Twenty-Three Unlikely Stories
published in
The American Monthly
Magazine
(Boston: 1829-1831; New York: 1833-1838)
_______________
Commented edition by Alain Geoffroy
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
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Contents
Foreword................................................................................... 9
Prolegomena............................................................................10
THE AMERICAN MONTHLY MAGAZINE: A FASHIONABLE TITLE ............... 11
AN ORIENTED SELECTION................................................................... 13
THE EUROPEAN HERITAGE..................................................................14
AMERICAN REFERENCES..................................................................... 17
FROM NATURE TO SUPERNATURE........................................................20
THE REAL AND THE FABULOUS.......................................................... 24
FANTASTIC COINCIDENCES.................................................................. 26
RAMBLINGS OF THE MIND..................................................................27
FOOLING WITH THE DEVIL................................................................. 30
TRANSGRESSING FUNDAMENTAL VALUES...............................................31
Hudson and Native Stories...................................................... 35
NOTICE........................................................................................... 36
A September Trip to Catskill.........................................................................36
Recollections of the Village of ——............................................................. 38
Sebago Pond.................................................................................................. 41
The Totem..................................................................................................... 44
Mohegan-Ana: or Scenes and Stories of the Hudson....................................47
A SEPTEMBER TRIP TO CATSKILL....................................................... 50
RECOLLECTIONS OF THE VILLAGE OF——........................................... 58
SEBAGO POND................................................................................. 64
THE TOTEM.....................................................................................70
.....................................................................................................94
MOHEGAN-ANA : OR SCENES AND STORIES OF THE HUDSON.................. 94
Mistakes, Treasons and Fabrications....................................106
NOTICE......................................................................................... 107
Alice Vere....................................................................................................107
The Alias—or Mr. St. John......................................................................... 109
Married by Mistake..................................................................................... 111
The Gold-Hunter ; a Tale of Massachusetts................................................113
A Legend of Mont St. Michel..................................................................... 115
ALICE VERE. ................................................................................ 118
THE ALIAS—OR MR. ST. JOHN.......................................................130
MARRIED BY MISTAKE....................................................................136
THE GOLD-HUNTER ; A TALE OF MASSACHUSETTS.............................144
A LEGEND OF MONT ST. MICHEL.................................................... 157
Uncanny Coincidences.......................................................... 163
NOTICE......................................................................................... 164
The Exile..................................................................................................... 164
The Snow Pile............................................................................................. 166
Captain Thompson...................................................................................... 168
THE EXILE.................................................................................... 170
THE SNOW PILE............................................................................. 179
CAPTAIN THOMPSON....................................................................... 189
Superstitions and Mental Disorders...................................... 195
NOTICE......................................................................................... 196
A Mystery of the Sea...................................................................................196
The Hermit of Agualta................................................................................ 198
Incidents in the Life of a Quiet Man........................................................... 202
The Crazy Eye............................................................................................. 205
Anna’s Landing........................................................................................... 208
The Cold Hand; a Tale................................................................................ 211
A MYSTERY OF THE SEA.................................................................215
THE HERMIT OF AGUALTA...............................................................227
INCIDENTS IN THE LIFE OF A QUIET MAN.......................................... 243
THE CRAZY EYE............................................................................ 252
ANNA’S LANDING.......................................................................... 261
THE COLD HAND ; A TALE............................................................. 270
Conversations with the Devil.................................................290
NOTICE......................................................................................... 291
De Diabolo.................................................................................................. 291
Hans the Horse-Breaker.............................................................................. 294
A Visit to the Clerk of the Weather.............................................................296
Lazy Jake. Or the Devil Nonplussed........................................................... 299
DE DIABOLO................................................................................. 303
HANS THE HORSE-BREAKER............................................................ 316
A VISIT TO THE CLERK OF THE WEATHER......................................... 324
LAZY JAKE. OR THE DEVIL NONPLUSSED.......................................... 329
Works cited............................................................................ 344
Alphabetical Index.................................................................353

Foreword
T
he twenty-three short narratives or sketches presented here
are reproduced, as closely as possible, as they appear in the
original edition. The punctuation and the spelling have not been
modernized, and variations, even when they occur in the same text,
have been respected so that today’s readers can be confronted, in a
fairly authentic way, with the literary style and manners of early
nineteenth-century America. Whenever it was possible, contextual
footnotes were added. Quotations, implicit or not, proper nouns and
place names are also commented on in footnotes. To help the reader’s chronological orientation, whenever a literary work is quoted,
the date of its publication is mentioned, as well as the birth and death
dates of historical, scientific or literary figures.
The texts are preceded by short specific notices which do not
aim at being exhaustive but merely provide the reader with a few significant interpretative or contextual leads. A more general introduction is proposed in the first pages of the book in which a few common characteristics and some of the most salient features of these
texts are reviewed. Many guidelines or pieces of information are
provided for students who may not be familiar with the history and
geography of nineteenth-century New England or with European and
American literature. We apologize in advance to scholars who will
certainly find them superfluous.

Prolegomena
The American Monthly Magazine:
a fashionable title
T
he following texts are fictions selected from two early
American literary periodicals sharing the same title and
published between 1829 and 1838, successively in Boston and New
York. Their common title, The American Monthly Magazine, suggests that the publication was continuous, but the genealogy of the
magazines shows that they had several fathers, which makes them
distinct and diverse, even if the vocation of both was basically to
promote local literature. In fact, this fashionable title was recurrently
used by several periodicals published in the United States in the
nineteenth century: a first version, issued by Job Palmer in Philadelphia in 1824, was edited by the Irish physician James McHenry
(1775-1845) who settled in America in 1817 and seemed to have had
more interest in literature than in his profession.1 No text in the following pages was borrowed from this early publication.
After several years of interruption, the same title was taken up
again in 1829 by Nathaniel Parker Willis (1806-1867), former editor
of The Legendary (1828) and of The Token (1829).2 The new
magazine was published in Boston by Pierce & Williams from April
1829 to March 1831, and from April to July 1831 by Willis himself.
Its pages contained essays, fiction, criticism and poetry often written
by the editor himself. Among its contributors were the historians
John Lathrop Motley3 and Richard Hildreth,4 Lydia Huntley Sigour-
1 He wrote collections of poems such as Waltham, an American Revolutionary Tale, in
Three Cantos (1823) and The Antediluvians, or the World Destroyed, a Narrative Poem in Ten
Books (1840), fictions such as The Wilderness, or Braddock’s Times, a Tale of the West (1823)
and Meredith, or the Mystery of the Meschianza, a Tale of the Revolution (1831), and even a
play, The Usurper, an Historical Tragedy, in Five Acts, performed at the Old Chestnut Street
Theater in Philadelphia in 1829.
2 As an author, Willis published Fugitive Poetry (1829), collections of travel sketches, Inklings of Adventure (1836), Loiterings of Travel and American Scenery (1840) and plays, Bianca Visconti; or, The Heart Overtasked (1837) and Tortesa; or, The Usurer (1839).
3 John Lathrop Motley, (1814-1877), American historian, specialized in Dutch history and in
the biography of the English trader Thomas Morton (1622-1647).
4 Richard Hildreth (1807-1865), American historian and writer, the author of a six-volume
History of the United States (1849) and of a novel, The Slave; or, Memoirs of Archy Moore
(1836).
12 — Prolegomena
ney5, and Albert Pike.6 However, financial difficulties led the magazine to be absorbed by George Pope Morris’s7 New York Mirror in
August 1831.
The name of the publication rose from its ashes two years later
in New York, on the initiative of Henry William Herbert (18071858), a novelist of British origin,8 who later made a name for himself by writing on sports and fishing in America under the pseudonym of Frank Forester. Recently settled in America (1831), Herbert
revived the American Monthly Magazine in March 1833 with the
contribution of A. D. Patterson, who however soon retired. Then he
conducted the review alone—“nearly one half the matter of which
was composed by him”9—until it was sold to Charles Fenno Hoffman10 in 1835, with Herbert still acting as a joint editor. The
magazine, which had absorbed Joseph Tinker Buckingham’s (17791861) New England Magazine in 1835,11 published, among the writings of various famous authors, Edgar Allan Poe’s “Von Jung, the
Mystic”12 and Hoffman’s continuous novel “Vanderlyn” in 1837.
When politics started to take a larger place in the magazine in 1836,13
Herbert resigned and was replaced by Park Benjamin until the publication terminated in October 1838.14
5 Lydia Huntley Sigourney (1791-1865), American writer and poetess, author of works often
inspired by morality and religion.
6 Albert Pike (1809-1891), American lawyer, the author of Prose Sketches and Poems Written in the Western Country (1834).
7 George Pope Morris (1802-1864), American journalist, poet and short story writer, cofounder with the poet Samuel Woodworth (1785-1842) of the New York Mirror in 1823. The
publication discontinued in 1843.
8 He was the author of The Brothers, a Tale of the Fronde (1834) and of a series of historical
studies, among which The Knights of England, France and Scotland (1852) and The Captains
of the Old World (1851), all of them focussing on European history.
9 “Henry William Herbert, ‘Frank Forester’,” The International Review of Literature, Art,
and Science, 1 June 1851, New York.
10 Charles Fenno Hoffman (1806-1884), American journalist and poet; in 1833, he founded
The Knickerbocker, published in New York, which the American Monthly Magazine was supposed to rival. It published such famous pens as Irving, Cooper, Bryant, Longfellow, Greeley
and Hawthorne.
11 The New England Magazine was published in Boston from 1831 to 1835.
12 June 1837; revised as “Mystification,” Broadway Journal, 27 December 1845.
13 Henry Clay’s (1777-1852) and Horace Greeley’s (1811-1872) political papers largely
contributed to modify the magazine’s focus.
14 Park Benjamin (1809-1864), the former editor and owner of the New England Magazine
after Joseph Buckingham’s retirement; the editor of The New Yorker in association with Horace Greeley, and the founder of the weekly newspaper The New World (1839-1845).
Prolegomena —13
An oriented selection
T
he collection of narratives appearing in the present work
are most of the time unsigned and their authors remain an15
onymous, as often the case in similar literary magazines of the time.
They may seem disparate and ill-assorted, and it is true that they tell
stories which apparently have little in common but the fact that they
all belong to American literature of the early nineteenth century.
However, beyond their displaying of such typical American features
as their geographical or historical settings or of American-oriented
points of view on the way the world goes, they all share one characteristic which may not be perceptible at the first reading in their diegetic make-up, but which is the very essence of the “seeds” or
“germs”16 generating them and determining their literary pattern. All
these pieces tell stories which cannot be completely elucidated. Even
when a detailed, sometimes sophisticated, explanation is in fine explicitly provided, there remains a black spot in the rationale of the
text which resists logical reading and consistent interpretation.
We note for instance, that the Hudson stories are still permeated
by the legendary—Indian or literary—atmosphere of the ancient
times, governed by mystery and the irrational, culminating in the last
narrative of this series, unquestionably a supernatural tale.17 Many
stories rest on mistakes which can hardly be conceived by a logical
mind or on fabrications which paradoxically implausible coincidences only could make credible. Indeed, chance events and serendipity are often at the core of the narratives and constitute in themselves
sources of lasting puzzlement, whether they be unscrupulously exploited by the protagonists or the cause of their fortune or misfortune. Beyond the realm of superstitions and their dramatic influence,
mental disorders provide much material for many of these uncanny
stories, exotic or local.
Finally, this enumeration of strange facts and disturbing feats
would not be complete without the devilish presence of disquieting
15 With the exception of “The Totem” (1837) by Alfred Billings Street (1811-1881) and
“The Snow Pile” (1836) by Joseph Holt Ingraham (1809-1860), the other stories are either unsigned or signed with initials.
16 In the sense given by Henry James (1843-1916) to that term in his Notebooks. See The
Complete Notebooks of Henry James, Leon Edel & Lyall H. Powers eds. (New York: Oxford
University Press) 1987.
17 “Mohegan-Ana: or Scenes and Stories of the Hudson” (n.d.).
14 — Prolegomena
creatures and their master Satan himself, sometimes prowling frighteningly about unseen, but often caricatured or ridiculed as certainly
sounded proper in days when science and technical progress—but
also new trends in religion18—questioned the status of mankind and
the traditional order of the universe. This recurrent use of a sometimes very subtle subversion of rationality, both contradicting— resisting—modernity and appearing as an outcome of it, is the token of
a literary Americanness already inspiring founders of American literature such as Charles Brockden Brown (1771-1810), William Austin
(1778-1841) or Washington Irving (1783-1859), and flourishing in
some more mature texts of their successors, Nathaniel Hawthorne
(1804-1864) or Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849).19 Moreover, many of
the texts we have selected display a mystical not to say enigmatic approach to nature which goes beyond the Romantic vision of it, and
some of them can be read as precursors of transcendentalism. At any
rate, all the narratives tell weird stories in which the irrational, subtly
or more saliently, plays a significant part in announcing an American
modernity.
The European heritage
I
t is a well-known fact that the young American literature had
solid European roots. The elite in pre- and post-revolutionary
times read classic European books, mainly British, which quenched
their thirst for knowledge and the imaginary along with their need to
grasp the functioning of the universe, both in the philosophical or
political fields and in the realm of science. This collection of texts
confirms this predominantly European influence through their numerous references to the works of prominent writers and thinkers.
18 Born in Europe in the 1650s, Unitarianism spread in New England during the nineteenth
century and became a major faith among the Bostonian elite (see supra note 297). Promoted by
brilliant voices such as Henry Ware (1764-1845) or William Ellery Channing (1780-1842), the
unitarian doctrine advocated religious toleration and the primacy of reason and conscience.
19 One thinks, among others, of texts like Brown’s Wieland; or, The Transformation (1798)
and Edgar Huntly; or, Memoirs of a Sleep-Walker (1799); Austin’s “Peter Rugg, the Missing
Man” (1824, 1826, 1827) and “Martha Gardner: or Moral Reaction” (1837); Irving’s “Rip van
Winkle” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1819); Hawthorne’s “Wakefield” and “Doctor
Heidegger’s Experiment” (1837) or even “Rappaccini’s Daughter (1844); or, of course, Poe’s
“Mesmeric Revelation” (1844) and “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar” (1845).
Prolegomena —15
Among them, William Shakespeare (1564-1616) is more often
quoted, explicitly or not, than any other author. His most famous
plays are often cited, without any reference but generally most accurately and with quotation marks, which shows that these early American writers were familiar with the works of the English playwright.
As You Like It, Twelfth Night, Othello, Macbeth, and Hamlet, but
also lesser known pieces such as Timon of Athens, are recurrently
quoted as epigraphs or in the texts themselves. Sometimes quotations
are inserted in the narrative as mere implicit allusions—for instance,
Othello’s “green-eyed monster”20—possibly identifiable by the
learned reader. More than merely flaunting the author’s erudition,
they sound like a conventional wink at the learned community of
New England and its shared literary background, and beyond scholarship considerations at its common cultural identity.
Apparently almost as fashionable as William Shakespeare was
Lord Byron (1788-1824) and to a lesser extent Goethe (1749-1832)
and the revered novelist Walter Scott (1771-1832). The three of them
are quoted almost as often as all the other European authors combined. If Walter Scott was seen as an undisputed master in nineteenth-century literary circles,21 Byron and Goethe evoke in these selected pieces a more mature Romanticism,22 together with Victor
Hugo (1802-1885) and Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881), or even the
Gothic novels of Charles Maturin (1782-1824). They come with the
more classical references to Dante (1265-1321), Pope (1688-1744)
and Milton (1608-1674), or to prominent thinkers such as Voltaire
(1694-1778), eighteenth-century novelists such as Smollett (17211771) or Fielding (1707-1754), and celebrated theologians such as
Isaac Watts (1674-1748) or Jeremy Taylor (1613-1667).
Moreover, the authors of these short stories recurrently plunge
their readers into the far-off past of Europe and numerous allusions
are made to the pantheon of Ancient Greece and Rome and to their
celebrated authors such as Ovid (43 BC-18 AD), Virgil (70 BC-19
BC) or Titus Livius (circa 59 BC-AD 17). Here again, the classics
20 See supra note 374.
21 This is what led Washington
Irving to spend Summer 1817 at the master’s home. The
Scottish novelist advised him to study German literature in which the American found inspiration for some of his tales. “Rip van Winkle”, for instance, is an Americanized version of the
German Märchen “Der Ziegenhirt” (“The goatherd”) which Irving must have discovered in Otmar’s Volkssagen (1800).
22 Even if Scott’s historical novels could be read as precursors.
16 — Prolegomena
appear as an essential part of the foundations of the culture of the
American elite which it provides with genuine acknowledged roots
and for which it constitutes the distinctive rallying sign of a privileged, educated caste.23 However, these prestigious references are
not always to be taken at face value, as they are often used not so
much to anchor the texts slavishly into a conventional literary tradition, but rather to distinguish them from those written by their elders
by means of irony, caricature, or humor. By mimicking the conquest
of independence on the literary ground, these authors introduce a
measure of distance from their European elders which contributes
undeniably to making their narratives specifically American.
Europe is not only omnipresent intellectually and artistically, but
also geographically. The Old World appears recurrently in place
names but also through its nationals, most of the time immigrants, recent or long-established, in America. England of course, but also Ireland, France, Germany, Italy and Spain are alternately evoked. But
the homesickness so often affecting immigrants or even their descendants is here totally absent. On the contrary, these fictions reveal
that prejudices directed at Europeans were already very popular.
England is seen as a country where gentlemen and politicians inexplicably lose their minds. Natives from Yorkshire and Cockneys are
naïve and easily duped by unscrupulous American pranksters.24 The
Irish are poor, while Dutch colonists are thriving and hardworking,
but they often acquired their wealth by trade or speculation, disregarding ethics and worshiping profit for profit’s sake.25 Spaniards are
proud, cold-blooded Roman Catholics, whereas Germans are learned
and clever; but their minds are too complicated and their metaphysics
incomprehensible.26 As for the French, they are accused of having fomented a bloody revolution, betrayed their elite forced to flee their
homeland and too happy to find refuge on the other side of the Atlantic and to adopt American values. In a more elusive way, the
stress is laid on Fulton’s invention,27 disregarding the fact that the
very French Jouffroy d’Abbans was the first to operate a steamboat
23 A large part of the audience of the American Monthly Magazine was provided by the Boston Brahmins, the intellectual, spiritual and social elite of New England.
24 In “The Gold-Hunter; a Tale of Massachusetts” (1837) and “Married by Mistake” (1837).
25 Respectively in “The Cold Hand” (1837) and “Hans, the Horse-Breaker” (1837).
26 As respectively in “The Hermit of Agualta” (1831) and “De Diabolo” (1836).
27 See supra note 253.
Prolegomena —17
on a river twenty-seven years before him.28 In another tale set in Normandy, “la belle France” is seen as a filthy place and the French, at
home and abroad, as born dissemblers.29 In brief, more than fifty
years after Independence, the attitude toward Europe remains ambiguous and not devoid of clichés: if the Old World is still undeniably seen as the cradle of culture, America is presented as a place
where hard work, intelligence and even craftiness are cardinal virtues
allowing men and women of good will to enjoy healthy and profitable lives.
American references
W
hile Europe provides the main part of the quoted authors,
few famous American writers are explicitly cited in
these short stories, with the exception of James Fenimore Cooper
(1789-1851), whose work is criticized with fierce irony,30 and Washington Irving (1783-1859) whose Rip van Winkle haunts several narratives, and whose style visibly inspired several other stories.31 Many
texts however announce the atmosphere and the favorite themes of
Hawthorne (1804-1864),32 Poe (1809-1849)33 or Melville (18191891).34
Nevertheless, if America had not had time to produce many
great writers yet, it already had its pantheon of great men, among
whom towers the personality of George Washington (1732-1799),
whose courage and shrewdness are acclaimed in a long narrative
based on actual facts that occurred during the French and Indian
War.35 Less heroic historical figures like Roger Williams,36 President
28 The French engineer Claude François Jouffroy d’Abbans (1751-1832) invented the first
experimental craft propelled by a steam engine in 1776. In 1780, he sailed up the river Saône in
a more sophisticated 46-meter long steamboat.
29 In “The Exile” (1829) and “A Legend of Mont Saint Michel”(1836).
30 In “De Diabolo”(1836).
31 Irving’s influence is more perceptible in “A September Trip to Catskill” (1838) and “Recollections of the village of—” (1830) but it tinges more than one passage of several other stories, such as “The Gold-Hunter ; a Tale of Massachusetts” (1837).
32 Although it was published anonymously, “A Visit to the Clerk of the Weather” (1836)
was most probably written by Hawthorne.
33 “The Crazy Eye” (1836) or “A Mystery at Sea” (1829).
34 “A Mystery at Sea” (1829).
35 “The Totem” (1837), by the American poet Alfred Billings Street (1811-1881).
36 Roger Williams (c.1603–1683), the founder of Rhode Island. See supra note 329.
18 — Prolegomena
Harrison37 or Vice-President George Clinton38 appear now and again
as so many generally allusive signals contributing to establishing an
unvoiced complicity with the reader who shares the same historical
past. Numerous allusions are made to historical facts whose symbolic value in American history reaches that of founding myths: the Independence War (1775-1783), of course,39 but also the French and
Indian War (1689–1763),40 the Great Awakening,41 or less crucial issues such as the heroic fight of Captain Lovell.42 This background,
inspired by real facts, firmly sets the narratives into history, which
not only confers on them an American identity but also a touch of
reality which often enough makes them almost plausible.
But what makes these narratives definitely inscribed in American history is the omnipresence of Native Americans, whether it be in
toponyms or in the names of real Native tribes: Cherokees,
Choctaws, Mohawks, Mohegans, Mohican, Narragansett, Natchez,
Pequot, Shawnees, all belong to American history and were still
present at the time when these narratives were written. Yet, the descriptions of Native characters are most of the time racially biased
and they are too often portrayed derogatorily. If one author implicitly
takes sides with the pursued couple of Native lovers in “Sebago
Pond” (1829) and another one bows before the infallible sense of
honor and the uncommon bravery of Onwawisset,43 many underline
the savagery of the majority of the Natives whom they depict in
terms of bestiality and treacherousness,44 or as debased degenerate
creatures.45 Undoubtedly, early Native Americans are still the object
of strong ethnic prejudices, not unlike the Africans in the exotic stories related in these pages who are also seen as devilish dangerous
creatures disrespectful of human life.46
37 William Henry Harrison (1773-1841), the ninth President of the United States. See supra
note 103.
38 George Clinton (1739–1812). See supra note 234.
39 Bunker Hill in “Recollections of the Village of——” (1830) or Saratoga in “MoheganAna : or Scenes and Stories of the Hudson” (n.d.).
40 In “The Totem” (1837).
41 In “Anna’s Landing” (1830). See note 365.
42 In “Recollections of the Village of——” (1830). See supra note 111.
43 Although the young Native was brought up in a white family to which he remained faithful, and was thus not totally “uncivilized.” “The Totem” (1837).
44 In “The Totem” (1837) and “Recollections of the Village of——” (1830).
45 In “Mohegan-Ana : or Scenes and Stories of the Hudson” (n.d.).
46 In “The Hermit of Agualta”(1831).
Prolegomena —19
Yet, many of these narratives reveal their belonging to a typical
American literature by putting forward an American-oriented point
of view, together with an unquestionable sense of place. Even when
some authors set, partly or entirely, their stories abroad,47 the reader
soon realizes that either the narrator was born in the New World or
that he reports some detail which only an American would appreciate
and even sometimes know about.48 Moreover, many texts refer to
specific American places which are used as backgrounds for the various fictional events reported. The North-East is actually the privileged setting of the majority of these stories when they are set in the
United States: the Appalachians and the Hudson valley, but also
Long Island and its Sound; cities like Boston, New York, New
Haven and Providence, but also smaller places with high historical
value such as Saratoga, Fort Duquesne or Fort Oswego; New England States such as Massachusetts, Maine or Rhode Island.
Most of the stories set overseas begin, end, are told in, or refer to
America. All the toponyms mentioned correspond to real places
which are depicted faithfully and often in detail. Here again, this literary geographical network helps establish or reinforce a sense of
complicity between writers and readers who feel more committed to
narratives in which they feel at home. The dense combination of historical and local, geographical references in these fictions contributes
to founding and moulding a genuine American literature whose value
for the readers—and the authors—rests on interactive echoes
between their everyday lives, a common cultural and geographical
background, and the collective imaginary. Following Irving’s tracks,
they establish bridges between European roots and American settings, illustrating Thomas Cole’s enthusiastic statement: “The Rhine
has its castled crags, its vine-clad hills, and ancient villages; the Hudson has its wooded mountains, its rugged precipices, its green undulating shores—a natural majesty, and an unbounded capacity for improvement by art.”49 Like Cole in his painting of the North-East
countryside, these stories make the best of their American sources.
47 “The Crazy Eye” (1836) is est in Great Britain; “The Exile” (1829) is partly situated in
France, like “A Legend of Mont Saint Michel” (1836), while “The Hermit of Agualta” (1831)
is set in Jamaica and “Alice Vere” (1836) mainly in the Pacific Islands.
48 An unexpected and almost anachronistic reference to tornadoes in the New World, for instance, in “A Legend of Mont Saint Michel” (1836).
49 Thomas Cole (1801-1848), “Essay on American Scenery” The American Monthly
Magazine (1836). See supra note 99.
20 — Prolegomena
From Nature to Supernature
M
ost of the stories presented here are either narratives
based on actual experiences in the Irvingian tradition of
the travel account, or texts sounding genuine and factual thanks to
literary tricks that generate, to various degrees, some sort of “real effect.” Washington Irving was a pioneer in the mixing of fictions and
actual reports in his works, as well as in blurring the conventional
limits between the real and the imaginary50 in literary hoaxes. Thus,
The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. (1819) gathers essays
and tales supposedly written after the papers of the historian Dietrich
Knickerbocker, “an old gentleman of New York, who was very curious in the Dutch History of the province and the manners of the descendants from its primitive settlers.”51 In the same vein, Bracebridge
Hall (1822) or The Alhambra (1832) merge sketches inspired by
tales or reports whose status has often to be decided in fine by the
reader himself. Similarly, the Bostonian William Austin (1778-1841)
published his “Peter Rugg, the Missing Man” in the “Original Communications” columns of the New England Galaxy. It was presented
as an authentic report by a certain Jonathan Dunwell, so that after the
first section had been published, some New England readers were so
eager to know more about their unfortunate fellow citizen that Austin
was prompted to add two complementary sections to his tall story.52
The collected stories presented in these pages are similarly both
diverse in their themes and often ambiguous in their forms. Some are
apparently mere reports based on real facts or experiences such as “A
September Trip to Catskill” (1838), a narrative which sounds like a
quite convincing echo of Irving’s sketches. While nothing indicates
that the text is fictional, the geography of the place seems to be the
very creation of Washington Irving, and Rip van Winkle is recur50 In “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” (1820) he announced prophetically: “If ever I should
wish for a retreat whither I might steal from the world and its distractions, and dream quietly
away the remnant of a troubled life, I know of none more promising than this little valley.”
Irving actually settled in Tarrytown (New York) after his return from Europe in 1832.
51 Prologue to “Rip van Winkle.”
52 William Austin, “Peter Rugg, the Missing Man”, was published in three sections in
Joseph T. Buckingham’s New England Galaxy (1824, 1826, 1827). The narrator, Jonathan
Dunwell, was supposed to be an occasional correspondent of the magazine, and nothing distinguishes Austin’s tale from the other communications.
Prolegomena —21
rently evoked as if he had really lived there. Moreover, the narrator
keeps on wondering when he finds, as carved in the landscape itself,
the traces of Irving’s fictional hero, which confers to his narration a
marvellous tone that subtly alters the nature of the text. The homage
goes beyond an enthusiastic deference to a celebrated author. It
shows that Rip van Winkle, far from being a mere Hudsonian version of the German Peter Klaus of Sittendorf,53 has reached the status
of a legendary hero whose fictional life is now marked forever in the
American landscapes.
Even in realistic texts, landscapes often bear the marks of legendary events,54 and fortuitous natural phenomena suggest the intervention of supernatural powers. In “Sebago Pond” (1829), the curious shape of the two rocks by the lake bear witness to the heroic escape of the Native lovers; in other texts, lightning, uncannily appearing just in time, spares a tragic death to the besieged white settlers in
“Recollections of the Village of ——” (1829) and to a desperately
suicidal Catharine in “The Cold Hand; A Tale” (1837). As a general
rule, Nature is seen as a mysterious entity capable of empathy, reflecting the narrator’s mood and bearing the marks of history and legends or determining them.
In fact, in these fictions, Nature bridges the real world which inspires the artist and the philosopher and the world of the unknown,
often unseen powers which eventually govern our lives. On the one
hand, we can notice, in perfect accordance with Thomas Cole’s vision, that in these narratives
... rural nature is full of the same quickening spirit—it is, in fact, the
exhaustless mine from which the poet and the painter have brought
such wondrous treasures—an unfailing fountain of intellectual enjoyment, where all may drink, and be awakened to a deeper feeling of the
works of genius, and a keener perception of the beauty of our existence.55
But on the other hand, Nature and natural elements betray their
divine dimension when they intervene significantly in the lives of the
53 See infra note 21.
54 In “Recollections of the Village
55 “Essay on American Scenery.”
of ——” (1829).
22 — Prolegomena
protagonists. Sometimes the harbingers of doom and good luck, 56
sometimes the determining protagonists triggering off the final denouement, the elements provide many of these stories with an ambivalent framework both visible and invisible.
The visible part is made up of rural landscapes, most of the time
spectacular and picturesque: the Catskill mountains in the bosom of
which “the kingly Hudson rolls to the deeps,”57 and myriads of islands and lakes edged with mysterious forests and vertiginous cliffs,
or else, when the story is set overseas, lush tropical sceneries. Contrarily to the traditional symbolism of islands, they are not always
mere sanctuaries and can be inhospitable or treacherous places, and
when they shelter unfortunate castaways, they sever them from civilisation,58 as in this emblematic situation:
There was one poor fellow who had been caught by the rising of the
river in a mill on an island rock. He had but time to escape from the
shed ere it was swept away, and he was cut off from communication
with the main land until the subsiding of the river.59
Woods are also dangerous places. They still represent that impenetrable wilderness which frightened the first settlers, in which
live mysterious creatures, men or beasts and some of them half of
each, even if “the incommunicable trees”60 shelter a less frightening
fauna of birds and game.61 As for lakes and rivers, they are fictional
means of communication allowing the passage from Culture to
Nature, from the rational world to the realm of imagination. Yet, as a
general rule, Nature’s major function is to reflect the narrator’s mood
and prepare him for the coming events, in the Romantic tradition.
Many of the descriptions of natural sceneries echo Bryant’s verses:
Yet fair as thou art, thou shunnest to glide,
Beautiful stream! by the village side;
But windest away from haunts of men,
56 In “The Snow Pile” (1838).
57 William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878), “Catterskill Falls” (1836).
58 In “The Hermit of Agualta” (1831), “Alice Vere” (1836) or “The Exile” (1829).
59 “Recollection of the Village of——” (1829).
60 Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), Nature (1836). See supra note 81.
61 In “The Totem” (1837) or in “Mohegan-Ana : or Scenes and Stories of the
(n.d.).
Hudson”
Prolegomena —23
To quiet valley and shaded glen;
And forest, and meadow, and slope of hill,
Around thee, are lonely, lovely, and still.62
The reader is thus recurrently invited to discover both the reality
of a land meticulously detailed and the almost mystical vision of
Nature inspired to the narrator by his experience, with a flavor unmistakably announcing Transcendentalism. Thus, several narratives,
such as “Recollection of the Village of—— (1829), “Sebago Pond”
(1829) or “Mohegan-Ana” (n.d.), could as well have begun with
Emerson’s words:
I go with my friend to the shore of our little river, and with one stroke
of the paddle, I leave the village politics and personalities, yes, and the
world of villages and personalities behind, and pass into a delicate
realm of sunset and moonlight, too bright almost for spotted man to
enter without novitiate and probation.63
The quasi sacredness of rural landscapes inevitably suggests that
a variety of innermost forces are at work in Nature. They remain unseen and manifest themselves through the medium of natural phenomena. Salvatory strokes of lightning, in “Recollections of the Village of——” (1829) and “The Cold Hand” (1837), but also the secret
powers of the sea which make people vanish in inscrutable dramatic
circumstances in “Alice Vere” (1836) and “A Mystery of the Sea”
(1829), or even the die-hard snow which inexplicably survives the
end of winter and brings happiness and merriment in “The Snow
Pile” (1838). In “Mohegan-Anna” (n.d.), Nature seems a reflection
of the tragic events which occurred in a legendary past, and every
element of the landscape appears as a sign referring, not only to the
bloodshed perpetrated ages ago, but above all to its supernatural upshot, the apparition of the ghostly “Flying Head” which has haunted
the premises since then. Ubiquitous, inhabited by a sense of good
and evil and supported by a divine will, Nature becomes Supernature, in the same vein as the vengeful “black cloud” in William
Austin’s “Peter Rugg, the Missing Man” (1824, 1826, 1827).64
62 William Cullen Bryant, “Green River” (1820).
63 Emerson, op. cit.
64 Peter Rugg is obstinately pursued by a thunderstorm
home for fifty years after he has defied the elements.
which prevents him from going back
24 — Prolegomena
The fantastic dimension of Nature, in its nautical version, culminates in “A mystery of the Sea” (1829) in which an enigmatic sailor inexplicably disappears on board a ship, at midnight in the open
sea, as if abducted by a mysterious light. From the outset, the ocean
is introduced as a place in which ordinary landmarks are missing and
whose memory engulfs all the acts, “whether good or ill,” and keep
them out of reach, so that the waves become the ideal breeding field
of “the living horrors and grovelling fears of superstition.” Like
Nature inland, the open sea is a book which can be read in search of
“signs and omens” of marvellous events to come. The looming presence of the “Flying Dutchman” and the final assertion by the author
that “this is no fiction” contribute to giving this story an authentic supernatural flavor.
The Real and the Fabulous
M
any of these stories question, one way or another, their
own status as writings. Most of the time, this questioning
is the outcome of literary devices linked to the position assumed by
the narrator. Some narratives are told in the first person (“I” or “we”)
which confers on the narrator the part of a more or less reliable witness. Classically, references to established historical facts65 or to real
place-names66 make the story more plausible—if not unreservedly
credible—especially when the narrator plays a decisive role in the
story. If “The Exile” (1829), for instance, may sound like a true
story, it is not only because the events related are set in real places in
France and America, but also because the narrator travels from one
continent to the other and unexpectedly meets the same people in
both several times. The historical background—the French Revolution, Fulton’s experimental steamboat sailing up the River Seine—
added to the specific geographical settings—Paris, the Oneida lake
area—give an appearance of reality to the story, attested by the protagonist-narrator, despite the unlikelihood of some elements of his account. What is at stake here is not without importance as to the
mechanism of the fiction itself, and its side effects on the reader. Had
the narrative sounded like an imaginary relation, then the coincident65 “The Totem” (1837); “A Legend of Mont Saint Michel” (1836); “The Exile” (1829).
66 All the narratives, without any exception, mention real place-names, but some of them,
such as the Hudson stories, are set in them, which makes them closer to real life.
Prolegomena —25
al meetings would have seemed but a coarse trick in a more or less
sophisticated made-up story. But as long as the reader is incited—
even within the framework of literary conventions—to consider the
veracity of the story, then the coincidence appears as more than remarkable and worth being related. This contrast between the real and
some improbable or incredible event is precisely at the core of many
of the stories gathered in these pages.
Paradoxically, the presence of a secondary narrator in the story,
even when his account is obviously a tale or a legend, brings by contrast some realness to the primary narration. It is a well-known literary trick, often used in texts in which a certain amount of realism is
necessary to make the appearance of the supernatural possible.67 This
is, for instance, what gives the ending of “Mohegan Anna” (n.d.) its
mysterious undertones, and makes the narration of “A Legend of
Mont Saint Michel” (1836) waver between fiction and real facts, as
its subtitle—“a Sketch of History”—suggests. “The Crazy Eye”
(1836) presents two “anecdotes” related by a narrator who insists on
the reliability of his second-hand report which “was received from an
English gentleman of undoubted veracity, and an eye-witness of
most that he related.” In “A Mystery of the Sea” (1829), the veracity
of Captain Sharp’s narrative is supposedly vouched for by the
primary narrator who introduces himself as someone particularly reliable, pretending that he was immune to superstitions and irrational
fears, although he would not deny that some enigmas could not be
solved by reason alone. To make sure that Captain Sharp’s account
could not be mistaken for a tale, he adds as a conclusion to his own
narration: “Reader, this is no fiction. Captain Sharp is living only
forty miles from the place where I am now writing, and ‘can be produced.’” Here again, it is the juxtaposition of supposedly real elements and inexplicable facts which gives substance to that undeniably supernatural story.
