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The Works of Edgar Allan Poe

by Edgar Allan Poe

The Raven Edition

VOLUME II.

Contents

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

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

THE PURLOINED LETTER

Nil sapientiæ odiosius acumine nimio.—Seneca.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  “Simple and odd,” said Dupin.

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

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

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

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

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

  “A little too self-evident.”

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

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

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

  “Proceed,” said I.

  “Or not,” said Dupin.

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

  “How is this known?” asked Dupin.

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

  “Be a little more explicit,” I said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  “Its susceptibility of being produced?” said I.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  “Why so?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  “You include the grounds about the houses?”

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

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

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

  “You explored the floors beneath the carpets?”

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

  “And the paper on the walls?”

  “Yes.”

  “You looked into the cellars?”

  “We did.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  “How?—in what way?”

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

  “No; hang Abernethy!”

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

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

  “‘Take!’ said Abernethy, ‘why, take advice, to be sure.’”

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

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

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

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

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

  “So far as his labors extended?” said I.

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

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

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

  “It is merely,” I said, “an identification of the reasoner’s
  intellect with that of his opponent.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  “I have never given the matter a thought,” I said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  “How? did you put any thing particular in it?”

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

  “‘— — Un dessein si funeste,
  S’il n’est digne d’Atrée, est digne de Thyeste.

  They are to be found in Crébillon’s ‘Atrée.’”

THE THOUSAND-AND-SECOND TALE OF SCHEHERAZADE

Truth is stranger than fiction.—Old Saying

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  “That I think, was very singular,” interrupted the king.

  “Nevertheless, it is quite true,” replied Scheherazade.

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

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

  “Hum!” said the king.

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

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

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

  “Hum!” said the king.

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

  “Hum!” said the king.

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

  “Hoo!” said the king.

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

  “Fiddle de dee,” said the king.

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

  “Humph!” said the king.

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

  “Pooh!” said the king.

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

  “Pshaw!” said the king.

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

  “Oh my!” said the king.

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

  “Oh fy!” said the king.

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

  “Stuff!” said the king.

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

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

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

  “Nonsense!” said the king.

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

  “Twattle!” said the king.

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

  “Fal lal!” said the king.

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

  “Ridiculous!” said the king.

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

  “Absurd!” said the king.

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

  “Preposterous!” said the king.

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

  “A what?” said the king.

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

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

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

A DESCENT INTO THE MAELSTROM.

The ways of God in Nature, as in Providence, are not as our ways; nor are the models that we frame any way commensurate to the vastness, profundity, and unsearchableness of His works, which have a depth in them greater than the well of Democritus.

—Joseph Glanville.

  We had now reached the summit of the loftiest crag. For some
  minutes the old man seemed too much exhausted to speak.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  I placed myself as desired, and he proceeded.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  “When a boat is well built, properly trimmed, and not deep laden,
  the waves in a strong gale, when she is going large, seem always
  to slip from beneath her—which appears very strange to a
  landsman—and this is what is called _riding_, in sea phrase.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

VON KEMPELEN AND HIS DISCOVERY

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  ‘No wonder we couldn’t move it—why it’s full to the brim of old
  bits of brass!’

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

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

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

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

MESMERIC REVELATION

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  _P._ Are you asleep?

  _V._ Yes—no; I would rather sleep more soundly.

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

  _V._ Yes.

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

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

  _P._ Does the idea of death afflict you?

  _V._ [_Very quickly_.] No—no!

  _P._ Are you pleased with the prospect?

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

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

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

  _P._ What then shall I ask?

  _V._ You must begin at the beginning.

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

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

  _P._ What then, is God?

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

  _P._ Is not God spirit?

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

  _P._ Is not God immaterial?

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

  _P._ Is God, then, material?

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

  _P._ What, then, is he?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  _P._ You say, “in general.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  _P._ Explain.

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

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

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

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

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

  _P._ Unorganized?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

THE FACTS IN THE CASE OF M. VALDEMAR

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

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

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

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

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

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

  MY DEAR P——,

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

  VALDEMAR

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  “Yes;—asleep now. Do not wake me!—let me die so!”

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

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

  The answer now was immediate, but even less audible than before:

  “No pain—I am dying.”

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

  “M. Valdemar, do you still sleep?”

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

  “Yes; still asleep—dying.”

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

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

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

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

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

  “Yes;—no;—I have been sleeping—and now—now—I am dead.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  “For God’s sake!—quick!—quick!—put me to sleep—or, quick!—waken
  me!—quick!—I say to you that I am dead!”

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

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

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

THE BLACK CAT.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER

 Son cœur est un luth suspendu;
 Sitôt qu’on le touche il résonne..

—De Béranger.

  During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn
  of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the
  heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a
  singularly dreary tract of country; and at length found myself,
  as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the
  melancholy House of Usher. I know not how it was—but, with the
  first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom
  pervaded my spirit. I say insufferable; for the feeling was
  unrelieved by any of that half-pleasurable, because poetic,
  sentiment, with which the mind usually receives even the sternest
  natural images of the desolate or terrible. I looked upon the
  scene before me—upon the mere house, and the simple landscape
  features of the domain—upon the bleak walls—upon the vacant
  eye-like windows—upon a few rank sedges—and upon a few white
  trunks of decayed trees—with an utter depression of soul which I
  can compare to no earthly sensation more properly than to the
  after-dream of the reveller upon opium—the bitter lapse into
  everyday life—the hideous dropping off of the veil. There was an
  iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart—an unredeemed
  dreariness of thought which no goading of the imagination could
  torture into aught of the sublime. What was it—I paused to
  think—what was it that so unnerved me in the contemplation of the
  House of Usher? It was a mystery all insoluble; nor could I
  grapple with the shadowy fancies that crowded upon me as I
  pondered. I was forced to fall back upon the unsatisfactory
  conclusion, that while, beyond doubt, there _are_ combinations of
  very simple natural objects which have the power of thus
  affecting us, still the analysis of this power lies among
  considerations beyond our depth. It was possible, I reflected,
  that a mere different arrangement of the particulars of the
  scene, of the details of the picture, would be sufficient to
  modify, or perhaps to annihilate its capacity for sorrowful
  impression; and, acting upon this idea, I reined my horse to the
  precipitous brink of a black and lurid tarn that lay in unruffled
  lustre by the dwelling, and gazed down—but with a shudder even
  more thrilling than before—upon the remodelled and inverted
  images of the gray sedge, and the ghastly tree-stems, and the
  vacant and eye-like windows.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                    I.
 In the greenest of our valleys,
By good angels tenanted,
 Once a fair and stately palace—
Radiant palace—reared its head.
 In the monarch Thought’s dominion—
It stood there!
 Never seraph spread a pinion
Over fabric half so fair.

