe's magic bowl. These were

B IDirtuoso's Collection.

537

symbols of luxury and riot, but near them stood the
cup whence Socrates drank his hemlock and that
which Sir Philip Sydney put from his death-parched
lips to bestow the draught upon a dying soldier.
Next appeared a cluster of tobacco-pipes consisting
of Sir Walter Raleigh's — the earliest on record— Dr.
Parr's, Charles Lamb's and the first calumet of
peace which was ever smoked between a European
and an Indian. Among other musical instruments
I noticed the lyre of Orpheus and those of Homer
and Sappho, Dr. Franklin's famous whistle, the
trumpet of Anthony Van Corlear and the flute
which Goldsmith played upon in his rambles
through the French provinces. The staff of Peter
the Hermit stood in a corner with that of good old
Bishop Jewel and one of ivory which had belonged
to Papirius, the Roman senator. The ponderous
c'ub of Hercules was close at hand. The Virtuoso
showed me the chisel of Phidias, Claude's palette
and the brush of Apelles, observing that he intended
to bestow the former either on Greenough, Craw-
ford or Powers, and the two latter upon Washington
Allston. There was a small vase of oracular gas
from Delphos, which I trust will be submitted to
the scientific analysis of Professor Silliman. I was
deeply moved on beholding a phial of the tears into
which Niobe was dissolved, nor less so on learning
that a shapeless fragment of salt was a relic of that
victim of despondency and sinful regrets, Lot's wife.
My companion appeared to set great value upon
some Egyptian darkness in a blacking-jug. Several
of the shelves were covered by a collection of coins ;
among which, however, I remember none but the
Splendid Shilling, celebrated by Phillips, and a
dollar's worth of the iron money of Lycurgus, weigh-
ing about fifty pounds.

538 /Bosses trom an CIS flfcansc.

Walking carelessly onward, I had nearly fallen
over a huge bundle like a peddler's pack done up in
sackcloth and very securely strapped and corded.

" It is Christian's burden of sin," said the Vir-
tuoso.

44 Oh, pray let us open it ! " cried I. " For many
a year I have longed to know its contents."

" Look into your own consciousness and memory,"
replied the Virtuoso. " You will there find a list of
whatever it contains."

As this was an undeniable truth, I threw a melan-
choly look at the burden and passed on. A collec-
tion of old garments hanging on pegs was worthy
of some attention, especially the shirt of Nessus,
Caesar's mantle, Joseph's coat of many colors, the
vicar of Bray's cassock, Goldsmith's peach-bloom
suit, a pair of President Jefferson's scarlet breeches,
John Randolph's red baize hunting-shirt, the drab
small-clothes of the Stout Gentleman and the rags
of the " man all tattered and torn." George Fox's
hat impressed me with deep reverence as a relic of
perhaps the truest apostle that has appeared on
earth for these eighteen hundred years. My eye
was next attracted by an old pair of shears which I
should have taken for a memorial of some famous
tailor, only that the Virtuoso pledged his veracity
that they were the identical scissors of Atropos.
He also showed me a broken hour-glass which had
been thrown aside by Father Time, together with
the old gentleman's gray forelock, tastefully braided
into a brooch. In the hour-glass was the handful of
sand the grains of which had numbered the years of
the Cumaean Sibyl. I think it was in this alcove that
I saw the. inkstand which Luther threw at the devil
and the ring which Essex, while under sentence of

a Uirtuoso's Collection. 539

death, sent to Queen Elizabeth. And here was the
blood-encrusted pen of steel with which Faust
signed away his salvation.

The Virtuoso now opened the door of a closet and
showed me a lamp burning, while three others stood
unlighted by its side. One of the three was the
lamp of Diogenes, another that of Guy Faux, and
the third that which Hero set forth to the midnight
breeze in the high tower of Abydos.

" See ! " said the Virtuoso, blowing with all his
force at the lighted lamp.

The flame quivered and shrank away from his
breath but clung to the wick, and resumed its
brilliancy as soon as the blast was exhausted.

" It is an undying lamp from the tomb of Charle-
magne," observed my guide. " That flame was
kindled a thousand years ago."

" How ridiculous, to kindle an unnatural light in
tombs ! " exclaimed I. " We should seek to behold
the dead in the light of heaven. But what is the
meaning of this chafing-dish of glowing coals ? "

" That," answered the Virtuoso, " is the original
fire which Prometheus stole from heaven. Look
steadfastly into it, and you will discern another
curiosity."