In a less subtle manner, although no less efficient, many authors
mix real toponyms and abridged names. Thus, “Anna’s Landing”
(1830) supposedly takes place in New England “in the village of P.”
The apparent deliberate discretion about the name of the village
seems here necessary to preserve the identity of the protagonists, as
67 A long-lasting, if not traditional, device in Fantastic literature, from Washington Irving’s
“The Storm Ship” (1822) and Edgar Allan Poe’s “A Descent into the Maelstrom” (1841), to
Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw (1898).
26 — Prolegomena
if they were real persons. Similarly, Alice Vere, in the eponymous
story (1836), visits the ****Islands in the Pacific “[i]n the spring of
18—,” while the names of the other protagonists are abridged into
“Rev., Mr. B** of—, in Connecticut” and “Rev. E*** T***,” as if
their anonymity had to be preserved. The use of conventional deontological precautions dedicated to real situations provides these stories with a semblance of realness, which gives credit and more dramatic impact to the astonishing events they relate. “The Crazy Eye”
(1836) goes one step further in borrowing a pseudo-scientific rationale and making explicit the necessity to protect the identity of the
persons involved for “[a]s the incident took place within the last fifteen years, it has been thought advisable to suppress the names of the
parties.” Not only are the names of the protagonists truncated into
“Charles W——,” “Miss P. youngest daughter of the Earl of H——”
and “Sir William P—— [...], a member of parliament from B——”
but the patronymic of the narrator himself is kept secret and only
evoked as “G——.” Moreover, the two medical cases evoked are
preceded by a long, learned, apparently scientific introduction and
followed by a conclusion in the same vein, ending in the following
words: “in the hope that it may lead to some further investigation of
this remarkable phenomenon, the foregoing relation is submitted to
the attention of the curious.” This last sentence reveals a modesty
from the author’s part which suggests that he is sincere and that, consequently, his report should be trusted. Here again, the extraordinary
needs a realistic setting to come out as such, which makes these short
stories, on the extreme verge of reason and common sense, close to
the supernatural genre.
Fantastic coincidences
E
ven texts which sound radically alien to the supernatural
genre are structured by the unexpected consequences of extraordinary coincidences. In “The Exile” (1829), the narrator meets,
by the most incredible happenstance, a couple of French aristocrats
he had known in the Quartier Saint-Germain, while he was sailing on
the Oneida Lake, and he meets them again years after, by sheer
chance, in Paris, on the Pont Neuf. The probability of such a series of
meetings is very low, as in the case of Melancourt in “The Totem”
Prolegomena —27
(1837), whose life is saved by the sacrifice of his Indian stepbrother,
whom he had not seen for years and who happened to be the chief of
the Native tribe by which he was taken prisoner. Similarly, the fact
that the protagonist of “The Snow Pile” (1838) meets his future wife
and is cured of a chronic illness thanks to a snow bank which should
have melted long before is more than a meaningless fortuity and
seems to imply the intervention of Providence or of some mystifying
divine power.
In “Married by Mistake” (1837), two gentlemen from England,
who accidentally meet on board a steamboat, fight one another in a
duel and, as they surprisingly happen to bear the same name, the survivor is led to marry very officially the betrothed of the other without
being obliged to reveal the fraud. The extraordinary does not only lie
in the fact that they share “a too common name” but in the series of
coincidences which led them to be literally on the same boat and thus
the preys of unprincipled and cynical pranksters. The same confusion
of names is the pretext of “Captain Thomson” (1831) in which the
protagonist mistakes an old sea-dog, an inveterate bachelor, for the
loving husband of a woman he has circumstantially taken under his
wing. Yet, the most astonishing part of the story is that the old sailor
not only bears the same name and has the same rank of captain, but
he put up in the very hotel in which the loving husband was supposed to stay, and has apparently good reasons to believe that a woman and her child may try to rejoin him and ask for some explanations... Beyond the cliché of the sailor with a woman waiting for him
in each port, the reader feels that the uncanny parallel between the
two Captain Thompsons is so puzzling in every detail that it makes
one the dark twin of the other, which transforms the story into a
quasi fantastic narrative. As a matter of fact, throughout the stories
presented here, this network of meaningful coincidences takes on the
dimension of a framework for human destiny, seen as governed by
the irrational, which sounds like an early return of the repressed in a
world already fascinated by reason.
Ramblings of the Mind
S
trikingly enough, the new-born American literature was
very early captivated by often morbid meanderings of the
28 — Prolegomena
mind, as is illustrated by the seminal works of Charles Brockden
Brown (1771-1810).68 Many stories presented in The American
Monthly Magazine follow this early tradition and illustrate various
forms of the mind’s deviancies. Among them, superstitions are often
evoked to explain aberrant behaviors, like in “The Hermit of
Agualta” (1831) in which the females of a family of Spanish exiles
are contaminated by traditional local beliefs. Close to superstition is
religion in its fanatical manifestations, a theme which inspires “Anna’s Landing” (1830) in which a fragile young woman falls under the
unhealthy ascendency of a mentally deranged itinerant preacher, in
the obscure years of the Great Awakening.69
If the torments of the heart often induce those of the mind, the
reverse is also true as the unfortunate eponymous heroine of “Alice
Vere” (1836) exemplifies in her exotic peregrinations in the Pacific
islands, in her quest for a husband she has never met before. Having
led so far a life of affective frustration “in great seclusion in a clergyman’s family,” the ingenuous young woman experiences love at first
sight with the wrong person, which leads her to make a fool of herself and eventually commit suicide out of despair. Such a life of
emotional frustration is also that of Catharine in “The Cold Hand; A
Tale” (1837); her lack of physical beauty drives her to be pathologically jealous of her more gifted sister Jane. After Jane’s death, an intense sense of guilt brings her to the verge of suicide and forces her
to seek refuge in the deceitful fumes of opium. She eventually comes
out of a harrowing hallucinogenic experience—abundantly depicted
—radically transformed, and later, she identifies herself with her
both envied and hated sister.
The visible effects of the meanderings of the mind are sometimes so radical that the wild behavior of the afflicted person evokes
a fit of madness. In “Incidents in the Life of a Quiet Man” (1830), a
sketch in three parts, a male nurse relates a few of the most striking
“distressing scenes” he has witnessed wherever “human nature is
brought into extremity.” Gradually, his narrative drifts from the spectacular to the bizarre, as his reports become less and less explicable.
In the first one, he is assaulted by a lunatic without any particular
68 In Wieland; or, The Transformation (1798), Theodore Wieland murders his family under
the influence of pseudo-heavenly voices; Edgar Huntly; or, Memoirs of a Sleep-Walker (1799)
questions, in a Gothic murder story, the borderline between dream and reality.
69 See note 365.
Prolegomena —29
motive but the fact that he was there. In the second account, he tries
to prevent a fierce uncontrollable cat from mutilating a corpse he is
keeping watch over for the night. Nothing really explains why the cat
is so frantically ferocious, except a so-called “demoniacal appetite
these animals have for the flesh of the dead.” The sudden appearance
of the cat and her most unusual wildness, added to the fact that the
other watchers are not awakened by the noise of the fight opposing
the animal and the narrator, remain unexplained. We can only notice
that the wild behavior of the cat echoes that of the madman in the
previous part of the narrative, both appearing totally impervious to
logic and interpretation. In the last section, the narrator reports the
persistent insomnias affecting one of his friends during the full-moon
nights, and how he accompanied him once in one of his nocturnal
ramblings during which his half-awake companion skated forty miles
on a frozen river without seeming to be aware of what he was doing.
If violence is apparently absent in this section of the narrative, the
compulsive attitude of the skater, evoking somnambulism, remains
unexplained.
In “The Crazy Eye” (1836), the circumstances of the appearance
of two undeniable cases of madness are related in detail. From a
medical point of view, the sudden degradation of the mental condition of so far perfectly normal persons sounds plausible and corresponds to observations reported in classical psychiatry handbooks of
the nineteenth century. Yet, a long time before modern hypnotism
was formalized by James Braid (1795-1860),70 the interventions of
the “tamer” remain mysterious, for, as the narrator confesses, “[c]oncerning the origin of this ocular influence, no conjecture in the
present state of our experience can be hazarded.” Consequently, the
impact of this story on an uninitiated nineteenth-century audience
must have been more that of a nearly supernatural narration than that
of a scientific report of two enigmatic medical cases.
In fact, all the stories dealing with madness presented in these
pages sound more like weird narratives than like psychological or
medical reports. The authors use more the theme of mental imbalance to suggest eeriness and mystery and, to some extent, to subvert
logic and conventions, than to explore the meanders of the human
mind, with the exception of “The Cold Hand; A Tale” (1837) in
70 See
supra note 357.
30 — Prolegomena
which the anamnesis of Catharine’s pathological jealousy can be inferred from her introspective remarks. However, some seventy years
before the invention of psychoanalysis, they establish and question at
the same time the necessity of postulating the unconscious as a key
to solving the riddles they ask.
Fooling with the Devil
F
our of the fictions collected here do not pretend to be real
accounts and, on the contrary, deliberately mimic and caricature the traditional devilish tale which they subvert by displaying
undeniable humorous qualities. In those years of scientific and religious awakening,71 the Devil is no longer feared and can be ridiculed
with impunity, at least among the Bostonian elite. Thus meetings
with the Devil—or its benign avatar, the Clerk of the Weather—are
pretexts to satirize the manners of the time by establishing a salutary
distance from the ordinary world, which entitles these authors to
teach a few bitter lessons to their fellow-citizens. In “A Visit to the
Clerk of the Weather” (1836), planet Earth is only vaguely known by
the powerful lord of the place, which prompts his visitor to remain
modest. “De Diabolo” (1836) parodies Dante’s Inferno72 to better criticize writers on both sides of the Atlantic, together with American
publishing circles, in terms of sins and expiation. The introductory
sentence of the tale is relevant of the change in the secular conceptions of the Evil One: “The very existence of the Devil has been
denied in these latter days of unbelief and schism; and this I pronounce to be a most foul, abominable, and soul-destroying heresy.”
According to the author, printed matter is now in charge of the insidious corruption of the minds, since a good number of writers and
publishers have taken over Satan’s destructive work.
The two other tales, “Lazy Jake. Or the Devil Nonplussed”
(1836) and “Hans the Horse-Breaker” (1837) tell basically similar
stories inspired by Goethe’s literary myth of Faust. Here again, humor replaces the tragic flavor of the original fiction. In the first story,
the Devil is portrayed as a friendly gentleman of “good breeding”
ready to seduce Benjamin’s young daughter, while he has the looks
71 On the spread in Boston of Unitarian advanced conceptions of religion, see infra note 18
and supra note 297.
72 See supra notes 303; 303; 303.
Prolegomena —31
of “a gentlemanly stranger, clad in black, and mounted on a powerful
charger” in the second one. But his too good manners conceal a
fiendish soul and during his “midnight prowl” the Devil seduces
various notables of the village, whose so far unconfessed faults are
consequently unveiled to the reader, an opportunity for the author to
satirize the mores of his time. Yet, what distinguishes these American tales radically from their original European counterpart is their
happy endings: in both cases, the victims outdo their evil master and
get rid of him for the rest of their happy lives. Hans literally rides on
the Devil’s back and brings him to heel as if he were a young untamed colt, whereas Jake’s incurable laziness remains out of the
Devil’s reach, which saves his neighbor Benjamin who had bet his
salvation on the former’s inveterate indolence. In both cases, success
is not due to cardinal virtues but, on the contrary, to major shortcomings, generally considered as close to deadly sins: violence, betting on horses and heavy drinking on the one hand, laziness and cupidity on the other. Yet, this is no wonder in tales in which eternal
youth is not at stake—nor any moral improvement—but more prosaically easy money and wealth, which deprives these parodies of any
trace of the original Romanticism of Goethe’s work, even in a caricatural manner. In fact, by importing the tragic myth of Faust, these
American writers have changed its very nature by adapting it sarcastically to some of the pragmatic ideals of their country, in which
personal achievement could hardly be reached without making
money and being a winner. The moral of these stories teaches their
readers that strength, cunning and wealth are now American cardinal
values and the keys to success and salvation.
Transgressing fundamental values
I
t can be thoroughly argued whether or not literature ought to
reflect the ideology of the times of its production and the
mentalities of the readers to whom it is dedicated. Yet, as far as this
collection of short stories is concerned, they clearly address, beyond
the variety of their styles and the sundry themes they develop, a selected audience of learned readers, mainly that of the Boston Brahmins, who were among the few capable of grasping all the cultural
references peppering them. However, although they were mainly ori-
32 — Prolegomena
ented toward the dominant class, these narratives, even the most conventional ones, convey enough ambiguousness to shelter the seeds of
subversion in their lines. First in humor and satire, in the literary tradition established by Washington Irving,73 relevantly the most cited
reference, explicitly or not, in the present volume. The last four
stories, in ridiculing the supposedly feared figure of Satan, employ
humor—sometimes black humor—to satirise the nineteenth-century
United States. Then in the transgression of universally agreed social
behaviors, such as, for instance, mystifications and fabrications about
one’s identity, like in “Married by Mistake” (1837) in which two
gentlemen are mistaken one for the other because they bear the same
name, and “The Alias—or Mr. St. John” (1831) in which an American dandy conceals his real identity and gives a false name to seduce
his friend’s sister. The theme of mistaken identity—or when a person
is not recognized—is a fecund source of inspiration. In “Alice Vere”
(1836), the betrothed young woman mistakes a nice-looking officer
for her future husband. In “The Totem” (1837), a young Indian chief
fails to recognize his step-brother in the person of his prisoner,
whereas in “Captain Thompson” (1831), the young traveller mistakes
one Captain Thompson for the other. Except in “The Totem,” mistaken or false identities generate situations which are socially and
morally reproved. In “Married by Mistake,” a man marries another
man’s fiancée, whereas in “The Alias,” a woman falls in love with a
man who pretends to be someone else. Alice Vere is a victim of love
at first sight on the eve of her marriage, and the student of “Captain
Thompson” secretly desires the sailor’s young wife and is longing to
seduce her. In each case, the mistaken identity implies a transgression in the field of marital relationships and sexual desire and thus
appears as subversive of social order.
Treacherous behaviors are also often the germs of these short
stories. It is the case in “Married by Mistake” in which the future
husband is the English victim of a prank of particularly bad taste fomented by two American jokers, and in “The Alias” in which the
73 Irving’s early career announced his taste and talent for humor and satire. In 1807, he published with his brother William (1766-1821) and J. K. Paulding (1778-1860), a satirical miscellany, Salmagundi; or, The Whim-Whams and Opinions of Launcelot Langstaff & Others, proposing a series of humorous essays. In 1809, under the pseudonym of Diedrich Knickerbocker,
he published the burlesque history book A History of New York, a satire of the political mores
of his times and one of the first great American books of comic literature.
Prolegomena —33
protagonist plays a bad trick on the woman he wants to seduce. “The
Gold-Hunter; a Tale of Massachusetts” (1831) tells the story of a too
naïve farmer, unscrupulously robbed of a hundred guineas by socalled friends who took him for a nightly ride in marshes where he
thought he would find gold. In “Lazy Jake. Or the Devil
Nonplussed” (1836), the Evil One himself is tricked, and in “The
Cold hand; a Tale” (1837) Jane is deceived by her jealous sister.
Treasons are nevertheless much more dramatic when they imply the
death of their victims. In “The Hermit of Agualta” (1831), a Spanish
exile is betrayed by his Jamaican servant who poisons his wife and
children out of vengeance, while “A Legend of Mont St. Michel”
(1836) tells how the army of the “Count de Montgomeri” was
slaughtered because of the treason of one of their allies. In “Recollection of the Village of——” (1829), the treason of a messenger is
probably the cause of the failure of an Indian raid, which was a blessing for the white settlers, but entailed many Native deaths, like in
“Mohegan-Ana: or Scenes and Stories of the Hudson” (n.d.) in
which the younger members of an old Native tribe settle the dispute
which opposes them to their elders by committing treacherous bloodshed.
If madness or neurotic behaviors—recurrent issues in these short
stories—are easily seen as subversive or transgressive,74 deviancies
from the social or historical order are sometimes more subtle, although no less radical. In the first two narratives set in the Hudson
valley,75 the shadow of Rip van Winkle still haunts the minds of the
authors as well as the valley itself. Yet, Irving’s anti-hero is far from
being an example, not only because of his proverbial laziness, but
above all because, unlike his fellow citizens, he missed the founding
event which gave birth to the United States, i.e. the Revolution,
which he spent sleeping in the mountains. The same “breach of historicism” affects William Austin’s Peter Rugg who, like Rip, skips
the Revolution, which inspires the following sentence to an anonymous voice at the end of the story: “You were cut off from the last age,
and you can never be fitted to the present. Your home is gone, and
you can never have another home in this world.”76 The repeat by
74 It is a central theme of “The Crazy Eye” (1836); “Incident in the Life of a Quiet Man”
(1830); “The Cold Hand; A Tale” (1837); “Anna’s Landing” (1830); “Alice Vere” (1836).
75 “A September Trip in Catskill” (1838) and “Recollections of the Village of ——” (1830).
76 William Austin, “Peter Rugg, the Missing Man” (1824, 1826, 1827).
34 — Prolegomena
Austin of Irving’s unconventional theme and the significantly drastic
ending of the second version show how important it was for an
American to be caught in his or her own history, failing which exclusion was the inevitable sanction, which is implicitly—and probably
unintentionally—recalled in the concerned narratives of this collection.
The questioning of the order of the world is actually more obvious in texts belonging to the supernatural genre.77 The Fantastic
opens a breach in the real which remains intrinsically unaccountable.
The ghostly Flying Head in “Mohegan Anna” is the outcome of the
rebellious young Natives’ felony: it is the supernatural, indestructible
testimony of the reality of their patricide, the token of the most serious transgression of the social order governing their tribe. In “A
Mystery of the Sea” (1829), no one knows who Michael Dodds actually is or where he comes from. The other sailors did not like his
“unsocial habits” nor “his whole deportment [which] was strange in
the extreme,” and they are perturbed by his talking in his sleep “like
a man in a fit of the nightmare.” His neglect of the social rules indispensable to the cohesion of a crew, confined with no privacy on
board a ship for months in a row, certainly accounts for his disappearance. Like Peter Rugg, he does not really belong to this world
and is logically expelled from it. By showing what happens to transgressors, this supernatural story serves as a moral lesson and warns
those who may be tempted to disrespect habits and customs. In fact,
everybody on board the ship feels concerned: “[the men] evidently
felt that eyes not of earth nor heaven were fastened on them, and they
clustered together, as if each feared that his turn would come next.”
The Fantastic in these fictions wavers between transgression and
subversion on the one hand, and moral and conformism on the other,
a dialectic which is common to all the presented texts, so that they
can be read as so many multifaceted mirrors of American mentalities
of the early nineteenth century.

77 Let us note that Irving’s and Austin’s short stories precisely ushered in the bloom of
American fantastic literature.
Hudson and Native Stories
Notice
A September Trip to Catskill
T
he opening text of this collection is a non-fictional narrative of 1838 in the mode of Washington Irving’s reports of
his travels in Europe as they appeared, mixed with more conventional fictions, in his widely praised The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon
(1820), or his less celebrated Tales of a Traveller (1824) or later on
in the sketches of The Alhambra (1832). The story told is set in the
United States, in the Hudson valley which Irving broadly contributed
to popularizing through the stories of Rip van Winkle in the eponymous short story, and of Ichabod Crane in “The Legend of Sleepy
Hollow” (1819). Numerous allusions to these texts sprinkle the narrative and constitute the main elements which, beyond lyrical descriptions—themselves owing a lot to Irving—, suggest to the reader’s mind more authentically fanciful fictional images.
Undoubtedly, the style of the text plagiarizes Irving’s to the
point of sometimes almost parodying his descriptions of the surrounding landscapes, as the introductory paragraph illustrates when
Irving’s “fairy mountains” display “the sportive grace of a fay.” The
oneiric atmosphere of Sleepy Hollow even sometimes permeates the
narrator’s mind when “his sensations” send him “to dream-land” (54)
at sunrise. However, the narrator insists recurrently on architectural
metaphors while Irving remains purely lyrical, describing for instance “the old pine tree, by the side of the spring, against which Rip
used to rest his gun . . . [as] a fluted column of the same dimensions
of some dozen others that ranged on the side-walk as supporters to
the piazzas of the rival hotels” (51), or using words such as “architrave,” (50) or “mountain cathedral” (57); this endows Nature
with a structured quality which makes the author see in God “the architect” (54), but which is also the mark of a more “technical” vision
of a pristine Nature already contaminated by progress.
But the stronger echoes of Irving’s texts are those of Rip van
Winkle himself whose shadowy presence hovers here and there over
the narrative, as if he had been a full-fleshed hero who had actually
lived in and now still haunts the Catskills. However, the time has
Hudson and Native Stories — 37
changed, and the narrator’s imagination can only satisfy itself by tarrying nostalgically in a still recent past unfortunately gone for ever.
For instance, when the trio of ramblers reaches Balt Bloom’s
hotel, the narrator cannot refrain from imagining that it stands on the
very site where Rip’s “club of the sages or philosophers” used to
hold its “sessions” on a bench near the Royal George Hotel. Similarly, the “big tree” under which they used to “sit in the shade” has
been significantly replaced by a shop, in days when money and commerce govern the world, which makes the author parody Irving’s
sharp criticism of the mores of his time, exclaiming with a somewhat
faked emphasis: “May the Lord forgive the sacrilegious heedlessness
of my countrymen!” (52) Not unlike Irving, the author indulges in
caricaturing the political life of the early 19th century by introducing
two lusty fellows discussing the “comin election,” (52), even gibing
casually at General Harrison, the future President of the United
States, by nicknaming him “the petticoat candidate” in reference to
his political opponents’ assertion concerning his putative lack of
courage.78 The scene ends up in derision when one of the two fellows
shoots at a rooster “as big as any member of Congress” (52) just for
the pleasure of betting three meagre shillings immediately pocketed
by his greedy wife.
On their arrival at the hotel, the narrator notices a dog, “flying
and yelping—tail couchant—from the broom-stick attacks of an enraged milliner” (52) whose attitude evokes that of Wolf, Rip’s faithful companion, ceaselessly harassed by Dame van Winkle. But the
dog fails to display Wolf’s courage and dignity for he is only “un très
petit chien” (51), as a French-speaking tourist remarks ironically.
Irving’s shrew is even brought back to life in the person of Balt’s termagant wife whose only words sound “like the echo of one of Dame
Van Winkle’s highest notes” (52), relevantly about money.
That is precisely what sounds definitely new in this post-Irving
text: the narrator insists recurrently on monetary considerations,
which are apparently aroused by the growing interest of tourists for
the region. At the waterfalls, for instance, the platform allowing
sightseeing “has been erected for the use of visiters and the profit of
its owner” (55), and worse, tourists have to pay for the water: “Shade
of Rip Van Winkle! Thought you, poor ghost, that the free waters of
78 See
supra note 103.
38 — Notice
your Kauterskill would have been dammed for money?” (56). After
Rip’s awakening, Irving portrayed a politicized country which had
overthrown his pastoral vision of the once Edenic Catskills; but now,
it is the prey of new economic trends, revealed by the presence of hotels and pleasure boats on the Hudson.
Indeed, the transformation of the region has a price and there is
something in the atmosphere which weighs on the narrator’s mood.
Instead of enjoying his lonely evening at the Mountain House Hotel
as Rip van Winkle had enjoyed his wanderings in the solitary mountains, far from his wife’s too frequent “curtain lectures,” he comes to
regret his bachelorhood and envies the cosy intimacy of a couple in
love sharing his company. He is then the prey of “a desolate retreat
of the heart” (53) which brings him to take refuge in “the friendly
companionship of a fire that [is] blazing in the drawing-room” (54).
These are the Catskills of 1838: Nature has become a commodity and
to be alone in it means sadness of the heart.
The close of the text speaks for itself: the narrator’s last argument to convince other tourists to come to the Catskills is based on
economic considerations as he advises them to come “when the water at the Falls will be sold at a cheaper rate than in July” (57).
Things have decidedly changed a great deal in the Catskills and there
is no longer a place for lazy dreamers like Rip van Winkle.
_____________
Recollections of the Village of ——
T
his text, published ten years after The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon (1819), borrows, like the previous one, many
fictional and imaginary elements from Irving’s short stories. The narrative is unconventionally composed of distinct sections linked by
associations of ideas about an ancient wooden construction across
the river which literally bridges the past and the present for the narrator, and allows him to unearth old memories, personal and collective. The tone is immediately given by the very first sentence: “This
is the golden age of legendary lore” (58), as we are led to a rediscovery of the Hudson valley, beyond “the surface of history,” fed
with “[l]egends of heroism and enchantment” (58). Straightaway, the
author shuffles the cards in his own way, evoking successively
Hudson and Native Stories — 39
Bunker Hill and Rip van Winkle, as if they belonged to the same
“real” world. However, the sequel to the text does not call to mind
the legendary sleeper, but Irving’s hardly less famous schoolteacher,
Ichabod Crane, whose mixture of severity and leniency are echoed in
the “little dark looking man with a quick piercing black eye, and
withal, the most good humored smile in the world except when he
was in a passion” (58). Like in Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” (1819), the schoolmaster’s fiery character is a pretext for tinging the text with humor and to criticize the way education was delivered “in the good old colony times” (60). While Ichabod never
hesitated to frighten his pupils with his “authoritative voice . . . in the
tone of menace or command, or, peradventure, by the appalling
sound of the birch,” the “good master” of the village of —— would
sometimes resort to “most uncanonical words, though, to say the
truth, he would couch them in the learned languages for fear of scandalizing the girls and the younger scholars” (59).
The nostalgic evocation of colonial times incites the author, not
unlike Irving, to express regrets about how the world has been radically changed by modernity. As in the preceding text, monetary inflation and the stringency of modern buildings are seen as destructive of
man’s capability to imagine and to dream. The old “crooked” bridge
in particular, built “when timber was cheap, and the ideas of our
fathers upon architecture were not the most definite or elegant in the
world” (60), allowed the casual stroller who would linger on its irregular arch “to lose [him]self in the fancies suggested by the situation, to wander from reality, and to imagine what had or might have
occurred, when Nature presided here in her uncultivated greatness
over the land and its inhabitants” (60). In 1830 already, there were
unmistakable signs that the world was changing and that progress
menaced poetry.
The countryside around the school echoes Sleepy Hollow, notably the lazy river which seems to belong to Irving’s story with that
“calmness in Nature which extends itself to the mind, and you would
not wish to disturb the repose of either by a heavy footstep or the
rustling of a leaf” (59). The term referring to the brook, “freshet,” is
cleverly used in its double meaning—“stream” and “flood”—by the
author to evoke less elegiac memories: one concerns a burlesque incident during which youths of the village almost drowned but were
40 — Notice
eventually rescued, and another, more dramatic, in which the villagers were in extremis saved from a nocturnal raid perpetrated by local Natives who died, swept away by the too rapid waters of the
swollen river.
At this point, the ingredients of the narrative are cunningly
mixed up to produce an “unreal” effect which transforms alleged historical facts into a local legend. The derogatory description of the
Natives, for instance, seems to date back to William Bradford’s
“hideous and desolate wilderness, full of wild beasts and wild
men”,79 although the tragedy supposedly occurred, “[s]omewhere
about the year seventeen hundred and thirty-six” (61). Moreover, the
atmosphere favors the surge of irrational fears, which the author expresses with accents evoking Edgar Allan Poe’s style: “in darkness
and uncertainty reason is lost in the whirl of terrors” (62). Here the
author develops arguments to justify the irrationality of the first settlers, forced to adapt to “an unknown land, where the wilderness
opens but upon the ocean, or else upon the desert, where no sound of
civilization is heard” (62). The unknown, added to material and mental obscurity, generates irrational fears and unbridles the “imagination [which] may go illimitably on” (62).
There is enough here for anyone to be prepared to see the irrational appear in everyday life, and a natural phenomenon like a thunderstorm tends to become a supernatural manifestation in “a night
which seemed fitted for deeds of terror” (62). That is why the settlers
were saved by a blaze which seemed to be the outcome of the thunderstorm, as “they were aroused from their slumbers by the bright
fire flashes which shone through their windows” (63). Although the
narrator provides several rational explanations, doubts remain about
the origin of the light: was it due to an improbable strategic mistake
of the Natives or to a stroke of lightning which providentially sets
fire to the pine-tree? A very Todorovian80 hesitation suggests here
79 William Bradford (1590-1657) was a signer of the Mayflower Compact and the governor
of Plymouth Plantation for 30 years. He was a relatively tolerant Puritan, although he was
marked by the prejudices of his time. From 1630 on, he wrote his famous History of Plimoth
Plantation, a detailed chronicle of life in the colony This quotation was written in 1651.
80 In his The Fantastic; a Structural Approach to a Literary Genre (1970, trsl. 1973),
Tzvetan Todorov (1939-) defines the Fantastic as the blurred line between the Marvelous (the
Supernatural) and the Odd, a supernatural phenomenon which can be explained rationally. According to him, the Fantastic appears when the status of the narrative remains unclear and generates hesitation; as such, it depends on the reaction of the reader.
Hudson and Native Stories — 41
that the narrative becomes supernatural, which seems confirmed by
the providential swollen waters of the neighboring creek which precipitates the assailants toward the falls and a death as atrocious as
they were wild. When natural elements ally with Providence to save
“innocent” people from “fiends,” then Nature is likely to appear as
Supernature.
_____________
Sebago Pond
T
his short text, written in 1829, is typical of the way Nature
was seen in urban literary circles of this age. The style is
often conventional, vaguely outdated, borrowing a lot from European
classics and clichés. To the modern reader—and it should even have
done so to some sharp minds of the time—, it sounds vaguely overdone and almost naive, like in the following lines:
All nature seemed awakening at the summons of her master, and
to be throwing off the veil of darkness which had hidden her
beauties from his sight, and the dew drops around us were glittering in his beams, as if the elves, startled at his approach, had
fled, and in their haste left their jewels behind them to beautify
and adorn the earth. (64)
If this piece had been entirely written in the same vein, it would not
have been of much interest and it would appear as a starchy narrative
sometimes verging, unpretentiously however, toward philosophical
considerations about the limits of the human mind and the benefits of
socializing: “When a man cannot have a vent for his perpetually recurring thoughts, they will turn and prey upon his own mind, and
render him a gloomy misanthrope,” so that a nice walk in the country
in good company provides “the materials for new thoughts, the
brightness and value of which are doubly increased by being shared
with another” (65). Fortunately, things eventually improve when the
narrator and his party of excursionists leave their “busy world” to
enter the mysterious and magic “solitude of the waters” (65). The
transition is accomplished thanks to a geographical element, “a
rugged hilly land” (65), which seems, as in Irving’s “Rip van
Winkle,” to be the entry to a quite different world, full of wonders
42 — Notice
and secrets, in which, weather permitting, mere islands may be seen
“looming up like spectres through the fog” (65), and whose majesty
and grandiosity “discourage all attempts to unveil their mysteries”
(67). The two worlds, however, are not totally severed from each
other, as they are symbolically linked by a “slight bridge,” originally
playing its part not by bridging the two banks of the river it straddles,
but by hyphening the upstream beauties of a pristine scenery and the
downstream “manufactories and machinery of a thickly settled country” (65). In fact, the bridge does not facilitate the passage between
the two worlds, but on the contrary it constitutes a line of separation,
like a crossing out written on the riverbed.
The sequel of the description of this enchanting region
echoes, almost word for word, the opening sentence of “Rip van
Winkle.” To Irving’s “Whoever has made a voyage up the Hudson
must remember the Kaatskill mountains” is substituted “Whoever
has floated on the calm surface of a summer lake may imagine or recollect the happiness of the moment” (66). But having paid tribute to
his literary master, the author inflects his description toward sensations which owe little to the marvelous and much to some sort of natural mysticism while he experiences “a deep hush over nature, which
communicates itself to the mind” (66) whereas “in the profound stillness, you will feel that breathlessness, that rising of the heart, which
is the effect of gazing on silent sublimity” (66). “Nature always
wears the colors of the spirit”81: seven years before Emerson’s
“Nature” and sixteen before Thoreau’s experiment on the shores of
Walden Pond,82 the narrator’s spiritual communion with Nature, a
long way from the secular material world, announces Transcendentalism.
After having set the scene by insisting recurrently on “the general softness of the scenery” (67), the narrator excites the curiosity of
the reader by mentioning a formidable natural edifice, “an immense
ridge of gray rocks” rising “to the height of more than an hundred
feet, without a single break to afford a resting place to the foot, or relief to the eye, and casting its sombre shadow over the water, which
81 Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) Nature (1836). In this essay he exposes some of the
principles of Transcendentalism, notably the mystical unity of nature and man.
82 Henry David Thoreau, (1817-1762), the most famous disciple of Emerson. His most celebrated book, Walden (1854), narrates his two-year solitary life (1845-1847) in close harmony
with nature.
Hudson and Native Stories — 43
at its base, was unfathomably deep” (67). In this grandiose environment, the attention is called to a gloomy cavern “which had probably
been opened from the solid rock by some convulsion of the earth,”
and whose entrance is marked with “rude figures in red paint, bearing some resemblance to the human form” (68). This unexpected
oddity is the pretext for the protagonist to supply an explanatory narrative—an aboriginal “tradition”(68)—which he borrows from one
of the boatmen.
The boatman’s story is, like in the preceding text, based on a violent scene, an Indian raid on an Indian village, “long before the
whites had penetrated to this wilderness” (68), when the Natives
were still “the rightful lords of the soil” (67). The story is classically
spiced up with the romantic presence of “an Indian girl, betrothed to
a young warrior, who had signalized himself by his desperate valor
in the defence” (68) of his village. Unexpectedly, the young girl
manages to escape in the dead of night, miraculously escaping her
pursuers as she suddenly “appeared to vanish through the solid rock”
(69). Despite the Natives’ stupefaction, her apparently inexplicable
disappearance is no mystery for we have previously been introduced
to the peculiar configuration of the premises.
Moreover, we learn that the two vaguely human figures on the
entrance of the cave were painted in red —reminding us of “redskins”—by the two lovers in commemoration “of their nocturnal adventure” (69). Nevertheless, if everything seems perfectly rational,
one detail remains puzzling: we know that this episode supposedly
occurred long before colonial times, i.e. more than two hundred
years before the narrator’s visit to Sabago Pond. The wonder is that
the paint, although it had been exposed to foul weather as well as to
the erasing heat of the sun, is still visible after so many years, which
suggests that it is indelible and will remain there for ever. Undoubtedly, the story echoes Indian legends, but it also borrows from
Romanticism by promoting the indestructibility of love, and is eventually not totally devoid of a supernatural dimension. This sets up
this narrative at a crossroads of genres, none of them being able to
account alone for its subtle originality.
___________
44 — Notice
The Totem
T
his story in two episodes, published in successive issues of
the American Monthly Magazine (1837), is set during the
French and Indian War (1754-1763) seen from the English-American
side; their joint military forces are embodied by two English-American couples of officers. To the historical leaders, the British General
Edward Braddock and the young American Colonel George Washington, correspond fictional protagonists, the English officer Delancey and his counterpart, the Virginian Melancourt, who, in the first
section, compare their respective views on the ongoing conflict in the
last moments preceding the battle of Fort Duquesne (July 1755).83
The general setting and the historical background of the first section
evoke McHenry’s The Wilderness, or Braddock’s Times,84 a romance
portraying an immigrant Irish family in Pennsylvania during the
French and Indian War.
Significantly enough, the signs announcing the imminence of a
battle are seen as an intrusion which frightens “the sylvan inhabitants
. . . sleeping in the silence and solitude of nature” (72). To “hundreds
of tawny forms” (72) silencing the birds of the forest answers “the
full sound of a bugle r[ingi]ng through the leafy arches” accompanied by “a loud trampling . . . in the direction of the road” (72).
The conversation between Braddock and Washington reflects
the relationships between the two men and corresponds more or less
to the mixture of respect and distrust which historians have reported,
but when the American’s better knowledge of the country’s dangers
is condescendingly ignored by the self-important British commander,
the reader is made aware of Washington’s inner feelings for his superior as his face reveals “a look of inexpressible disgust” (74). This
is a too obvious implied reference to the next conflict to come during
which the ex-allies became enemies; the nineteenth-century reader
would not have missed the allusion and should have relished it as
one savors a just revenge. This also tinges the text with a perfume of
“truth” which, some sixty years after the Revolution, must have generated a strong reality effect.