                    II.
 Banners yellow, glorious, golden,
On its roof did float and flow;
 (This—all this—was in the olden
Time long ago)
 And every gentle air that dallied,
In that sweet day,
 Along the ramparts plumed and pallid,
A winged odor went away.

                    III.
 Wanderers in that happy valley
Through two luminous windows saw
 Spirits moving musically
To a lute’s well-tunéd law,
 Round about a throne, where sitting
(Porphyrogene!)
 In state his glory well befitting,
The ruler of the realm was seen.

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

                    V.
 But evil things, in robes of sorrow,
Assailed the monarch’s high estate;
 (Ah, let us mourn, for never morrow
Shall dawn upon him, desolate!)
 And, round about his home, the glory
That blushed and bloomed
 Is but a dim-remembered story
Of the old time entombed.

                    VI.
 And travellers now within that valley,
Through the red-litten windows, see
 Vast forms that move fantastically
To a discordant melody;
 While, like a rapid ghastly river,
Through the pale door,
 A hideous throng rush out forever,
And laugh—but smile no more.

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

  * Watson, Dr. Percival, Spallanzani, and especially the Bishop of
  Landaff.—See “Chemical Essays,” vol v.

  Our books—the books which, for years, had formed no small portion
  of the mental existence of the invalid—were, as might be
  supposed, in strict keeping with this character of phantasm. We
  pored together over such works as the Ververt et Chartreuse of
  Gresset; the Belphegor of Machiavelli; the Heaven and Hell of
  Swedenborg; the Subterranean Voyage of Nicholas Klimm by Holberg;
  the Chiromancy of Robert Flud, of Jean D’Indaginé, and of De la
  Chambre; the Journey into the Blue Distance of Tieck; and the
  City of the Sun of Campanella. One favorite volume was a small
  octavo edition of the _Directorium Inquisitorium_, by the
  Dominican Eymeric de Gironne; and there were passages in
  Pomponius Mela, about the old African Satyrs and OEgipans, over
  which Usher would sit dreaming for hours. His chief delight,
  however, was found in the perusal of an exceedingly rare and
  curious book in quarto Gothic—the manual of a forgotten
  church—the _Vigiliae Mortuorum secundum Chorum Ecclesiae
  Maguntinae_.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

SILENCE—A FABLE

 “The mountain pinnacles slumber; valleys, crags and caves _are
 silent_.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

THE CASK OF AMONTILLADO.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  “Amontillado!”

  “I have my doubts.”

  “Amontillado!”

  “And I must satisfy them.”

  “Amontillado!”

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

  “Luchesi cannot tell Amontillado from Sherry.”

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

  “Come, let us go.”

  “Whither?”

  “To your vaults.”

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

  “I have no engagement;—come.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

  “The pipe,” said he.

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

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

  “Nitre?” he asked, at length.

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

  “Ugh! ugh! ugh!—ugh! ugh! ugh!—ugh! ugh! ugh!—ugh! ugh! ugh!—ugh!
  ugh! ugh!”

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

  “It is nothing,” he said, at last.

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

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

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

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

  “Drink,” I said, presenting him the wine.

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

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

  “And I to your long life.”

  He again took my arm, and we proceeded.

  “These vaults,” he said, “are extensive.”

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

  “I forget your arms.”

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

  “And the motto?”

  “_Nemo me impune lacessit_.”

  “Good!” he said.

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

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

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

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

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

  “You do not comprehend?” he said.

  “Not I,” I replied.

  “Then you are not of the brotherhood.”

  “How?”

  “You are not of the masons.”

  “Yes, yes,” I said, “yes, yes.”

  “You? Impossible! A mason?”

  “A mason,” I replied.

  “A sign,” he said.

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

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

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

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

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

  “Proceed,” I said; “herein is the Amontillado. As for Luchesi—”

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

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

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

  “True,” I replied; “the Amontillado.”

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

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

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

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

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

  “The Amontillado!” I said.

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

  “Yes,” I said, “let us be gone.”

  “_For the love of God, Montressor!_”

  “Yes,” I said, “for the love of God!”

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

  “Fortunato!”

  No answer. I called again—

  “Fortunato!”

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

THE IMP OF THE PERVERSE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  But why shall I say more? To-day I wear these chains, and am
  _here!_ To-morrow I shall be fetterless!—_but where?_

THE ISLAND OF THE FAY

Nullus enim locus sine genio est.—Servius.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  So blended bank and shadow there
  That each seemed pendulous in air—

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

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

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

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

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

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

THE ASSIGNATION

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

(Exequy on the death of his wife, by Henry King, Bishop of Chichester.)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 ‘Non ha l’ottimo artista alcun concetto
 Che un marmo solo in se non circunscriva.’”

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

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

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

Thou wast that all to me, love, For which my soul did pine— A green isle in the sea, love, A fountain and a shrine, All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers; And all the flowers were mine.

Ah, dream too bright to last! Ah, starry Hope, that didst arise But to be overcast! A voice from out the Future cries, “Onward!”—but o’er the Past (Dim gulf!) my spirit hovering lies, Mute—motionless—aghast!

For alas! alas! with me The light of life is o’er. “No more—no more—no more,” (Such language holds the solemn sea To the sands upon the shore,) Shall bloom the thunder-blasted tree, Or the stricken eagle soar!

Now all my hours are trances; And all my nightly dreams Are where the dark eye glances, And where thy footstep gleams, In what ethereal dances, By what Italian streams.

Alas! for that accursed time They bore thee o’er the billow, From Love to titled age and crime, And an unholy pillow!— From me, and from our misty clime, Where weeps the silver willow!

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

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

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

“He is up

There like a Roman statue! He will stand Till Death hath made him marble!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM

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

[Quatrain composed for the gates of a market to be erected upon the site of the Jacobin Club House at Paris.]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

THE PREMATURE BURIAL

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  “Arise! did I not bid thee arise?”

  “And who,” I demanded, “art thou?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  “What the devil’s the matter now!” said a second.

  “Get out o’ that!” said a third.