I gazed into that fire which symbolically was the
origin of all that was bright and glorious in the soul
of man, and in the midst of it, behold ! a little
reptile sporting with evident enjoyment of the fervid
heat. It was a salamander.

" What a sacrilege ! " cried I, with inexpressible
disgust. " Can you find no better use for this
ethereal fire than to cherish a loathsome reptile in
it ? Yet there are men who abuse the sacred fire
of their own souls to as foul and guilty a purpose."

540

/fcosaea from an ©U> dfcanse.

The Virtuoso made no answer except by a dry
laugh and an assurance that the salamander was
the very same which Benvenuto Cellini had seen in
his father's household fire. He then proceeded to
show me other rarities, for this closet appeared to
be the receptacle of what he considered most valu-
able in his collection.

"There," said he, " is the Great Carbuncle of the
White Mountains."

I gazed with no little interest at this mighty gem,
which it had been one of the wild projects of my
youth to discover. Possibly it might have looked
brighter to me in those days than now ; at all events,
it had not such brilliancy as to detain me long from
the other articles of the museum. The Virtuoso
pointed to me a crystalline stone which hung by a.
gold chain against the wall.

" That is the Philosopher's Stone," said he.

" And have you the Elixir Vitae, which genera.Uy
accompanies it?" inquired I.

"Even so; this urn is filled with it," he replied.
" A draught would refresh you. Here is Hebe's
cup ; will you quaff a health from it ? "

My heart thrilled within me at the idea of such a
reviving draught, for methought I had great need of
it after traveling so far on the dusty road of life.
But I know not whether it were a peculiar glance in
the Virtuoso's eye or the circumstance that this most
precious liquid was contained in an antique sepul-
chral urn that made me pause. Then came many a
thought with which in the calmer and better hours
of life I had strengthened myself to feel that Death
is the very friend whom in his due season even the
happiest mortal should be willing to embrace.

"No-, I desire not an earthly immortality," said

H Wrtuoso's Collection. 541

I. "Were man to live longer on the earth, the
spiritual would die out of him. The spark of ethereal
fire would be choked by the material, the sensual.
There is a celestial something within us that requires
after a certain time the atmosphere of heaven to
preserve it from decay and ruin. I will have none
of this liquid. You do well to keep it in a sepulchral
urn, for it would produce death while bestowing the
shadow of life."

" All this is unintelligible to me," responded my
guide, with indifference. " Life — earthly life — is
the only good. But you refuse the draught ? Well,
it is not likely to be offered twice within one man's
experience. Probably you have griefs which you
seek to forget in death ; I can enable you to forget
them in life. Will you take a draught of Lethe ? "

As he spoke the Virtuoso took from the shelf a
crystal vase containing a sable liquor which caught
no reflected image from the objects around.

" Not for the world ! " exclaimed I, shrinking
back. " I can spare none of my recollections — not
even those of error or sorrow. They are all alike
the food of my spirit. As well never to have lived
as to lose them now."

Without further parley we passed to the next
alcove, the shelves of which were burdened with
ancient volumes, and with those rolls of papyrus in
which was treasured up the eldest wisdom of the
earth. Perhaps the most valuable work in the
collection to a bibliomaniac was the Book of Hermes.
For my part, however, I would have given a higher
price for those six of the Sibyl's books which Tar-
quin refused to purchase, and which the Virtuoso
informed me he had himself found in the cave of
Trophonius. Doubtless these old volumes contain
35

542 ^Bosses trom an ©U> flfcanse.

prophecies of the fate of Rome, both as respects the
decline and fall of her temporal empire and the
rise of her spiritual one. Not without value, likewise,
was the work of Anaxagoras on Nature, hitherto
supposed to be irrecoverably lost, and the missing
treatises of Longinus, by which modern criticism
might profit, and those books of Livy for which the
classic student has so long sorrowed without hope.
Among these precious tomes I observed the original
manuscript of the Koran, and also that of the Mor-
mon Bible, in Joe Smith's authentic autograph.
Alexander's copy of the Iliad was also there, en-
closed in the jeweled casket of Darius, still fragrant
of the perfumes which the Persian kept in it.