83 See supra note 128.
84 James McHenry (1785-1845),
The Wilderness, or Braddock’s Times, a Tale of the West, 2
vol. New York, 1823. Dr McHenry, a physician of Irish origins, lived in Philadelphia where he
edited the first version of The American Monthly Magazine in 1824.
Hudson and Native Stories — 45
In the same way, Delancey and Melancourt debate apparently
less urgent matters but, like their illustrious counterparts, they visibly
express opposed views that reveal the existential gap separating the
British subjects of Great Britain and those of her American colonies.
Delancey’s uneasiness in the woods makes him feel as if they were
“burrowing with the wild beasts” whereas Melancourt enjoys
without any restraint “these vast solitudes of Nature” (74). Whereas
the American anchors History in “these glorious trees that have witnessed the flight of ages” (74), Delancey reverences “the smooth
meadows of old England with their ivyed castles” which he sees as
“relics of a thousand years” (74). The American wilderness is opposed here to the domesticated order of the English countryside.
However, in accordance with what History confirmed, they both
agree on Washington’s value whom they see on his way to a very
promising future, which his heroic behavior during the battle unmistakably corroborates.
The way “Nature [i]s exhibited” (79) in the first section is relevant of the ideological background of the author. After having introduced the conflict as the opposition between the “defying roar of the
British Lion” and the “challenging shriek of the Gallic Eagle” (70),
the author keeps on using animal fictional elements or symbols: no
less than twenty-four other animals are quoted, among which insects,
owls, whippoorwills, wolves, panthers, woodpeckers, squirrels,
snakes, partridges, hawks, grasshoppers, wrens, rabbits, tigers, crickets, reptiles, bears, beavers, deer, etc., all of them wild animals. In
this bestiary are included the “children of Nature” (90) who are recurrently described not as human beings but as “tawny forms”
(72;85) or “wild forms” (85), or simply “forms.” By opposing
“forms” to “uniforms,” the author makes his “savages” belong to the
realm of the wild beasts, with the notable exception of Joscelyn-Onwawisset who was raised by Europeans. So it is no wonder if he displays qualities that are supposedly those of a civilized man, in particular that of loyalty, once he is recalled his European background by
his brother’s presence, when the members of his tribe only seek
some “wild” blind vengeance.
The second episode, equally inspired by historical facts, takes
place at Fort Oswego in August 1756,85 and, as in the two precedent
85 See
supra note 140.
46 — Notice
texts, it stages a nocturnal Indian raid. Classically, the scene begins
with the first signs of a storm. Contrary to the first chapter, the wilderness is not praised as darkness makes it frightening and eerie.
Moreover, the stress is laid more on the protagonist’s feelings than
on the surrounding forest. Melancourt experiences so peculiar an
emotional state, under the spell of a “foreboding, a presentiment”
(83), that he mistakes a cluster of hemlocks for revenants, “so spectral had been their appearance” (83), a prolepsis for the return of the
presumably dead warrior-brother. Like in “Recollections of the Village of——,” the assaillants resort to fire and torches but this time,
the assailed are not saved at the last minute: fire has here a “devilish”
function and the providential thunderstorm is replaced by “hot coals
. . . falling in showers” (84). Undoubtedly, heaven seems to have forgotten the unfortunate American soldiers.
The narrative assumes another dimension when Melancourt is
captured by the Indian sachem, and during the hours the Virginian
spends with his captors, Onwawisset undergoes a transformation
which makes him abandon his “wild animal” side and recover a more
“civilized” character. First portrayed like a “plumaged warrior” (85)
with “snake-like eyes” (86) wearing a “beaver robe” (86), he suddenly becomes Joscelyn again as if by magic, thanks to the indestructible link tattooed on his brother’s chest and on his own. Here the
author’s vision of the qualitative gap separating Whites and Natives
seems to yield to higher considerations: the deep, sincere feelings inhabiting the two men are both symbolized and brought back to life
by the Indian totem which bounds them to one another to their death,
as the ending of the story corroborates. Moreover, Onwawisset’s
submission to Western values symbolically transforms him, even in
terms of gender identification. When wounded by Melancourt, “he
was a woman, and whining like a dying panther” (87) and when he is
deeply moved by having found his brother again, his eyes “are wet
like a woman’s when she clasps her dying child” (91). Let us note
that this ambivalence was present in the Christian name given to him
by his adoptive family, as Joscelyn is a name given to males or females regardless of sex.
Unquestionably, the values governing the narrative are no longer
those of military intelligence or inspired by an overprotective Providence, but those of individual history, sentiments and interests pre-
Hudson and Native Stories — 47
vailing over their collective equivalents. The triumph of individualism over corporate duties and responsibilities definitely projects
the narrative in the field of Romanticism. This, added to the celebration of Nature and the stress laid on heroic behavior to the point of
sacrifice evokes Fenimore Cooper’s Leatherstocking’s Tales, making
Onwawisset a fictional double of Uncas,86 the protagonist of The
Last of the Mohicans (1826), a story equally set during the French
and Indian War.
_______________
Mohegan-Ana: or Scenes and Stories of the Hudson
T
he story of the “Flying Head” is also based on a supposed
Indian legend and is told, according to a literary form quite
fashionable at the time, as a secondhand account reported by the narrator, an oral version of the “fake document” effect. The text opens
on the description of an “unsettled region” in which Nature can be
discovered in her “unmolested fastnesses” (94) under the guidance of
one of the few occupiers of the land, Captain Gill, a kind of Native
hermit who lives with his only daughter. Both of them are humorously depicted, in particular the Captain’s “unhallowed league with
bad spirits” (95, emphasis added) which refers to his occasional
drunkenness but also announces the supernatural substance of his
narrative.
The first part of the text follows the classic pattern of a party of
hunters, gathered around a campfire after a copious meal, listening to
stories told by an old Indian, a scenario previously exploited by
Washington Irving in his twin stories “Dolph Heyliger” and “The
Storm-ship”.87 After a tempest during which the members of the
party were “separated and dispersed in the darkness” by a raging
thunderstorm, the mysterious “Flying Head” is casually mentioned
by the old Indian who is immediately urged to make himself clearer,
which he does quite willingly.
At first, the narrative sounds like one more legend from a region
which has “from time immemorial been infested by a class of beings
with whom no good man would ever wish to come in contact” (98).
86 Uncas (1588–1683) was the chief
87 In Bracebridge Hall (1822).
of the Mohegan.
48 — Notice
This derogatory way of describing the Natives, recurrent in the text,
reveals the author’s prejudices, but also serves his literary purpose:
what was accomplished in these backward parts—the fathers were
collectively slaughtered by the sons—could only be the work of base
“degenerate”88 persons having lost their human qualities. But beyond
this horror scene, the gist of the story lies in a supernatural phenomenon, an original variant of the vengeful revenant, whose existence “has never been disputed” (99): the winged head of one of the
decapitated elders which, “hovering like a falcon for the stoop”
(103), pursues the parricides and “prevent[s] them from finding forgetfulness in repose” for “the glances of the Flying Head would
pierce their very eyelids, and steep their dreams in horror” (104).
That the Flying Head is an allegory of guilt, a pre-Freudian representation of the return of the repressed, is beyond question, and so is
its kinship with other monsters of traditional legends whose veracity
is attested by the petrification of the doomed Natives still visible,
“though altered by the wearing of the rains in the lapse of long years
. . . in those upright rocks which stand like human figures along the
shores of some of the neighboring lakes” (104).
In fact, the narrator never takes his guide’s account totally in
earnest, as he adds here and there comments of his own, mentioning
for instance, tongue-in-cheek, that “most Indians have another way
of accounting for [the petrified] figures” and that the Flying Head
must have lost some of its power for “few Indians who now find
their way to this part of the country are never molested except by the
white settlers, who are slowly extending their clearings among the
wild hills of the north” (99). However, the irony of the narrator does
not suffice to spoil the eerie atmosphere of the story, nor its
butcherly quality when a bloodthirsty Native “buried his tomahawk
in the head of the old man nearest to him” (101), or when it comes to
describing the first apparitions of the monster as “a few gory bubbles
appeared to float over one smooth and turbid spot” (102). The reader
is plunged into a macabre ambiance filled with a mixture of raw
cruelty, sordid details, decay and madness, which the “dismal wailing of the loon” (97), evoking ambiguously both a bird and a lunatic,
announced premonitorily. These ingredients are those of the Gothic
88 The narrator mentions successively “the degenerate band that survive at St. Regis” (99)
and “these degenerate aborigines” (99). However, the word “degenerate” may be taken in its
strict etymological sense of “fallen from their ancestral quality.”
Hudson and Native Stories — 49
romances popularized in England in the late 18th and early 19th centuries by writers such as Horace Walpole89 or Ann Radcliffe.90 While
medieval castles are here definitely missing, the details of the landscapes echo the labyrinth of underground passages or dungeons typically found in Gothic novels, as the progression of the party of
hunters in the maze of “[i]nnumerable streams” (96) and over the always “deeper and more sluggish” (96) waters of the lakes illustrates.
Ponds become moats, and islands spring out of them like doomed
haunted castles: “their graceful slopes were held in strong contrast by
a single islet which shot up in one bold cliff from the centre, and
nodded with a crown of pines, around which an eagle was at that moment wheeling” (96). Like in “The Totem,” the story is Americanized by substituting natural settings for the tradition of historical
ruins and castles.91 Mixed with European influences, the Indian legend, at the crossroads of genres such as the macabre or the ghost
story, becomes, along with some of Poe’s or Hawthorne’s tales, another typically American form of the Gothic story.

89 Horace Walpole (1717-1797), the author of The Castle of Otranto (1764), the first Gothic
novel in English.
90 Ann Radcliffe, (1764-1823). In her most famous works, The Romance of the Forest
(1791) or The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) she uses castles and landscapes to suggest mood
and a sense of mystery.
91 See infra page 45 and note 49.
THE
AMERICAN MONTHLY MAGAZINE.
____________
JANUARY, 1838. (vol. XI)
____________
A SEPTEMBER TRIP TO CATSKILL.
GRAND exceedingly are the hills of Catskill,92 and noble supporters to the blue dome that sits so lightly on their architrave.93 Absorbing beyond belief is an undisturbed contemplation of the forests
that cover their valleys. You feel as if the curtain of Time was raised,
and you looked upon eternity. Sweet beyond parallel is the miniature
map of the Valley of the Hudson as you look down from the tablerock in front of the Mountain House,94 and dally with the topmost
tendrils of the hemlock that finds root a hundred and fifty feet below
you. Fantastic beyond conception are the gossamer veils that wreath
and circle around the rugged brow of the hill at your left, now clasping his old forehead with its misty coronal, then lifting, with the
sportive grace of a fay, its vapory circlet far above the discarded object of its late caresses, until, weary of its upward flight, it sinks
drooping and dejected into the valley beneath.
__________
The bell of the Erie tolled a warning to those who had yet to bid
adieu to their parting friends, and before the cable that had restrained
her impatience at the wharf was coiled upon deck, we were dashing
up the Hudson against wind and tide at the rate of seventeen miles an
hour. It was in the early part of September, and the breeze came
whistling down the river freighted with the first frosts from the lakes,
92 The Catskill mountains are an extension of the Appalachian range situated west of the
Hudson River in Upstate New York. Their highest peaks are not more than 4,000 feet high.
Originally called “Blue Mountains” by locals, their original Dutch name became popular with
the publication of Washington Irving’s “Rip van Winkle” (1819).
93 Usually, the lowermost part of an entablature in classical architecture that rests on top of a
column.
94 One of the first resort hotels to be built in the Catskills in 1827, in use until 1942. Located
on a high steep ridge, it offered a spectacular view on the Hudson valley.
A September Trip to Catskill — 51
and scarce had we reached the Palasades95 when a sharp mist was
dampening the travelling ardor of some three hundred passengers
who were in the motley pursuit of pleasure and business. I buttoned
my over-coat up to my throat as I conquered the first inkling of envy
that was generated by a peep into the bar-room of the Exchange
Hotel on the dock at Poughkeepsie96 ; for there sat a comfortable
looking descendant of Adam, reading the Genisee Farmer,97 with his
dexter limb occupying two chairs, before a fire that would have
gladdened the heart of a Laplander. Newburgh98 looked charmingly,
though I suppose a slight gleam of sunshine that glanced for a moment along its heights was the cause of its particularly inviting air.
The dock at Catskill99 was slimy from the drizzle of the last six
hours, and the cattle attached to the Highlander and Rip Van Winkle
stood meekly facing the storm.
Started for the Mountain House, we made our first halt at Van
Bergen’s,100 the spot where I suppose the Royal George had once
supplied the wherewithal to moisten the husky effects of the pipe of
the immortal sleeper, and the old pine tree, by the side of the spring,
against which Rip used to rest his gun as he scooped up the clear waters of his mountain well, was a fluted column of the same dimensions of some dozen others that ranged on the side-walk as supporters to the piazzas of the rival hotels.
_____________
“Un tres petit chien cela,”101 said the gentleman opposite me to
his fair companion, as he pointed to a diminutive specimen of the
canine genus that was flying and yelping—tail couchant—from the
95 The Palasades—or Palisades—is a narrow ridge located along the western shoreline of the
Hudson River in southeastern New York.
96 City situated on the Hudson River and settled by the Dutch in 1687. It became the temporary state capital in 1777, and the American Constitution was ratified there in 1788.
97 A monthly journal devoted to agriculture and horticulture, founded by Luther Tucker in
1831 and published in Rochester, NY.
98 This city, founded in 1709 by Palatine Germans, is located on the Hudson River, not far
from Poughkeepsie, and was Washington’s headquarters from 1782 to 1783. It was in Newburgh that the Continental Army was disbanded.
99 Village on the Hudson River settled by the Dutch in the 17th century. Thomas Cole (1801–
1848), the leader of the Hudson River School, America’s first painting movement, lived there.
His paintings of the Hudson valley and the Catskills made him famous.
100 In 1678, Martin Van Bergen and Sylvester Salisbury purchased land from the Indians in
the valley of the Catskill.
101 The French for “What a small dog!”
52 — Hudson and Native Stories
broom-stick attacks of an enraged milliner in the opposite shop door.
That shop was built upon the very spot that was once shaded by “The
oak.”102 May the Lord forgive the sacrilegious heedlessness of my
countrymen !
_____________
The sun had advanced somewhat in the occident, as we passed
through the brick yards that skirt the borders of the town, and after a
half hour’s drive we alighted at Balt Bloom’s Hotel. I had never been
far westward, but I imagined the scene presented was worthy a soil a
thousand miles nearer the setting sun.
Two strapping youths were standing at the entrance of the tavern
in an animated discussion about the “comin election,” and as the elder of the two dropped the butt of his gun upon the broad toe of his
boot, and thrust both arms half way to the elbow into the side pockets of his velveteen hunting-coat, (his right arm forming circular rest
for the barrel,) I observed the strong expression of vexation on his
countenance as he lamented “that the chap who could fill a game bag
like that which hung by the side of his companion, could vote for the
Petticoat candidate,” as he was pleased to style the Hero of Tippicanoe.103 He turned as he saw strangers coming, and while one foot was
resting upon the primitive floor of the bar-room, he brought his rifle
to a sight, and with his left eye closed as if ready for aim, he turned
his head around to the bar when the other discovered the object of its
search.
“Balt Bloom,” said the sportsman, “what’ll you take for a shot at
that cock that’s struttin yender as big as any member of Congress ?”
“Three shillin,” sung out a shrill, sharp voice from an inner
apartment. It sounded like the echo of one of Dame Van Winkle’s
highest notes,104 that had been wandering among these hills since the
102 Probably the big tree under which Rip and his friends used to talk in the shade before it
was cut down after the Revolution.
103 In 1811, General William Henry Harrison fought the Shawnees in the battle of Tippecanoe, Indiana. The battle was indecisive but the Natives were repelled and their village destroyed. It sounded the death knell of Tecumseh’s hopes to contain the American advance into
the Shawnees territory. Known as “Old Tippecanoe,” Harrison won the presidency in 1840 and
died shortly after from pneumonia. During the “rip-roaring” campaign which led to his election, he was ridiculed by Senator William Allen who was nicknamed “petticoat Allen” because
he had declared that the petticoat of the election banners was given to him by an old woman to
symbolize his lack of courage.
104 Irving made of Rip van Winkle the typical henpecked husband...
A September Trip to Catskill — 53
day its owner had been called to torment the shades of poor Rip and
his dog.
“Crack,” answered the rifle almost as shrilly.
“He’s as dead as Julius Caesar,” coolly remarked the sportsman,
as he chased some coins about his pocket to pay for this cheap gratification of his vanity as a shot at a hundred yards ; and as the carriage door closed upon me, Balt’s wife had the remains of poor
chanticleer in one hand, while the other was extended to receive the
forthcoming “shillins.”
____________
At Sax’s we again halted, and thence began the ascent of the
mountain. The first gatherings of twilight were closing upon the
clouds that were lying in heavy masses upon the sides of the hills
that stretched to the north, and as the horses breathed a moment at
“The Well,” we caught the last glimpse of a pretty landscape below
that nestled in the bosom of its mountain protectors.
As night had closed its curtain upon us, we followed suit with
the windows of our carriage, and the travelling bonnet of its ravenhaired owner fell upon the shoulder next her, I had sufficient discretion, if I grumbled at my bachelor lot, to make myself the only auditor of my complaints.
____________
The wave-like sound of the gong floated upward from hall to
hall through the Mountain House, and our party of three were all that
answered it in doing honor to the creature comforts that paid tribute
to the keen mountain air that had assailed our appetites.
When the last egg had disappeared, I found leisure to take a peep
at the appointments of the place.
A solitary lamp glimmered on the table, and its feeble rays made
the gloom which hovered around the columns that supported the immense apartment but more shadowy. The couple opposite me were
one in every sense, save corporeally ; therefore the darkness of Tartarus105 would have been sunshine to them. For myself, the leaden
gloom was oppressive. The ebon statue at the head of the table stood
so motionless that I shuddered. A sense of loneliness—a desolate re105 In
Greek mythology, a region below Hades, a place of punishment.
54 — Hudson and Native Stories
treat of the heart—the eye moistens if you think of your hearthstone
—an indescribable something we have all felt some time or other,
crept over me ; I courted the friendly companionship of a fire that
was blazing in the drawing-room, but the wind moaned piteously
around the peaks of the pine orchard in their attempts to keep off the
dyer from its coronal ; but a return spark of the sensation was fanned
by the sighing breeze, and the solitude of the immense apartment
gave it a shrine to burn upon. Who has not felt this at midnight, when
the only tenant of such a place as the Mountain House, a solitary
communicant, with its unbroken stillness ? He imagines that he is the
last representative of his race, and the sensation sweeps over the
chords of his heart like the faint breeze upon the loosened strings of
an Eolean harp.106 It whispers sadly ; one does not feel this if he has
the fellowship of nature, though the throb of his own bosom may
have been the first that ever broke upon the virgin silence of the
place, he feels that God is the architect, and lives himself a worshipper in
“That cathedral boundless as our wonder,
Whose quenchless lamps the sun and moon supply;
Its choir the winds and waves, its organ, thunder,
Its dome, the sky.” —————107
_____________
“Mark.”
“Sir.”
“Will the sun rise clear in the morning ?”
“Will Mr. L—— be called at half past 5 or at 9 ?”
“At half past 5.”
“I think it’ll rise clare, sir.” The Ethiop vanished. That negro deserves a pension at my hands, for the prediction from one of the initiated that I should see a clear sunrise sent my sensations to dreamland, where I followed them. I was sorry I had not given Mark the
chance of predicting a misty morning, for at sunrise we were literally
in the clouds ; but at ten o’clock the dense mass rose from the valleys, and the silver thread of the Hudson meandered through the
106 After Aeolus, the Greek god of wind. A musical instrument invented in the 17th century
whose strings are sounded by the wind blowing through them.
107 Horace Smith (1779–1849), English humorist, poet and novelist, friend of Shelley.
A September Trip to Catskill — 55
lower fringes of the weeping veil, till its last bead sparkled in a moment’s sunshine, and was lost to the gazers from the Mountain
House. The struggle between the sun and clouds was long, and victory seemed alternately perched on either banner, till at last the day
god triumphed, and sent the rebellious vapors scampering up hill and
mountain.
My heart warmed towards my fellow-travellers as I listened to
their expressions of delight. They had seen the wonders of the old
world, yet they acknowledged the fresh beauties of the new. They
were oddities therefore, and my heart acknowledged them as exceedingly worthy of its admiration.
__________
“You are a chubby-cheeked urchin ; tell me your name.”
“William Wallace, ma’am.”
“Truly a good one for your mountain home,” said Mrs. B., who
had addressed a boy of five that was playing with a noble dog upon a
slight embankment, by which the wagon that was to carry us to the
Falls was standing. The child pulled the remnant of his palmeth108
from his uncombed curls, and gazed with surprise upon the face of
the lady-stranger who spoke so kindly to him. Poor boy ! his eyes
filled as the lady stepped into the wagon, for he thought that his desolate lot had been pitied. But I should be talking of the mountains,
and not its gossip.
These mountain roads are curiosities. The width of your wagon
is calculated so nicely, that nitches are cut into the hemlocks that the
hubs of your wheel may pass untouched, while the edge of your tire
will leave a feathery seam on the moss of the trunk. The drapery, too,
of these forests. Their hangings of green and russet. Traveller, if you
are capless, Leary will have a call from you when you arrive in town.
__________
It was a breezy September day that smilingly escorted us to the
“Falls of the Kauterskill.”109 We stood upon the extremity of the scaffolding that has been erected for the use of visiters and the profit of
its owner, and while listening to the lullaby of the Fall, which sent its
108 Palmette: a fan-like ornament.
109 The Kaaterskill Falls, made of
two separate falls on Spruce Creek, near Palenville, are
the highest falls in the State of New York (260 feet).
56 — Hudson and Native Stories
gentle music up from the pool into which the tiny brooklet fell, we
looked down upon the sea of foliage that waved before us. As far as
the eye could reach, until it blended with the horizon, lay the interminable forest. The first breath of Autumn had whispered the warning of its wintry monitor, and the golden dye of the alchymist
mingled with the gorgeous coloring of an autumnal sunset. It was an
hour to dream in, and the imagination of the young wife, who leaned
upon the arm of her husband, settled upon the wings of a golden vapor that slumbered within ten feet of her, and, mounting in its aerial
car, pursued its flight four thousand miles from the spot where she
stood. It returned as a ragged urchin broke the general silence with—
“Will you see the Falls, sir ? ”
“I came here for that purpose,” answered I.
“How long will you take ? my father lets off the water at a dollar
an hour.”
Shade of Rip Van Winkle ! Thought you, poor ghost, that the
free waters of your Kauterskill would have been dammed for
money ?
Following our youthful guide, who bounded over the natural and
artificial steps like a mountain kid, we descended flight after flight
into the ravine, and stood upon the table rock at the margin of the
basin into which the first fall pitches. It was now no longer a tiny
brooklet whose bubble we heard from above, but a circular body of
water of perhaps four feet diameter. The sunshine sparkled upon its
smooth surface, where it turned gracefully over its rocky lip, and fell
in an unbroken bow one hundred and eighty feet, and its last gleams
lingered among the trees that hung protectingly over it. The effect
produced by every waterfall upon the beholder varies with the time,
season, and attendant circumstances, more than one will suppose
when considering their distinctly marked character. With Niagara,110
though at all times the spirit is bowed down with the awe which its
grandeur imposes, this is as true as with the smallest cascade in the
land ; and for years after, even while the thunders from the eternal
organ of the former are sounding in our ears, a ludicrous scent at a
breakfast table may ever be associated with the memory of its sublimity. The Kauterskill, upon that bright evening, (and the comparis110 Niagara Falls, on the Niagara River, are 167 feet high on the American side, and 158 on
the Canadian side.
A September Trip to Catskill — 57
on was not far-fetched,) I likened to a stately queen, upon whose face
sorrow had left the traces of its visitation. I doffed my hat to the water-fall in most respectful admiration ; but the glen, the crimson and
the orange leaf floating in the pool, subdued me, and the first whisperings of the season breathed a melancholy story of their fall.
From the table rock we went under the Fall sheltered by a rocky
ceiling, upon whose dome the moss of centuries had collected a verdant livery ; and, while protected by this adamantine roof another opportunity was offered for a survey of that unrivalled forest with its
foreground guarded by a bow of rotary crystal, whose organ was fitting music for this mountain cathedral. Opposite our first position,
we could look from the first to the second Fall, which throws itself
eighty feet into the ravine below, and listen to the deep murmurs of
the river as it relied away in the secrecy of its leafy shield. A sunbeam never danced upon its ripple, so sheltered is it. The first advances of twilight reminded us of the road we had to retrace, and
after an hour’s drive we were again at the Mountain House.
Contemplative reader ! go to Catskill in September, when the
mountain air will give you an appetite for the creature comforts of
the Mountain House ; when you will not be jostled by the unthinking
crowd, who go there because it is fashionable ; when the deep verdure of its woods is relieved by a rainbow here and there ; when the
water at the Falls will be sold at a cheaper rate than in July ; and
when, if you will not complain of the company, I will greet you a
welcome at the table rock.
G. E. L.
______________
THE
AMERICAN MONTHLY MAGAZINE.
Vol. II
NOVEMBER, 1830
N° VIII.
RECOLLECTIONS OF THE VILLAGE OF——
THIS is the golden age of legendary lore. The sober narrative of
the settlement of towns and churches, and the detail of the ecclesiastical disputes of the Pilgrims, have lost their interest with the lovers of the marvellous ; and lest the important chronicles of the New
England States should be left to slumber in their original mistiness,
wonderful untruths must he imagined, or still more wonderful facts
must be found among mouldering records, to serve as lures for those
who but skim over the surface of history, as you would disguise the
healthful medicine of a child in a sweet piece of confectionary.
Legends of heroism and enchantment have already made famous
a few of the towns of New England and New York. Posterity will
look upon the scene of Lovel’s fight111 and of our own Bunker Hill112
as the classic land of the West ; and while the Sketch Book113 is unforgotten, what traveller upon the Hudson will omit to stray along
that gorge of the Kaatskills where old Rip Van Winkle passed his
long sleep ?
There is a pleasant village in New England in which, in times
past, was a little Gothic school house, the high reputation of which
used to draw the aspirants after collegiate honors from far and near.
I can remember the good master even now, a little dark looking
man with a quick piercing black eye, and withal, the most good humored smile in the world except when he was in a passion. He was a
sincerely religious man, but at times, when the higher scholars who
were to be entered as Freshmen at the next College Commencement
111 An Indian battle (May 1725) in Fryeburg, Maine, during which Captain Lovell was killed
after valiantly resisting the Pequot army which outnumbered his own.
112 A place north of Boston, the site of a battle of the Revolution during which the patriot
troops heroically fought much more numerous Red Coats. They were decimated, but they had
proved they could resist one of the best armies in the world, which enhanced American confidence in a final victory.
113 The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon (1820) by Washington Irving (1783-1859) made
him the first American author to gain real fame in Europe. The collection includes “Rip van
Winkle” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” both set near the Hudson River.
Recollections of the Village of—— — 59
would become unruly in anticipation of their embryo dignity, and did
not bear their honors as meekly as in reverence they should, the old
gentleman would be transported beyond all bounds, and I have heard
him use most uncanonical words, though, to say the truth, he would
couch them in the learned languages for fear of scandalizing the girls
and the younger scholars. Thus I have heard him wish a laggard at
his Livy lesson,114 “at the gates of Hades,”115 and call Jupiter to witness the stupidity of the rising generation, in very classical Greek
and Latin.
A mile or so below the village, winds a river which breaks here
into the finest scenery which marks its whole course. For miles
above it is a deep, silent stream, and there is a gloominess in its waters where the forest trees bend down their branches to the wave.
You will fall while on its banks, into that repose of feeling which is
so often caused by the sight of quiet waters. There is a calmness in
Nature which extends itself to the mind, and you would not wish to
disturb the repose of either by a heavy footstep or the rustling of a
leaf.
But in a moment all this is changed. We may gather matter for a
homily from the changes on the earth. How near together are the sublime and the lowly ! We have but to turn from side to side to enjoy
the varieties of Nature, which may raise the mind from the lowest
ebb to the highest possible excitement of human feeling. Nay, how
often, as we look upon the same well known spot in the varying of its
seasons, may we find the waste of winter changed into springtime
beauty, and the richness of the earth poured forth from places whose
wintry desolation had almost determined us to forswear the haunts of
our childhood.
At the point where the river sweeps round the village, it swells
into a large basin studded with islands, and lined with craggy, broken
rocks. You might think it a small lake but for two waterfalls situated
one above the other, which extend the whole width of the river. The
space between them is, in a calm day, a clear, glassy surface, where
the water reposes for a moment from the upper fall ere it rushes on
114 Titus Livius (circa 59 BC-AD 17). His Ab Urbe Condita, a monumental history of
Rome, was a classic which exercised a profound influence on historical writing down to the
18th century.
115 In Greek mythology, the world of the dead. The gates of Hades were guarded by the ferocious dog Cerberus.
60 — Hudson and Native Stories
again with redoubled force. The islands and shores of this basin afford sites for an hundred miles, which continue in a ceaseless clangor
from Martinmas116 till Yule.117
At the foot of the lower fall extends, or did extend, a massive
bridge. It was a crooked, irregular structure, and showed signs of
having been built in the good old colony times, when timber was
cheap, and the ideas of our fathers upon architecture were not the
most definite or elegant in the world. It had a graceful sinuosity,
which made the traveller at one end of it somewhat dubious whether
he should pass dry shod to the other side.
On this bridge have I stood through many a summer evening to
enjoy the beauty of the scenery, or to lose myself in the fancies suggested by the situation, to wander from reality, and to imagine what
had or might have occurred, when Nature presided here in her uncultivated greatness over the land and its inhabitants. I would picture to
myself what had been in the olden times, the feats of the hunter of
the hills, and I could see in every grassy mound the burial cairn of a
warrior, or search some desolate spot for the mementos of Indian
warfare. I could imagine the poetry, (as poetry there must have
been,) in the early history of our Indians, and each wild cavern which
was met with in my wanderings, might be converted into a holy grot,
the place of divine communion of some Aboriginal Numa with his
forest Egeria,118 and the relics of greatness might be found in the sublime scenery, as once the dwelling place of a people whose minds
must have borne some proportion to the grandeur of their habitation.
But there is enough of interest in reality to those who have lived
long in any place of extraordinary natural beauty. It is well to recall
the impressions which were made on our minds at the first unfolding
of Nature to our view. They will bring back the fresh feelings which
commerce with the world has deadened. It is well to revisit every
nook which has been the scene of a childish frolic, and to call up the
recollection of the more hardy adventures of youth. I could visit the
consecrated rock where, as school-boy tradition says, a love lorn
swain was wont some score of years by gone to meet his lady-love,
and the eddies are still boiling where he had adventured to save her
116 A Christian feast (November 11) commemorating the death and burial of Saint Martin.
117 The feast or season celebrating Christmas, from December 24 to January 6.
118 Numa was a legendary king of Rome, successor to Romulus, advised by the nymph
Egeria whom he met in a secret grove.
Recollections of the Village of—— — 61
from the waves. And I can call to mind some of my own “hair
breadth’scapes.” The bridge had been once washed away by a spring
freshet, and travellers were obliged to cross the river in the canoes of
the raftsmen. Late one night a canoe had been procured (i. e. taken
unceremoniously from her moorings) to transport a few erratic
youths to their home from a country merry-making. All were seated
but one, who was just stepping to the boat from a raft which
stretched far into the river. He was a careless, jolly fellow, with a
corporation like an alderman’s. One foot was already in the boat,
when the log on which he was standing turned, he lost his balance,
overset the canoe, and he alone escaped from the chilly water. For a
moment, all was hushed anxiety ; but the crew were good swimmers,
and as head after head rose panting to the surface, I can well remember the shout, the clear ringing peals of merriment which burst on the
stillness of the clear moonshine. The days when sprites and guardian
deities arose to punish the disturbers of their dwelling places, have
long been buried in the tombs of the ancient poets ; but had not all
the tenants of the imaginary world been banished from New England
by the piety of our forefathers, we should have expected them to
have arisen to rebuke the bold intruders on their watery domain.
And in connection with this same freshet, I can recollect the naked timbers of what was once a bridge stretching across the abyss,
where the waters were bearing everything to destruction. And I can
remember the day which followed that night of ruin, how brightly it
smiled, and the thousands of trees and logs, which had been destined
for the mills, borne out to sea by the rush of waves and the torrent
too, so swollen that the falls were on a level with the rest of the river,
and the spray which was shining as purely in the sunbeam as if it had
no part in the work of destruction which was going on beneath it.
And at times a mill shed would be swept from its foundations, and be
hurried crashing and rolling through the abyss. There was one poor
fellow who had been caught by the rising of the river in a mill on an
island rock. He had but time to escape from the shed ere it was swept
away, and he was cut off from communication with the main land
until the subsiding of the river.
Somewhere about the year seventeen hundred and thirty-six, an
attack had been planned by an Indian tribe upon the settlements below the falls. They then consisted of but few inhabitants, who could
62 — Hudson and Native Stories
have made no effectual resistance to a war party ; and to have been
assailed by Indian surprise would have been hopelessly fatal. It was a
night which seemed fitted for deeds of terror. There were threatening
black clouds clothing the whole vault of the heavens, except a circle
of gloomy, lurid light round the horizon, such as we have seen just
before a destructive storm. There was a muttering, suppressed noise
of thunder, as if the clouds moved heavily with their load of evil ;
and the lightning would be seen struggling to appear through the
dark masses, and then shoot down until lost in the light below.
There are terrors in Nature which act not with immediate force
upon the mind or body, yet which are among the most appalling discouragements to the settlers of a new country. There is an uncertainty
and vagueness of fear, which is more disheartening than the worst of
palpable evils. Where everything is certain, the mind does not
wander from the immediate reality of peril. There is an unchanging
point, a fixed range of objects, towards which human energy can be
directed to do all that manhood may to avert impending evil, and
then even in the death-hour, it may be some consolation for a brave
man to know from what certain quarter the ruin comes, and to think
that he falls with an unbroken spirit, though the body is overcome by
irresistible force. But in darkness and uncertainty reason is lost in the
whirl of terrors, and the very brain will grow giddy with it knows not
what, and because of its very ignorance. The imagination may go illimitably on, and picture new dangers, which but wait until those
which are now impending have had their effect, ere they too follow
and overwhelm their victims. In vain may courage and endurance be
summoned to face the danger which is before ; above, around and
beneath may others lurk, like hidden enemies, to give wounds which
no watchfulness can prevent, and no power retaliate.
Such are the perils of the elements in an unknown land, where
the wilderness opens but upon the ocean, or else upon the desert,
where no sound of civilization is heard, where no cry of suffering
will be heeded, and from whence no voice of sympathy will proceed.
But fear will whisper that these are not the only enemies to be encountered. There are unseen living beings who look upon the
European as the oppressor, in whose view the holiest virtue is vengeance, whom education has taught no touch of human pity, whom
watchfulness makes not heavy, who know not fatigue, and who are
Recollections of the Village of—— — 63
ever ready to seize on the slightest negligence as the signal for
slaughter.
It was on such a night as I have attempted to describe, that a
large war party of savages determined to attack the fair settlement at
the falls. Vague rumors had already been afloat of impending
dangers, and each sun had sunk and left uncertainty on the minds of
the settlers whether they should ever again behold his rising. But the
work of death was reserved for the midst of the whirlwind, and the
darkness of the night storm. The canoes of the savages had descended almost to their point of destination without the knowledge of a
single victim. Scouts had been sent before to raise beacon fires on
appointed rocks, that the party might know their vicinity to the falls.