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

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

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

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

THE DOMAIN OF ARNHEIM

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

LANDOR’S COTTAGE

A Pendant to “The Domain of Arnheim”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

WILLIAM WILSON

What say of it? what say of CONSCIENCE grim,
That spectre in my path?
                —_Chamberlayne’s Pharronida._

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  I grew perfectly sober in an instant.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

THE TELL-TALE HEART.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

BERENICE

 Dicebant mihi sodales, si sepulchrum amicae visitarem, curas meas
 aliquar tulum fore levatas.—_Ebn Zaiat_.

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

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

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

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

  Berenice and I were cousins, and we grew up together in my
  paternal halls. Yet differently we grew—I, ill of health, and
  buried in gloom—she, agile, graceful, and overflowing with
  energy; hers, the ramble on the hill-side—mine the studies of the
  cloister; I, living within my own heart, and addicted, body and
  soul, to the most intense and painful meditation—she, roaming
  carelessly through life, with no thought of the shadows in her
  path, or the silent flight of the raven-winged hours. Berenice!—I
  call upon her name—Berenice!—and from the gray ruins of memory a
  thousand tumultuous recollections are startled at the sound! Ah,
  vividly is her image before me now, as in the early days of her
  light-heartedness and joy! Oh, gorgeous yet fantastic beauty! Oh,
  sylph amid the shrubberies of Arnheim! Oh, Naiad among its
  fountains! And then—then all is mystery and terror, and a tale
  which should not be told. Disease—a fatal disease, fell like the
  simoon upon her frame; and, even while I gazed upon her, the
  spirit of change swept over her, pervading her mind, her habits,
  and her character, and, in a manner the most subtle and terrible,
  disturbing even the identity of her person! Alas! the destroyer
  came and went!—and the victim—where is she? I knew her not—or
  knew her no longer as Berenice.

  Among the numerous train of maladies superinduced by that fatal
  and primary one which effected a revolution of so horrible a kind
  in the moral and physical being of my cousin, may be mentioned as
  the most distressing and obstinate in its nature, a species of
  epilepsy not unfrequently terminating in _trance_ itself—trance
  very nearly resembling positive dissolution, and from which her
  manner of recovery was in most instances, startlingly abrupt. In
  the mean time my own disease—for I have been told that I should
  call it by no other appellation—my own disease, then, grew
  rapidly upon me, and assumed finally a monomaniac character of a
  novel and extraordinary form—hourly and momently gaining
  vigor—and at length obtaining over me the most incomprehensible
  ascendancy. This monomania, if I must so term it, consisted in a
  morbid irritability of those properties of the mind in
  metaphysical science termed the _attentive_. It is more than
  probable that I am not understood; but I fear, indeed, that it is
  in no manner possible to convey to the mind of the merely general
  reader, an adequate idea of that nervous _intensity of interest_
  with which, in my case, the powers of meditation (not to speak
  technically) busied and buried themselves, in the contemplation
  of even the most ordinary objects of the universe.

  To muse for long unwearied hours, with my attention riveted to
  some frivolous device on the margin, or in the typography of a
  book; to become absorbed, for the better part of a summer’s day,
  in a quaint shadow falling aslant upon the tapestry or upon the
  floor; to lose myself, for an entire night, in watching the
  steady flame of a lamp, or the embers of a fire; to dream away
  whole days over the perfume of a flower; to repeat, monotonously,
  some common word, until the sound, by dint of frequent
  repetition, ceased to convey any idea whatever to the mind; to
  lose all sense of motion or physical existence, by means of
  absolute bodily quiescence long and obstinately persevered in:
  such were a few of the most common and least pernicious vagaries
  induced by a condition of the mental faculties, not, indeed,
  altogether unparalleled, but certainly bidding defiance to
  anything like analysis or explanation.

  Yet let me not be misapprehended. The undue, earnest, and morbid
  attention thus excited by objects in their own nature frivolous,
  must not be confounded in character with that ruminating
  propensity common to all mankind, and more especially indulged in
  by persons of ardent imagination. It was not even, as might be at
  first supposed, an extreme condition, or exaggeration of such
  propensity, but primarily and essentially distinct and different.
  In the one instance, the dreamer, or enthusiast, being interested
  by an object usually _not_ frivolous, imperceptibly loses sight
  of this object in a wilderness of deductions and suggestions
  issuing therefrom, until, at the conclusion of a day-dream _often
  replete with luxury_, he finds the _incitamentum_, or first cause
  of his musings, entirely vanished and forgotten. In my case, the
  primary object was _invariably frivolous_, although assuming,
  through the medium of my distempered vision, a refracted and
  unreal importance. Few deductions, if any, were made; and those
  few pertinaciously returning in upon the original object as a
  centre. The meditations were _never_ pleasurable; and, at the
  termination of the reverie, the first cause, so far from being
  out of sight, had attained that supernaturally exaggerated
  interest which was the prevailing feature of the disease. In a
  word, the powers of mind more particularly exercised were, with
  me, as I have said before, the _attentive_, and are, with the
  day-dreamer, the _speculative_.

  My books, at this epoch, if they did not actually serve to
  irritate the disorder, partook, it will be perceived, largely, in
  their imaginative and inconsequential nature, of the
  characteristic qualities of the disorder itself. I well remember,
  among others, the treatise of the noble Italian, Coelius Secundus
  Curio, “_De Amplitudine Beati Regni Dei;_” St. Austin’s great
  work, the “City of God;” and Tertullian’s “_De Carne Christi_,”
  in which the paradoxical sentence “_Mortuus est Dei filius;
  credible est quia ineptum est: et sepultus resurrexit; certum est
  quia impossibile est,_” occupied my undivided time, for many
  weeks of laborious and fruitless investigation.

  Thus it will appear that, shaken from its balance only by trivial
  things, my reason bore resemblance to that ocean-crag spoken of
  by Ptolemy Hephestion, which steadily resisting the attacks of
  human violence, and the fiercer fury of the waters and the winds,
  trembled only to the touch of the flower called Asphodel. And
  although, to a careless thinker, it might appear a matter beyond
  doubt, that the alteration produced by her unhappy malady, in the
  _moral_ condition of Berenice, would afford me many objects for
  the exercise of that intense and abnormal meditation whose nature
  I have been at some trouble in explaining, yet such was not in
  any degree the case. In the lucid intervals of my infirmity, her
  calamity, indeed, gave me pain, and, taking deeply to heart that
  total wreck of her fair and gentle life, I did not fail to
  ponder, frequently and bitterly, upon the wonder-working means by
  which so strange a revolution had been so suddenly brought to
  pass. But these reflections partook not of the idiosyncrasy of my
  disease, and were such as would have occurred, under similar
  circumstances, to the ordinary mass of mankind. True to its own
  character, my disorder revelled in the less important but more
  startling changes wrought in the _physical_ frame of Berenice—in
  the singular and most appalling distortion of her personal
  identity.