Opening an iron-clasped volume bound in black
leather, I discovered it to be Cornelius Agrippa's
book of magic ; and it was rendered still more in-
teresting by the fact that many flowers, ancient and
modern, were pressed between its leaves. Here was
a rose from Eve's bridal-bower, and all those red
and white roses which were plucked in the garden
of the Temple by the partisans of York and Lan-
caster. Here was Halleck's wild rose of Alloway.
Cowper had contributed a sensitive plant, and Words-
worth an eglantine, and Burns a mountain-daisy, and
Kirke White a star of Bethlehem, and Longfellow
a sprig of fennel with its yellow flowers. James
Russell Lowell had given a pressed flower, but
fragrant still, which had been shadowed in the
Rhine. There was also a sprig from Southey's holly
tree. One of the most beautiful specimens was a
fringed gentian which had been plucked and pre-
served for immortality by Bryant. From Jones
Very — a .poet whose voice is scarcely heard among
us by reason of its depth — there was a wind-flower
and a columbine.

B Dirtuogo'6 Collection. 543

As I closed Cornelius Agrippa's magic volume an
old mildewed letter fell upon the floor : it proved to
be an autograph from the Flying Dutchman to his
wife. I could linger no longer among books, for
the afternoon was waning and there was yet much
to see. The bare mention of a few more curiosities
must suffice. The immense skull of Polyphemus
was recognizable by the cavernous hollow in the
center of the forehead where once had blazed the
giant's single eye. The tub of Diogenes, Medea's
caldron and Psyche's vase of beauty were placed
one within another. Pandora's box, without the lid,
stood next, containing nothing but the girdle of
Venus, which had been carelessly flung into it. A
bundle of birch rods which had been used by Shen-
stone's schoolmistress were tied up with the Countess
of Salisbury's garter. I knew not which to value
most, a roc's egg as big as an ordinary hogshead, or
the shell of the egg which Columbus set up on its
end. Perhaps the most delicate article in the whole
museum was Queen Mab's chariot, which, to guard it
from the touch of meddlesome fingers, was placed
under a glass tumbler.

Several of the shelves were occupied by speci-
mens of entomology. Feeling but little interest in
the science, I noticed only Anacreon's grasshopper,
and a humblebee which had been presented to the
Virtuoso by Ralph Waldo Emerson.

In the part of the hall which we had now reached
I observed a curtain that descended from the ceiling
to the floor in voluminous folds of a depth, richness
and magnificence which I had never seen equaled.
It was not to be doubted that this splendid though
dark and solemn veil concealed a portion of the
museum even richer in wonders than that through

544

/fcosses trom an ©ID d&anse.

which I had already passed. But on my attempting
to grasp the edge of the curtain and draw it aside it
proved to be an illusive picture.

" You need not blush," remarked the Virtuoso,
" for that same curtain deceived Zeuxis. It is the
celebrated painting of Parrhasius."

In a range with the curtain there were a number of
other choice pictures by artists of ancient days.
Here was the famous " Cluster of Grapes," by Zeuxis,
so admirably depicted that it seemed as if the ripe
juice were bursting forth. As to the picture of the
" Old Woman," by the same illustrious painter, and
which was so ludicrous that he himself died with
laughing at it, I cannot say that it particularly
moved my risibility. Ancient humor seems to have
little power over modern muscles. Here, also, was
the horse painted by Apelles which living horses
neighed at, his first portrait of Alexander the Great
and his last unfinished picture of Venus asleep. Each
of these works of art, together with others by Parr-
hasius, Timanthes, Polygnotus, Apollodorus, Pausias
and Pamphilus, required more time and study than
I could bestow for the adequate perception of their
merits. I shall therefore leave them undescribed
and uncriticised, nor attempt to settle the question
of superiority between ancient and modern art.

For the same reason I shall pass lightly over the
specimens of antique sculpture which this indefati-
gable and fortunate Virtuoso had dug out of the dust
of fallen empires. Here was ^tioirs cedar statue
of ^Esculapius, much decayed, and Alcorn's iron
statue of Hercules, lamentably rusted. Here was
the statue of Victory, six feet high, which the Jupiter
Olympus of Phidias had held in his hand. Here
was a forefinger of the Colossus of Rhodes, seven

a Wrtuoao's Collection. 545

feet in length. Here was the Venus Urania of
Phidias, and other images of male and female beauty
or grandeur wrought by sculptors who appear never
to have debased their souls by the sight of any
meaner forms than those of gods or godlike mortals.
But the deep simplicity of these great works was not
to be comprehended by a mind excited and disturbed
as mine was by the various objects that had recently
been presented to it. I therefore turned away with
merely a passing glance, resolving on some future
occasion to brood over each individual statue and
picture until my inmost spirit should feel their
excellence. In this department, again, I noticed the
tendency to whimsical combinations and ludicrous
analogies which seemed to influence many of the
arrangements of the museum. The wooden statue
so well-known as the Palladium of Troy was placed
in close apposition with the wooden head of General
Jackson, which was stolen a few years since from
the bows of the Constitution.