Fortunately, it happened that the very means used to secure the
safety of the expedition, proved the cause of its failure. Tradition is
uncertain whether the messenger was treacherous, or whether he had
mistaken his land murks, or whether the safety of the villagers was
owing to the elements. It is known that they were aroused from their
slumbers by the bright fire flashes which shone through their windows. There are some who say that the beacon fires were kindled in
the wrong places, and others, that an old dead pine which overhung
thralls had been fired by lightning. Be it as it may, there was not a
heavy eye during the remainder of he night in the village. There were
the shouts of men, and the cries of women and children terrified at
impending destruction. The suspense was not long. The flame which
shed its light over rock and wave, showed a party of canoes hurrying
towards the fire as to a rendezvous. The motion of the boats grew
more and more rapid and unsteady, until it was evident that they
were no longer under the command of their crews. The swoln river
was hurrying them on, and as they neared the fatal falls, then were
seen the desperate efforts of the savages to save their barks from the
current and the sullen plunges, as the prospect of death became more
certain. On they came—the canoes hurried and crashed over the falls
in one mass of ruin ; and of those who had set out on the errand of
death, there remained no trace, save that a broken oar or so, and the
bodies of a few Indians were found the next morning where the work
was to have been completed.
K. K.
____________
THE
AMERICAN MONTHLY MAGAZINE.
Vol. I.
OCTOBER 1829
N° VII.
SEBAGO POND.
DURING a journey through the eastern part of New England, in
the May of 18—, I made a pedestrian excursion with an old college
friend, from Portland119 to Sebago Pond, a paradise of waters amid
the wilderness of Maine.120 It was a glorious morning. We were in
motion and among the fields, as all true pedestrians should be, in
time to see the sun rising from the ocean, a thing of light and life,
gladdening every living being and every feature of scenery into
beauty and brightness at his approach. All nature seemed awakening
at the summons of her master, and to be throwing off the veil of
darkness which had hidden her beauties from his sight, and the dew
drops around us were glittering in his beams, as if the elves, started
at his approach, had fled, and in their haste left their jewels behind
them to beautify and adorn the earth. A soft morning breeze was stirring and waving the grass by the road side, as if in harmony with its
music. To a melancholy or a speculative man there is an undefinable
pleasure in spring-time musings, and in the conversations which
grow out of them. The old year has passed away. The tempests of
winter have sunk and died before the softening and perhaps enervating influence of spring, and, as if in unison with nature, the invalid who has lingered on in life, during the severity of our northern climate, and who has, during its dreariness, baffled for a while the slow
inroads of consumption, brightens at the return of spring, with the
119 Portland, Maine, was settled by the British in 1632 and named Falmouth in 1658. The
city was several times destroyed by the Wampanoag people, and by the British Navy during
the Revolution. In 1786 the citizens of Falmouth formed a separate town in Falmouth Neck and
named it Portland. Portland was Maine’s capital when it became a state in 1820, until 1832
when it was moved to Augusta.
120 Sebago (Indian name: “big water”) is New England’s third largest lake, more than 300
feet deep.
Sebago Pond — 65
hectic colors “that dazzle as they fall,” and at last sinks into his grave
just as the flowers have begun to bloom and blossom around him.
With good company, walking, is, for a while, a most excellent
means of getting along and enjoying the wayfaring amusement of the
traveller. But solitary pleasures, let philosophers say what they will,
are dull things. There is more truth than the world, or perhaps even
the poets and rhymers who talk about them, imagine, in what they
say of the intercourse of tried friends. When a man cannot have a
vent for his perpetually recurring thoughts, they will turn and prey
upon his own mind, and render him a gloomy misanthrope. It is impossible to be forever thinking. Were it so, the brain would soon be
filled, and leave no room for fresh thick-coming fancies. During a
walk of live hours in the country every sense is continually conveying to us the materials for new thoughts, the brightness and value
of which are doubly increased by being shared with another.
We in due time reached our destination. The approach to Sebago
Pond is through a rugged hilly land, which opens a communication
between the solitude of the waters and the busy world around them.
From an elevation of the path there are suddenly seen a few fishing
huts and raftsmen’s cabins close beside a slight bridge, which is continually thronged with the most patient of sportsmen. On the lower
side of the bridge the pond empties itself into a small river, which in
its course to the sea, sets in motion the manufactories and machinery
of a thickly settled country, while on the other, the pond lies expanded to the view, “a burnished sheet of living gold.”121 We saw the
water in its deep tranquillity. I have seen it in storms, (for there are
storms even upon our peaceful inland lakes,) when its wooded islands would be dimly seen looming up like spectres through the fog,
and the waves would toss angrily about, as if vexed that their banks
detained them from mingling with the ocean. But this day,
everything was so calm that it seemed hardly possible to disturb the
tranquillity of the scene. The numerous small craft of the fishermen
were plying silently about in pursuit of their sport ; at intervals, a
pleasure boat would be seen containing a party with faces as bright
and joyous as the scenes amid which they were moving ; and ever
and anon the cry of the raftsmen from far up the lake, would come
121 From Narrative Journal of Travels Throughout the Northwestern Regions of the United
States (1821), by Henry Schoolcraft (1793-1864 ), American ethnologist who dedicated thirty
years of his life to the study of Native peoples.
66 — Hudson and Native Stories
pealing over the waters, making the whole appear like a festival day
of the desert.
We soon procured a boat and a boatman, and commenced, in
compliance with the custom of all the visiters of Sebago, trailing our
lines amid scores of others. Ah, Old Izaak Walton,122 thou wouldst
never more have hung over the narrow streams of old England,
couldst thou once have gazed into the clear depths of this beauteous
lake ; couldst thou have reclined with thy rod and thy basket and
spent the livelong day in “meditation and angling” on its banks, and
have seen the noble fish sporting in its waters as if proud of their
spacious habitation.
Whoever has floated on the calm surface of a summer lake may
imagine or recollect the happiness of the moment. The water around
and beneath as clear and as smooth as polished glass, the trees and
cliffs and headlands pictured in its depths by the bright sun, and the
sun himself in his glory, with all the blue firmament around him, reflected from the wave with a softness which the eye can bear, and
with a magnificence only equalled by the intolerable brightness of
his real presence in the sky. We seemed to be in the midst of a vast
circle, extending beneath, above, and around, as far as the eye
reached and the horizon extended ; the centre of a vast globe of earth,
and sky, and water, over which two unclouded suns reigned together.
At such a time, there is a deep hush over nature, which communicates itself to the mind. The very oarsman will pause, though not
from weariness, and in the profound stillness, you will feel that
breathlessness, that rising of the heart, which is the effect of gazing
on silent sublimity. And then will come stealing along, a gradual
swell, under whose power your boat will rock, and bend, and carry
your body and mind with it in its every vibration, until it again sinks
to its motionless repose. And then a breeze will sweep by, blending
earth and water in whimsical forms, as in a distorting mirror, and
ruffle the sunny water, making it appear like the folds of a flowing
drapery.
As we moved along, we gradually lost sight of our fellow
laborers, and a more varied prospect of the lake began to open upon
us. It is of a much softer and more delicate character than is the gen122 Izaak Walton (1593-1683), English author of the famous The Compleat Angler; or, the
Contemplative Man’s Recreation (1653).
Sebago Pond — 67
erality of our eastern scenery. With one remarkable exception, there
are none of the bold rough features so common in New England. But
at times would be seen a clearing, filled with the charred stumps of
the pines, whose blackened surfaces and desolate cheerlessness, were
fit emblems of the ancient nobleness, withered and blasted as it now
is, of the rightful lords of the soil, the American aborigines. At another point appeared young fields of grain in the bloom of vegetation, and again our course would be altered by tracts of woodland
stretching out into the water, while the little islands with which the
lake is studded, here a barren rock visited only by the wild fowl, and
there a solitary pine which seemed to be growing out of the water,
served as marks to note our progress.
I have said that there was a remarkable exception to the general
softness of the scenery. At the distance of about five miles from the
bridge before mentioned, rises an immense ridge of gray rocks,
standing in bold contrast with the softness of the surrounding water
and landscape like the habitation of the genius loci. At first rose a
precipice to the height of more than an hundred feet, without a single
break to afford a resting place to the foot, or relief to the eye, and
casting its sombre shadow over the water, which at its base, was unfathomably deep. The stupendous height of the precipice, and the
gloomy stillness of the lake, seemed to discourage all attempts to unveil their mysteries. But the effect cannot be described. The poet may
give glowing descriptions of the calm tranquillity in which Nature
sometimes reposes in the midst of her most magnificent creations, or
the painter may sketch her productions on his canvass. But still there
is something wanting to the imagination. In the real landscape we see
her in a deep and pleasing slumber, while in the copy she must appear in the gloomy stillness of death.
Farther on, the rocks became more broken and uneven, towering
over each other in the most grotesque forms, arid hanging as if suspended by some unseen enchantment. The fishers and raftsmen had
given names to many of the detached masses which bore a real or
fancied resemblance to objects which they had met with elsewhere.
Midway in air hung the ‘‘table,” the surface of which was covered by
a cloth of the richest verdure, as if nature, by the profusion of her
bounties, wished to draw men from the cities, to woo and love her in
the wilderness. Hard by stood the “arm chair,” offering a place of
68 — Hudson and Native Stories
rude repose to the wanderer as he climbed towards the summit, and
on the summit itself stood the “pulpit-rock,” to which in a clear day
the laugh and shout would return in a thousand merry echoes from
the surrounding crags. But the most remarkable feature of the landscape was a dark cavern, the hollow of which had probably been
opened from the solid rock by some convulsion of the earth. Its entrance from the water would admit a small boat. Of its downward
course nothing is known. Its depths are hidden by the deep gloom of
the waters. But upwards there is a rough winding passage through
the mass of stone to the summit of the precipice, the only ascent at
the place from the water to the brow of the hill. The entrance to the
upper air is narrow, and so well concealed among the scattered
masses of granite, as to be unknown except to the people of the vicinity. Directly over the lower entrance, are traced some rude figures
in red paint, bearing some resemblance to the human form, and
standing as if the guardians of the dark portal beneath, and they have
there remained since the first discovery of the country, as fresh and
vivid in their coloring, as when they first waked the curiosity of the
white man. They are covered with the same veil of mystery as the
other parts of the gloomy spot where they are standing. But romance,
ever ready to lend her light, when that of truth is obscured, has preserved the following tradition, which we heard in substance from the
lips of our boatman.
“Many years ago, long before the whites had penetrated to this
wilderness, the inhabitants of an Indian village in the vicinity were
surprised by a party of hostile warriors. They had formed their encampment around the point which you see jutting out into the water,
and proceeded silently to the abode of their enemy. The forest resounded with the cries of Indian combat. The villagers fought with
the energy of desperation, but were at length obliged to yield to superior numbers, and leave their wives, children and property, in the
power of their enemies. Among the prisoners was an Indian girl, betrothed to a young warrior, who had signalized himself by his desperate valor in the defence. The enemy remained for a few days at
the scene of their triumph, employed in hunting and fishing, preparatory to their return. On the eve of their departure, the moon had risen in a cloudless sky, and was gilding lake and woodland with her
light. Every thing on earth was seemingly as peaceful as the heavens.
Sebago Pond — 69
The party, after having, as they thought, secured their prisoners, had
lain down to rest ere the march of the morrow. A slight rustling suddenly aroused a warrior, and on looking up, the captive maiden was
seen flying like a deer toward the precipices. The alarm was given,
and pursuit instantly commenced. The distance between the pursuers
and the fugitive was small, when suddenly she appeared to vanish
through the solid rock. A few moments of breathless amazement succeeded, when the plash of oars was heard from the water. The brow
of the rock was thronged with the dark forms of the savages, gazing
into the abyss. Suddenly a canoe, containing two figures, shot from
the cave. The whistling of a few unsuccessful arrow shots, and a
shout of triumph from the lake, disturbed for a while the tranquillity
of nature, and the wilderness again sunk into the stillness of midnight.
In after times the young warrior and his bride returned to the
scene of their nocturnal adventure, and painted these figures in commemoration of it. Time has not impaired their work, or their
memory, and to this day the spot retains the name of the “Lovers
Cave.”
K. K.
_______________
THE
AMERICAN MONTHLY MAGAZINE.
JULY, 1837.
(VOL. X.)
THE TOTEM.
___________
BY A. B. STREET.123
___________
THE year 1755 is signalized as the commencement of the long
and bloody war between England and France for empire in the
forests of the Western world.124 The erection of Fort Du Quesne at
the confluence of the Alleghany and Monongahela rivers,125 and the
attack upon Colonel Washington at the Little Meadows,126 were considered by the former power as the gauntlet thrown by the latter to
decide by the sword their respective claims to the vast region lying
between the Apalachian chain and the Mississippi.127
The defying roar of the British Lion immediately responded to
the challenging shriek of the Gallic Eagle ;128 and, accordingly, General Braddock was dispatched, with a few regiments, by the cabinet
of England, to uphold the pretensions of its monarch to the disputed
territory.
123 Alfred Billings Street (1811-1881), American poet, the author of The Burning of
Schenectady, and Other Poems (1842) and Frontenac (1849).
124 The conflict—known as the French and Indian War—opposing Great Britain and France
on the American soil actually started in 1754 and was to last seven years (1754-1763), resulting in France’s loss of all its possessions on the American mainland.
125 The Monongahela originates in West Virginia and flows north into Pennsylvania where it
joins the Allegheny River to form the Ohio River.
126 Probably Great Meadows (Fort Necessity) where the Virginian troops were massively attacked by the French (4 July 1754) in retaliation for Washington’s capture of a French patrol
two months before. The Americans capitulated after having valiantly resisted and the survivors, among whom was Colonel Washington, were allowed to march back to inhabited parts
of Virginia.
127 Part of that region was French Louisiana, whose portion east of the Mississippi was to be
ceded to Britain in 1763.
128 Symbolizing France.
The Totem— 71
Fort Du Quesne being of much importance,129 as its possession
gave the French great control over the numerous tribes of Indians inhabiting the Ohio, its capture was first resolved on by the Convention held in Virginia : and the army destined for this enterprise,
commanded by Braddock in person,130 left Cumberland post131 about
the middle of June, in the year above-mentioned, and began its
march through the Aboriginal wilderness.
It was at the close of day in the early part of July following the
departure of troops that our story opens.132 The rich crimson and gold
of sunset, broken into masses by the intervening forest, were glowing
on a bend of the Monongahela ; and streaks of levellight, darting
through the thickets, lay upon the green bosom of a glade interspersed with trees, near the bank of the river. The scene was sleeping in the silence and solitude of nature, interrupted only by the
sights and sounds characteristic of the forests.
A slanting beam glittered upon the crimson crest of the woodpecker, hammering on the sounding bark, disclosed the rootwreathed grotto of a squirrel chirping among the leaves at its entrance, and bathed the glossy sides of a magnificent deer quietly
cropping the rich grass and long fern leaves that covered the spot
with verdure. Suddenly the rolling taps of the woodpecker ceased ;
the squirrel leaped to its little fortress ; and the deer, rearing his
broad antlers, snuffed the air for a moment, and bounding over a
thicket of laurel, disappeared in the furthest depths of the wood.
129 Originally named Fort Prince George, it was erected on the initiative of Virginian Governor Dinwiddie. The French drove the Virginians away in 1754, reinforced the fort and named
it after the Marquis de Duquesne, governor-general of New France. The following year, it was
the target of an unsuccessful expedition under British General Edward Braddock. The French
abandoned their position in 1758 to advancing British General Forbes’s troops and burned the
fort. It was rebuilt by the English and renamed Fort Pitt, now the site of Pittsburgh.
130 Braddock, Edward (1695–1755), British general appointed commander in chief of the
British forces in America against the French. At the head of some 700 colonial militiamen and
1,400 British regulars, he marched toward Fort Duquesne with the aim of capturing it. Progressing too slowly, he accepted George Washington’s suggestion that they should leave behind one third of their troops. On July 9, 1775, he was attacked by the joint forces of some 900
men (French, Canadians and Native Americans) under Daniel Beaujeu. Two thirds of the men
engaged and almost all the officers were killed by the French; Braddock himself was mortally
wounded.
131 The fort, first called Mt. Pleasant, was built in 1754; General Braddock enlarged it in
1755 and renamed it after his friend the Duke of Cumberland.
132 Precisely on 9 July 1775.
72 — Hudson and Native Stories
The cause of this affright among the sylvan inhabitants was soon
explained by the rapid entrance of a form bearing the distinctive
marks of an Indian warrior. He was tall and apparently young, his
face profusely covered with the war paint ; in one hand he carried a
rifle, in his belt a knife and tomahawk, and, mingling with a long tuft
upon his head, was the plume of an eagle. He stood a moment in an
attitude of intense listening ; and, as a faint sound swelled from the
distance, stooped his ear to the earth, and then darted along a wild
broken road which led from the glade into the bosom of the forest.
Clambering to the highest bough of a gigantic oak which towered
from a ledge at the side of the path, he cast his eye over the wide and
leafy expanse around him. After a short gaze he descended, and
again bounded to the glade ; and giving utterance to a short sharp
cry, like the bark of a fox, the whole scene was changed in a moment. Hundreds of tawny forms, armed like the first, started from the
hitherto motionless thickets and the innumerable interstices of the
trees, and, crowding around the tall form of the warrior, presented a
wild circle of glittering weapons and flashing eyeballs.
“Onwawisset,” said he with the plume, “has seen the Long
Knives133 on the trail, and they are many. But the tribe of the Eagle
are brave ; will they fight with their Sachem ?”
A fierce gleaming of eyes fixed on the young Chief, and a universal clutching of rifles were the answers.
“They are coming like foolish bears to the trap,” added he after a
short pause. “Listen,” as the blast of a distant bugle sounded through
the forest, “they cry out like the wolf when he scents the deer, but
knows not that the lurking panther is before him.” And then, as a
nearer swell echoed around, he dashed into the forest, and the whole
band, following one after another, and carefully concealing their
trail, was lost in the deepening shadows cast from the branches in the
approaching twilight.
The warble of the robin was swelling through the silence that
had again settled on the scene, when the full sound of a bugle rung
through the leafy arches. A loud trampling sounded in the direction
of the road ; a banner fluttered among the tree-tops, and a long line
of British grenadiers, their red uniforms in striking contrast to the
133 The Americans were nicknamed “long knives” because of the six-feet-long spontoons
(spears) carried by American soldiers of the period.
The Totem— 73
green tints of the wood, debouched from the narrow opening into the
glade ; and a loud command of “halt !” was given. Following these,
and mounted, came two officers, one of an elderly aspect, and the
other apparently twenty-two or three years of age. The mien of the
former was that of a practised soldier, with an expression of great
haughtiness in his stern eye and compressed brow. The latter, although he sat straight in his saddle, with much determination in his
look, had evidently suffered from recent illness, and was still experiencing some of its consequent weakness from a shade of pallor cast
over his fine features, and a slight languor perceptible in his commanding form.134
Succeeding, file after file, came the main body of the army with
the baggage waggons and field pieces, the green frocks of the Virginia rangers mingling with the uniforms of the artillerists and light infantry.
While the necessary preparations were making for the night encampment, the two officers, having dismounted, were standing beneath the drooping boughs of an old chesnut, viewing the scene but
out of earshot.
“Well, Colonel,” said the elder to his companion, “we cannot be
far from Du Quesne, and a night’s rest will do my fellow some
good ; and before this time to-morrow I shall plant the banners of my
king on the walls of the fort.”
“Do you not think, General Braddock,” answered the young soldier, respectfully but with firmness, “it will be better to march with
more caution, and send out scouts to beat the woods as we approach
our destination ? These deep forests may hold many an enemy, and
that of the subtlest kind, whose motions are as silent and unseen as
the serpent’s. I allude to the Indians.”
“Tush ! Colonel Washington,” responded Braddock, “There are
no enemies, unless you call these gigantic trees by that title, for they
are the only things I have seen since we left the Little Meadows ; and
as for the Indians, one discharge of my cannon would disperse them
like a pack of bowling wolves.”135 “But could your Excellency,” said
Washington, “use your cannon with much effect where every trunk
would be a shield, and every thicket a fortress to conceal the foe ?”
134 Washington, who had suffered
135 Braddock was doubly wrong:
from fever during June, only joined Braddock on July 8.
his men, discouraged by the Natives’ unfamiliar way of
fighting, put up little resistance to the enemy.
74 — Hudson and Native Stories
“No more, Colonel Washington, I adopt my own course ; no
scouts are necessary ; and let me tell you, sir, that when I took the
command of this army, it was not to follow the advice of one who,
instead of being my aid, aspires to be my catechist.” So saying, the
haughty and doomed General turned angrily away from the young
soldier, whose features teemed with a look of inexpressible disgust.
The twilight was now assuming the duskiness of night, and
deeper shadows were following momentarily over the surface of the
Monongahela, upon the glade in which the army was now resting,
and amid the boundless ocean-like forests.
In a hollow, thickly covered with delicate moss, a little removed
from the glade and shadowed by the branching foliage, through
whose parted summits the golden sparkle of a star was brightening,
two figures were stretched, one clothed in the uniform of the Virginian rifle corps, while the other displayed the rich dress of the British
regulars. The Virginian was amusing himself with picking the scauberry that lay like a crimson drop amid its creeping green embroidery ; the other, after a preliminary yawn, interrupted the silence by
saying—
“Of all forests, Melancourt, those in this America of yours I
think must be the most interminable. Here have we been tramping for
the last four days through a wilderness, without hardly catching a
glimpse of the blessed sun. I hope we are near the fort, for I am
heartily sick of this burrowing with the wild beasts.”
“Without controverting your taste, Delancey,” answered his
companion, “I for my part like these vast solitudes of Nature. There
is something inexpressibly grand to me in the sight of these glorious
trees that have witnessed the flight of ages. There is an oak now, I’ll
warrant you, was a vigorous sapling at the first landing of Raleigh’s
expedition,136 and will wear its green coronet of leaves as freshly as
now, long after you and I have returned to our original dust.”
“Well, you are welcome to your taste for these gigantic excrescences ; but give me the smooth meadows of old England with
their ivyed castles. If you admire these things for their antiquity, you
ought to reverence those hoary relics of a thousand years.”
136 Sir Walter Raleigh (1552–1618), English explorer and writer. Involved in the colonisation of Virginia, he was at the origin of the unsuccessful settlement of Roanoke in the 1580s.
The Totem— 75
“I might dispute your claims,” answered Melancourt, “as regards
the greater antiquity of the two. This old chesnut, lifting its naked
top, dripping with gray moss, I have no doubt has seen as many years
as any of your crumbling castles, to which the hermit eagle that has
just flown from its summit, if he possessed the gift of speech, might
testify.” Then, as if wishing to change the theme which might involve him in the mazes of an argument, he added “But to leave speculation for sober realities ; our worthy commander is a brave and
skilful officer doubtless, but between you and me, Delancey, he will
not do to fight Indians. This incautious manner of going through almost impervious wilds, the very home, too, of our savage enemies,
will expose us to great peril, should they strike our trail ; I believe
now we shall meet with an ambuscade before we arrive at the fort.”
“Let them come,” said Delancey, carelessly, “and they will feel
the weight of an Englishman’s arm.”
“Mere courage will never do,” responded the other ; “however,
we must obey orders if death is the consequence.”
“Your countryman, Colonel Washington, is a fine specimen of a
soldier,” observed Delancey ; “how gallantly he struggled against his
sickness.”137
“Yes,” answered Melancourt, “young as he is he has given
proofs of talent and energy which, sooner or later, will carry him to
greatness.”
There was a pause, which was interrupted by Melancourt, who
turning to his companion, said :—
“Do you know I have a sort of liking for these red warriors.”
“Why so ?” asked Delancey, in some surprise.
“On account of an Indian boy who was domesticated for some
years under my father’s roof,” answered the Virginian ; “it was quite
a romantic incident.”
“Do tell it then ; it will be some consolation for the sting, of
these infernal musquitoes that are phlebotomizing me most unmercifully,” said Delancey, threshing the air with a leafy branch to repel
the attacks of the buzzing insects the marshes of the river had sent
forth in clouds.
“When I was about fourteen years old,” commenced Melancourt, “an aged Indian, accompanied by a lad of apparently my own
137 See
note 134.
76 — Hudson and Native Stories
age, came to our dwelling, and asked lodgings for the night. The old
man seemed to be suffering greatly from disease, and my father bade
him welcome. In the course of the night we were awakened by the
cries of the boy ; and, hastening to the apartment of the aged savage,
found him writhing in the agonies of death. He had barely time to inform my father that he was a chief of the Delaware nation,138 and
that, accompanied by this lad, his son was on his way to visit a distant tribe, when he had been attacked with the illness which was now
producing his death. He entreated my father to protect his son until
means could be taken to send him to his tribe, which was far distant ;
and, on receiving the promise, he expired. The young Indian showed
so much gratitude and affection, that, after waiting a length of time
for some one to claim him, my father, who was a widower, and I his
only child, adopted him. Joscelyn, the name we gave him, exhibited
frequent evidences of the most daring courage with the most unbounded love for us both ; and saved me once from drowning at the imminent peril of his own life. With an art he had acquired amongst his
nation, he tattooed on my breast the figure of an eagle, with the
names of Melancourt and Joscelyn surrounded by a chain of wampum.” Here the Virginian, parting his garments, disclosed to Delancey, by the aid of a broad pensile of silver cast by the moon rising
above the tree-tops, the representation beautifully worked upon his
bosom
“About eight years ago, “resumed Melancourt, “my father embarked for England, taking me with him, leaving Joscelyn and an old
family servant in charge of his dwelling ; and after a long and stormy
passage, we reached the mother country. His intention was to make a
short visit, but circumstances delayed us far beyond our time ; and
two years elapsed before we again returned to our home in Virginia.
Surprised at not finding Joscelyn the first to welcome us, my first inquiries were of him. Our old domestic informed me, that some time
after our embarkation, news had reached them that our vessel had
been wrecked. Joscelyn gave himself up to an extremity of despair
and grief, and a long period having elapsed without further tidings
from us, one morning he presented himself to the old servant,
dressed in his native garb, bade him an everlasting adieu and left the
138 A group of Native American peoples from the Delaware and Hudson river valleys. They
formed several political alliances after losing their lands to white settlement in the 17 th and 18th
centuries when they migrated to the West.
The Totem— 77
dwelling. Since then, nothing had been heard of him. My father and
myself have made many inquiries, but with little effect, except floating rumours that he is at present a distinguished “warrior, if not a
chief, of one of the tribes about the Ohio.”
“Quite a novel relation, upon my honour,” said Delancey. “Suppose, lieutenant, you were to meet him in battle in these wild
forests.”
“I should not wonder,” answered Melancourt, smiling ; “but I do
not think I should know him, so many years having elapsed since I
saw him last.”
Here Melancourt was interrupted by a terrific shriek, that
swelled through the forests so clear, shrill, and piercing, that it
thrilled through the brains of the young soldiers, so as almost to
deafen their faculties.
“What the deuce is that !” ejaculated Delancey, starting from his
lying posture to his feet, and placing his hands to his head.
“That is the scream of what we natives call a panther,” answered
Melancourt, laughing.
“Well, if your woods grow such creatures as that, I would rather
be excused from being in them again after once escaping. Whew !
my ears ring and tingle with the sound yet.”
“It is a common one in our forests,” returned the Virginian ;
“listen to his whining,” as broken tones came from the darkness, succeeded by a sudden crash ; “that is his spring to some lower branch.
Now hold your breath for a moment, and you will hear the howl of a
wolf.”
Delancey listened intently, and borne on the light creeping airsighs, came a long mournful sound, rising full upon the ear, and sinking again like a dying echo. This tone was taken up by an owl,
which, shrouded by the leaves, commenced his jarring seesaw, joined
by a whippoorwill, whistling its monotonous notes like an anchorite
repeating his orisons to the moon.
“Quite a forest serenade,”said Delancey.
“Well, let us to rest,” cried Melancourt; “the sentinels are posted
I see, and more of them too than usual ; that shows a little more caution in our general at any rate.”
So saying, the two friends left their position for one nearer the
glade, and within the circle formed by the baggage-waggons and
78 — Hudson and Native Stories
pieces of artillery, where the troops were reposing on their ams with
the rich grass for their pillows and the foliage of the trace for their
canopy. Selecting a mound of soft moss, and stretching their watchcoats over it, the youths composed themselves for sleep. In a short
space the scene was silent, except the sweet and continuous murmur
of the river ripples—the slumberous sounds of the numberless insects—now and then the pawing of some restless horse, and the clattering of a weapon, as the sleeper turned in his natural couch, with
the splendid moon throwing her silver mantle on the summits of the
forests, and darting her gleams through the intercepting trees, to scatter them in sprinkled spots and broken streaks on the green surface of
the glade.
The clear melody of the brown thresher, the American lark, was
sounding from the top of a gigantic pine where he had perched himself, warbling in three distinct gradations, now in a low, liquid tone,
then rising higher and fuller, and ending in a clear, shrill flourish,
and the gray light was brightening into effulgence, when the reveille
rattled through the forest, and each soldier sprang from his lair, obedient to the summons.
“Up, man, up !” said Melancourt to his friend ; “the sunbeams
will be dancing in your eyes if you lay there much longer.”
“Egad,” said Delancey, with a yawn, “that cursed drum woke me
from as pleasant a dream as I ever had. I thought I was in England
—“Officers, to your post’” commanded the stern voice of Braddock ;
“form the order of march !” and, mounting his horse, with Colonel
Washington by his side, the whole turned towards the Monongahela,
across which the path lay towards the fort.
So much difficulty and delay were experienced in crossing the
river, that the sun had nearly attained his meridian before the army
had again formed in regular array.
It was one of those brilliant days that sometimes beams from the
forehead of the all-powerful and immaculate Essence to brighten his
footstool with beauty. Clouds of the most delicate and pearly whiteness floated gently through a sky of softened azure, and wafted
sometimes across the sun’s disc, streamed over it like veils with
fringes of glittering silver.
At intervals the interminable leaves of the boundless forest
would tremble in faint stealing sighs of wind, as though the air was
The Totem— 79
breathing in its deep and regular slumber. The tall shafts of the trees
reared their arches and roofs of foliage in a silence, majestic from the
grandeur of the scale in which Nature was exhibited.
As the troops proceeded over the wild road which was now indicated by “blazes” on the huge trunks, now choked by clumps of
laurel and small saplings, and now showing faint wheel-marks, the
brown carpet of withered leaves which had covered the earth gave
place to long grass, while the thickets became denser and more frequent.
The broad edges of shadow lay on the moss-mounds that
swelled the surface of the road, and darkened the snake-like roots
that thrust themselves out from the border of forest on either side.
“How far should you think, Colonel, we were from Du
Quesne ?” inquired Braddock of his companion.
“About ten miles, if my recollection serves me,” answered
Washington.139 “Is it not best now to send the Virginia riflemen in
advance ?”
“No, no, Colonel Washington, there is no danger of an attack,
and his Majesty’s regulars shall give place to none.”
White this conversation was proceeding, Melancourt was marching by the side of his friend, and expatiating on his favourite beauties
of forest scenes.
“Is not this as lovely as any in your native England, Delancey ?
Observe that tall maple, lifting its leafy mass like a Gothic roof with
the broken sunshine sprinkled in golden dots on its leaves. Do you
see that startled partridge in the spot of light dropped from the
crooked branches of yon birch, swelling its mottled breast and
stretching its long neck as if too frightened to fly ? Hark ! there it
whirrs away. We are treading on grass as soft and green as velvet,
and the very musket of that soldier has trailed over a soot perfectly
starred with violets. What a wall of foliage on each side too, Delancey ; and yon hovering hawk seems a dark spot on the cloud hanging
over that pine like a snow flake. Here is a place so open you can see
the grasshopper springing, and there is a thicket that a wren could
hardly penetrate ; ha !” ejaculated he, as he fixed his gaze on a thick
clustering bush.
139 Washington was sent to the area by governor Dinwiddie in autumn 1753 to challenge the
French presence. The construction of Fort Prince George started in January 1774.
80 — Hudson and Native Stories
“What’s the matter now, Melancourt ?” asked Delancey.
“I declare to you,” whispered the Virginian,” I saw the gleam of
an eye from yonder thicket.”
“Pshaw ! man,” said his friend, “it was only some rabbit looking
with astonishment at our red coats and muskets.”
“Perhaps so,” rejoined Melancourt, doubtingly ; “but I will to
my post in the contingency of an attack.”
He had barely rejoined his company when the air was rent with
loud wild sounds, louder and wilder than the shrieks of a thousand
famished eagles—sounds that made the hearts of the boldest tremble,
so indicative were they of ferocity and blood ; and with the terrific
war-whoops from bush, from tree, and waving grass, came a terrific
crash ; the sharp tone of the rifle and the full ring of the musket blended in one fearful simultaneous discharge. Down dropped the soldiers, like leaves of Autumn beneath the roaring hail-stones, while
higher and fiercer pealed the whoops, and thicker and faster echoed
the reports ; and from the forest in front and on either side rushed
fiery, and smoking, and whistling death.
Bewildered and panic-struck, the regulars composing the van of
the army recoiled back upon the main body, where Braddock, undaunted, supplying by courage what he lacked in prudence, was
vainly endeavouring to form his broken files, momentarily falling
beneath the deadly bullets of the invisible foe. “Form, men, form !”
shouted he, as he gallopped among his soldiers, when a shot struck
his steed, which, springing with a convulsive motion, fell headlong
to the earth. It required but a moment’s lapse for the General to catch
another from among the many scouring around riderless, and he was
again vainly endeavouring to stem the torrent of havoc confusion,
and dismay.
“Form ! Form !” shouted he continually, his voice rising above
the cries, groans, and whoopings of the fight. “Does he think it
parade day ?” muttered a grim, old sergeant, “that he orders us to
form amongst a legion of yelling devils that we can’t see ?”
At this junction Colonel Washington gallopped up to the Virginia troops, who were using their rifles wherever the gushes of
smoke from the bushes betokened the presence of an enemy, and
ordered each to his cover. Hitherto the assailants had been concealed ; but, elated by their success, wild countenances were now
The Totem— 81
glancing above the thickets, with here and there the plumed cap of a
Frenchman ; and with a burst of war-whoops, the whole band
bounded from their ambush full upon the disordered ranks of the
English soldiery. Then it was that the rifles of Virginia did good service, as they poured each from his shelter a destructive fire, fully attested by the fall of many a savage foe.
Melancourt, from behind the tree where he had posted himself,
had just discharged his weapon, when his attention was attracted to
the tall form of an Indian warrior, with an eagle’s plume streaming
oven his head, by the activity and courage he displayed. Now
crouching with his pointed rifle, now leaping with his brandished
tomahawk, he distributed death wherever he appeared. “He fights
more like a demon than a man,” whispered one of his men to another. At this instant the young Virginian saw Braddock dashing
amongst the struggling throng, and the Indian taking deliberate aim
at his person ; the next, and the form of the General sunk from his
horse and disappeared in the wild surges of the desperate conflict.
Then commenced the flight of the soldiery. In vain Washington endeavoured to arrest the backward rush ; in vain with his own hand he
wheeled one of the pieces of artillery, and woke its thunder upon the
shouting and triumphant foe. Speeding with the impetuosity of fear,
the army fled towards the Monongahela to seek shelter on its opposite shore.
Melancourt had again emptied his rifle, and was about joining in
the indiscriminate retreat, when his eye once more caught the figure
of the Indian before-mentioned engaged in a desperate hand to hand
conflict with a British officer, whom he discovered at a glance to be
Delancey ; the latter with his sword, and the former with his tomahawk.
To cast his useless weapon aside, whirl his sabre from its sheath
and bound to the spot, was the work of a moment for the Virginian.
A single leap would have placed him at the side of his friend,
but at that instant the tomahawk made a glittering sweep, and Delancey fell dead at the feet of Melancourt with the weapon buried deep
in his temple. The young officer heard the Indian’s yell of triumph,
and saw the gleam of his rolling and fiery eyes as he clutched his
knife and bent back his form for a spring upon his new antagonist ;
but as he bounded forward, Melancourt, with a rapid thrust, plunged
82 — Hudson and Native Stories
his sword into the tawny breast of the savage. The spot had in a
measure been screened from sight ; but a near burst of war-whoops
meeting the ear of the Virginian, he perceived a large band of Indians
advancing upon him, and taking a last look of his friend, he mingled
with the retreating crowds which were seeking safety on the other
side of the Monongahela.
_____________
CHAPTER II.
ABOUT a year subsequent to the events related in our last chapter,
a small company of rangers, under the command of a young provincial officer, occupied a block-house situated a few leagues from the
fort of Oswego in western New York, then the theatre of active operations of the two belligerent powers.140
The building was composed of rude logs, and placed in the
midst of an open semicircular space, bounded by a deep narrow ravine, through which rushed a small but impetuous stream, and the
dense leafy barriers of the universal forests. Within a few feet of the
block-house were three or four old hemlocks, lifting their huge
trunks and skeleton, leafless branches covered with thick coats of
hanging moss.