  During the brightest days of her unparalleled beauty, most surely
  I had never loved her. In the strange anomaly of my existence,
  feelings with me, _had never been_ of the heart, and my passions
  _always were_ of the mind. Through the gray of the early
  morning—among the trellised shadows of the forest at noonday—and
  in the silence of my library at night—she had flitted by my eyes,
  and I had seen her—not as the living and breathing Berenice, but
  as the Berenice of a dream; not as a being of the earth, earthy,
  but as the abstraction of such a being; not as a thing to admire,
  but to analyze; not as an object of love, but as the theme of the
  most abstruse although desultory speculation. And _now_—now I
  shuddered in her presence, and grew pale at her approach; yet,
  bitterly lamenting her fallen and desolate condition, I called to
  mind that she had loved me long, and, in an evil moment, I spoke
  to her of marriage.

  And at length the period of our nuptials was approaching, when,
  upon an afternoon in the winter of the year—one of those
  unseasonably warm, calm, and misty days which are the nurse of
  the beautiful Halcyon (*1),—I sat, (and sat, as I thought,
  alone,) in the inner apartment of the library. But, uplifting my
  eyes, I saw that Berenice stood before me.

  Was it my own excited imagination—or the misty influence of the
  atmosphere—or the uncertain twilight of the chamber—or the gray
  draperies which fell around her figure—that caused in it so
  vacillating and indistinct an outline? I could not tell. She
  spoke no word; and I—not for worlds could I have uttered a
  syllable. An icy chill ran through my frame; a sense of
  insufferable anxiety oppressed me; a consuming curiosity pervaded
  my soul; and sinking back upon the chair, I remained for some
  time breathless and motionless, with my eyes riveted upon her
  person. Alas! its emaciation was excessive, and not one vestige
  of the former being lurked in any single line of the contour. My
  burning glances at length fell upon the face.

  The forehead was high, and very pale, and singularly placid; and
  the once jetty hair fell partially over it, and overshadowed the
  hollow temples with innumerable ringlets, now of a vivid yellow,
  and jarring discordantly, in their fantastic character, with the
  reigning melancholy of the countenance. The eyes were lifeless,
  and lustreless, and seemingly pupilless, and I shrank
  involuntarily from their glassy stare to the contemplation of the
  thin and shrunken lips. They parted; and in a smile of peculiar
  meaning, _the teeth_ of the changed Berenice disclosed themselves
  slowly to my view. Would to God that I had never beheld them, or
  that, having done so, I had died!

  The shutting of a door disturbed me, and, looking up, I found
  that my cousin had departed from the chamber. But from the
  disordered chamber of my brain, had not, alas! departed, and
  would not be driven away, the white and ghastly _spectrum_ of the
  teeth. Not a speck on their surface—not a shade on their
  enamel—not an indenture in their edges—but what that period of
  her smile had sufficed to brand in upon my memory. I saw them
  _now_ even more unequivocally than I beheld them _then_. The
  teeth!—the teeth!—they were here, and there, and everywhere, and
  visibly and palpably before me; long, narrow, and excessively
  white, with the pale lips writhing about them, as in the very
  moment of their first terrible development. Then came the full
  fury of my _monomania_, and I struggled in vain against its
  strange and irresistible influence. In the multiplied objects of
  the external world I had no thoughts but for the teeth. For these
  I longed with a phrenzied desire. All other matters and all
  different interests became absorbed in their single
  contemplation. They—they alone were present to the mental eye,
  and they, in their sole individuality, became the essence of my
  mental life. I held them in every light. I turned them in every
  attitude. I surveyed their characteristics. I dwelt upon their
  peculiarities. I pondered upon their conformation. I mused upon
  the alteration in their nature. I shuddered as I assigned to them
  in imagination a sensitive and sentient power, and even when
  unassisted by the lips, a capability of moral expression. Of
  Mademoiselle Salle it has been well said, “_Que tous ses pas
  etaient des sentiments_,” and of Berenice I more seriously
  believed _que toutes ses dents etaient des idées_. _Des
  idées!_—ah here was the idiotic thought that destroyed me! _Des
  idées!_—ah, _therefore_ it was that I coveted them so madly! I
  felt that their possession could alone ever restore me to peace,
  in giving me back to reason.

  And the evening closed in upon me thus—and then the darkness
  came, and tarried, and went—and the day again dawned—and the
  mists of a second night were now gathering around—and still I sat
  motionless in that solitary room—and still I sat buried in
  meditation—and still the _phantasma_ of the teeth maintained its
  terrible ascendancy, as, with the most vivid hideous
  distinctness, it floated about amid the changing lights and
  shadows of the chamber. At length there broke in upon my dreams a
  cry as of horror and dismay; and thereunto, after a pause,
  succeeded the sound of troubled voices, intermingled with many
  low moanings of sorrow or of pain. I arose from my seat, and
  throwing open one of the doors of the library, saw standing out
  in the ante-chamber a servant maiden, all in tears, who told me
  that Berenice was—no more! She had been seized with epilepsy in
  the early morning, and now, at the closing in of the night, the
  grave was ready for its tenant, and all the preparations for the
  burial were completed.

  I found myself sitting in the library, and again sitting there
  alone. It seemed that I had newly awakened from a confused and
  exciting dream. I knew that it was now midnight, and I was well
  aware, that since the setting of the sun, Berenice had been
  interred. But of that dreary period which intervened I had no
  positive, at least no definite comprehension. Yet its memory was
  replete with horror—horror more horrible from being vague, and
  terror more terrible from ambiguity. It was a fearful page in the
  record my existence, written all over with dim, and hideous, and
  unintelligible recollections. I strived to decypher them, but in
  vain; while ever and anon, like the spirit of a departed sound,
  the shrill and piercing shriek of a female voice seemed to be
  ringing in my ears. I had done a deed—what was it? I asked myself
  the question aloud, and the whispering echoes of the chamber
  answered me,—“_What was it?_”

  On the table beside me burned a lamp, and near it lay a little
  box. It was of no remarkable character, and I had seen it
  frequently before, for it was the property of the family
  physician; but how came it _there_, upon my table, and why did I
  shudder in regarding it? These things were in no manner to be
  accounted for, and my eyes at length dropped to the open pages of
  a book, and to a sentence underscored therein. The words were the
  singular but simple ones of the poet Ebn Zaiat:—“_Dicebant mihi
  sodales si sepulchrum amicae visitarem, curas meas aliquantulum
  fore levatas_.” Why then, as I perused them, did the hairs of my
  head erect themselves on end, and the blood of my body become
  congealed within my veins?