We had now completed the circuit of the spacious
hall, and found ourselves again near the door.
Feeling somewhat wearied with the survey of so
many novelties and antiquities, I sat down upon
Cowper's sofa, while the Virtuoso threw himself
carelessly into Rabelais's easy-chair. Casting my
eyes upon the opposite wall, I was surprised to per-
ceive the shadow of a man flickering unsteadily
across the wainscot and looking as if it were stirred
by some breath of air that found its way through
the door or windows. No substantial figure was
visible from which this shadow might be thrown,
nor, had there been such, was there any sunshine
that would have caused it to darken upon the wall.

546 /Bosses from an OIC» /fcanse.

" It is Peter Schlemihl's shadow," observed the
Virtuoso, " and one of the most valuable articles in
my collection."

" Methinks a shadow would have made a fitting
doorkeeper to such a museum," said I, " although,
indeed, yonder figure has something strange and
fantastic about him which suits well enough with
many of the impressions which I have received
here. Pray, who is he ? "

While speaking I gazed more scrutinizingly than
before at the antiquated presence of the person who
had admitted me, and who still sat on his bench
with the same restless aspect and dim, confused,
questioning anxiety that I had noticed on my first
entrance. At this moment he looked eagerly to-
wards us, and, half starting from his seat, addressed
me.

" I beseech you, kind sir," said he, in a cracked,
melancholy tone, " have pity on the most unfortu-
nate man in the world. For Heaven's sake answer
me a single question : Is this the town of Boston ? "

" You have recognized him now," said the Virtuoso.
" It is Peter Rugg, the missing man. I chanced to
meet him the other day still in search of Boston,
and conducted him hither; and, as he could not
succeed in finding his friends, I have taken him
into my service as doorkeeper. He is somewhat too
apt to ramble, but otherwise a man of trust and
integrity."

" And might I venture to ask," continued I, " to
whom am I indebted for this afternoon's gratifica-
tion ? "

The Virtuoso before replying laid his hand upon
an antique dart or javelin the rusty steel head of
which seemed to have been blunted, as if it had

B Dtrtuoso's Collection.

54?

encountered the resistance of a tempered shield or
breastplate.

" My name has not been without its distinction in
the world for a longer period than that of any other
man alive," answered he, "yet many doubt of my
existence; perhaps you will do so to-morrow. This
dart which I hold in my hand was once grim Death's
own weapon. It served him well for the space of
four thousand years, but it fell blunted, as you see,
when he directed it against my breast."

These words were spoken with the calm and cold
courtesy of manner that had characterized this sin-
gular personage throughout our interview. I fancied,
it is true, that there was a bitterness indefinably
mingled with his tone, as of one cut off from natural
sympathies and blasted with a doom that had been
inflicted on no other human being, and by the results
of which he had ceased to be human. Yet, withal,
it seemed one of the most terrible consequences of
that doom that the victim no longer regarded it as a
calamity, but had finally accepted it as the greatest
good that could have befallen him.

" You are the Wandering Jew ! " exclaimed I.

The Virtuoso bowed without emotion of any kind,
for by centuries of custom he had almost lost the
sense of strangeness in his fate, and was but imper-
fectly conscious of the astonishment and awe with
which it affected such as are capable of death.

" Your doom is indeed a fearful one," said I,
.with irrepressible feeling and a frankness that after-
ward startled me ; " yet perhaps the ethereal spirit
is not entirely extinct under all this corrupted or
frozen mass of earthly life. Perhaps the immortal
spark may yet be rekindled by a breath of Heaven.
Perhaps you may yet be permitted to die before it

543 flfcosses trom an ©U> flfcanse.

is too late to live eternally. You have my prayers for
such a consummation. Farewell ! "

" Your prayers will be in vain," replied he, with
a smile of cold triumph. " My destiny is linked
with the realities of earth. You are welcome to your
visions and shadows of a future state, but give me
what I can see and touch and understand, and I
ask no more."

" It is indeed too late," thought I. " The soul is
dead within him."

Struggling between pity and horror, I extended
my hand, to which the Virtuoso gave his own, still
with the habitual courtesy of a man of the world,
but without a single heart-throb of human brother-
hood. The touch seemed like ice, yet I know not
whether morally or physically. As I departed he
bade me observe that the inner door of the hall was
constructed with the ivory leaves of the gateway
through which ^Eneas and the Sibyl had been dia
missed from Hades.

THE END.

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