The sun was setting and tinging the black masses of cloud that
curtained the sky with streaks of lurid and sullied red. Seated within
the area, and on the very verge of the ravine, were two officers in the
military garb of the American provinces.
“A gloomy spot, Lieutenant Grey,” observed the elder of the
two, looking through a chasm formed by the high broken precipitous
walls of the ravine ; “yon torrent has a fearful depth of bed,” catching
through the hanging branches and clustering thickets glimpses of
dashing foam, where the cataract shot through its narrow limits, roaring like some infuriated Titan141 chained in a hollow of the earth and
struggling for his freedom. “Do you think, Grey,” resumed he, glan140 First an important frontier post for British traders, the fort, also named Fort Chouaguen,
was built in 1727 on the initiative of New York’s governor William Burnet. It was captured by
the French, led by General Montcalm, in August 1756. Montcalm destroyed the fort and distributed the British supplies to his Native allies, which encouraged tribes who had been supporting the British to switch to the French side.
141 The gods who ruled the world until they were discarded by Zeus.
The Totem— 83
cing across the yawning throat of the ravine, “one could leap this
chasm if life depended on the effort ?”
“With such a platform to receive him,” answered Grey, pointing
to a ledge jutting from the opposite bank.
“I cannot tell why, Grey, but this spot throws a gloom over my
feelings. As I look at those dashing surges beneath, they seem to
have some connection with my future fate. Have you never felt a
foreboding, a presentiment, as it were, of impending evil ?”
“I can’t say that I have” answered Grey, smiling.
There was a silence which was soon interrupted by Grey.
“I am glad Colonel Mercer142 has not forgotten us. When shall
we expect the reinforcements ?”
Receiving no answer, Grey turned round, and found his companion gazing fixedly on the chasm. “Captain—Captain Melancourt ! excuse me, sir, but when do you expect the reinforcements
from Colonel Mercer ?”
“Tomorrow,” answered Melancourt, rousing from his reverie,
“his despatches inform me ; but let us in, the wind is chilly from the
forests. We shall have a tempestuous night.” And rising, the two officers made their way into the block-house.
Night closed around tempestuously and darkly. Along the sky
were piled clouds in gigantic shapes, between which streamed now
and then an evanescent glance of moonlight, with here and there a
solitary star. At intervals the huge forms would rush and roll under
the influence of the sweeping blasts, like the billow of ocean in a
storm, and then again would settle heavily and sluggishly in their
deep and universal frown.
Melancourt stood on the platform of the block-house, now
watching the ragged masses shooting above with the velocity of
lightning, now gazing over the thick darkness that brooded on the
scene, and now listening to the heavy gusts that, crashing through the
forests, rushed around the building in hoarse and whistling sounds. A
glare of moonlight breaking from the parted edges of a cloud, disclosed to his view the group of old hemlocks—their withered and
jagged branches leaping, as it were, out of the darkness under the effect of the sudden and transitory gleam. After they had shrunk back
in the gloom, his eye was still fixed upon them, so spectral had been
142 The
British commander of the fort, killed during the onslaught.
84 — Hudson and Native Stories
their appearance, when he became sensible of spots of red light moving and dancing near the earth where he knew they were planted.
As he crouched behind the parapet, and looked through an embrasure, he saw a fierce gleam, spring up, instantly enlarging into a
volume of flame that wreathed around the shaft of a hemlock in darting and spiral curls like the flashing convolutions of a fiery serpent.
This was succeeded by another and another, till the whole group of
trees was rapped in the crimson mantle of the devouring element, and
in the glare shed around, the young soldier saw numerous wild figures that he discovered to be Indians, some with torches pointing to
the devoted block-house with the malignant joy of successful
demons. Hastily descending to the lower apartment, he found his soldiers apprised of their situation by the light which was flashing
through the loop-holes of the little fort. Posting them at their different stations, he commanded them to fire at the forms that were dancing with frantic gestures around the conflagration. The order being
instantly obeyed, the air re-echoed with a fierce burst of savage warwhoops, sounding on every aisle of the block-house. Taking Grey
aside, Melancourt said,
“We are surrounded, Lieutenant ; should the block-house catch
fire, as I fear it will, we must cut our way through. The depth of the
ravine excludes all hopes of aid from the water, even should their
rifles allow us to make the effort. See how the flames stream towards
us in the wind, as if greedy for their prey,” added he, glancing
through a loophole ; and, as they ascended the ladder that led to the
platform, and opened the trap-door, he exclaimed, “the hot coals are
falling in showers upon our roof, and, by heaven ! it is smoking now
in many places.” At this moment two of the trees, that were towering
like blazing pyramids, rocked fearfully in one of the violent gusts
which came roaring from the forest, and at last, with a thundering
crash, toppled headlong upon the block-house, covering the platform
with their fiery fragments. The dry materials were soon enveloped in
flames ; which sight seemed still more to excite the savages, as yell
pealed on yell and shouts of derision testified.
“Our path lies through the whooping fiends,” said Melancourt as
he descended with his companion ; “grasp your weapons, my boys,
and sally upon them.” The entrance was thrown open, and the little
band rushed out upon the throng of savages, who had all left their
The Totem— 85
leafy fastness, and stood waiting for the appearance of their prey
with the ferocity of lurking tigers. A crash of rifles and a whistling of
bullets, mingled with ferocious yells, met the rush of the band from
the tottering fort—the thunder of blazing rafters succeeded, and then
a leaping of tawny forms, and a flashing of brandished tomahawks.
Melancourt, sword in hand, was advancing forward at the head
of his company, when that leaden hail poured upon his ranks. As
Grey fell dead at his feet, he heard a shrill whoop of exultation, and
saw the tall form of an Indian warrior speeding with terrible bounds
upon him, At the same instant that a shot struck his right arm powerless, he felt the iron grasp of the savage upon his throat.
Consternation was mingled with surprise in the bosom of the
youth when he saw in his assailant, by the strong glare of the flames,
the eagle-plumed warrior he imagined he had slain in the battle of the
Monongahela.
The yells of triumph, the shrieks and groans of the dying, the
crashing of the falling building, blended in one horrible concert as
Melancourt was borne, bound and struggling, away by two of his
wild foemen, and brought to his mind the sickening conviction of the
fate of his unfortunate soldiers. The scalping knife and tomahawk
were never known to spare except for the purposes of torture, which
last he felt to be his own doom. He was carried some little distance in
the forest, and thrust into a cave in a ledge of rocks. Barely had he
touched the cold earthen floor, before the anguish of his wound and
the loss of blood he had endured plunged him into a state of utter insensibility. Recovering from this but to relapse into a torpor, which
was but the counterfeit of sleep, he was at last aroused by the entrance of his two conductors, who led him from the cavern. The unclouded sunbeams were shining into the forest, and glittering on the
weapons and ornaments of savage crowd surrounding an upright
stake. To it the young Virginian was led and firmly bound with
thongs, while a heap of combustibles was collected around him.
Nought met his gaze, wandering in the restlessness of misery and
despair, but a wall of wild forms and ferocious visages, with gleaming eyes fixed upon him in deepest silence. A movement was now
susceptible in one part of the group, and, striding through the space,
the lofty form of the plumaged warrior stood before the helpless and
suffering youth.
86 — Hudson and Native Stories
His hand clutched his crimsoned tomahawk ; from his belt hung
scalps clotted with blood ; and his light beaver robe showed the same
ruddy coagulated drops.
He rolled his fierce snake-like eye upon the young soldier, and
for a short space surveyed him with a glance in which triumph was
mingled with the most demoniac hate. At length a disdainful smile
crossed his features, and, with a writhing lip, he exclaimed in the
English tongue—
“The long knife of the pale face has been red with the blood of
Onwawisset ; but he still lives.”
No answer was returned by Melancourt, although the gaze of the
savage was exchanged by a glance as haughty.
“Is the young chief afraid now that he faces the warriors of the
Eagle ?” resumed the Indian with a sneer ; “does he tremble too
much to speak to their sachem ?”
This insult aroused the angry feelings of the soldier to such a degree that they overcame his prudence, and he exclaimed,
“Do what you will, but know I can meet my fate with as much
firmness as any barbarian of you all.”
The chief again, smiled disdainfully, although the flashing of his
eye showed that the epithet had been understood and felt.
“Onwawisset is glad that the ears of the pale face are not shut.
Are his eyes opened wide that he can see ?” removing his robe, and
displaying a scar upon his breast. “What has the young Chief to say ?
Can he tell the Sachem of the Eagle he did not make that mark, and
not lie ?”
Again the youth vouchsafed not an answer.
“Is the young Chief again a woman ?” tauntingly resumed the
savage ; “call the girls of my tribe, that they may talk to him ; he cannot speak to a warrior.”
“Base fiend !“ shouted Melancourt, lifted above the thoughts of
death by the sneers of his enemy ; “I defy you ! this arm inflicted the
wound ; would it had reached your life.”
The tomahawk of the Indian was lifted, his teeth grated, and his
eyes glowed like coals of fire ; but the action was checked as a revulsion of feeling came across his countenance.
“The stake shall not be robbed by my tomahawk. But let the
white slave listen,” said he fiercely ; “he has shed the blood of On-
The Totem— 87
wawisset, who is a great Chief, whose father was a Sachem, whose
tribe is the tribe of the Eagle. Many moons passed away before he
could be again on the war path ; he was a woman, and whining like a
dying panther while the warriors of his tribe were adding scalps to
their belts. The long knife of the pale face made Onwawisset a woman,” growled the Chief in tones of kindling rage ; “he did that
which the young men of the Maquas143 have often tried, and failed.
But the Sachem has been long on his trail. He said to his young men,
let the pale face be taken for the torture. The tribe of the Eagle are
brave ;—he is here. But his hour is come ; Onwawisset will burn out
the heart of his slave.”
Lashed to the utmost pitch of fury, with a piercing whoop which
was echoed by the throng around, the savage snatched a burning knot
of pine from one who was pressing eagerly on the captive ; with one
hand he rent the garment from the breast of the youth, with the other
he thrust the flame of the torch so near that it scorched the naked
skin. But something arrested his motion—he started—recoiled—
while his eyes seemed as if bursting from their sockets. Full on the
exposed breast was the tattooed representation of the Eagle, with the
names of Melancourt and Joscelyn, and the circle of mimic wampum.
Doubt, wonder, fear, successively flitted across the countenance
of the red warrior as he gazed. He advanced, stepped back, and then
rushing to the youth, he placed both hands on his shoulders, and
looked with fixed attention into his eyes, as though to pierce his soul.
While the savage was thus agitated by his conflicting feelings, a
sudden thought, carrying with it conviction, flashed across the mind
of Melancourt. But the words springing to his lips were anticipated
by the Indian, who exclaimed, in broken accents,
“Has the Great Spirit sent back one who has long since departed
to the land of souls, to make Onwawisset a coward ! That totem—it
was made by him, in his days of blossoms, on the breast of his white
brother. Let the young Chief speak ; there is something in his eye
that stirs the heart of the Sachem.”
“Joscelyn !” exclaimed the youth. Lightning is not more rapid
than the start which the young Chief again gave ; and while an ex143 Dutch name of the Mohawk people living in northeast New York. They belonged to the
Iroquois confederacy, then the allies of the British.
88 — Hudson and Native Stories
pression of tenderness shot across his visage, with one blow of his
tomahawk he severed the thongs that bound Melancourt to the stake.
“Behold !” said he, turning to the crowd of savages, and pointing
to the bosom of the youth, behold, warriors of the Eagle, the totem of
your tribe ! Onwawisset claims the captive for his brother.”
Surprise appeared to be first predominant in the circle, each
looking at the other in the profoundest silence. But while Melancourt
was congratulating himself upon his escape, a warrior stepped from
the assemblage, and placing himself before the young Sachem, exclaimed,
“Has Onwawisset drank of the wysoccan,144 that he would save
the pale face from the torture ? Has he been so long on his trail to
make him his brother !”
“Onwawisset is your Chief—he has said it ;” answered the
young Indian, haughtily.
“He is a great warrior although his years are few. But he is
laughing with his people—he cannot mean to set free the pale face.”
“Listen, Wahalaka,” said the young Chief fiercely, elevating his
lofty form ; “I am of a race of Sachems. I have said the pale-face
shall be my brother. He shall be taken to my lodge.”
“Wahalaka,” resumed the other, fixing his eye, “sees again the
battle in the woods. Onwawisset is there with his people, and the
people of his French father. The bloody Yengeese145 are caught in the
long grass. The warriors of the Eagle shout as they tear the scalps
from their enemies. But who is that writhing on the earth like a
crushed snake ? it is Onwawisset ; and over him stands the pale-face,
with his long knife dripping with the blood of the Sachem.”
The peculiar feelings of an Indian warrior, stirred by this artful
appeal, appeared to be again wakening in the bosom of Onwawisset ;
for his eye gleamed, and he turned fiercely to Melancourt ; but the
impulse was momentary. Grasping the hand of the youth, he addressed himself to his subordinate with great dignity, and with a gesture as if motioning him away.
“Go ; Onwawisset has heard enough from his warrior, he has not
two tongues like a serpent ; what he says he will do. Let my young
men depart, and prepare my lodge for my brother.”
144 Decoction of Datura root used by the Algonquin Indians during initiation ceremonies. It
provides a deep intoxication, with loss of memory, which lasts about three weeks.
145 The way American Indians nicknamed the English colonists, hence the word “Yankee.”
The Totem— 89
As he turned away with the hand of Melancourt still locked in
his, Wahalaka, frenzied by his disappointment, shouting “Areskoni
shall have his sacrifice !“ bounded with a startling yell to the side,
and raised his knife, pointed at the throat of the Virginian. The tomahawk of Onwawsset made a rapid glittering circle in the air, and hissing as it fell, down dropped the ferocious Wahalaka, and expired at
the feet of the Sachem. Fronting his tribe, who stood gazing on the
scene with bewildered looks, the young Chief lifted his streaming
hatchet.
“Tribe of the Eagle !” exclaimed he rapidly, “the father of Onwawisset was a Sachem of your nation. When the Manitto told him
to prepare to tread the path of shadows, I was a feeble boy. When the
old pine fell, the sapling that grew from its roots would have perished if my white father, whose hairs were like the mess of the aged
hemlock, had not protected it. But I have often told it to you at the
council fire ; it is enough. My brother,” pointing to Melancourt, is
the son of my white father.”
Whether the young Sachem had calculated too surely on his influence over, or the aptitude of, his tribe, certain it was that his
speech was received with less satisfaction than he anticipated. The
gleams of anger that had crossed their wild visages at the death of
Wahalaka were not dissipated by the discovery of the son of their Sachem’s benefactor in the person of their captive. Low mutterings of
wrath ran throughout the circle, and fiery eyes were rendered still
more ferocious by the roused passions of the savage nature in possession of a being, and that, too, a member of the hated race on which
those passions could be wreaked in torture and flame.
Somewhat staggered by the fierce exhibitions of fury, which,
once let lose, the influence of chieftainship would prove frail and insufficient, Onwawisset reared his lofty form, and lowering his tomahawk with his left, extended his right arm towards the tumultuous
group, and said, in low deep tones of reproach—
“Are not the warriors of the Eagle satisfied ! Will they tear
my brother from me, and bind him to the stake before the eyes of
their Sachem. Has the Eagle become a wolf, that it is so ravenous for
blood ? Are they all Wahalakas ?”
A yell so loud, so vindicative, so demon-like, burst from the
throng that Melancourt involuntarily shuddered, and pressed closer
90 — Hudson and Native Stories
to the form of the youthful chieftain. Glancing rapidly around the terrific circle of human fiends, Onwawisset saw, in their writhing countenances, and the grasping of their knives and tomahawks, that the
fate of the captive was sealed, he gave one look to the unfortunate
Melancourt—a look of indescribable emotion, and then in a hoarse
voice said—
“My people has spoken, the pale-face must die ;” and then, as
a whoop of triumph resounded through the air, elevating his voice to
a tone like thunder, added, “he is weak and faint ; my tribe will not
let him die like a woman ; let him rest and eat to-night, so that tomorrow he may sing his death-song like a warrior.”
“Have you, Joscelyn, deserted me ?” said Melancourt in accents
of despair; but he spoke to ears that were closed to entreaty. Is this
your gratitude ?” added he, grasping the robe of the Chief, as a
fierce-looking savage proceeded to bind his arms with a taunting
laugh.
“May God help me,” exclaimed he, as Onwawisset turned upon
him a countenance that seemed hardened into marble, so destitute
was it of sympathy or hope, “for I am indeed helpless.”
The proposition of the Sachem, although it deferred the hour
when they could glut their ferocious feelings, seemed to have found
favour in the eyes of the savages, and accordingly Melancourt was
again thrust, bound hand and foot, in the cavern. He was now in utter
darkness, the Indians having firmly blocked the entrance, and a prey
to those emotions natural to a man severed from all human help, and
in the power of those, than whom the wild beasts were not more
blood-thirsty and merciless.
In the meanwhile the frequent whoops and bursts of irregular,
but solemn chanting, proclaimed that the dance by which these children of Nature celebrated their triumph in the possession of their victim was now progressing, and soon the wild shouts and loud laughs
of savage merriment also showed that they had plunged in those unrestrained and drunken orgies that usually ended the terrific ceremony. The rude food which had been placed before the captive was
left untouched, and his blood curdled as he listened to the boisterous
din without, which he knew was the prelude to those tortures he was
to endure at the dawn. Hour after hour crept by—the sounds had long
since ceased—the chirp of the cricket and the occasional rustle of
The Totem— 91
some reptile only echoing in the stillness of the cavern, and he was
fast sinking in the apathy of despair. Was it fancy, or did he hear the
sound of a voice in the darkness ? The next, a hand fell upon his
shoulder, and as he started, expecting the blow of the tomahawk, the
tones of the young Sachem fell upon his ear.
“Is my brother awake ?”
“Away, cruel and ungrateful savage !“ answered Melancourt in
resentful accents, “Leave me to my fate ; or if you have come for that
purpose, sink at once your hatchet into my brain ; that will at least
save me from the hands of yon ferocious demons, who bear the
forms but not the hearts of men.”
“The brother of Joscelyn is angry with him. Does he think,” added the young Sachem, in broken accents of the deepest reproach.
“that Joscelyn would leave him to die ! Does he think that the days
when we were both young and happy are hid from the soul of Onwawisset ? No !” cried he, as he cut with the greatest rapidity the
thongs from the hands and feet of the captive ; “my brother shall not
die while Joscelyn lives, I thought,” continued he in a tone of anguish, “when my warriors whooped, that I heard the cry of your
gray-haired father calling to his son. Onwawisset’s heart is not rock ;
I felt it melt within me. The eyes of a Chief,” wringing the hand of
Melancourt, “are wet like a woman’s when she clasps her dying
child. But enough ; Joscelyn’s heart is his brother’s, it will protect
him ; his blood is his brother’s, it will flow for him. Listen ;” thrusting a rifle into his hands, “the warriors of the Eagle have drank the
fire-water till they sleep like bears in the season of snows. Joscelyn
will lead out his brother, and no eye will be open to see. He will take
him to the stone lodge of his people by the great lake, where he will
be safe. Onwawisset is the Sachem of his tribe, but Joscelyn is the
slave of his brother.”
“I thought the salt waves had long since closed over your head
and my white father,” continued the Chief, as he led Melancourt
along the windings of the cavern in a direction opposite to the entrance. Melancourt in a few words informed him of the false report
concerning the death of his father and himself.
“Do the winters fly lightly over the white hair ?” resumed Onwawisset in tones of the deepest affection ; “is the old oak bowed ?”
92 — Hudson and Native Stories
The Virginian again satisfied the faithful Indian by assuring him
of his father’s prosperity from the last tidings he had received.
They had now arrived at the opening, and it was with a fooling
of grateful joy that Melancourt felt the cool breeze once more breathing over his cheek, bringing with it the certainty of liberty.
It was night, and the moon was in her zenith, quenching the near
stars in her excess of splendor, and casting her sprinkled silver
through the thick embowering foliage of the forest. Scattered here
and there, some in the chequered light and some in shadow, were the
forms of the savages, stretched in the lethargy caused by their copious intoxicating libations. Through this array of enemies was the
path of the Sachem and his friend. Cautiously Onwawisset passed
amid the group, followed by Melancourt, hardly breathing in the excitement and anxiety of the moment. They had passed but a short distance, and the Virginian had but just stepped over a huge cluster of
roots that lay massed in the darkness cast by the leaves overhead,
when to his astonishment and consternation the supposed cluster
sprang from the earth with a loud whoop. Catching Melancourt by
the arm, Onwawisset darted on one side to a deep hollow formed by
the falling of a huge trunk, and black with the shadow thrown by the
broad mass of roots imbedded in the earth torn from its surface by
the fall. Casting themselves prostrate, they heard the scene, late so silent, re-echo with shouts and yells in every direction. Apparently the
truth had not yet been fully ascertained, for the savage, awakened by
the foot of Melancourt, had not sufficiently recovered from his surprise to identify to a certainty the fugitives before they were hidden
from his view. But it was soon to be discovered. Not daring to stir
from the cover, Onwawisset was peeping through the fern fringe on
the side of the hollow, when he grasped the arm of the Virginian,
who, looking in the direction where the Sachem was pointing, saw
the flashing of torches around the mouth of the cavern. The yells had
in a measure ceased in front, but a loud burst of whoops, sent from
around the cave, announced that the flight of the captive was discovered. Then, as the torches glided rapidly towards the concealment, Onwawisset whispering, “to the ravine and hide,” sprang to his
feet, followed by his companion, and together they fled through the
forest in front. A fresh burst of yells to the left and in the rear added
wings to their footsteps. They had now reached the open space where
The Totem— 93
the moonlight, spread over like a silver carpet, displayed the
blackened ashes of the block-house and the scattered remains of Melancourt’s unfortunate hand, but offering no friendly shadow to conceal the flight of the fugitives. But beyond this broad sheet of light
was the ravine, spreading its edges of darkness. So rapid had been
their flight, they had apparently distanced their pursuers ; and the
heart of Melancourt warmed by the prospect of safety seemingly afforded by the abyss. They had now reached the ravine at the point indicated by the young soldier in the opening of this chapter.
The Sachem and the Virginian sprang together over the chasm
upon the jutting ledge ; but as Onwawisset was in the act of plunging
into the gloom of the ravine, a shot resounded from the opposite
thicket, and he saw the form of his friend totter fearfully on the brink
of the platform ; the next, and the horror-struck Indian beheld him
precipitated into the gloom beneath ; but a streak of moonlight displays him clinging to a branch. Grasp with all thy ebbing strength,
young soldier ! for beneath thee are the deadly surges—the spray
even now mingles with the gushing blood from thy side—the roar
echoes terrifically in thy ears ! in vain ; the faithless bough is bending with thy weight—it cracks—it parts ! What is that shrill sound
which instantly is drowned in the thunderings of the torrent ? It is the
death-shriek of Melancourt.
Maddened by the sight, as the Indian who had caused the destruction of his friend with a triumphant shout appeared on the edge
of the abyss, Onwawisset again leaped the chasm, and with one blow
of his tomahawk laid him dead upon the earth.
Then rearing his form proudly, he shouted to an advancing body
of the yelling pursuers as he dashed the plume from his brow— “The
warriors of the Eagle are cowards ! Onwawisset scorns to be their
Sachem ; he goes to join his brother in the land of shadows !” and,
with a piercing whoop, he leaped into the frightful gloom that rested
upon the wild and dashing sepulchre of waters.
__________
THE
AMERICAN MONTHLY MAGAZINE.
MOHEGAN-ANA : OR SCENES AND STORIES OF
THE HUDSON.
____________
NUMBER ONE
____________
I HAVE wandered a good way in my time—some five or six
thousand miles perhaps, over the northern parts of the Union on
either side of the mountains, and all for the sake of seeing Nature in
what poets call “her wild retreats” of beholding her in those unmolested fastnesses where, like a decorous female as she is, she may
freak it about in dishabille without being subjected to that abashing
scrutiny that always awaits her when architects and landscape
gardeners assist at her toilet in those places where wealth compels
her sometimes to hold her court. Like all the rest of the sex she is capricious enough in her choice of what she likes, and leads her admirers many an idle dance with but slight reward ; while her choicest
favors often awaits him who stumbles upon her at her retiring moments, in spots where he would least expect such good fortune.
Certes, I have never found her more propitious than within thirty
miles of Saratoga,146 among lakes, mountains, and forests ; where,
notwithstanding the vicinity of one of the gayest haunts of dissipation, my only rivals for her favors were a sportsman or two who had
stumbled upon these retreats as I did.
It was many years since when I went upon my first hunting excursion in that unsettled region about the north-western sources of
the Hudson, generally known as “Totten and Crossfield’s Purchase,”147 never in very great repute at land offices, and selling at that
146 Then a village on the west bank of the Hudson River. In October 1777, British General
John Burgoyne was defeated there during the American Revolution.
147 A wooded area in the Hamilton county, New York.
Mohegan-Ana — 95
time for sixpence an acre. The deer were then so abundant that they
were often destroyed by the few settlers for their skins alone ; and
wolves, and bears, and panthers prowled the thick forest unmolested,
save by a few Indians who once or twice throughout the year would
straggle in from the Iroquois reservation on the Canadian frontier.
The salmon trout that abound in the head waters of the Hudson
would sometimes tempt them at the spearing season in July ; and the
moose, which is still occasionally shot in this district, used generally
to lure them thither in the winter season.
There was one old Mohawk,148 yclept149 Captain Gill, who
alone kept there all the year round, and was a sort of sylvan Sultan of
the whole region about. His daughter, Molly Gill, who led a kind of
oyster life, (though no one would have mistaken her for a Peri, 150) in
their wigwam on the outlet of lake Pleasant,151 used to make his
mockasons, sew up the rips of his birchen canoe, and dress his venison for him, while the Captain roved far and near in search of
whatever might cheer the home enlivened by these two only inmates
—a tender fawn cutlet, a trinket sent by some good-natured settler to
Molly, or a stoup of vile whiskey secreted in the Captain’s hunting
pouch for his especial refreshment and delight.
Gill, notwithstanding this unhallowed league with bad spirits,
was a capital guide upon sporting excursions whenever the larger
kinds of game were the object ; and the companion of my rambles, a
young barrister from New-York, took as much pleasure as myself in
wandering about among the mountains, or cruising from lake to lake,
and camping out on their banks with the old Mohawk for our decus
et tutamen.152
A party of St. Regis Indians153 — who within two summers
have hunted over these grounds— was at that time in the country,
and uniting with these we turned out a pretty stout band upon our
greater excursions ; our company being often strengthened by Courtenay St. George (a cunning trapper of muskrats, whose slouching
148 A Native American people then living in northeast New York.
149 “by the name of”, the past participle of the verb clepe, to call (archaic).
150 In Persian mythology, a fallen angel or fairy, in former times regarded as
malevolent and
later as benevolent creatures.
151 A lake in the Hamilton county, New York.
152 Quoted from Virgil’s Aeneid (Book V, line 262), meaning “glory and protection”.
153 A Roman Catholic Indian community belonging to the Mohawk people, whose territory
straddled the St. Lawrence River.
96 — Hudson and Native Stories
figure and ferret-like features are in whimsical contrast to his
knightly name,) and other woodsmen less known along that border.
As I took no notes of our different “tramps,” it is impossible
now to trace their various routes through rocky glens and over sagging morasses, amid the labyrinths of lakes that are linked together
by innumerable streams and waterfalls among these mountains ; and
I may be sufficiently inaccurate while trying to recall some of the
tales and anecdotes with which our party used to while away the
evenings between the hours of making our camp-fire and the moment of retiring to repose : but neither shall prevent me from attempting to sketch some of these scenes from recollection, and relating the legends connected with them as I now remember them.
Embarking one morning on a small lake called Konjimuc by
the Indians, we entered its outlet, and floated many hours down a
stream scarcely a pistol shot in breadth, where, from the rapidity of
the current, the steering paddle alone was necessary to keep our canoes on their course. The brook wound generally through a wooded
morass, where the dense overhanging foliage excluded even a
glimpse of the neighboring mountains ; at times, however, it would
sweep near enough to their bank to wash a wall of granite, from
which the hanging birch and hemlock would fling their branches far
over the limpid tide ; and then again it would expand into a broad
deep pool, circled with water lilies and animated by large flocks of
wild fowl, that would rise screaming from the black tarn as we glided
out from the shadow of the forest and skimmed over its smooth surface. Innumerable streams, the inlets and outlets of other lakes,
mingled their waters in these frequently occurring ponds, and about
sunset we struck one so broad that we determined to change our
course, and heading our shallops now against the current, we soon
found ourselves upon the outlet of a considerable lake. The water
gradually became deeper and more sluggish, and then a pull of a few
hundred yards with a sudden turn in the forest, shot us out upon one
of the most beautiful sheets of water I ever beheld.
It was about four miles in length, with perhaps half that
breadth ; the shores curved with the most picturesque irregularity,
and swelling high, but gradually, from the water ; while their graceful slopes were held in strong contrast by a single islet which shot up
in one bold cliff from the centre, and nodded with a crown of pines,
Mohegan-Ana — 97
around which an eagle was at that moment wheeling. There were
then, I believe, but two farms upon the banks of lake Pleasant, a
couple of small “clearings” on the brows of opposite promontaries,
each waving with wheat and smiling in the light of the setting sun —
the only cultivated spots in an unbroken wilderness. Every where
else the untamed forest threw its dusky shadow over the lake, while
beneath the pendant branches, which in some instances swept the
wave, a beach as white as the snowy strand of the ocean glistened
around the clear blue water.
The sun was setting in heavy though gorgeous clouds, which
at each moment lost some of their brightness in a volume of vapor
that rolled along the mountains ; and by the time we reached the upper end of the lake, the broad drops that began to descend warned us
to hurry on our course and gain a shelter from the coming storm. We
had reached the inlet of the lake, which was only a narrow crooked
strait, a few hundred rods in length, connecting it with another sheet
of water that covered about the same surface as that through which
we had passed ; the promontory between affording, as I afterwards
experienced, a commanding view of both the sister lakes. Our destination was the farthest side of the upper lake, and the management of
a canoe was no boy’s play when we left the sheltered strait and
launched out upon the stormy water. The shores were bold and
rocky ; and as the wind had now risen into a tempest, the waves beat
furiously upon them. The rain blew in blinding sheets against us, and
it was almost impossible, while urging our way in its teeth, to keep
our canoes from falling off into the trough of the sea ; in which case
they would inevitably have been swamped. Our flotilla was soon
separated and dispersed in the darkness. We called long to each other
as the lightning from time to time revealed a boat still in hail, but our
voices were at last only echoed by the dismal wailing of the loon,
whose shriek always rises above the storm, and may be heard for
miles amidst its wildest raging.
Sacondaga,154 the lake we were on, the fountain head of the
river of that name, is shaped, as an Indian described it to me, “like a
bear’s paw spread out with an island between the ball of each toe :”*
and the different bays and islets, resembling each other to an unprac154 A lake in the Sacandaga Valley (NY). Settled by Sir William Johnson in the 1700s, it
was the home to the Mohawk Indians.
*It is called “Round Lake” by the surveyors, probably quari lucus, &c.(Note of the Author).
98 — Hudson and Native Stories
tised eye, might, on a dark night, mislead even the skillful voyageur
in making any given point on the shore ; more than one of our canoes
must have coasted the greater part of it before they were all successively drawn up on the beach at the place we had fixed for our rendezvous.
“I may say that the Flying Head was abroad to-night,” quoth
the old Mohawk, in good round English, as he lighted his pipe and
looked contentedly around the bark shantee,155 wherein each of our
company, having cheered himself with a hearty supper of dried venison, was lounging about the fire in every variety of indolent attitude.
The remark seemed to attract the attention of no one but myself ; but
when I asked the speaker to explain its meaning, my mongrel companions eagerly united in a request that “the captain would tell them
all about the varmint of which he spoke, be it painter (panther) or
devil.” Gill did not long hesitate to comply ; but the particulars, not
to mention the phraseology of his narrative, in the years that have
since elapsed, have almost escaped me ; and I shall, therefore, not
hesitate to tell the story in my own way while trying to recall it here.
__________
THE FLYING HEAD, A LEGEND OF SACONDAGA LAKE
The country about the head waters of the great Mohegan,156
though abounding in game and fish, was never, in the recollection of
the oldest Indians living, nor in that of their fathers, the permanent
residence of any one tribe. From the savage shores of the Scroon,157
where the eastern fork takes its rise, to the silver strand of lake Pleasant, through which the western branch makes its way after rising in
Sacondaga lake, the wilderness that intervenes, and all the mountains
round about the fountain heads of the great river, have from time immemorial been infested by a class of beings with whom no good man
would ever wish to come in contact.
The young men of the Mohawk have, indeed, often traversed
it, when, in years gone by, they went on the war-path after the hostile
tribes of the north, and the scattered and wandering remnants of their
155 “shanty”: a small rudimentary dwelling generally made of wood.
156 Mohegan Lake, New York. The Mohegan or Mohican, were the
Mahican settled in the Hudson River.
157 Another lake, in the heart of the Adirondacks (NY).
eastern branch of the
Mohegan-Ana — 99
people, with an occasional hunting party from the degenerate band
that survive at St. Regis, will yet occasionally be tempted over these
haunted ground in quest of the game that still finds a refuge in that
mountain region. The evil shapes that were formerly so troublesome
to the red hunter, seem in these later days to have become less restless at his presence ; and, whether it be that the day of their power
has gone by, or that their vindictiveness has relented at witnessing
the fate which seems to be universally overtaking the people whom
they once delighted to persecute—certain it is that the few Indians
who now find their way to this part of the country are never molested
except by the white settlers, who are slowly extending their clearings
among the wild hills of the north.
The Flying Head, which is supposed to have first driven the
original possessors of these hunting grounds, whosoever they were,
from their homes, and which, as long as tradition runneth, back in the
old day before the whites came hither, guarded them from the occupancy of every neighboring tribe, has not been seen for many years
by any credible witness ; though there are those who insist that it has
more than once appeared to them hovering, as their fathers used to
describe it, over the lake in which it first had its bath. The existence
of this fearful monster, however, has never been disputed. Rude representations of it are still occasionally met with in the crude designs
of these degenerate aborigines who earn a scant subsistence by making birchen baskets and ornamented pouches for travellers, who are
curious in their manufacture of wampum and porcupine quills ; and
the origin and history of the Flying Head survives, while even the
name of the tribe whose crimes first called it into existence has
passed away for ever.
It was a season of great severity with that forgotten people
whose council files were lighted on the mountain promontory that divides Sacondaga from the sister lake into which it discharges itself.*
A long and severe winter with but little snow, had killed the
herbage at its roots, and the moose and the deer had trooped off to
the more luxuriant pastures along the Mohawk, whither the hunters
of the hills dared not follow him. The fishing too failed ; and the
famine became so devouring among the mountains, that whole famil*A hamlet is now growing up on this beautiful mountain slope, and the scene in the likely to
be soon better known from the enterprise of a Mr. Skidmore, who is about establishing a line of
stages between Sacondaga lake and Saratoga springs (Note of the Author).
100 — Hudson and Native Stories
ies, who had no hunters to provide for them, perished outright. The
young men would no longer throw the slender product of the chase
into the common stock, and the women and children had to maintain
life as well they could upon the roots and berries the woods afforded
them.
The sufferings of the tribe became at length so galling that the
young and enterprising began to talk of migrating from the ancient
seat of their people ; and as it was impossible, surrounded as they
were by hostile tribes, merely to shift their hunting grounds for a season and return to them at some more auspicious period, it was proposed that if they could effect a secret march to the great lake off to
the west of them, they should launch their canoes upon Ontario, and
all move away to a new home beyond its broad waters. The wild rice,
of which some had been brought into their country by a runner from
a distant nation, would, they thought, support them in their perilous
voyage along the shores of the great water where it grows in such
profusion, and they believed that, once safely beyond the lake, it
would be easy enough to find a new home abounding in game, upon
those flowery plains which, as they had heard, lay like one immense
garden beyond the chain of inland seas.
The old men of the tribe were indignant at the bare suggestion
of leaving the bright streams and sheltered vallies, amid which their
spring-time of life had passed so happily. They doubted the existence
of the garden regions of which their children spoke ; and they
thought that if there were indeed such a country, it was madness to
attempt to reach it in the way proposed. They said, too, that the famine was scourge which the Master of Life inflicted upon his people
for their crimes—that if its plains were endured with the constancy
and firmness that became warriors, the visitation would soon pass
away ; but that those who fled from it would only war with their destiny, and that chastisement would follow them, in some shape,
wheresoever they might flee. Finally, they added, that they would
rather die that moment, than, leaving them for ever, to revel in plenty
upon stranger plains.