  There came a light tap at the library door—and, pale as the
  tenant of a tomb, a menial entered upon tiptoe. His looks were
  wild with terror, and he spoke to me in a voice tremulous, husky,
  and very low. What said he?—some broken sentences I heard. He
  told of a wild cry disturbing the silence of the night—of the
  gathering together of the household—of a search in the direction
  of the sound; and then his tones grew thrillingly distinct as he
  whispered me of a violated grave—of a disfigured body enshrouded,
  yet still breathing—still palpitating—_still alive_!

  He pointed to garments;—they were muddy and clotted with gore. I
  spoke not, and he took me gently by the hand: it was indented
  with the impress of human nails. He directed my attention to some
  object against the wall. I looked at it for some minutes: it was
  a spade. With a shriek I bounded to the table, and grasped the
  box that lay upon it. But I could not force it open; and in my
  tremor, it slipped from my hands, and fell heavily, and burst
  into pieces; and from it, with a rattling sound, there rolled out
  some instruments of dental surgery, intermingled with thirty-two
  small, white and ivory-looking substances that were scattered to
  and fro about the floor.

ELEONORA

 Sub conservatione formæ specificæ salva anima.
                —_Raymond Lully_.

  I am come of a race noted for vigor of fancy and ardor of
  passion. Men have called me mad; but the question is not yet
  settled, whether madness is or is not the loftiest
  intelligence—whether much that is glorious—whether all that is
  profound—does not spring from disease of thought—from moods of
  mind exalted at the expense of the general intellect. They who
  dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who
  dream only by night. In their gray visions they obtain glimpses
  of eternity, and thrill, in awakening, to find that they have
  been upon the verge of the great secret. In snatches, they learn
  something of the wisdom which is of good, and more of the mere
  knowledge which is of evil. They penetrate, however, rudderless
  or compassless into the vast ocean of the “light ineffable,” and
  again, like the adventures of the Nubian geographer, “agressi
  sunt mare tenebrarum, quid in eo esset exploraturi.”

  We will say, then, that I am mad. I grant, at least, that there
  are two distinct conditions of my mental existence—the condition
  of a lucid reason, not to be disputed, and belonging to the
  memory of events forming the first epoch of my life—and a
  condition of shadow and doubt, appertaining to the present, and
  to the recollection of what constitutes the second great era of
  my being. Therefore, what I shall tell of the earlier period,
  believe; and to what I may relate of the later time, give only
  such credit as may seem due, or doubt it altogether, or, if doubt
  it ye cannot, then play unto its riddle the Oedipus.

  She whom I loved in youth, and of whom I now pen calmly and
  distinctly these remembrances, was the sole daughter of the only
  sister of my mother long departed. Eleonora was the name of my
  cousin. We had always dwelled together, beneath a tropical sun,
  in the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass. No unguided footstep
  ever came upon that vale; for it lay away up among a range of
  giant hills that hung beetling around about it, shutting out the
  sunlight from its sweetest recesses. No path was trodden in its
  vicinity; and, to reach our happy home, there was need of putting
  back, with force, the foliage of many thousands of forest trees,
  and of crushing to death the glories of many millions of fragrant
  flowers. Thus it was that we lived all alone, knowing nothing of
  the world without the valley—I, and my cousin, and her mother.

  From the dim regions beyond the mountains at the upper end of our
  encircled domain, there crept out a narrow and deep river,
  brighter than all save the eyes of Eleonora; and, winding
  stealthily about in mazy courses, it passed away, at length,
  through a shadowy gorge, among hills still dimmer than those
  whence it had issued. We called it the “River of Silence”; for
  there seemed to be a hushing influence in its flow. No murmur
  arose from its bed, and so gently it wandered along, that the
  pearly pebbles upon which we loved to gaze, far down within its
  bosom, stirred not at all, but lay in a motionless content, each
  in its own old station, shining on gloriously forever.

  The margin of the river, and of the many dazzling rivulets that
  glided through devious ways into its channel, as well as the
  spaces that extended from the margins away down into the depths
  of the streams until they reached the bed of pebbles at the
  bottom,—these spots, not less than the whole surface of the
  valley, from the river to the mountains that girdled it in, were
  carpeted all by a soft green grass, thick, short, perfectly even,
  and vanilla-perfumed, but so besprinkled throughout with the
  yellow buttercup, the white daisy, the purple violet, and the
  ruby-red asphodel, that its exceeding beauty spoke to our hearts
  in loud tones, of the love and of the glory of God.

  And, here and there, in groves about this grass, like
  wildernesses of dreams, sprang up fantastic trees, whose tall
  slender stems stood not upright, but slanted gracefully toward
  the light that peered at noon-day into the centre of the valley.
  Their mark was speckled with the vivid alternate splendor of
  ebony and silver, and was smoother than all save the cheeks of
  Eleonora; so that, but for the brilliant green of the huge leaves
  that spread from their summits in long, tremulous lines, dallying
  with the Zephyrs, one might have fancied them giant serpents of
  Syria doing homage to their sovereign the Sun.

  Hand in hand about this valley, for fifteen years, roamed I with
  Eleonora before Love entered within our hearts. It was one
  evening at the close of the third lustrum of her life, and of the
  fourth of my own, that we sat, locked in each other’s embrace,
  beneath the serpent-like trees, and looked down within the water
  of the River of Silence at our images therein. We spoke no words
  during the rest of that sweet day, and our words even upon the
  morrow were tremulous and few. We had drawn the God Eros from
  that wave, and now we felt that he had enkindled within us the
  fiery souls of our forefathers. The passions which had for
  centuries distinguished our race, came thronging with the fancies
  for which they had been equally noted, and together breathed a
  delirious bliss over the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass. A
  change fell upon all things. Strange, brilliant flowers,
  star-shaped, burn out upon the trees where no flowers had been
  known before. The tints of the green carpet deepened; and when,
  one by one, the white daisies shrank away, there sprang up in
  place of them, ten by ten of the ruby-red asphodel. And life
  arose in our paths; for the tall flamingo, hitherto unseen, with
  all gay glowing birds, flaunted his scarlet plumage before us.
  The golden and silver fish haunted the river, out of the bosom of
  which issued, little by little, a murmur that swelled, at length,
  into a lulling melody more divine than that of the harp of
  Æolus—sweeter than all save the voice of Eleonora. And now, too,
  a voluminous cloud, which we had long watched in the regions of
  Hesper, floated out thence, all gorgeous in crimson and gold, and
  settling in peace above us, sank, day by day, lower and lower,
  until its edges rested upon the tops of the mountains, turning
  all their dimness into magnificence, and shutting us up, as if
  forever, within a magic prison-house of grandeur and of glory.

  The loveliness of Eleonora was that of the Seraphim; but she was
  a maiden artless and innocent as the brief life she had led among
  the flowers. No guile disguised the fervor of love which animated
  her heart, and she examined with me its inmost recesses as we
  walked together in the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass, and
  discoursed of the mighty changes which had lately taken place
  therein.

  At length, having spoken one day, in tears, of the last sad
  change which must befall Humanity, she thenceforward dwelt only
  upon this one sorrowful theme, interweaving it into all our
  converse, as, in the songs of the bard of Schiraz, the same
  images are found occurring, again and again, in every impressive
  variation of phrase.

  She had seen that the finger of Death was upon her bosom—that,
  like the ephemeron, she had been made perfect in loveliness only
  to die; but the terrors of the grave to her lay solely in a
  consideration which she revealed to me, one evening at twilight,
  by the banks of the River of Silence. She grieved to think that,
  having entombed her in the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass, I
  would quit forever its happy recesses, transferring the love
  which now was so passionately her own to some maiden of the outer
  and everyday world. And, then and there, I threw myself hurriedly
  at the feet of Eleonora, and offered up a vow, to herself and to
  Heaven, that I would never bind myself in marriage to any
  daughter of Earth—that I would in no manner prove recreant to her
  dear memory, or to the memory of the devout affection with which
  she had blessed me. And I called the Mighty Ruler of the Universe
  to witness the pious solemnity of my vow. And the curse which I
  invoked of Him and of her, a saint in Helusion should I prove
  traitorous to that promise, involved a penalty the exceeding
  great horror of which will not permit me to make record of it
  here. And the bright eyes of Eleonora grew brighter at my words;
  and she sighed as if a deadly burthen had been taken from her
  breast; and she trembled and very bitterly wept; but she made
  acceptance of the vow, (for what was she but a child?) and it
  made easy to her the bed of her death. And she said to me, not
  many days afterward, tranquilly dying, that, because of what I
  had done for the comfort of her spirit she would watch over me in
  that spirit when departed, and, if so it were permitted her
  return to me visibly in the watches of the night; but, if this
  thing were, indeed, beyond the power of the souls in Paradise,
  that she would, at least, give me frequent indications of her
  presence, sighing upon me in the evening winds, or filling the
  air which I breathed with perfume from the censers of the angels.
  And, with these words upon her lips, she yielded up her innocent
  life, putting an end to the first epoch of my own.

  Thus far I have faithfully said. But as I pass the barrier in
  Time’s path, formed by the death of my beloved, and proceed with
  the second era of my existence, I feel that a shadow gathers over
  my brain, and I mistrust the perfect sanity of the record. But
  let me on.—Years dragged themselves along heavily, and still I
  dwelled within the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass; but a second
  change had come upon all things. The star-shaped flowers shrank
  into the stems of the trees, and appeared no more. The tints of
  the green carpet faded; and, one by one, the ruby-red asphodels
  withered away; and there sprang up, in place of them, ten by ten,
  dark, eye-like violets, that writhed uneasily and were ever
  encumbered with dew. And Life departed from our paths; for the
  tall flamingo flaunted no longer his scarlet plumage before us,
  but flew sadly from the vale into the hills, with all the gay
  glowing birds that had arrived in his company. And the golden and
  silver fish swam down through the gorge at the lower end of our
  domain and bedecked the sweet river never again. And the lulling
  melody that had been softer than the wind-harp of Æolus, and more
  divine than all save the voice of Eleonora, it died little by
  little away, in murmurs growing lower and lower, until the stream
  returned, at length, utterly, into the solemnity of its original
  silence. And then, lastly, the voluminous cloud uprose, and,
  abandoning the tops of the mountains to the dimness of old, fell
  back into the regions of Hesper, and took away all its manifold
  golden and gorgeous glories from the Valley of the Many-Colored
  Grass.

  Yet the promises of Eleonora were not forgotten; for I heard the
  sounds of the swinging of the censers of the angels; and streams
  of a holy perfume floated ever and ever about the valley; and at
  lone hours, when my heart beat heavily, the winds that bathed my
  brow came unto me laden with soft sighs; and indistinct murmurs
  filled often the night air, and once—oh, but once only! I was
  awakened from a slumber, like the slumber of death, by the
  pressing of spiritual lips upon my own.

  But the void within my heart refused, even thus, to be filled. I
  longed for the love which had before filled it to overflowing. At
  length the valley pained me through its memories of Eleonora, and
  I left it for ever for the vanities and the turbulent triumphs of
  the world.

  I found myself within a strange city, where all things might have
  served to blot from recollection the sweet dreams I had dreamed
  so long in the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass. The pomps and
  pageantries of a stately court, and the mad clangor of arms, and
  the radiant loveliness of women, bewildered and intoxicated my
  brain. But as yet my soul had proved true to its vows, and the
  indications of the presence of Eleonora were still given me in
  the silent hours of the night. Suddenly these manifestations they
  ceased, and the world grew dark before mine eyes, and I stood
  aghast at the burning thoughts which possessed, at the terrible
  temptations which beset me; for there came from some far, far
  distant and unknown land, into the gay court of the king I
  served, a maiden to whose beauty my whole recreant heart yielded
  at once—at whose footstool I bowed down without a struggle, in
  the most ardent, in the most abject worship of love. What,
  indeed, was my passion for the young girl of the valley in
  comparison with the fervor, and the delirium, and the
  spirit-lifting ecstasy of adoration with which I poured out my
  whole soul in tears at the feet of the ethereal Ermengarde?—Oh,
  bright was the seraph Ermengarde! and in that knowledge I had
  room for none other. Oh, divine was the angel Ermengarde! and as
  I looked down into the depths of her memorial eyes, I thought
  only of them—and of her.