“Be it so—they have spoken !” exclaimed a fierce and insolent youth, springing to his feet and casting a furious glance
around the council as the aged chief, who had thus addressed it, resumed his seat. “Be the dotards’s words their own, my brothers—let
Mohegan-Ana — 101
them die for the crimes they have even now acknowledged. We
know of none, our unsullied summers have yet had to blush for. It is
they that have drawn this curse upon our people—it is for them that
our vitals are consuming with anguish, while our strength wastes
away in the search of sustenance we cannot find—or which, when
found, we are compelled to share with those for whose misdeeds the
Great Spirit hath placed it far from us. They have spoken—let them
die. Let them die, if we are to remain, to appease the angry Spirit ;
and the food that now keeps life lingering in their shrivelled and useless carcasses may then nerve the limbs of our young hunters, or
keep our children from perishing. Let them die, if we are to move
hence, for their presence will but bring a curse upon our path — their
worn-out frames will give way upon the march, and the raven that
hovers over their curses, guide our enemies to the spot, and scent
them like wolves upon our trail. Let them die ; my brothers, and, in
that they are still our tribes-men, let us give them the death of warriors—and that before we leave this ground.”
And with with these words the young barbarian, pealing forth
a ferocious whoop, buried his tomahawk in the head of the old man
nearest to him. The infernal yell was echoed on every side—a dozen
flint hatchets were instantly raised by as many remorseless arms, and
the massacre was wrought before one of those thus horribly sacrificed could interpose a plea of mercy. But for mercy they would not
have pleaded, had opportunity been afforded them. Even in the moment that intervened between the cruel sentence and its execution,
they managed to show that stern resignation to the decrees of fate
which an Indian warrior ever exhibits when death is near ; and each
of the seven old men that perished thus barbarously, drew his wolfskin mantle around his shoulders and nodded his head as if inviting
the death-blow that followed.
The parricidal deed was done ; and it now became a question,
how to dispose of the remains of those whose lamp of life, while
twinkling in the socket, had been thus fearfully quenched for ever.
The act, though said to have been of not unfrequent occurrence
among certain Indian tribes at similar exigencies, was one utterly abhorrent to the nature of most of our aborigines ; who, from their
earliest years, are taught the deepest reverence for the aged. In the
present instance, likewise, it had been so outrageous a perversion of
102 — Hudson and Native Stories
their customary views of duty among this simple people, that it was
thought but proper to dispense with their wonted mode of sepulture,
and dispose of the victims of famine and fanaticism in some peculiar
manner. They wished in some way to sanctify the deed, by offering
up the bodies of the slaughtered to the Master of Life, and that
without dishonoring the dead. It was therefore agreed to decapitate
the bodies and burn them ; and as the nobler part could not, when
thus dissevered, be buried with the usual forms, it was determined to
sink the heads together in the bottom of the lake.
The soul-less trunks were accordingly consumed and the ashes
scattered to the winds, and the heads were then deposited singly, in
separate canoes, which pulled off in a kind of procession from the
shore. The young chief who had suggested the bloody scene of the
sacrifice, rowed in advance, in order to designate the spot where they
were to disburden themselves of their gory freight. Resting then upon
his oars, he received each head in succession from his companions,
and proceeded to tie them together by their scalp-locks, in order to
sink the whole, with a huge stone, to the bottom. But the vengeance
of the Master of Life overtook the wretch before his horrid office
was accomplished ; for no sooner did he receive the last head into his
canoe, than it began to sink—his feet became entangled in the
hideous chain he had been knotting together, and before his horrorstricken companions could come to his rescue, he was dragged
shrieking to the bottom. The others waited not to see the water settle
over him, but pulled with their whole strength for the shore.
The morning dawned calmly upon that unhallowed water,
which seemed at first to show no traces of the deed it had witnessed
the night before. But gradually, as the sun rose higher, a few gory
bubbles appeared to float over one smooth and turbid spot, which the
breeze never crisped into a ripple. The parricides sat on the bank,
watching it all the day ; but sluggish, as at first, that sullen blot upon
the fresh blue surface still remained. Another day passed over their
heads, and the thick stain was yet there. On the third day the floating
slime took a greener hue, as if colored by the festering mass beneath : but coarse fibres of darker dye marbled its surface, and on the
forth day these began to tremble along the water like weeds growing
from the bottom, or the long tresses of a woman’s scalp floating in a
pool when no wind disturbs it. The fifth morning came, and the con-
Mohegan-Ana — 103
science-stricken watchers thought that the spreading scalp—for such
now all agreed it was—had raised itself from the water, and become
rounded at the top as if there were a head beneath it. Some thought,
too, that they could discover a pair of hideous eyes glaring beneath
the dripping locks. They looked on the sixth, and there indeed was a
monstrous head floating upon the surface, as if anchored to the spot,
around which the water—notwithstanding a blast which swept the
lake—was calm and motionless as ever.
Those bad Indians then wished to fly, but the doomed parricides had not now the courage to encounter the warlike bands
through which they must make their way in fleeing from their native
valley. They thought, too, that as nothing about the head except the
eyes had motion, it could not harm them, resting quietly as it did
upon the bosom of the waters. And though it was dreadful to have
that hideous gaze fixed for ever upon their dwellings, yet they
thought that if the Master of Life meant this as an expiation for their
frenzied deed, they would strive to live on beneath those unearthly
glances without shrinking or complaint.
But a strange alteration had taken place in the floating head on
the morning of the seventh day. A pair of broad wings, ribbed like
those of a bat, and with claws appended to each tendon, had grown
out during the night ; and, buoyed up by these, it seemed to be now
resting upon the water. The water itself appeared to ripple more
briskly near it, as if joyous that it was about to be relieved of its unnatural burden : but still for hours the head maintained its position.
At last the wind began to rise, and, driving through the trough of the
sea, beneath their expanded membrane, raised the wings from the
surface and seemed for the first time to endow them with vitality.
They flapped harshly once or twice upon the waves, and the head
rose slowly and heavily from the lake.
An agony of fear seized upon the gazing parricides, but the supernatural creation made no movement to injure them. It only remained balancing itself over the lake, and casting a shadow from its
wings that wrapped the valley in gloom. But dreadful was it beneath
their withering shade to watch that terrific monster, hovering like a
falcon for the stoop, and know not upon what victim it might descend. It was then that they who had sown the gory seed from which it
sprung to life, with one impulse caught to escape its presence by
104 — Hudson and Native Stories
flight. Herding together like a troop of deer when the panther is
prowling by, they rushed in a body from the scene. But the flapping
of the demon pinions was soon heard behind them, and the winged
head was henceforth on their track wheresoever it led.
In vain did they cross one mountain barrier after another—
plunge into the rocky gorge or thread the mazy swamp to escape
their fiendish watcher. The Flying Head would rise on tireless wings
over the loftiest summit, or dart in arrowy flight through the narrowest passes without furling its pinions ; while their sullen threshing
would be heard even in those vine-webbed thickets, where the little
ground bird can scarcely make its way. The very caverns of the earth
were in protection to the parricides from its presence for scarcely
would they think they had found a refuge in some sparry cell, when,
poised midway between the ceiling and the floor, they would behold
the Flying Head glaring upon them. Sleeping or waking, the monster
was ever near—they paused to rest, but the rushing of its wings, as it
swept around their resting-place in never-ending circles, prevented
them from finding forgetfulness in repose ; or, if in spite of those
blighting pinions that ever fanned them, fatigue did at moments
plunge them in uneasy slumbers, the glances of the Flying Head
would pierce their very eyelids, and steep their dreams in horror.
What was the ultimate fate of that band of parricides no one
has ever known. Some say that the Master of Life kept them always
young, in order that their capability of suffering might never wear
out ; and these insist that the Flying Head is still pursuing them over
the great prairies of the Far West. Others aver that the glances of the
Flying Head turned each of them gradually into stone, and these say
that their forms, though altered by the wearing of the rains in the
lapse of long years may still be recognized in those upright rocks
which stand like human figures along the shores of some of the
neighboring lakes ; though most Indians have another way of accounting for these figures. Certain it is, however, that the Flying
Head always comes back to this part of the country about the times
of the Equinox ; and some say even that you may alway hear the
flapping of its wings whenever such a storm as that we have just
weathered is brewing.”
The old hunter had finished his story ; but my companions
were still anxious that he should protract the narrative, and give us
Mohegan-Ana — 105
the account of the grotesque forms to which he had alluded as being
found among these hills. These, however, he told us more properly,
belonged to another legend, which he subsequently related, and
which I may hereafter endeavor to recall.
C. F. H.
_________
Mistakes, Treasons
and Fabrications
Notice
Alice Vere
P
resented as a narrative which “may possibly be known to
more than one of our readers,” this text of 1836 pretends to
“infringe upon no feeling of domestic privacy” (118), an introductory
precaution meant to make it a report more than a fiction, a literary
device widely spread in (short) fictions at the time. Alice Vere’s
pathetic story is almost entirely situated on board a whaler, if we except her brief preliminary meeting with the narrator, immediately seduced by her “feminine softness of disposition” (119), “one morning
in the stage coach for Sag Harbor” (119) where she embarked for her
fatal voyage on her way to the Pacific and to a husband she had never met before. At first seen as a hostile environment—the narrator recommends the captain to “secure her whatever attention it was in his
power to offer” (121)—, the ship becomes Alice’s only home and
refuge for months, so that she even “wistfully . . . begged to remain”
(128) on board for the wedding ceremony. However, the vessel is
also her jail for she never has an opportunity to land on the paradisaical islands which they call at, but whose proximity, in the “bland
and voluptuous clime” (122) bathing them, lets her “scarcely suppress a scream of delight” (123) when she sees that “her wildest visions of tropical scenery seemed more than realized” (123).
Nevertheless, if she has to keep out of “scenes so fresh and so
Elysian” (122), she welcomes “with girlish interest” the approach of
natives bringing presents, and above all that of a “striking figure,
dressed after the clerical fashion of her own country” (123). Here is
the origin not so much of her fatal error, but of her ill-timed fit of
love at first sight, both so unexpected and so inevitable. For in the
orphan girl’s eyes, “bred up in great seclusion in a clergyman’s family” (120) and supposed to join her future husband who is a missionary, the nice-looking visitor who “instantly hurrie[s] towards her,”
dressed in a “deep mourning” (123) as he is, can only be a clergyman. His aspect and his attitude allow the crystallization of her desire, determined both by what she has known and what she is ex-
108 — Mistakes, Treasons and Fabrications
pecting. In fact, Alice never goes off the rails of her education, but
on the contrary sticks to the symbols “for which she was schooled”
(121) and which determine her life and her emotional choices.
However, the very symbols Alice naively and desperately clings
to lack any reliability, as indicated by the sarcastic remarks of the
narrator, who sees missionaries as men “mistaking the promptings of
zeal for the inspiration of a special calling, and who, without minds
matured by experience or enlightened by education, leave the plough
or the shop-board to become the instructors of those who, with feelings as sincere as their own, and understandings far more exercised
in knowledge of good and of evil, are expected to bow to their narrow teachings” (127). If this is true, we understand easily why Alice,
whose “tender and imaginative temperament” (121) is nothing, perhaps, than a form of honesty, after “a very brief interview [which]
sufficed for her to read the character of her destined husband[,] . . .
felt that she could never love him” (127). Alice successively undergoes two opposite versions of the same insight: whereas she falls immediately in love with the young stranger, she realises at once that
she cannot love her fiancé. The “fancied portrait of her future husband” becomes that of the inaccessible young man, whereas “the
background of the picture” (122) is all that remains of her dreams
now turned into a nostalgia for a sense of freedom she has never actually known: “she looked to the untamed forest, whose boughs
waved unfettered on the shore, . . . the broad main that spread its free
waves around her, and the wild bird that sported over its bosom”
(128, emphasis added). Then Nature and the elements, one more
time, convey Alice’s emotions: while the storm which assailed the
ship after her meeting with the unknown young man echoes her frustrated desires, the “tumult of feelings” (128) which overwhelms her
during the wedding ceremony triggers off the tempest which raises
just after her marriage, as if it were the consequence of a legitimate
divine wrath after what appears, emotionally speaking, as a misalliance.
The way Alice sacrifices herself out of despair calls to mind
Bernardin de Saint-Pierre’s Virginia,158 also carried away by a gigantic wave during a tropical storm, under the eyes of horrified
powerless witnesses, when her ship was anchored near the shore.
158 Jacques
Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, (1737-1814). Paul and Virginia (1788).
Notice — 109
Both of them are shown alone on the stern of the ship, Alice “standing upon the taffrail with arms outstretched” (129) and Virginia “in
the stern-gallery of the Saint-Geran, stretching out her arms,” whereas “[the] cry of horror [which] escaped the revellers” (129) echoes
the “redoubled cries from the spectators” in Paul and Virginia when
a “mountain billow, of enormous magnitude [which] menaced the
shattered vessel, towards which it rolled bellowing” parallels the
“huge wave that lifted its o’er-arching crest above her, and threatened to engulph the vessel” in “Alice Vere” (129). This tragic ending, added to fictional elements such as frustrated love, beautiful
exotic sceneries and raging natural elements, make Alice Vere a convincing Romantic heroine whose misfortune sounds like a condemnation of some of the American moral and educational standards and
practices of the time.
_____________
The Alias—or Mr. St. John
I
n this short piece, the very European dandyism is somewhat
ironically presented in the American setting of Saratoga,
whose name still reverberates the echoes of the War of Independence.159 This humorous narrative both parodies the standards of fashion popularized by “Beau” Brummell160 in England and contradicts
Byron’s161 philosophy of life with its happy, conventional ending.
However, the pair of friends who “passed leisurely the spring at Congress Hall” (130) undeniably typify the dandy lifestyle, in particular
in their manners and outfits. Phil wears an “eccentric palm leaf sombrero inclined at the merest possible angle to his left eye” not only
because he is morbidly eager to display his elegance, but “from a
horror of being like other people” (130), a trait which reflects the
counter-cultural ambitions of any self-respecting dandy. As for his
companion, Mr. R— (alias Mr. St. John), only interested in “the
pretty and the piquant” (131), he “can dress” (131) and, knowing that
159 See infra note 146.
160 George Bryan Brummell
(1778-1840), a fashion leader dandy in Regency England. See
Barbey d’Aurevilly’s essay On Dandyism and George Brummell (1897).
161 George Gordon, 6th Baron Byron of Rochdale (1788-1824), a leading figure of the British romantic movement, notorious for his love affairs and unconventional lifestyle. See supra
note 453.
110 — Mistakes, Treasons and Fabrications
he may be “impudent by candlelight” (132), he strikes the typical
self-confident pose of the dandy: “I settled my cravat, and with an
assurance that would have astonished myself by daylight, lounged
coolly and alone up the middle of the splendid hall, my head slightly
inclined in a collected modesty, and my glass passing leisurely over
the feet only of the gaily dressed promenaders. I felt that every eye in
the room was upon me, but I was sure of my self-possession” (132).
After having so pathetically and symbolically occupied a seat “just
vacated by an invalid” (131), the so-called Mr St. John, “trusting to
the metamorphose of a studied toilet” (132), takes his revenge and
unscrupulously mystifies, in an authentic dandyish way, his friend’s
sister by assuming a false identity.162
The trick is mean, but the murky side of it, though never taken
really seriously by the narrator, lies beyond the mere breach of trust.
The first clue is provided by Harry, the victim’s brother, who exclaims unexpectedly: “Gertrude will never recognize you,’ . . . You
are exquisitely dressed, and look as little like the blushing youth at
the table, as I like Hyperion” (132, emphasis added). We know that
Hyperion was a Titan who married his sister, which should have
made Harry’s comparison all the more unsettling for his friend. Then
Harry introduces his “old friend Mr. R— a man whom [he] ha[s]
known like a brother for years” (134, emphasis added), the fraternal
metaphor reappearing a few lines further on, this time directly linking Mr. R— and Gertrude as Harry insists on their long epistolary relationship, “like brother and sister” (134, emphasis added). This
symbolically incestuous intimacy, recurrently reminded by Harry,
may be responsible for the narrator’s emotional state at the beginning
of the story as, yielding to an “imperative appetite” (131), he blushes
like a young boy caught in the act, feeling not only guilty but
ashamed. This ambiguous situation, psychologically embarrassing,
may even account for the narrator’s unconscious obligation to borrow a false name to become acceptable in his lady friend’s eyes, who
first deemed him, logically, “the ugliest man she ever saw” (133).
The first step is the hardest, but even comforted by his easy success “under cover” with Gertrude, the narrator still wants to verify
that she will accept him once the trick is disclosed. Gertrude’s final
162 One thinks of The Importance of Being Earnest (1885) by Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), another dandy.
Notice — 111
consent, in spite of her fiancé’s impudence, can easily be explained,
for their relationships have always been made of the same psychological material, woven of “the thousand indefinite modes of mystifying one another” which eventually had made them “mutually curious
to meet” (131). That final mystification was then nothing but the logic outcome of what they were prepared to experience in “the real”
after their long-lasting “premonitory” correspondence.
____________
Married by Mistake
O
ne more time, the course of events reported in this narrative starts on board a boat. As in many of these stories,
travelling upon waters allows expressions of the imaginary and helps
separate literary fiction from mere personal report, as if crossing water led the reader through the looking-glass. Everything starts with a
race between two rival boats, “two huge monsters, impatient to display their fiery speed upon the race-course of the Sound” (136).
When it comes to describing the race itself, the tone of the narrative
borrows from the realm of the Devil, making the competition somewhat diabolic. The passengers of the Spitfire see their captain “descend to the ‘inferno’” to boost the steam engine so that the smoke
from the funnels “gr[ows] denser and blacker, spreading like the
wings of some vast bird,” while the vessel, followed by “a trail of
sparks,” is “cleaving the waves of the Sound with a devilish
velocity” (137). Moreover, even if this introduction seems irrelevant
to the sequel of the story, it becomes clear that the rivalry between
the two captains, Chace and Charcoal, mirrors that which opposes
the two Cockneys. Displaying some characteristic features of the tall
tale,163 the whole story is built on the meeting of doubles and the literally unbelievable confusion that entails, which no doubt paves the
way for the devilish trick played by one of the pairs to the other.
The first incident opposes, in a rather burlesque mise en scène,
two travellers who look almost uncannily alike. Both of them are
Cockneys, wear the same “square-cut green coats, garnished with
brass buttons;” they share “a certain spruce grubness in their noses
163 An extravagant and humorous story, often exaggerated, telling the exploits of American
frontiersmen.
112 — Mistakes, Treasons and Fabrications
and a carroty tinge in their cropped locks” (136), and last but not
least, they have the same “too common name” (142)—John Smith. If
the purpose of a race is to establish a hierarchy between a winner and
a loser, often as a pure matter of honor, so is it for a duel, especially
if it is supposed to repair a minor offence. In this story, the two
Cockneys confront each other because one of them has “trod on the
gouty toe of an unhappy bulldog, who uttered a low growl . . . signifying thereby that he had the will, if not the power, to avenge an insult” (136). To prompt the British pair to settle this matter of honor,
the facetious American midshipman realtes how he and his friends
fought one another after a drunken brawl in a tavern; however, the
duel ran beyond any rule or etiquette: “we drew lots for sides. Principals and seconds fought at the same time. I shot at my friend, and
Ned Halyard lodged a bullet in his crony. But there was no great
harm done, and we shook hands and breakfasted together” (139). Interestingly, four months later, Edgar Allan Poe published in the same
American Monthly Magazine another criticism of the duel tradition
based on a mystification in “Von Jung, the Mystific”.164 The two narratives, though different in substance, use the same pseudo-dramatic
effects. When, for instance, “somebody threw a decanter at somebody else’s head” (139), in Poe’s story, Von Jung “hurled the decanter, full of wine, against the mirror which hung directly opposite
Hermann; striking the reflection of his person with great precision.”
In both cases, the duel tradition appears more as a source of comic
effects than as a serious matter.
The parodic side of the story is still emphasized by the presence
of two pairs, one, of English origin, portrayed as naïve and out of
place, the other, “a couple of American gentlemen” (137) ready to
entertain themselves at the expense of the former, and of a third victim, “a very pretty girl” (142) who is the betrothed of one of the duellists. The outcome of the arranged duel is that one Cockney believes that “having killed [his] brother traveller” he is now “a fratricide” (140), a mystification finally cleared up after he has unscrupulously married the fiancée of his fellow countryman. In this American farce, the American protagonists ostensibly make fun of their
British counterparts, but are eventually outdone, in terms of cynicism, by the young American girl who, “when she found that one
164 See
note 12.
Notice — 113
Mr. John Smith was quite as respectable and wealthy as the other”
(143) declared, in the name of “love, law, and religion” (143), the
marriage valid and that she was fully satisfied with her husband,
making this tricky practical joke a variant case of the biter bit.
_________________
The Gold-Hunter ; a Tale of Massachusetts
T
his tale in four episodes published in 1837 borrows from
the literary clichés of the buried treasure and that of the
easy wealth acquired with the complicity of the Devil. Like Timon of
Athens, whose name appears in the epigraph, Joe Bolton is a wealthy
and generous man who is tricked by those he too naively trusted. But
the story of the gullible barfly, ironically called “Canny Bolton,”
does not exploit the theme of swindling to produce a tragedy but a
joyful tale with a moral which echoes Aesop’s fables—“All is not
gold that glitters” (156)—by developing variations on a theme
already largely exploited in literature, from the Greek fabulist to
Shakespeare (The Merchant of Venice: 1598) and Cervantes (Don
Quixote: 1605-1615) to mention but some of the most internationally
celebrated works.
However, beyond its universal dimension, “The Gold-Hunter”
appears as a very American tale, as the subtitle suggests, by referring
to Massachusetts and its lifestyle. First of all, the American countryside is depicted at leisure in the introductory section by praising
the assets of the region in September, in terms which evoke the front
page of a tourist guide165 but also Irving’s most bucolic descriptions:
“The winding river reflects the deep azure of the sky, save where its
ripples sparkle in the sun like shivered glass” (145); or else: “The
pumpkin-fields display their orange-colored hoards; and association
brings to mind the pleasures of Thanksgiving—its hearty hospitality
and earth, and rustic pleasantry” (145). Rip van Winkle’s “rich,
misty hills” (144) are turned into those of “Sleepy Hollow” as the
sweet atmosphere and the generosity of Nature “exert a gentle influence upon the soul” (144). Unmistakably, Hollywood, nestled “in the
heart of a hilly country” (145), is one of “those little nooks of still
165 See
infra “A September Trip to Catskill” (1838).
114 — Mistakes, Treasons and Fabrications
water” dear to Irving which have remained “undisturbed by the rush
of the passing current”.166
If Joe Bolton who “rose at five and worked till dark” (146) does
not share Rip’s irrepressible taste for laziness, more than one aspect
of his life calls to mind Irving’s famous sleeper: like his predecessor,
Joe is the victim of “a shrewish wife” (145) and he occasionally indulges in “a day’s fishing in a neighboring pond” (146), not to mention his “one bad habit” which consists in “a propensity to lounge of
evenings in a pet chair in the bar-room of the Banner of Liberty”
where he joins “two or three dissipated hangers-on . . . who were
topers by profession” (146), who obviously echo Rip’s “club of the
sages, philosophers, and other idle personages of the village”.167
However, Joe’s hard work and sturdy constitution make him “comfortable loike” (146) and his wife, although she is not “the most amiable of women” (146), satisfies him as she “annually present[s] him
with a pledge of her affection,” namely “a dozen sturdy boys,” which
provide him with an extra “source of revenue” (146). The author
ironizes here about an established socio-economic fact in American
colonial history, according to which manpower (scarce) and land
(abounding) were the most valuable commodities for a farmer.
Here again, the “story within the story” structure is used by the
author to credit the narrative with a quite fabricated genuineness. The
fictional storyteller, “the Sir Walter of the village” (146), an old
drunkard who has been “the hero of sham-fights” (148), introduces
the tale itself by referring to the good old days, “when this here toun
was all timber and swamp-land” (148), namely the early times of
colonisation, when the Pequot were still the masters of the land. As
in an authentic legend, he introduces his hero, “the first settler” (148)
who met a Native chief who was unexpectedly wearing “rale goold
bracelets, and a rattler of a bit of goold as big as a hunk of gingerbread about his neck” (149) instead of the usual glass beads, a clear
hint at many settlers’ expectancies who came to America in the hope
of finding gold, attracted by a northern version of the myth of El
Dorado. This narrative prepares Joe Bolston for the trick of which he
will be the naïve victim, so that the association of the Devil with the
presumed gold vein makes him as imaginative as Irving’s Ichabod
166 Washington
167 Washington
Irving, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” (1819).
Irving, “Rip van Winkle” (1819).
Notice — 115
Crane on his way back home, after his nocturnal visit to his future,
wealthy father-in-law, when, “as he crossed a lonely stile, he thought
he saw a tall black figure stealing over the grass, but it was only the
lengthened shadows of the swaying birch-tree” (149). As in “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” greed and mysterious tales make the credulous protagonist interpret ordinary objects as signs of a devilish presence, producing more comic effects than real suspense.
If Rip van Winkle was robbed of twenty years of his life after
having drunk too heavily of a mysterious liqueur in the mountains,
Joe’s intoxication with the Dutch doctor’s “magical Elixir” (153)
earned him to be robbed, according to the symbolic equivalence of
time and money, of “one hundred guineas” (154). Moreover, Joe
Bolton’s wanderings in the swamps, as he looked for his buried
treasure, evoke another of Irving’s short stories in which a povertystricken farmer meets the Devil in dark murky marshes also located
“[a] few miles from Boston, in Massachusetts [near] a thickly
wooded swamp, or morass”;168 moreover, the repetitive calling of his
name—“he thought he detected, mingling with a dry, suppressed
chuckle, the cries of “Bolton ! Joe Bolton ! Joe ! Joe ! Joe !” (150)—
echoes the Dutch stranger’s voice insistently calling Rip van Winkle
in the mountains, which, added to the presence of the very Irvingian
Dutch doctor, Nicholas Vanbrunner, demonstrates clearly that the author borrows largely from Irving’s way of Americanizing his fictions, yet without sheepishly plagiarizing them.
______________
A Legend of Mont St. Michel
T
he events related in this narrative are presented as legend
but are in fact inspired by reality, in keeping with the subtitle: “A Sketch from History.” In 1591, the Count of Montgomery,
Gabriel II, then the leader of the Huguenot insurrection in Normandy
after his father’s death, plotted to capture “the impregnable fortress”
(159) of Mont Saint Michel thanks to the complicity, in the monastery itself, of a Norman soldier who eventually betrayed him. The
168 Published in Tales of a Traveller (1824), Washington Irving’s “The Devil and Tom
Walker” tells the very Faustian story of a man who makes a fortune with the help of the Devil.
116 — Mistakes, Treasons and Fabrications
narrative is remarkably conform to what history reports which makes
the term “legend” in the title all the more surprising.
The story consists mainly in the firsthand memory of an old man
who reports how he had “one day narrowly escape[d] a horrid death”
(158) during the French Wars of Religion. Obviously a Protestant, he
gives a tongue-in-cheek description of the coast of Normandy, mentioning “the mud and filth of the place” (157) as well as the proleptical treacherous side of “la belle France” (157), whose “picturesque cottages and busy peasantry present[s] only an appearance of
neatness and industry” (157). Even the Catholic monks who reside in
the monastery do not comply with the rules of honesty which should
be attached to their status as they are known to introduce secretly
“goods they were ashamed to carry in through the open gate, and in
the broad light of day” (160). As a consequence, the reader suspects
from the onset that treason may easily flourish in that world of falsity.
As in any legend, the narrative begins by introducing a hero of
extraordinary stature, namely the Count of Montgomery, “whose
noble nature would not suffer him to behold the wrongs of an oppressed people without attempting redress” (159). Then, if the sequel
of the story is conform to a banal account of brave deeds accomplished in time of war, the ending consists in a gory description of a
horrific massacre perpetrated behind the walls of the fortress. The
terms used in the evocation of that “sight of horror” are particularly
shocking, as are successively mentioned “a grim and bloodstained
executioner” by whose side “was piled a horrid heap of ghastly
heads” and “the gush of the warm blood [spurting] from the [eightieth] headless trunk” (162). The scene links the text to a literary genre
which, from Matthew Gregory Lewis’s Ambrosio, or, The monk, a
Romance (1796) to Vernon Lee’s “The Virgin of the Seven Daggers”
(1889), gathers narratives characterized by their spectacular use of
gore in various Gothic settings.169
The conclusion brings a legendary touch to historical facts so far
realistically reported as the assaillants are pursued by a “taunting
devilish laugh that broke from those accursed battlements” swelling
to the dimension of a cosmic piece of devilry: “I fancied that from
169 Matthew Gregory Lewis (1775-1818), English author influenced by the writings of Ann
Radcliffe (1764-1823). Vernon Lee (Violet Paget: 1856-1935), Victorian author of supernatural tales, a follower of Walter Pater (1839-1894).
Notice — 117
every lowering cloud that swept by on the wings of the wind, I could
see misshapen forms leaning, and pealing forth that demoniac laugh”
(162). However, despite the presence of some of the compulsory ingredients of a genuine legend, the text fails to reach the dimensions
of it, unless we reconsider the peculiar position of its author.
While the abortive onslaught dates back to 1591, the narrative itself is set in 1620, a date which is far from being meaningless for an
American author, and which obviously has not been selected at random. Indeed, the date does not fail to evoke the arrival of the Pilgrim
Fathers on the coast of Massachusetts “in that new world beyond the
sea” (159), a founding event which has almost reached the dimension
of a legend in American history. Moreover, despite the undeniable
European origin of the two strollers in the introductory section, the
discourse of the narrator is tinged with something unmistakably
American supported by an improbable remark concerning “the dread
tornado we hear of” and the consecutive damages for a “new world”
(159) located on the other side of the Atlantic. Although no region of
the United States is potentially spared by twisters, they appear more
likely in the “Tornado Alley”, i.e. parts of Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas,
and Nebraska, all of them regions which were hardly known or had
remained unexplored by the Europeans in 1620. Although part of
Texas was early explored by the Spanish discoverer Cabeza de
Vaca,170 and even if tornadoes caused by hurricanes were observed in
other colonized regions in mid-sixteenth century such as Florida,171 it
is unlikely for a European person to have heard of American tornadoes, and even if so, he would certainly have used a less exotic
comparison to evoke the devastation caused by a civil war. It is this
undeniable though subtle American dimension of the narrative which
provides a distance both in time and in space between the narrator
and the related facts and allows the story to appear as a legend.

170 Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca (1490?-1557) survive a wreckage in 1528 and lived on as a
small trader among the Natives of the Texas coast.
171 Discovered by Juan Ponce de Leon (1460-1521) in 1513, Florida’s first European settlement, under Tristan de Luna (c.1519-1573), dates back to 1559, but the small colony was destroyed by a hurricane.
THE
AMERICAN MONTHLY MAGAZINE.
DECEMBER, 1836
(VOL. VIII.)
ALICE VERE.
“Young bride,
No keener dreg shall quiver on thy lip
‘Till the last ice-cup cometh.”
The Missionary Bride.*
THE leading circumstances of the following narrative may possibly be known to more than one of our readers. But if now recognized notwithstanding the altered guise in which they are here
given, we trust that they are still so presented to the public as to infringe upon no feeling of domestic privacy.
In the spring of 18—, the Rev., Mr. B** of—, in Connecticut,
received a letter from his old friend and college chum, the Rev. E***
T***, who had been for some time established as a Missionary in
one of the islands in the Pacific, soliciting the fulfilment on the part
of his friend of a most delicate and peculiar office for him. The request of T—, who, having been long isolated from the world, had arrived at the age of forty without marrying was nothing more nor less
than that B—would choose a wife for him, and prevail upon the lady
to come out to her expectant husband by the first opportunity.
Strange as it may seem, Mr. B.—found but little difficulty in complying with the request of his friend. The subject of Missions at that
time filled the minds of the whole religious community, and in some
sections of the Union a wild zeal wrought so powerfully in the
breasts of individuals, that they were eager to abandon their homes
and their country, and sunder every domestic tie, in order “to do their
master’s bidding” in strange and inhospitable lands. Nor was this a
mere burst of enthusiasm, that was to pass off with other fashions of
the day, for its fruits are still constantly maturing ; and now, as then,
there are not a few instances of young females of respectability and
* By Mrs. Sigourney, Vid. Am. Mon., Jan. 1836 (note of the author). See infra note 5 (note
of the editor).
Alice Vere — 119
accomplishment educating themselves for the avowed purpose of becoming the wives of Missionaries. With these preliminary remarks I
will at once introduce the reader to the subject of the following
sketch, with whom I became acquainted in the manner here related.
I had been enjoying a week’s shooting at Quogue172 on Long
Island, when wishing to return to New-York by steamboat through
the Sound,173 I engaged a seat one morning in the stage coach for Sag
Harbor174 which sometimes stopped for dinner at my host’s, Mr.
Howell’s. In the present instance it delayed merely long enough to
receive my luggage and myself. The only other passenger was a female, whom, notwithstanding the effectual screen of her long poke
bonnet, I knew to be pretty from the quizzical look my landlord put
on as he shook hands with me at parting after I had taken my seat by
her side.
The day was warm, and we had not driven far, before, without
appearing officious, I had an opportunity of obtaining a glimpse of
my companion’s face, while leaning before her to adjust the curtains
on her side of the coach. It was beautiful, exceedingly beautiful. Not
the beauty which arises from regularity of feature or brilliancy of
complexion, though in the latter it was not deficient ; but that resistless and thoroughly womanish charm which lies in expression solely.
It evinced that feminine softness of disposition which is often the
farthest removed from weakness of character, though by the careless
observer it is generally confounded with it ; and which, though
sometimes it may mislead one in judging of the temper of the possessor, yet almost invariably, like the ore-blossom upon the soil that
is rich in mines beneath, bespeaks the priceless treasure of an affectionate and noble heart. The reader who would realize the attractions
of the countenance before me, need only call up their most winning
expression in the features he most admires.
I gradually fell into conversation with my companion, and
stopping at South-Hampton175 to change horses, her first remark,
upon our again taking our seats, was, that she feared we would not
172 A village located in Suffolk County, on Long Island (NY).
173 Arm of the Atlantic Ocean, about 100 miles long, separating
Long Island from New
York mainland and Connecticut.
174 A village of southeast New York, on the eastern end of Long Island, then an important
whaling port.
175 A village on the southeast coast of Long Island.
120 — Mistakes, Treasons and Fabrications
get into Sag Harbor until after dark, when she would be unable to
find the ship which was expected to sail in the morning. As I knew
that no ships but whalers lay at that time in Sag Harbor,176 I could not
at first possibly conceive what a young and delicate female could
have to do aboard of such a vessel ; and then the idea suggesting itself that she might be the daughter or sister of the captain, who came
to bid him farewell for his two years’ cruise, I asked her if she expected to remain on board the ship till she sailed.
“Oh yes, sir,” was the reply, “I go out in her.”
“What ! to the South Sea !”177 rejoined I. “You have relations
on board though, I suppose !”
“No, Sir, I don’t know any one in the ship, but I have a letter
for the captain, which I think will procure me a safe voyage to the
***** Islands.”
“The *****Islands ! Is it possible you have friends in so remote a place as the Islands ? They must be dear friends too—pardon
me—to carry you unprotected so far.”
“My hu-us-band is there,” she answered with some embarrassment, though the growing twilight prevented me from seeing
whether the confusion extended from her voice to her countenance.
The peculiarity in the young lady’s manner, as she pronounced the
word “husband,” piqued my curiosity, but as it would have been impertinent to push my inquiries further, I did not urge the subject, but
merely remarked that her youth had prevented me from taking her
for a married woman.
“Nor am I married yet,” was the reply ; “and indeed,” she continued with a slight tremor in her voice, “I have never seen the man
who is to be my husband.” An expression of unfeigned surprise, of a
more lively interest, perhaps—for I have said the young lady was
beautiful, and we had now been some hours tête-à-tête—escaped
me : I scarcely remember what followed, but before we reached the
inn door, the ingenuous girl had given me full account of herself and
her fortunes. She was an orphan child, and bred up in great seclusion
in a clergyman’s family in western New-York. She was, in a word,
176 First pursued off Newfoundland, whaling led American fishers to the south seas in their
quest for sperm whales, producing superior quality oil. From the 1790s on, they rounded the
Cape of Good Hope and hunted in the Pacific during voyages which lasted several years.
177 El Mar del Sur, name originally given to the Pacific by Spanish conquistador Vasco
Núñez de Balboa (1475-1519) who discovered it in 1513.
Alice Vere — 121
the young enthusiast whom the Rev. Mr. B— had chosen as a wife
for his Missionary friend, and prevailed upon to encounter a six
months’ voyage through stormy latitudes for the purpose of connecting herself for life with a man she had never seen. I did not express a
sympathy that would be useless in her situation, much less did I give
vent to the indignation with which her story filled me : her fanatical
friends, who permitted a young, a beautiful, and delicate female, to
take so wild a step, had, perhaps, after all, acted from the best of
motives. Indeed, the poor thing herself though not exactly proud of
having been chosen to the station she was about to fill, seemed about
to enter upon it with all the exalted feeling of one who fulfils a high
duty, and who is on the certain road to a preferment which most of
her sex might envy. It would certainly have been a very equivocal
kindness to have interposed another view of the subject, and disturbed the honest convictions of propriety which could alone have
sustained her in a situation, for a woman, so appalling.
I accompanied Alice Vere—for such I learned her name to
be178—to the vessel, and, after bidding her a kind farewell, I took an
opportunity while passing over the side to whisper a few words to
the captain, which might induce him to believe that she was not so
friendless as she appeared to be, and secure her whatever attention it
was in his power to offer. In the morning, having a few moments to
spare before breakfast, I again strolled down to the pier, but the
whaler had hoisted sail with the dawn, and a brisk wind had already
carried her out into the Sound ; nor was it till years after that I heard
again the name of Alice Vere, and learned the issue of her voyage ;
though the name and the features and voice of her who bore it, did, I
confess, long haunt me. It was too pretty a name I thought to be
changed lightly, and somehow, when I heard it, I could not, for the
life of me, ask that into which it was to be merged for ever. The rest
of her story I learned from a friend, whose vessel being driven from
her course in coming from the East Indies, stopped at the *****Islands to water, where he casually heard the fate of the Missionary
girl.
The tender and imaginative temperament of Alice Vere,
though perhaps it impelled her to make the sacrifice, for which she
was schooled by those who called themselves her friends, but illy fit178 The
Vere Plain is a fertile region of Jamaica.
122 — Mistakes, Treasons and Fabrications
ted her for the cold destiny to which she was condemned. The imagination of any woman, isolated upon the great deep for six long
months, with nothing to think of but the stranger husband, to whose
arms she was consigned, could not but be active, whatever her mental discipline might be. But with a girl of fancy and feeling, who had
taken a step so irretrievable when surrounded by approving and encouraging friends, what must have been her emotions in the solitude
of her own cabin, when such an influence— such a sustaining atmosphere of opinion—was wholly withdrawn. Doubt and fear would at
first creep into her mind, and when these disheartening guests could
no longer be controlled by the factitious notions of duty, fancy would
throw her fairy veil around their forms, and paint some happy termination of a prospect so forbidding. And thus was it with Alice
Vere. Anxiety soon yielded to hope ; her future husband and her future home filled her mind with a thousand dreaming fancies. She was
no romance-reader, and therefore could not make a hero of the future
partner of her bosom ; but a saint he indeed might be, a saint too not
less in form than in godliness, for the association of physical and
moral beauty is almost inseparable in the minds of the young and the
inexperienced. She imagined him too as one who, though not “looking from Nature up to Nature’s God,”179 for “God must be first and
all in all with him,”180 would still be one whose mind would look
from the Creator to his works, with a soul to appreciate all their excellencies. The fancied portrait of her future husband was laid in
simple though impressive colors, but the background of the picture
was filled with all time splendors of a tropical clime, of groves such
as the early Christians wandered through in Grecian isles, and skies
such as bent over Him who taught beneath them in the golden orient.
True, she was to be exiled for ever from the sheltered scenes and
quiet fireside of her youth ; but would she not be content to rove for
ever with one only companion whose soul could fully sympathize
with hers in scenes so fresh and so Elysian.
With a mind softened, if not enervated, by these day dreams
not less than by the bland and voluptuous clime in which they had
179 Alexander Pope (1688-1744): “Slave to no sect, who takes no private road, / But looks
through nature up to nature’s God” An Essay on Man (1733), Epistle IV: “Of the Nature and
State of Man with respect to Happiness,” v).
180 “Don’t worry! Peace comes from right priorities. / God must be first.” (Matthew 6:2534).
Alice Vere — 123
been for some time sailing, Alice Vere could scarcely suppress a
scream of delight, when, upon coming on deck one morning, she
found that the ship had cast anchor in the beautiful bay of ****,
where her wildest visions of tropical scenery seemed more than realized. The water around the ship was as clear as the mountain streams
of her native Country ; and the palm-trees and cocoas that bent over
it, lifted their slender columns, and waved their tufted heads against a
sky more purely bright than any she had ever beheld ; while clouds
of tropical birds of the most dazzling plumage sailed along the
shores, or sported around the vessel as if wholly regardless of man.
A number of the natives had launched their light barks from
the shore, filled with bread fruit and other acceptable luxuries to
those who have been long at sea. Alice was watching their approach
with girlish interest in the novelty of the scene, when a boat from the
opposite side of the crescent-shaped harbor made the ship, and almost before she was aware of its approach, a striking figure, dressed
after the clerical fashion of her own country, in a full suit of black,
presented himself at the companionway, and leaping on deck, instantly hurried towards her. She turned round—looked at him intensely for a moment—wade one faltering step towards him, and
fainted in his arms.
The gentleman laid her carefully upon a flag that chanced to
be folded near, and, still supporting her head upon one knee, gazed
upon her features with looks of surprise and anxiety, which soon
yielded to complete bewilderment as she addressed him upon coming
to herself.
“Thank God !” she exclaimed, gradually reviving, “thank
God ! thank God ! how can I ever have deserved this ?”—and bending her face forward, she impressed an almost reverential kiss upon
his hand, and then covered her face in confusion.
My readers have all read of love at first sight, and some perhaps have heard of instances of it among their acquaintance. The
sceptics to the doctrine, however, I imagine, far outnumber those
who really believe in it. It is the latter therefore whom I will beg to
recollect all the circumstances which preceded this singular scene ;
when they cannot deem it unnatural that the wrought up feelings of
an ardent and sensitive girl should thus burst forth upon first meeting
in her affianced husband—her appointed friend and Protector in a
124 — Mistakes, Treasons and Fabrications
strange land—him that religion and duty taught her that she must
love—upon meeting in him all that her dreams of happiness, for
long, long months of anxious solitude, had pictured.
“And is this beautiful island to be our home ? —are those my
husband’s people around us ? Oh ! how I shall love every thing that
belongs to this fair land ! But why do you not speak to your poor
wanderer ? Alas ! Alas ! can I ever deserve all these blessings ?”
The embarrassment of the gentleman seemed only to increase
as the agitated girl thus poured out her feelings. He begged her to be
calm, and seemed most nervously solicitous to restrain her expressions ; and the captain approaching at that moment, he made a hurried and indistinct apology for his abruptness, and, withdrawing his
arm from her waist as she regained her feet, moved off to seek the
mate in another part of the vessel.
“Ah ! Mr. Supercargo,181 I mistrust we should find you at this
island,” exclaimed the mate, turning round and shaking hands with
him, as the gentleman touched his shoulder upon joining this officer
near the capstan, “All well at home, Mr. F—, here’s a letter from
your wife.”
The other tore open the letter, and devoured it with evident delight ; and then shaking hands again with the officer, exclaimed,
“Thank you, thank you, all are well at home, as you tell me. But how
in the world came that beautiful insane creature in your vessel ?”
“A mad woman ! The devil a bit of a mad woman or any other
woman have we on board, except Mrs. T—, the wife of T—, that is
to be.”
“The wife of Mr. T— ?”
“Why yes, as good as his wife. She’s is a gal from York state
we are carrying out to be spliced to old dead-eyes.”
The gentlemanlike supercargo seemed struck with concern ; in
fact the true state of the case flushed upon his mind in a moment.
The deep mourning which he wore out of respect for one of his employers whose ship he was that day to visit, had evidently caused him
to be mistaken for a clergyman ; and the excited imagination of the
lonely girl had prompted her to see in him the future guardian of her
friendless condition. Nothing, however, could be done ; an attempt at
explanation would but betray her secret to the coarse natures by
181 The
officer in charge of the cargo and its sale and purchase.
Alice Vere — 125
which she was surrounded. Her lot in life, too, was cast—his sympathy could avail her nothing ; and a few days’ voyage would consign her to the care of him who might legitimately receive the proofs
of tenderness which he had so innocently elicited in his own behalf.
He called for his boat, and passing slowly and dejectedly over the
side of the vessel, pulled for the shore.
Alice Vere had in the meantime retired to the cabin, where she
expected her lover—it was the first time she had even thought the
word—to join her. Her own feelings had so crowded upon her mind
during the brief interview, that they had prevented her from observing his, and the luxury of emotion in which she now indulged
and in which she thought there was now not one consideration human or divine, to make it wrong for her to indulge, prevented her
from observing the lapse of time. Simple and single-hearted, with a
nature whose affluent tenderness piety could regulate and delicacy
could temper, though neither could repress, she poured the flood of
her pent-up feelings in what seemed their heaven-appointed channel ;
in a word, she was gone an age in love while numbering the minutes
of her acquaintance with her lover. His noble and manly figure, his
alert and elastic step in approaching her, and the kindly look of feeling and intelligence his features wore, a look of intense interest,
which she, poor girl, little dreamed was prompted by concern for another of whom he was about to ask her ; nay, even the hurried tones
of his agitated but still most musical voice, all, all were stamped
upon her heart as indelibly as if their impress had been the work of
years.
The water rippling along the vessel’s sides first roused her
from this delicious reverie, and the mate, who was a rough but kindhearted seaman, at that moment came below to make an entry in his
log. “Well, Miss,” he cried, “with this breeze we’ll soon bring up at
the parson’s door, and right glad to be rid of us I guess you’ll be
when we get there. Only thirty-six hours more, and you’ll be home.”
“This island then is not Mr. P—’s residence ?”
“This ? Oh no. There used to be a Britisher here, but they have
got no missionary man upon it now.”
“And does Mr. T— have to go thus from island to island in the
performance of his duty ? or did he only come so far from his people
to meet me ?” she concluded with some embarrassment.
126 — Mistakes, Treasons and Fabrications
“Come !” exclaimed the seaman, not a little puzzled ; “why,
law bless your soul, Parson T— has not been here, at least that I
know on.”
“Surely he’s now on board,” cried Alice, alarmed, yet hardly
knowing why — “Surely I saw him speaking to you on deck.”
“To me, Missus—I never cared to exchange two words with
old dead-eyes—axing your pardon—since I knowed him—speaking
to me ! why that—that was—why, bloody my eyes ! you have not
taken young Washington F—’s handsome figure for old Ebenenezer182 T—’s mouldy carcase ?”
The rude but not unfriendly mate had hardly uttered the sentence, before he cursed himself to the bottom of every sea between
the poles for the use he had made of his tongue. Alice fell lifeless
upon the cabin floor. The seaman shouted for assistance, and then, as
he and the better bred captain, who, as the father of a large and estimable family, was a more fitting nurse for the forlorn maiden, applied one restorative after another, she recovered animation at intervals. Fit succeeded to fit, however ; and then, as the wind rose and a
brewing tempest called all hands on deck, the captain could only
place her kindly in her berth, in the hope that the new excitement at
hand might possibly be of service to his patient.
The ship was driven widely out of her course. Alice was long
indifferent to every thing around ; but as the storm lasted for several
days, and finally threatened to destroy the stout craft in which she
sailed, the near prospect of the death for which she had but now been
longing, called all her religious feelings into action. She felt that she
was the child of destiny. Her gentle piety would not allow her to
wish for a sudden and violent death, though the peace of the grave
was what she most desired. She prayed then, not for life, but for an
escape from its horrors ; alike from those which raged in the angry
elements around her, and those which warred so fearfully in her own
bosom.
Weeks elapsed before the vessel reached the haven of which
she had once been within a few hours’ sail. The missionary girl had
apparently recovered from all bodily indisposition, and her features
were again as calm as ever ; but it was the calmness of rigidity, and
not of peace, they wore. It was a sacrifice of herself to heaven she
182 A
name of Hebrew origin, meaning “rock of help.”
Alice Vere — 127
had meditated originally ; “and why,” exclaimed she mentally, “why
should I shrink from the offering now, when Providence has enabled
me to make it richer and more abundant—to make my soul’s triumph
more complete as its trial is more bitter and severe ?” Still, when the
isle of her destination hove in view, it was with a shudder that she
first looked upon the shore, and thought of the fate that there awaited
her.
Woman’s heart is a strange, a wayward thing. In many a bosom its strongest chords are never touched by the hand to which it is
yielded. It is often bestowed with faint consent on him who seeks it
—bestowed in utter ignorance of the power of loving—the wealth of
tenderness it hoards within itself ;
“Circumstance, blind contact, and the strong necessity of loving,”183
will afterwards mould it to its fate, and prevent repining at its
choice : but when once its hidden strings have vibrated, and given
out their full music ; when once its inmost treasures have been disclosed to its owner—counted over and yielded up with a full knowledge of their worth, to another ; when “the pearl of the soul” has
been once lavished in the mantling cup of affections ; it revolts from
all feebler preferences, and is true, even in death, to its one only love.
Our story is now rapidly drawing to a conclusion. The Missionary soon came on board to claim his bride. He was a plain and
worthy man, with nothing to distinguish him from the numbers of his
profession in our country, who, mistaking the promptings of zeal for
the inspiration of a special calling, and who, without minds matured
by experience or enlightened by education, leave the plough or the
shop-board to become the instructors of those who, with feelings as
sincere as their own, and understandings far more exercised in knowledge of good and of evil, are expected to bow to their narrow teachings : to receive them, not as humble soldiers of the cross needing
guidance like themselves, but as the captains and leaders of the
church militant, armed in full panoply—a living bulwark against its
foes. Alice Vere had but little experience in society, but the quickening power of love had lately called all her dormant perceptions of
taste and feeling into play, and a very brief interview sufficed for her
183 George
Gordon Byron (1788-1824), Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (1812-1818): canto IV.
128 — Mistakes, Treasons and Fabrications
to read the character of her destined husband. She felt that she could
never love him. Respect him she did, as she would have done the
humblest brother of her faith ; and had she never known what love
was, her regard would perhaps not have been withholden in time ; for
every woman loves the father of her children if he be not a creature
to be abhorred. But if there be an agonizing thought to a girl of delicacy and sensibility, it is the idea of becoming a bride under such circumstances as surrounded poor Alice Vere—the thought that her
heart shall beat against the bosom of a stranger when its every poise
throbs for another. Still a high, imperious duty, as she believed, constrained her ; and she prepared to resign herself to her fate.
The nuptial day arrived. It had been arranged that the master
of the vessel on board of which Alice, wistfully lingering, had
begged to remain, should perform the ceremony ; (agreeably to the
laws of the State of New-York, by which marriage is merely a civil
contract requiring only a formal declaration of the parties before
competent witnesses.) Mr. T**** himself commenced the ceremony
by a prayer, which, as giving solemnity to the occasion, was perhaps
most proper in itself ; but it was painfully long, and seemed to refer
to almost every thing else but the immediate subject of interest. At
length the bride, whose languid limbs refused to sustain her so long
in a standing position, sunk into a seat, and the Missionary, glancing
a look of reproval at her abruptly concluded his harangue. The
worthy seaman was more expeditious in getting through with his
share of the office. He merely asked the parties severally if they acknowledged each other as man and wife. The Missionary made his
response in the affirmative with slow and grave distinctness. But
Alice faltered in her reply. A tumult of feelings seemed oppressing
her senses for a moment ; she looked to the untamed forest, whose
boughs waved unfettered on the shore, to the broad main that spread
its free waves around her, and the wild bird that sported over its bosom—
“Then she turned
To him who was to be sole shelterer now—
And placed her hand in his, and raised her eye
One moment upward whence her strength did come.”
The certificates, which had been previously drawn up, being
then signed and witnessed, the Missionary concluded with another
Alice Vere — 129
homily ; and the crew, who had been allowed to collect upon the
quarter-deck during the ceremonial, replaced their tarpaulins and dispersed over the vessel.
It was now sunset, and as a heavy cloud which threatened rain
brooded over the island, the captain politely insisted that Mr. T****
must not think of returning to the shore, but take possession of his
own private cabin. The rain soon after beginning to fall in torrents,
drove those on deck below. Here the mates claimed the privilege of
having a jorum of punch to drink the health of the bride, and the captain being willing to unite with them, Alice was compelled to retire
to the new quarters which had been just provided for her ; while the
festive seamen insisted upon keeping their clerical guest for awhile
among themselves, Their mirth soon became so uproarious as to
mock the tempest without, when a sudden squall struck the vessel,
carrying her over, even as she lay at anchor, under bare poles, upon
her beam ends. The seamen, followed by the Missionary, rushed to
the deck, where the glare of the lightning, as they looked to windward, revealed to them a female figure standing upon the taffrail with
arms outstretched toward a huge wave that lifted its o’er-arching
crest above her, and threatened to engulph the vessel. A cry of horror
escaped the revellers, and the Missionary breathed a prayer as he
clung to the rigging for safety ; and then, as the descending sea
righted the vessel, a suffocating moan was heard above the surge that
swept the body of Alice Vere like a drift of foam across her decks.
The morning came at last—the sun rose serenely—the bright
waves rippled joyously beneath the stern of the vessel ; and their reflected light, playing through the sloping windows of the cabin,
glanced upon the unpressed couch of the Missionary Bride. None
could even tell how she had made her way to the deck in the midst of
the tempest, yet none have ever whispered the sin of self-destruction
against the lovely, the lonely, the ill-fated ALICE VERE.
C. F. H.
________________
THE
AMERICAN MONTHLY MAGAZINE.
Vol. III
JUNE 1831
N° III.
THE ALIAS—OR MR. ST. JOHN.
‘I ALWAYS walk my horse into a town or up to a Hotel door,’
said Phil, as we descended the last sand bank to Saratoga village,184
and passed leisurely the spring at Congress Hall.185
He sat on the left side, driving—a peculiarity of his own, adopted like most of his other whims, from a horror of being like other
people—his eccentric palm leaf sombrero inclined at the merest possible angle to his left eye, and his rein-hand held up, as if for a graceful gesture, at about the second button.
It was just evening, and the great piazza was crowded with
promenaders. I was a stranger to the gay crowd myself, but as the
stanhope186 stopped, couple after couple recognized Phil, and we
were surrounded, before we could set foot upon the ground, by beaux
and belles, all in that atmosphere of free manners, ready to throw off
the metropolitan reserve, and give an uproarious welcome to one of
the most agreeable men on the pave. With some difficulty we
reached our rooms, at last, and were about preparing for a toilet when
the bell rang for tea. I felt the summons sensitively, for Phil had refused to dine on the road because the ‘Half Moon’187 smelt of herrings, and I looked forward to the bathing, and brushing, and cravatting that was before me with a melancholy foreboding of appetite.
My resolution was soon made.
‘Phil !’ shouted I, talking at the top of my voice through the
lattice over the door, ‘I think I’ll go to tea before dressing.’
184 See infra note
185 A fashionable
146.
hotel for the wealthy, famous for its remarkable piazza, between the 1830s
and the 1860s when it was destroyed in a blaze; an ere more impressive building was then rebuilt in its place.
186 A light open horse-drawn carriage.
187 After the name of Henry Hudson’s (1570-1611) vessel.
Mistakes, Treasons and Fabrications — 131
‘You’ll be sent to Coventry188 if you do,’ answered the dandy
in a tone of deliberate conviction.
It sounded like a knell, but appetite is imperative. I knew I was
sun-burnt and flushed—I knew my travelling coat was excessively
unbecoming—I knew I was grimed beyond the redemption of anything but a two hours’ lavation in rose water and cream, by the dust
of the worst of roads—I knew I looked more like a blacksmith’s
‘prentice (I was never handsome—but I can dress) than a gentleman
scholar—but in the hope of getting a seat unobserved at the bottom
of the table, and coming back to pursue my toilet leisurely and philosophically, (an impossible thing, let me say, with an appetite,) I ventured.
I had come to Saratoga, by the way, with an object. One of the
most admired women there, was a sister of an old college friend,
who, with a brother’s fondness on one side, and a friend’s on the other, had praised me to his sister, and his sister to me, till between descriptions, and postscripts, and the thousand indefinite modes of
mystifying one another, we were mutually curious to meet. With this
explanation I go on.
The two immense tables stretched down in long and busy perspective through the hall, crowded with the five hundred fashionables and ‘would-be-so’s,’ and the knives and spoons and women’s
voices, (men never talk till the meal is over,) were mingled in bewildering confusion. With some difficulty I found a seat—just vacated
by an invalid—and hoping that I had stepped in unobserved, I sent
for a cold bird, and played my knife and fork in busy silence.
Birds, berries and bread and butter gave me courage. I had finished my meal, but I sat looking up the long line of faces on the opposite side, speculating on one physiognomy and another, and selecting future acquaintances from the pretty and the piquant. All at
once my eye caught upon a side face I had seen before, and a sudden
turn, and a mutual recognition, left me no hope of escape. There sat
my old friend, and I knew instantly, by the resemblance, that the tall,
magnificent creature at his side was his sister ! I felt the blood rush
into my face like a broken sluice. You never saw me blush !—(thank
Heaven I never do except upon surprise)— it’s horrible ! My eyes,
188 Meaning “banished” or “ostracized”, a probable allusion to the banishment of Royalist
prisoners to Coventry during the English Civil War.
132 — The Alias—or Mr. St. John
nose, forehead were purple—I knew it—I could see every vein in my
mind’s spectrum ! I saw Harry speak to his sister. Her eyes were on
me in an instant ; and as I turned half away, and almost burst a blood
vessel in trying to look unconscious, I could see by my side eye that
her glass was raised, and I felt it go down to my dress, and up to my
red forehead, and my flattened hair, and about my slovenly cravat—
what did I not suffer ? I had no power to move, and I had forgotten in
my confusion the commonest ruse by which I might have avoided
her. I was seen and scrutinized, and as I edged out of the hall in
agony, I debated whether I had better insult my old friend, and so
avoid an introduction, or drown myself in the bath—either seemed
paradise to my present feelings.
Harry was in my room before I could get the door closed.
‘What could tempt you to come to the table looking so like the
devil?’
‘Why, in the name of all the saints, did you point me out to
your sister ?’
In a long four years of intimacy we had never come so near
quarrelling. He told me frankly that his sister was disagreeably surprised at my appearance, and I sat down on the bed and cursed my
stars till I was tired.
Well—I bathed, and dressed, and at nine o’clock Harry was in
my room again.
‘Gertrude will never recognize you,’ said he, measuring me
from head to foot. You are exquisitely dressed, and look as little like
the blushing youth at the table, as I like Hyperion.’189
A thought struck me ! I was always impudent by candlelight,
and I determined on my course instantly. I remembered that, though
very tall, I was rather short-bodied, and looked like a small man at
table, and trusting to the metamorphose of a studied toilet, I proposed
to Harry to introduce me by another name. It was agreed upon as
soon as mentioned.
The rooms were brilliantly lighted, and the band playing a
march. The ball had not commenced. Fifty or sixty couples, however,
were promenading round the room, and among them Harry with his
sister upon his arm. I settled my cravat, and with an assurance that
189 The comparison is far from being innocent since Hyperion was a Titan who was the husband of his sister Theia: “Theia yielded to Hyperion's love and gave birth / to great Helios and
bright Selene and Eos” (Hesiod, Theogony, 371-72).
Mistakes, Treasons and Fabrications — 133
would have astonished myself by daylight, lounged coolly and alone
up the middle of the splendid hall, my head slightly inclined in a collected modesty, and my glass passing leisurely over the feet only of
the gaily dressed promenaders. I felt that every eye in the room was
upon me, but I was sure of my self-possession. As Harry came
round, I caught once more, with a side glance, the glitter of a glass
levelled full upon my figure, and my hopes sprang like Mercury190 at
the sound of the low silver toned— ‘Who is he ?’
‘A college acquaintance of mine, Mr. St. John,’ said Harry.
‘Does he talk as well as he dresses ?’
I did not hear the answer, but a moment after the manager
clapped his hands for cotillons, and Harry came to present me.
I cannot, of course, speak otherwise than in general terms of
my progress in my partner’s favor. I had the advantage of having
read her letters for four years, and I knew every trait and taste she
possessed, both natural and acquired, and my knowledge of her character must have seemed like intuition. I could quote all her favorite
authors, and I remembered her own quotations, and did not fail, of
course, to introduce them ; and the similarity of taste seemed wonderful. We went out upon the piazza after the first dance, and paced
its dim-lighted length till the ball was over—four glorious hours !
And we parted at two—very good friends, certainly.
I had my name entered upon the books as Mr. St. John. I gave
Phil the cue, (he was very near betraying me twenty times a day,)
and no one else knew me. The veritable Mr. R— (Harry made his regrets to his sister) was supposed to be sick in his room, overheated
with travel. Gertrude said in my ear, she was not sorry—for she ‘had
seen him, and, spite of Harry’s eulogies, he was the ugliest man she
ever saw.’ I pulled up my gills and hemmed instinctively at the assertion.
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
Some six weeks after this I was standing behind a sofa on
which sat the lady of whom I have spoken. It was a fine October day,
clear and of a delicious coolness, and she had stopped at the end of a
canto to look out through the low long windows upon the beautiful
190 A
god who was the messenger to the other gods and traveled with great swiftness.
134 — The Alias—or Mr. St. John
lawn—indulging apparently some unbidden thought. I stood silently
looking down upon her polished forehead, and musing with a trembling pleasure on her excessive beauty and her noble mind, unwilling
to break the charm either of her thoughts or my own. Harry entered
with a letter, and without looking at the superscription ; she thanked
him, and was quietly slipping it under her belt to be read at leisure,
when he laid his finger upon her hand and begged her with an equivocal smile to attend to it immediately. I had stepped back to the extreme corner of the room as she broke the seal, and while she read it,
stood pulling to pieces a splendid exotic which had just been brought
out from the green house—the most valued flower she had.
‘How could he presume’—
‘But my dear Gertrude’—
It was, only by fragments that I caught the earnest conversation between them. For ten or fifteen minutes I stood in agony. At
last they seemed to agree, and Harry called to me.
‘St. John ! You shall decide ! Gertrude refers it to you. Here is
my old friend Mr. R— a man whom I have known like a brother for
years, and whose character and good qualities I thoroughly know. He
wrote to Gertrude when we were in college together, and she to him,
like brother and sister, and though they have never been fairly introduced, they are as well acquainted with each others’ characters as she
and yourself. On the strength of my interest and this acquaintance, he
romantically enough offers himself to her, here, in this letter. He is
rich, of a leading family, and my best friend, and yet she calls his
generous offer impertinence, and will not even answer the letter unless you decide against her.’
An indignant tear stood in the dark eye that appealed to me as
he stopped.
‘Is it left to me,’ I asked—‘quite—and will you abide by my
decision ?’
Harry left the room abruptly. As the door closed, I walked
round the sofa, and with a trembling voice and a doubting heart plead
my own cause against the presuming stranger—offering my poverty
and my love instead of the wealth and consequence of my rival. I
presume I was eloquent. I know I was earnest.
Harry’s voice in the entry raised me from my knee, and in a
moment he came laughing in, and called for the decision.
Mistakes, Treasons and Fabrications — 135
‘You promise,’ said I, rising and looking at the beautiful girl
as she quelled her emotion, ‘you promise solemnly to marry your
brother’s friend, Mr. R——, if I say it is my wish.’
She looked playfully into my face—‘I do !’ She little expected
my reply :—
‘Then marry him !’ said I, solemnly, ‘and may God bless
you !’
For an instant she fixed her eyes upon me as if she doubted
whether she had heard rightly. The color fled from her cheek, and her
hands dropped at her side, and for a moment I repented bitterly the
idle trick I had practised. It was explained as soon as she recovered
sufficiently, and my repentance vanished with my pardon, for I had
won her when she believed me poor, with a dazzling rival and a
pleading brother against me ; and the ‘ugliest man she ever saw’ is
Mr. R—— (alias Mr. St. John) and her husband.
________________
THE
AMERICAN MONTHLY MAGAZINE.
FEBRUARY, 1837
(VOL. IX.)
MARRIED BY MISTAKE.
THE steam was furiously whizzing from the safety-valves of
two fine boats that lay beside the wharf at Providence, crowded with
passengers, and every moment taking more on board. The Spitfire
and Rasp, (Captains Chace and Charcoal,) seemed like two huge
monsters, impatient to display their fiery speed upon the race-course
of the Sound.191 The tongue of the bell had rung its last alarm, when a
hot and hasty traveller, encumbered by a cloak and carpet-bag,
sprang from the wharf to the deck of the Spitfire, and in so doing
blundered against a gentleman who was standing near the gangway.
The new comer, recoiling from the immoveable form of the other,
trod on the gouty toe of an unhappy bulldog, who uttered a low
growl, and rasped his muzzle against an adjacent trunk, signifying
thereby that he had the will, if not the power, to avenge an insult.
The unlucky assailant sneaked blushingly away to deposit his burthen and secure a berth, while the proprietor of the bull-dog drew
himself up to his proudest height, toyed with a pink shirt collar, and
muttered something like an imprecation, which was lost, however, in
the folds of his cravat The gentlemen who had thus come in contact
both belonged to the genus cockney, as was evident from their dress
and personal appearance. They both wore square-cut green coats,
garnished with brass buttons, and white felt hats with very yellow
gloves and waistcoats, and there was a certain spruce grubness in
their noses and a carroty tinge in their cropped locks that plainly told
their origin. The principal differences between them consisted in the
thin sandy moustache which twinkled on the upper lip of the owner
of the bull-dog and in his superior stature. This gentleman had been
travelling in the Canadas, and making the grand tour of the lakes,
191 See
note 173.
Mistakes, Treasons and Fabrications — 137
whence he diverged to the City of Notions.192 He was now on his
way to a town on the Hudson, there to sign and seal ; in short, to wed
a lovely damsel, the child of a distant relative, whom he had never
seen, but whom the miniature in his possession assured him was a
“lovely crittchure.” The second cockney was travelling “for hinformation.”
When the boat began to move, the passengers on board the
Spitfire crowded to the starboard side of the vessel to watch the progress of the Rasp. Frequently did Captain Chace descend to the “inferno” in the centre of his craft, and as often, on his re-appearance,
did the volumes of smoke that issued from the funnels grew denser
and blacker, spreading like the wings of some vast bird above the
water. At length a loud hurrah proclaimed that the Rasp had given up
the contest, and away flew the victorious Spitfire, justifying her
name by the trail of sparks she left behind, and cleaving the waves of
the Sound with a devilish velocity. The excitement of the race soon
died away. Some of the passengers descended to the cabin, others lay
at length upon settees ; while not a few, with an air of determined
activity, strode back and forward on the upper deck. Among the latter were our cockney friends. As often as they crossed each other in
their countermarches, he of the moustache gave vent to some fragmentary ejaculations, such as—“Ven a gentleman hinsults another
gentleman,” and “heven if the hinsult was hunhintentional,” and the
like ; all of which mutterings ended with a smart swing of his switch
cane, which was very awful to behold. Whereupon the lesser cockney would look fluttered, but would essay the air of “Money
musk,”193 which invariably died away in a demi-semi-quaver.
The conduct of these travellers afforded much amusement to a
couple of American gentlemen who had noted their proceedings
from the first. These last were Frank Harris, a midshipman, and his
companion Dr. Scalpel, both of the United States’ navy, if the young
middy was in the highest spirits, the man of science was by no means
indisposed to join in his mirth. He was a bluff and portly gentleman
of the sect of laughing philosophers. To a whispered scheme of the
mischief-loving middy, Dr. Scalpel gave assent and countenance. In
pursuance of the plan, the friends separated, and soon after entered
192 Alias Boston.
193 A traditional Scottish
and Irish tune and dance, which became popular in New England
by the end of the 18th century.
138 — Married by Mistake
into conversation with the cockneys ; the midshipman making up to
the lesser Briton, and the surgeon accosting the owner of the bulldog.
“My dear sir,” said Harris, “you must excuse my interference
in your affairs, but really I take such an interest in you, though a
stranger, that I cannot help assisting you. You ran against the gentleman with the switch cane and mustachios.”
“It was hentirely hunhintentionally,” replied the little cockney.
“I ham so wolatile and ‘eedless.”
“But the man’s irascible, and his insolence is apparent to all
our fellow-passengers.”
“ Vel, vat shall I do ? Hapolegize ?”
“Apologize ! Pooh ! that would only encourage him. No—
stand your ground, and I’m the man that will uphold you. Assume a
firm demeanour.”
“Pray ‘ow can hi ! I’m so wolatile.”
“Its easy enough. You must, I say, take a determined attitude.”
“As ‘ow ?” asked the cockney.
“Knit your brows and look big.” The little cockney stood on
tiptoe. “And if he should challenge you”——
“I’d lodge a hinformation,” said the cockney quickly. “If you
did so pusillanimous a thing,” replied his Mentor, “I would be the
first to forsake you. I would abandon you to the rage of your ferocious adversary.”
At that terrible voice and those terrible words the heart of the
little cockney died away within him. Meanwhile a different conversation had taken place between the larger cockney and the doctor.
The former did not wait for the latter’s advances, but commenced
with :—‘Ow d’ye do, sir ? ‘Ow d’ye do, sir. Fine day, air, fine boat,
sir. Nice gentlemanly captain, I vish I could say as much for hall the
passengers.” And he cast a very blood-thirsty and significant glance
at his timid countryman.
“I take your meaning,” said the doctor. “You have been
grossly insulted.”
“Me and my dog.”
“Twas too provoking.”
“An apology, or ‘is ‘art’s blood !”
Mistakes, Treasons and Fabrications — 139
“My dear sir, I like your spirit. With your consent I’ll wait on
the gentleman, receive his apology, or insist on a meeting.”
“You’re too good, sir”
“And may I ask your name ?”
“‘Tis of no consequence. At present I’m travelling incog. like
my werry good friend, the Juke of St. James. It vill be a condescension to meet this man, but, as the Juke says, we can’t alvays valk
on stilts like the French shepherds that ve saw in ‘Ungary.”
The pugnacity of one of the parties favoured the designs of the
schemers. A duel was agreed upon, and since the doctor had promised to act as the second of the man with mustachios, the midshipman could do no less than render a similar service to his timid
antagonist. It was determined, on their arrival at New-York, that they
should all ascend the Hudson in a steamer, and be set ashore at a
landing-place well known to the middy, who promised to take them
to a most secluded spot.
“I’m fond of seclusion,” said he to the little cockney with an
air of sentiment, “it’s so convenient for fighting. I’m accustomed to
these things. I was once at a tavern, with some of my friends, when
we got into a confounded squabble. There was Jack Travers, my
most particular friend, Ned Halyard, his crony Thompson, and myself. We were so hazy at the time, that the next morning none of us
could tell how the quarrel began, or who enacted the parts of it ; but
it was agreed that the lie had been given, that one gentleman kicked
another, and that somebody threw a decanter at somebody else’s
head. It was necessary to have a duel, and we drew lots for sides.
Principals and seconds fought at the same time. I shot at my friend,
and Ned Halyard lodged a bullet in his crony. But there was no great
harm done, and we shook hands and breakfasted together. We bore
no malice to each other—it was all done for the honour of the service. There was a necessity for fighting, as there is in your case.”
The little cockney would fain have disputed the proposition,
but his courage failed when he heard Frank Harris talk so dashingly
about a duel.
Arrived at the fatal battle-field, the combatants were placed
in their respective stations, and furnished with pistols by their
friendly seconds. The little cockney was pale as a sheet, and even the
upper lip of the mustachioed hero twitched convulsively. “Fire !”
140 — Married by Mistake
cried Frank Harris in a voice of thunder. Bang ! Bang ! went the pistols. “Are you hurt ?” cried each second to his principal. The replies
were in the negative. “Try it again,” said Frank Harris fiercely, and
fresh pistols were presented. This time the hero of the mustachios
took a deliberate aim—and missed. The little cockney pulled the trigger, and down went his great antagonist. The seconds and the successful duelist rushed to the spot where the dying man lay kicking
convulsively with a deep red stain upon his marble forehead.