  I wedded—nor dreaded the curse I had invoked; and its bitterness
  was not visited upon me. And once—but once again in the silence
  of the night; there came through my lattice the soft sighs which
  had forsaken me; and they modelled themselves into familiar and
  sweet voice, saying:

  “Sleep in peace! for the Spirit of Love reigneth and ruleth, and,
  in taking to thy passionate heart her who is Ermengarde, thou art
  absolved, for reasons which shall be made known to thee in
  Heaven, of thy vows unto Eleonora.”

NOTES TO THE SECOND VOLUME

Notes — Scheherazade

  (*1) The coralites.

  (*2) “One of the most remarkable natural curiosities in Texas is
  a petrified forest, near the head of Pasigno river. It consists
  of several hundred trees, in an erect position, all turned to
  stone. Some trees, now growing, are partly petrified. This is a
  startling fact for natural philosophers, and must cause them to
  modify the existing theory of petrification.—_Kennedy_.

  This account, at first discredited, has since been corroborated
  by the discovery of a completely petrified forest, near the head
  waters of the Cheyenne, or Chienne river, which has its source in
  the Black Hills of the rocky chain.

  There is scarcely, perhaps, a spectacle on the surface of the
  globe more remarkable, either in a geological or picturesque
  point of view than that presented by the petrified forest, near
  Cairo. The traveller, having passed the tombs of the caliphs,
  just beyond the gates of the city, proceeds to the southward,
  nearly at right angles to the road across the desert to Suez, and
  after having travelled some ten miles up a low barren valley,
  covered with sand, gravel, and sea shells, fresh as if the tide
  had retired but yesterday, crosses a low range of sandhills,
  which has for some distance run parallel to his path. The scene
  now presented to him is beyond conception singular and desolate.
  A mass of fragments of trees, all converted into stone, and when
  struck by his horse’s hoof ringing like cast iron, is seen to
  extend itself for miles and miles around him, in the form of a
  decayed and prostrate forest. The wood is of a dark brown hue,
  but retains its form in perfection, the pieces being from one to
  fifteen feet in length, and from half a foot to three feet in
  thickness, strewed so closely together, as far as the eye can
  reach, that an Egyptian donkey can scarcely thread its way
  through amongst them, and so natural that, were it in Scotland or
  Ireland, it might pass without remark for some enormous drained
  bog, on which the exhumed trees lay rotting in the sun. The roots
  and rudiments of the branches are, in many cases, nearly perfect,
  and in some the worm-holes eaten under the bark are readily
  recognizable. The most delicate of the sap vessels, and all the
  finer portions of the centre of the wood, are perfectly entire,
  and bear to be examined with the strongest magnifiers. The whole
  are so thoroughly silicified as to scratch glass and are capable
  of receiving the highest polish.— _Asiatic Magazine_.

  (*3) The Mammoth Cave of Kentucky.

  (*4) In Iceland, 1783.

  (*5) “During the eruption of Hecla, in 1766, clouds of this kind
  produced such a degree of darkness that, at Glaumba, which is
  more than fifty leagues from the mountain, people could only find
  their way by groping. During the eruption of Vesuvius, in 1794,
  at Caserta, four leagues distant, people could only walk by the
  light of torches. On the first of May, 1812, a cloud of volcanic
  ashes and sand, coming from a volcano in the island of St.
  Vincent, covered the whole of Barbadoes, spreading over it so
  intense a darkness that, at mid-day, in the open air, one could
  not perceive the trees or other objects near him, or even a white
  handkerchief placed at the distance of six inches from the
  eye._“—Murray, p. 215, Phil. edit._

  (*6) In the year 1790, in the Caraccas during an earthquake a
  portion of the granite soil sank and left a lake eight hundred
  yards in diameter, and from eighty to a hundred feet deep. It was
  a part of the forest of Aripao which sank, and the trees remained
  green for several months under the water.”—_Murray_, p. 221

  (*7) The hardest steel ever manufactured may, under the action of
  a blowpipe, be reduced to an impalpable powder, which will float
  readily in the atmospheric air.

  (*8) The region of the Niger. See Simmona’s _Colonial Magazine_.

  (*9) The _Myrmeleon_—lion-ant. The term “monster” is equally
  applicable to small abnormal things and to great, while such
  epithets as “vast” are merely comparative. The cavern of the
  myrmeleon is vast in comparison with the hole of the common red
  ant. A grain of silex is also a “rock.”

  (*10) The _Epidendron, Flos Aeris,_ of the family of the
  _Orchideae_, grows with merely the surface of its roots attached
  to a tree or other object, from which it derives no
  nutriment—subsisting altogether upon air.

  (*11) The _Parasites,_ such as the wonderful _Rafflesia
  Arnaldii_.

  (*12) _Schouw_ advocates a class of plants that grow upon living
  animals—the _Plantae_ _Epizoae_. Of this class are the _Fuci_ and
  _Algae_.

  _Mr. J. B. Williams, of Salem, Mass._, presented the “National
  Institute” with an insect from New Zealand, with the following
  description: “‘_The Hotte_, a decided caterpillar, or worm, is
  found gnawing at the root of the _Rota_ tree, with a plant
  growing out of its head. This most peculiar and extraordinary
  insect travels up both the _Rota_ and _Ferriri_ trees, and
  entering into the top, eats its way, perforating the trunk of the
  trees until it reaches the root, and dies, or remains dormant,
  and the plant propagates out of its head; the body remains
  perfect and entire, of a harder substance than when alive. From
  this insect the natives make a coloring for tattooing.

  (*13) In mines and natural caves we find a species of
  cryptogamous _fungus_ that emits an intense phosphorescence.

  (*14) The orchis, scabius and valisneria.

  (*15) The corolla of this flower (_Aristolochia Clematitis_),
  which is tubular, but terminating upwards in a ligulate limb, is
  inflated into a globular figure at the base. The tubular part is
  internally beset with stiff hairs, pointing downwards. The
  globular part contains the pistil, which consists merely of a
  germen and stigma, together with the surrounding stamens. But the
  stamens, being shorter than the germen, cannot discharge the
  pollen so as to throw it upon the stigma, as the flower stands
  always upright till after impregnation. And hence, without some
  additional and peculiar aid, the pollen must necessarily fan down
  to the bottom of the flower. Now, the aid that nature has
  furnished in this case, is that of the _Tiputa Pennicornis_, a
  small insect, which entering the tube of the corrolla in quest of
  honey, descends to the bottom, and rummages about till it becomes
  quite covered with pollen; but not being able to force its way
  out again, owing to the downward position of the hairs, which
  converge to a point like the wires of a mouse-trap, and being
  somewhat impatient of its confinement it brushes backwards and
  forwards, trying every corner, till, after repeatedly traversing
  the stigma, it covers it with pollen sufficient for its
  impregnation, in consequence of which the flower soon begins to
  droop, and the hairs to shrink to the sides of the tube,
  effecting an easy passage for the escape of the insect.”—_Rev. P.
  Keith-System of Physiological Botany_.

  (*16) The bees—ever since bees were—have been constructing their
  cells with just such sides, in just such number, and at just such
  inclinations, as it has been demonstrated (in a problem involving
  the profoundest mathematical principles) are the very sides, in
  the very number, and at the very angles, which will afford the
  creatures the most room that is compatible with the greatest
  stability of structure.

  During the latter part of the last century, the question arose
  among mathematicians—“to determine the best form that can be
  given to the sails of a windmill, according to their varying
  distances from the revolving vanes, and likewise from the centres
  of the revolution.” This is an excessively complex problem, for
  it is, in other words, to find the best possible position at an
  infinity of varied distances and at an infinity of points on the
  arm. There were a thousand futile attempts to answer the query on
  the part of the most illustrious mathematicians, and when at
  length, an undeniable solution was discovered, men found that the
  wings of a bird had given it with absolute precision ever since
  the first bird had traversed the air.

  (*17) He observed a flock of pigeons passing betwixt Frankfort
  and the Indian territory, one mile at least in breadth; it took
  up four hours in passing, which, at the rate of one mile per
  minute, gives a length of 240 miles; and, supposing three pigeons
  to each square yard, gives 2,230,272,000 Pigeons.—“_Travels in
  Canada and the United States,” by Lieut. F. Hall._

  (*18) The earth is upheld by a cow of a blue color, having horns
  four hundred in number.”—_Sale’s Koran_.

  (*19) “The _Entozoa_, or intestinal worms, have repeatedly been
  observed in the muscles, and in the cerebral substance of
  men.”—See Wyatt’s Physiology, p. 143.

  (*20) On the Great Western Railway, between London and Exeter, a
  speed of 71 miles per hour has been attained. A train weighing 90
  tons was whirled from Paddington to Didcot (53 miles) in 51
  minutes.

  (*21) The _Eccalobeion_

  (*22) Mäelzel’s Automaton Chess-player.

  (*23) Babbage’s Calculating Machine.

  (*24) _Chabert_, and since him, a hundred others.

  (*25) The Electrotype.

  (*26) _Wollaston_ made of platinum for the field of views in a
  telescope a wire one eighteen-thousandth part of an inch in
  thickness. It could be seen only by means of the microscope.

  (*27) Newton demonstrated that the retina beneath the influence
  of the violet ray of the spectrum, vibrated 900,000,000 of times
  in a second.

  (*28) Voltaic pile.

  (*29) The Electro Telegraph Printing Apparatus.

  (*30) The Electro telegraph transmits intelligence
  instantaneously—at least at so far as regards any distance upon
  the earth.

  (*31) Common experiments in Natural Philosophy. If two red rays
  from two luminous points be admitted into a dark chamber so as to
  fall on a white surface, and differ in their length by 0.0000258
  of an inch, their intensity is doubled. So also if the difference
  in length be any whole-number multiple of that fraction. A
  multiple by 2 1/4, 3 1/4, &c., gives an intensity equal to one
  ray only; but a multiple by 2 1/2, 3 1/2, &c., gives the result
  of total darkness. In violet rays similar effects arise when the
  difference in length is 0.000157 of an inch; and with all other
  rays the results are the same—the difference varying with a
  uniform increase from the violet to the red.

  “Analogous experiments in respect to sound produce analogous
  results.”

  (*32) Place a platina crucible over a spirit lamp, and keep it a
  red heat; pour in some sulphuric acid, which, though the most
  volatile of bodies at a common temperature, will be found to
  become completely fixed in a hot crucible, and not a drop
  evaporates—being surrounded by an atmosphere of its own, it does
  not, in fact, touch the sides. A few drops of water are now
  introduced, when the acid, immediately coming in contact with the
  heated sides of the crucible, flies off in sulphurous acid vapor,
  and so rapid is its progress, that the caloric of the water
  passes off with it, which falls a lump of ice to the bottom; by
  taking advantage of the moment before it is allowed to remelt, it
  may be turned out a lump of ice from a red-hot vessel.

  (*33) The Daguerreotype.

  (*34) Although light travels 167,000 miles in a second, the
  distance of 61 Cygni (the only star whose distance is
  ascertained) is so inconceivably great, that its rays would
  require more than ten years to reach the earth. For stars beyond
  this, 20—or even 1000 years—would be a moderate estimate. Thus,
  if they had been annihilated 20, or 1000 years ago, we might
  still see them to-day by the light which started from their
  surfaces 20 or 1000 years in the past time. That many which we
  see daily are really extinct, is not impossible—not even
  improbable.

Notes—Maelstrom

  (*1) See Archimedes, “_De Incidentibus in Fluido_.”—lib. 2.

Notes—Island of the Fay

  (*1) Moraux is here derived from moeurs, and its meaning is
  “fashionable” or more strictly “of manners.”

  (*2) Speaking of the tides, Pomponius Mela, in his treatise “De
  Situ Orbis,” says “either the world is a great animal, or” etc

  (*3) Balzac—in substance—I do not remember the words

  (*4) Florem putares nare per liquidum aethera.—P. Commire.

Notes — Domain of Arnheim

  (*1) An incident, similar in outline to the one here imagined,
  occurred, not very long ago, in England. The name of the
  fortunate heir was Thelluson. I first saw an account of this
  matter in the “Tour” of Prince Puckler Muskau, who makes the sum
  inherited _ninety millions of pounds_, and justly observes that
  “in the contemplation of so vast a sum, and of the services to
  which it might be applied, there is something even of the
  sublime.” To suit the views of this article I have followed the
  Prince’s statement, although a grossly exaggerated one. The germ,
  and in fact, the commencement of the present paper was published
  many years ago—previous to the issue of the first number of Sue’s
  admirable _Juif Errant_, which may possibly have been suggested
  to him by Muskau’s account.

Notes—Berenice

  (*1) For as Jove, during the winter season, gives twice seven
  days of warmth, men have called this element and temperate time
  the nurse of the beautiful Halcyon—_Simonides_