Like Byron’s hero, he exclaimed—“I’ve got my gruel,”194 and,
like Byron’s hero, too, his thought was of his lady-love. “I enjoin it
on you,” said he to the victor, “to go to the ‘ouse of Villiam Viggins,
which can’t be far from ‘ere. Take this ‘ere letter, which vas my credentials, and show it to ‘im. Tell Miss Sarah Viggins I hexpired vith
a vound in my ‘ed and von in my ‘art—she’ll understand the compliment. Tell ‘em I died game—and ‘ark ye, I forgives you ‘artily. It
van all my hown fault.” Having wrung the hand of the repentant
homicide, he closed his eyes and lay back upon the sward.
“‘Eaven knows,” exclaimed the poor little cockney, “that I
didn’t seek his life. I shut my heyes ven I fired, and I thought the bullet vould go over ‘is ‘ead.”
“You have killed your brother traveller,” said the surgeon, in a
deep sepulchral voice.
“My brother traveller !” shrieked the poor little cockney. “Yes,
and that makes me a fratricide.”
“This is is no time for lamentation,” said Frank Harris. “Rouse
yourself. If you resolve to comply with the dying man’s injunction,
you must procure a conveyance at the inn, where they can direct you
to the house of Wiggins. As for me, I will soon meet you again. Tell
the story of your victim’s death, but conceal your agency in the affair. Adieu.”
The disconsolate duelist shook the proffered hand of the midshipman, and after one sorrowful glance at the body of his victim,
took his departure from the fatal spot. At the inn he was informed
that Mr. William Wiggins lived in the immediate neighbourhood and
194 “The dying man cried, ‘Hold! I’ve got my gruel! / Oh! for a glass of max! We’ve miss’d
our booty / Let me die where I am!'” Lord Byron (1788-1824), Don Juan (1819-1824): canto
XI.
Mistakes, Treasons and Fabrications — 141
thither he proceeded on foot, musing, “under the shade of melancholy boughs,”195 upon the late disaster.
“He from the world had cut off a great man ;”196
And what was to be his reception at the house of the bereaved bride.
How would her lovely bosom heave, and her beauteous eyes be filled
with tears, at the melancholy intelligence which widowed her ere she
had been wedded. And the heart-broken father too ! It would bring
down his gray hairs in sorrow to the grave. In the event of their discovering that he had been the destroyer of their bliss, what would his
penitence and tears avail ? Into such a state of agitation was the poor
little cockney thrown, that upon arriving at the Wiggins’ house, he
had hardly strength enough to pull the door bell. The house stood on
the outskirts of a thriving village, and was a trim little box of a place,
all overgrown with vines, and embosomed in foliage and flowers,
looking out upon a pleasant lawn. But the little cockney had no eyes
for the beauties of nature, and no time to observe them ; for at the
sound of the bell, an aged domestic appeared at the door, and ushered
the tremulous visiter into the best room of the house. Mr. Wiggins
immediately entered, a portly little gentleman in a snuff-coloured
suit, with the brightest pair of eyes that ever looked a person through.
He bowed, and waited for the visiter to speak.
“Mr. Villiam Viggins, I presume.”
“The same, sir.”
“I come, sir, to hinform you of an unappy, a werry unappy
event—your son-hin-law —that vas to be’.—hoh lord ! hoh dear ! I
never can get through vith it. This letter”—
“—Is directed to me ? Hey ? Speak fast, Let’s have it.” And as
the trembling youth yielded up the letter, the piercing little eyes of
Mr. Wiggins ran over the lines in a minute. No sooner had he finished the perusal of the letter, than his face lighted up, and springing
forward, he grasped the hand of the little cockney with warmth.
“So, you are Mr. John Smith—hey ?”
195 “That in this desert inaccessible, / Under the shade of melancholy boughs, / Lose and
neglect the creeping hours of time” William Shakespeare (1564-1616), As You Like it (Act 2,
Scene VII, The forest).
196 “He from the world had cut off a great man, / Who in his time had made heroic bustle.”
Byron, op. cit.
142 — Married by Mistake
“That certainly is my name. I vonder vere he found it out,”
was the exclamation of the cockney.
“My dear Mr. Smith, I’m so delighted to see you—we’ve been
long expecting you—made all the preparation, my dear fellow—and
Sarah feels as brides expectant ought to feel, and Mrs. Wiggins is in
the fidgets—but I’ll present you at once.”
“Mr. Viggins, you mistake hentirely.”
“No mistake at all in the matter,”
“I didn’t come to marry your daughter, but to say that her marriage can never take place.”
“What d’ye mean, John Smith ?” cried the irascible old gentleman, his little eyes twinkling with sudden passion. “D’ye know to
whom you speak ? Adsblud ! I’ll make you marry her. Why, you’re
mad as a March hare.”197
Several times did the unhappy bearer of a too common name
attempt an explanation, but as often as he essayed to speak, the singular little eyes of the old gentleman would sparkle and light up, and
he would overwhelm the wretched Londoner with a torrent of high
words. So the latter submitted, at last, with forced resignation to his
fate, which in this instance seemed to hurry him into the arms of a
very pretty girl. Both mother and daughter welcomed their guest with
delight, and he soon found himself at ease in their company ; but as
often as he began to speak on the subject that lay heavy on his heart,
the eye of the old man kindled up, and he made a menacing gesture,
which brought back all the fears of the unhappy Smith. Thus beset,
he began to think it would not be so very wrong to accept of the wife
thus singularly forced upon him. He was in good circumstances, no
obstacle stood in his path, and it was very unlikely the affair would
ever be cleared up. On the contrary, should his full confession be
heard, should the knowledge of the unhappy rencontre transpire,
what had he not to fear from the severity of unknown laws in an unknown land ! He could not run away, for the bright-eyed old gentleman kept a vigilant watch over him, and he found he could not pass
the limits of the lawn in a morning walk without being pursued by
the aged domestic with some message that invariably brought him
197 The phrase, popularized by Lewis Carroll’s (1832-1898 ) Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865), has been used since the 16th century. It is based on the female hare’s peculiar way
to repel unwanted males during the mating season by using her forelegs, hence Wiggins’ ironical remark.
Mistakes, Treasons and Fabrications — 143
back. Therefore we should not wonder that when the wedding-day
was fixed, Mr. John Smith was a passive bridegroom—that he pronounced all the vows required by love, law, and religion ; Squire
‘Cobus Everlink kissed the bride-maids and the bride, and was as
gay as a man in such unhappy circumstances could be.
On the morning after his marriage, to his horror and surprise
he was confronted, in the little parlour which had witnessed the sacred ceremony, with his ancient antagonist, who, accompanied by
Harris and the Surgeon, appeared to beard the bridegroom in his den.
The resuscitation of the largest Mr. Smith is easily accounted for.
The mischievous midshipman had superadded a little red paint to the
charge of powder in the pistols, and the appearance of this on the
forehead of the cockney so alarmed him that he gave himself up for
dead. He had now arrived too late in the day, What an éclaircissement !198 And the bride trembled and fainted, doubtless ? She did no
such thing. But when she found that one Mr. John Smith was quite as
respectable and wealthy as the other, she clung to the arm of her husband, declared that he was the man of her choice, that she never
could have looked twice upon the other ; and was as happy as possible, though MARRIED BY MISTAKE.
________________
198 A
French word for “explication.”
THE
AMERICAN MONTHLY MAGAZINE.
NOVEMBER, 1837 (VOL.X.)
THE GOLD-HUNTER ; A TALE OF MASSACHUSETTS.
“————————What is here ?
Gold ? Yellow, glittering, precious gold ?”
Timon of Athens199
CHAPTER I.
IF you would enjoy the country in perfection, you should leave
the city at the precise time when the fashionable tourists are flitting
homeward from their summer jaunts. When Saratoga is no longer
populous, Nahant200 deserted, and Rockaway201 forsaken, then plunge
yourself into the heart of rural life. Do this towards the latter part of
September. Are you a sportsman ? At that time partridges are rife.
Are you a pedestrian? Then the air is cool and bracing, and a march
of fourteen miles before breakfast is a “circumstance.” Ride you ? In
September the roads are in excellent condition. If you are a poet or a
painter, choose this season for your ramblings. What glorious tints
are on the rich, misty hills, so blue and undefined, their summits
mingling with the soft autumnal sky. The hazy river winds along,
filling its channel with melody and beauty ; and the woods, where
here and there a yellow leaf appears, now sombre but not melancholy, exert a gentle influence upon the soul. As the day steals on,
the landscape brightens apace. The mist-wreaths curl up from the
199 An unfinished play written by William Shakespeare (1564-1616) in 1607 in which Timon, ruined by his creditors and abandoned by his friends, discovers an underground treasure.
200 A town located in Essex County, Massachusetts.
201 Originally called “Reckowacky,” which meant “the place of our own people” by the Canarsie Indians who occupied it, this narrow peninsula of Long Island was sold to the Dutch by
the Mohegans in 1639. In 1833, the Marine Hotel was built which became rapidly fashionable
among New York’s rich and famous, notably Washington Irving.
Mistakes, Treasons and Fabrications — 145
valleys, climb the mountains, and catching golden hues in the lofty
vault of heaven, pass away like the gossamer dreams of hope and
love. The winding river reflects the deep azure of the sky, save where
its ripples sparkle in the sun like shivered glass. The noon is sultry ;
but a grateful breeze tempers the heat as it sweeps from the depth of
the cool woodlands, dimples lake and stream, and plays with the
mimic billows of the grain-fields. The reaper stays his sickle for a
moment, as he welcomes the freshening wind ; and away speeds the
viewless messenger, rustling the ears of maize, and brushing its
golden tassels as they flicker in the sun. Your loud step in the stubble
rouses the quail with her numerous family, and away they whizz to
some secluded spot. The pumpkin-fields display their orange-colored
hoards ; and association brings to mind the pleasures of Thanksgiving—its hearty hospitality and earth, and rustic pleasantry. Prize this
glorious season ; for it is, alas ! but transitory. Soon—too soon—Destruction will revel in field and forest. The maple will glow in its
hectic beauty at the flint kiss of the forest ; the broad crown of the
oak will become sore and rusty ; the birch tree will turn yellow, and
the graceful elm fade day by day. The fields will be deserted by the
laborers, the sportsman will steal through rustling leaves, and the
whole landscape assume a threadbare and forlorn appearance. Enjoy,
then, the brief hour of glory and beauty ; drink from the cup of bliss
while its bubbles dance upon the brink.
Reader, did you never go to Hollywood ? ‘Tis some fifty miles
from Boston, in the heart of a hilly country ; but oh ! in the bosom of
those stern hills there is many a spot of such luxuriant beauty, that
the heart would dance in your bosom to behold them. The view of
Hollywood, through the Green Gap, is worth five hundred miles of
travel. Its amphitheatre of purple hills, its assemblage of grey crags
and feathered knolls, its white buildings gleaming among the trees
and reflected in the waters, its trim gardens and its winding brooks I
—were I an artist, I might hope to paint them.
Many a happy hour have I passed at Hollywood beneath the
roof of Farmer Bolton, a jolly agriculturalist, who owns his hundred
acres, and has a shrewish wife, a fine intelligent daughter, and a host
of sturdy sons. The Farmer lives there yet. He is a Yorkshireman,
and a good specimen of a rough, bluff, hospitable, hard-handed,
hard-riding son of the North Countries, He came to Hollywood many
146 — The Gold-Hunter ; a Tale of Massachusetts
a long year ago, with what he termed a “power of money ;” and well
might he conceive it so, for it procured him noble farm. Having
made himself “comfortable loike,” he purchased twenty heads of
cattle from a neighbor, and while concluding a bargain with the old
gentleman, struck one with his daughter, a tall, keen-eyed, peaknosed young lady of thirty. “Canny Yorkshire” was a bit deceived
when he thought Miss Tabitha Persimmon the most amiable of women. However, she “kept his gear thegither,” and annually presented
him with a pledge of her affection. As every addition to a farmer’s
family is a source of revenue, jolly Joe Bolton hailed with joy the appearance of each new claimant on paternal affection ; and he looked
forward to the time when, retiring to the repose of his huge armchair, he should entrust the labors of his farm to the abler hands of a
dozen sturdy sons.
Jolly Joe Bolton rose at five and worked till dark. Constant exercise and hearty feeding made him almost as broad as he was long.
His occasional recreations were a day’s fishing in a neighboring
pond, or a gallop of a few miles to a shooting-match. He had but one
bad habit, and that was a propensity to lounge of evenings in a pet
chair in the bar-room of the Banner of Liberty, the only public-house
in Hollywood. Here he met the squire202 and the schoolmaster, and
two or three dissipated hangers-on—men out at elbows and down at
heel, who were topers by profession. These latter were true sons of
New England—I mean New England rum. As they accomplished no
labor, they considered themselves the élite of Hollywood, and kept
up a kind of spurious gentility, with their faded green and black garments, their rusty stocks and superannuated beavers. One, par eminence, had acquired the fame of a storyteller, in consequence of
which, he was “treated” at the tavern, and dropped elsewhere. He had
once held a commission in the militia, where he formed those evil
habits which had reduced him to his present state of degradation.
Captain Josiah Sandford, or Sy, as he was popularly termed, was the
Sir Walter of the village.203
202 The local judge.
203 Sir Walter Scott
(1771-1832), a novelist and a poet advocating 18th century enlightenment; he popularized the historical novel and had a prominent influence on literary circles in
the 19th century. He encouraged Washington Irving to study German literature, which incited
him to adapt German tales to the American context.
Mistakes, Treasons and Fabrications — 147
It was a sultry evening in September. Not a breath was abroad
to wave the dusty foliage, and lift the muslin curtains of the Banner
of Liberty. The bunch of asparagus tops that filled the chimney-place
was parched and withered. The tallow candles on the bar burned with
unwavering brilliancy. The mosquitoes hummed hoarsely through
the room, as if they stood in need of something to drink ; and the
great house-dog lay upon the floor, with his tongue lolling out of his
mouth. Colonel Hateful Bemie stood within his bar, alternately dispensing beverage to his customers, and wiping the drops of perspiration from his forehead.
“Blasted hot !” said Captain Sy, polishing his purple, perspiring visage with the remnant of a cotton pocket-handkerchief,
which must have been the very one that caused the murder of the
“gentle lady wedded to the Moor.”204
The remark was addressed to jolly Joe Bolton, who entered the
bar-room at that moment.
“Ees it be, zure enough,” replied the jolly Yorkshireman.
“Come, Captain, give it a name.”
And jolly Joe winked twice, chuckled, laid his fore-finger to
his nose and walked up to the bar. Nothing loth, the bulwark of the
Massachusetts militia followed.
“What’ll you have, gentlemen ?” asked Colonel Hateful, with
a satirical emphasis on the last word, as he glanced at the forlorn and
threadbare equipments of Captain Sy.
“I’ll take a glass of yale ;” said the Yorkshireman. “And the
Captain”—
“I’ll have a leetle sperrit, I believe—jest to keep the heat out.”
In winter the Captain drunk to keep the cold out, in wet weather to keep the damp from striking in, and in dry weather “jest to a
kinder ile his works.”
“Here’s to you, Mister,” said the Captain, as be decanted a
glass of flaming liquor, which sent a twinkle to his dull gray eyes,
and deepened the paly purple of his nose.
“Now, Captain,” cried Joe, as, lighting his pipe, he sat down
with the representative of the chivalry of Hollywood. “Can’t you find
summat to talk about ?”
204 After William Shakespeare’s (1564-1616) Othello (1604, printed 1622), the handkerchief
which turned Othello’s murderous jealousy against Desdemona.
148 — The Gold-Hunter ; a Tale of Massachusetts
“Wa-al, I don’t know. I forget eenymost every thing now-adays. My memory’s amost chawed up. But, by the way, I’ve been a
wantin’ to come acrost you for a long while. Want to ax you if
you’ve found any thing on your farm ?”
“Found what ?” inquired jolly Joe.
“Gold and silver ;” replied the Captain in a whisper, winking
with an air of mystery.
“Nonsense !” cried the Yorkshireman.
“Wa-al,” said the son of the sword, “it ain’t no matter.”
“Yees, but it be though—domned if it beant !” said the Yorkshireman. “What made thee ax’t, man ?—Do tell us now—coom !”
“Oh ! it ain’t no matter,” said the hero of sham-fights, proudly,
indifferently. “It ain’t no matter. Jest thought you might like to know
—most folks like to make a leetl sutthin, jest to whelp ‘em along
when they’re past labor. Hain’t been able to do it myself—that’s no
reason why I shouldn’t gin another fellar a helpin’ hand. But ‘taint
no matter.”
“Well, mon,” said Canny Yorkshire, assuming an air of indifference—” If ye donna loike to tell it, e’en keep it to yourself.”
Captain Sy fidgeted in his chair. “Hain’t no objection to tellin’
on it, if you’ve a mint to bear on it. If it wasn’t so darned hot, and my
mouth as dry as sole-leather, I mought let out a leetle sutthin.”
“Take a drop o’ something to refresh your memory.”
“Wa-al, I don’t keer if I do,” said the delighted toper. “Kurnil
you may mix me a glass of punch—a real snorter ; and while you’re
a mixin’on it, tell your boy to dror a mug of cider ; and while he’s a
drorin’ on it, I’ll jest take a pitcher of beer.”
It was certainly a very dignified thing in the leader of platoons
to snap his fingers after having imbibed stimulants enough to destroy
a less valiant man ; but heroes bare their failings.
“Wa-al,” said he, “now I’ve wooded up, I can go a-head like
lightning.” Drawing his chair close to that of his companion, Captain
Sy laid his band upon his arm to bespeak his attention, and began as
follows :—
“Great while ago, when this here toun was all timber and
swamp-land—huckleberry-bushes and skunk cabbages—when the
first settler come to fell and build, he found the hull country in the
Mistakes, Treasons and Fabrications — 149
hand of one Squotterkin, a Pequot chief.205 He was a snorter of a fellar— as big as a bull—and only had one failin—hem !—he was fond
of rum. Wa-al, that warn’t much agin’ him. But what was sing’lar.
—instead of wearin’ glass beads and bits of tin, like the other redskins, he had rale goold bracelets, and a rattler of a bit of goold as
big as a hunk of gingerbread about his neck. The first settler, an ancestor of mine, axed the old chief whar, the name of thunder, he got
that specie. The tarnal critter shook his head, and wouldn’t. Then the
settler—may as well call him my grandfather—treated Squotterkin,
gin’ him rum. That onlocked the riptyle’s heart—so he up and told
him, that he found the ore on his land ; but he said the devil showed
it to him ; that the ore belonged to the devil, and it could only be got
at midnight, in the till of the moon. Whether that was all talk and no
cider, I don’t know. Wa-al, my grandfather give old Squotterkin a
barrel of rum and a hatchet for the biggest half of this ‘ere toun ; and
the old chief went west, and was carried off by a fit of the horrors.
Some say Old Nick flew away with him. However, it was a pretty
good speculation, though my grandfather never mined, nor found any
goold there. Somehow or other it passed out of the hands of the family ; and as for me, I hain’t got land enough to bury a musquitto in.
But I raally advise you to be sharp. More things than potatoes may
be dug out of that ‘era land, though there’s no kind er question but
what Old Nick must be consulted first—’cause he’s your lawful
landlord, arter all. But I say, I must shet up—’cause here’s Lawyer
Facias lookin’ this way and listenin’. Wouldn’t halve him know the
secret, ‘cause he’d find a flaw in your title-deeds, whip you out of
the Forest Farm, and himself into it, in the snapping of an ox-chain.”
It was now late, and Joe Bolton thought it time to retire. The
lamps were getting dim, and Colonel Bemis was nodding in his
chair. Four men were leaning up against the wall, shaking hands and
swearing to stand by each other, although evidently unable to stand
by themselves. Two or three professed tipplers were asleep in chairs,
and even the squire was singing through his nose. So the farmer
shook hands with his military acquaintance, and went home. Once or
twice, as he crossed a lonely stile, he thought he saw a tall black figure stealing over the grass, but it was only the lengthened shadows of
205 A Native American people of Connecticut; the Pequot broke away from the Mohegan in
the early 17th century.
150 — The Gold-Hunter ; a Tale of Massachusetts
the swaying birch-trees. That night he dreamed of discovering mines
of wealth. Piles of ducats, rupees, ingots, louis d’ors, and eagles,
seemed to solicit his attention, and woo him to appropriate them ;
while hundreds of little fiends were busily sweeping away the golddust from beneath his feet, as if that was not worth the gathering.
CHAPTER II.
Shrill chanticleer aroused the yeoman from his slumbers the
ensuing morning, and he donned his garments with his customary
promptness. Already were his sons afield, and the forms of the
brindled cattle were speckling the distant meadows. How delicious
was the balmy air of the cool gray morning, breathing as it did of briery hedges, and bloomy fields, and new-mown hay ! The little birds
shot upwards from the copse with shrilly twitterings, and the rabbit
stole across the path as Joe Bolton trudged along on his way to a distant field of corn it was his purpose to inspect. Before he reached it,
he had to thread one of those dark, deep swamps so common in New
England. Although partially drained, the footing was in many places
insecure, pines and hemlocks shot upwards from its unctuous soil to
a vast and appalling height ; while the brilliant and odorous swamphoneysuckle, the blueberry, and dwarf birch clustered at their bases.
The shining mock-orange trailed its green and thorny festoons from
tree to tree, threatening the yeoman with a rough salute. All
throughout this damp and dismal region a grey mysterious twilight
reigned, and it struck a melancholy even to the soul of jolly Joe
Bolton. However, he trudged sturdily along, whistling a merry tune
with unfaltering breath. Once or twice he made a mis-step, and
tumbled in a bog ; and as often as he met with this mishap, he
thought he detected, mingling with a dry, suppressed chuckle, the
cries of “Bolton ! Joe Bolton ! Joe ! Joe ! Joe !” But it was only the
croak of the bell-frogs and the crackling of girdled trees. At length he
emerged from the swamp. At this moment he could have sworn he
saw a black figure hovering over a green-mantled pool, which vanished as son as he observed it. But this may have been all fancy. He
had no sooner quitted the confines of the swamp than he again
stumbled. This time he fairly fell. As he groped about with his hands
preparatory to rising, he encountered a stone. He was about to fling
Mistakes, Treasons and Fabrications — 151
aside, but a hasty glance showed something shining in the rough
heap ; and the honest Yorkshireman uttered almost a yell of delight,
for he recognized a glittering mass of gold.
“I’m domned if it ain’t pure gold !“ cried the honest fellow.
“My fortin’s made, zure as the devil’s in Lunnon.”
“ Gold ? Hey ? Is it !” cried Lawyer Facias, suddenly appearing. “Then I give you joy, Mr. Bolton.” “Thankyee,” replied the
farmer, discontentedly. “Dang it !” he muttered to himself. “I’d
rather Facias had been at whoam—bug he’s putting his nose into
every body’s mess.”
“Let me look at the soil,” said Facias. “Why, farmer, there’s
every indication of a vein. ‘Egad, you’re a lucky man. But harkee !
I’ll give you one piece of counsel.”
“Gratis ?” asked the farmer,
“Free, gratis, for nothing at all,” said Facias, smiling. “Don’t
make much talk about this. I’ll tell you why I’m not so sure of the
soundness of the title by which you hold this estate. The man of
whom you bought it was a very great knave.”
“Yees—he were a lawyer ;” said the Yorkshireman, winking.
“The Squire has his legal doubts,” said Facias. “So mind you
say nothing of this windfall. I’ll keep your secret. More good luck
will follow.”
“And what must I give ye, mun, for keeping the secret ?”
asked the farmer. “They say you lawyers doant do nothing for nothing.”
“Pooh ! Pooh !” cried Facias. “I only wish to be neighbourly.”
“You’re deady koind,” said jolly Joe. “Come, man, sit thee
doun wi’ me on this bit of a rock, and tell I how I mun goa to work to
get more gold ; for, zounds, I’m in a desput hurry to get rich.”
“Aye—there’s the nib,” said Facias. “It is not enough simply
to dig in the ground. I have no doubt that precious metals and stones
are scattered freely over the whole surface of God’s earth, and it was
originally intended that the husbandman should turn them as freely
with his share as clods of marl. But they are under the guardianship
of an evil power.”
“You mean Ould Nick,” said the Yorkshireman.
“Assuredly.”
152 — The Gold-Hunter ; a Tale of Massachusetts
“Wall, Maister Facias,” said the honest yeoman. “I wont try to
deceive ye—I do believe in that. My good mild mother—rest her
bones !—taught that and the Bible to me at the same time— and
domn it ! I believe in both.”
“You talk like a sensible man !” cried Facias. “Well, sir, we
must propitiate this Evil Spirit.”
“Jockey him a bit, mun, hey ?” exclaimed the Yorkshireman.
“‘Ecod ! then, you’re the very chap to do it, Maister Facias— you’re
acquainted with his ways.”
“Nonsense,” said the lawyer, peevishly, “I know nothing of
the art of finding metals, but I know a man in New-York state, the
hither side of Albany,206 an old Dutch scholar, Dr. Nicholas Vanbrunner, a graduate of Leyden, who can manage this affair to perfection. ‘Tis but a hundred and thirty miles to his place of residence. If
you choose, I will send for him, and he will soon put you in possession of the treasures beneath your bet. He, however, must receive a
large percentage for his trouble. What say you ? Have you a mind to
send for him ?”
“Ecod ! I will,” cried the Yorkshireman. “Your Dutch Doctor
is the very chap. I’ve heard of him. He’ll do it, nice as ninepence. I
shall be so rich, and—Maister Facias come and breakfast wi’ me.”
CHAPTER III.
It was late one stormy evening when a knock was heard at the
front door of Farmer Bolton’s house. Jolly Joe himself opened it, and
standing on the threshold, beheld Lawyer Facias wrapped in an old
plaid cloak, and holding an umbrella.
“Come,” said he, “Dr. Nicholas Vanbrunner has arrived, and
will see you to-night in a room at the Banner of Liberty. He has unpacked his apparatus, and will show you a proof of his skill.”
Jolly Joe Bolton snatched his hat, and accompanied the lawyer
to the tavern, where, without pausing in the bar-room, they went directly to the apartment of the low Dutch necromancer. He was a little
withered old gentleman, dressed in a suit of rusty black, with a sharp,
twinkling eye, and a cynical twist about the mouth. He was comfortably seated in a mahogany arm-chair, smoking a very venerable
206 A
town on the Hudson river, and the capital of New York State since 1797.
Mistakes, Treasons and Fabrications — 153
meerschaum.207 He did not rise from his chair, or withdraw the pipe
from his mouth, on the entrance of his visiter, and merely nodded his
head when Facias introduced the farmer.
“This is Mr. Bolton,” said the lawyer.
“Yaw—yaw,” replied the doctor.
“Who owns the farm I described to you,” continued Facias.
“Yaw,” said the doctor.
“You understand ?” said Facias.
“Naw,” replied the doctor.
Facias addressed him in Latin.
“Coom, now,” said the farmer. “I’ll make ye a fair offer, doctor. Ye shall have a half of all ye find. Do ye understand ?”
“Naw,” replied the doctor, briskly.
“‘Ecod ! he understands that fast enough,” said the Yorkshireman. “I think gold, mun, ha’ been the original language.”
Dr. Vanbrunner now rose with much reluctance and opening a
little chest, produced a small black bottle which might have held perhaps a pint. A pleasant perfume diffused itself throughout the apartment as if a hundred roses had suddenly blossomed, and cut their fragrance on the air. “It is the magical Elixir,” whispered Facias.
Dr. Vanbrunner drew the cork from the bottle, and holding the
orifice to his nose, appeared to inhale the aroma with peculiar delight ; for his little bright eye twinkled, a strange smile writhed his
sarcastic lips, and his nostrils expanded like the stag’s in Marmion.208
“It is goot !” said the Dutchman, as he handed it to Joe.
“None of your devil’s drink for me, mon,” said the Yorkshireman, putting it away.
“Nonsense, man,” cried Facias, “I’ll be your taster.” And he
drank a little to show Bolton “
“ Now den,” said the doctor, “for do magic glass.”
He drew a small box from his chest, in the top of which a polished lens was inserted, and having wiped the glass with great care,
he placed it on the table before Farmer Bolton.
“Look ! Look ! Mynheer !”209 said the Dutch doctor. “Put
fatever you sees, I pray you do not say von vort.”
207 A pipe with a bowl made of clay.
208 “The stag sprung up on Cheviot Fell,
/ Spread his broad nostril to the wind.” Sir Walter
Scott, Marmion; A Tale of Flodden Field (1808).
209 “Sir” in Dutch.
154 — The Gold-Hunter ; a Tale of Massachusetts
Farmer Bolton gazed and gazed. At first his vision could detect no distinct image, but presently a strange light flashed upon his
eyes, and he beheld an exact representation of the house in which he
lived. Every thing was life-like. Smoke issued from the chimneys,
and the confused babble of fowls sounded from the poultry-yard. The
trees and flowers waved as if agitated by a gentle breeze, and he
heard the lowing of cattle from the watery meadows. Alarmed,
aghast, he would have turned away but for a change in the scene before him. He beheld the dark and dismal swamp, with its perilous
quagmires, its green pools, and its flowering honeysuckles. That, in
turn, departed ; and he gazed upon the memorable spot on which he
had discovered the golden ore. As he looked steadfastly upon the surface of the earth, it opened, and gazing into a yawning cavern, he beheld a greater store of wealth than his imagination ever conjured up.
Heaps of rubies and emeralds adorned the rocky sides of the cavern,
and far down were huge piles of shining ore. Seated on a rock,
however, near the entrance, was a figure of forbidding aspect, a tall
black man, grasping a pitchfork, with a pair of horns upon his head.
The legs terminated in two cloven hoofs, and a graceful tail twisted
into many a spiral curl, lay before the demon on the rocky floor.
“‘Ecod !” cried Joe, raising his eyes to Vanbrunner : “I ha’
seen the old ‘un.”
The doctor hastily seized the box—a wild strain of music issued from the interior, but he returned it to the chest.
“To-morrow, mine frient,” said the doctor; “to-morrow, mine
very goot frient—we will make de grant experiment.”
He then explained, by the help of Facias, that it was necessary
for the farmer to deposit in the earth a goodly sum of gold, which, by
its chemical affinity, would draw all the loose metal to its neighborhood, and indicate the region of the vein. As for the guardian demon,
Doctor Vanbrunner promised to subdue him. So the parties separated
for the night. But ‘ere he went to bed, Joe Bolton committed one
hundred guineas to the bosom of the earth.
CHAPTER IV.
For one brief night Farmer Bolton enjoyed all the feelings of a
millionaire. I once heard of a man, who was informed by a bill stuck
Mistakes, Treasons and Fabrications — 155
in an office window that his lottery ticket had drawn the highest
prize. He took a short turn to recover from the shock of his good fortune, but when he returned to the window, he found the number of
the fortunate ticket had been changed. So fared it with honest Joe
Bolton ; he had no sooner formed his plans for the disposal of his
fortune, than it vanished like the mirage of the desert. But I am anticipating.
The night which followed the interview with he doctor was
gloomy as the preceding one, and the gold-hunting trio arrived at the
spot, drenched and dispirited. The doctor placed the leathers on a
stone, and produced a bottle of the magical elixir. It revived the spirits of the party, and they went to work. The clouds at midnight broke
away from the face of heaven, and the moon came shining out like a
silver lamp, bailed as a welcome omen by the doctor and the farmer.
The clink of pick-axe and spade announced an important discovery,
and the united strength of the party was requisite to bring to light a
huge iron pot of ponderous weight. This was an unexpected piece of
good fortune, for it was filled to the brim with Spanish gold coins of
a very ancient date. A little deeper they came to an old mouldering
oaken chest, crammed, like the iron pot, with ancient coins. Then
pile after pile of shining ore was rescued from the earth. Among other things Dr. Vanbrunner turned up Bolton’s box of guineas. As the
grey light of the morning began to streak the distant east, the exhausted triumvirate sat down to a division of the spoils.
“To you, doctor,” said the joyous farmer, belongs half.”
“No—no—” said the disinterested Dutchman. “Dis hundret
guineas is enough for me.”
“Not so,” replied honest Bolton. “At least, let me add a handful of these coins.”
“Enough! Enough !” cried the Dutchman “Py Gott ! I vill take
no more, mein frient.”
“As for you, Maister Facias,” said Bolton, “your share is a fair
third.”
“Not a doit ! not a stiver !” cried the generous Facias. “All I
ask is this, friend Bolton. In future, think better of attorneys for my
sake.”
The Dutchman and Facias then shook hands with Bolton and
departed. The farmer went home, harnessed his horse to his waggon,
156 — The Gold-Hunter ; a Tale of Massachusetts
returned and carried off the spoil. Overcome with fatigue and excitement, he threw himself upon his bed and slept. When he awoke again
it was high noon. The family had breakfasted, and his wife met him
with reproaches as he descended to the parlor.
“Ah ! Wife ! wife !” cried the honest man. “If you knew
what’d been about, you wouldn’t look so desput cross this morning.”
The mystery was soon explained—The iron pot, the oaken
chest, and the waggon-load of ore produced. Alas ! poor Bolton ! All
thy imaginary wealth was brass and copper. The deception was but
too apparent. He rushed to the Banner of Liberty. Colonel Hateful
Bemis and Captain Sy were there, but where was the great Dutch
doctor ? From hence the infuriated yeoman went in search of Facias.
His sign hung by one nail : the door was locked—the shutters were
unclosed. The lawyer, who was deeply in debt, had doubtless eloped.
The whole truth flashed upon the mind of Bolton. Facias and the
doctor were in league together, and had shared the hundred guineas
between them. They were never seen in Hollywood again. As for
Farmer Bolton, he looked rather gloomy for a time, but by and by
good cheer and heavy crops restored his spirits, Jolly Joe became
himself again, and though he now relates his story with good humor,
yet he never fails to add—ALL IS NOT GOLD THAT GLITTERS.210
______________
210 The literary origin of the proverb dates back to Aesop’s fables (born circa 620 BC) and
is found in a very similar form in William Shakespeare’s (1564-1616) The Merchant of Venice
(1596-1598) “All that glisters is not gold” (Act II, Scene 4).
THE
AMERICAN MONTHLY MAGAZINE.
JANUARY, 1836.
(VOL. VII)
A LEGEND OF MONT ST. MICHEL.
__________
A SKETCH FROM HISTORY
__________
IT was on a sultry day in the summer of the year 1620,211 that
two individuals toiled wearily up the landward side of one of that
range of mountains that separates the town of Avranches,212 on the
coast of Normandy, from the inland. The erect form and firm step of
the elder of the two, showed that his old age was as a “lusty winter,
frosty but kindly.”213 And in every motion of his companion was
manifested the light heart and untiring spirit of youth. The ascent
was steep, and the path winding and rough ; so that by the time the
summit was attained, the hardy sinews of the old man, and the lusty
limbs of the youth, were equally fatigued. But the scene that there
met their eyes was well calculated to make them forget their weariness. Beneath them lay the town of Avranches, at such a distance that
the mud and filth of the place were invisible ; while its picturesque
cottages and busy peasantry presented only an appearance of neatness and industry more amiable to “la belle France.” On either side,
for miles along the coast, villages, forests, cultivated fields, and
winding streams met the eye in endless succession while in front,
looking over Avranches was seen the singular fortress of St. Michel,
211 Louis XIII (1610-1643) was reigning over France. All the major European powers were
confronting one another in the Thirty Year’s War (1618-1648), notably for religious reasons.
That same year, the Pilgrim Fathers signed the Mayflower Compact and founded the Plymouth
Colony near Cape Cod.
212 A town in Normandy (France), on the English Channel, near the island of Mont Saint
Michel. It was devastated during the French Wars of Religion (1562-1598), the conflict during
which the facts related supposedly occurred.
213 “My age is as a lusty winter, / Frosty, but kindly” William Shakespeare (1564-1616), As
You Like It (Act II, Scene 3).
158 — A Legend of Mont St. Michel
surrounded by the still more singular sands of the same name. As
these last two objects are immediately connected with our tale, it will
be necessary to say a few words in description of them as they appear to our travellers.
The rays of the declining sun streamed lull upon the vast plain
that lay between the ocean and the main land, partaking of the character of each, yet widely differing from either. From the outer verge
of this plain, three or four miles from the main land, arose a tall conical rock, on the summit and sales of which were built a fortress and
a town. This plain was the famous sands, and this rock the famous
fort of St. Michel.214 Were the latter less fortified by art than it is, it
would still, from its situation, be well-nigh impregnable. Surrounded
by a desert of sand, which at the coming in of the tide becomes one
vast quicksand, covered entirely with water, it rears itself above the
waste, too lonely and exposed to be approached unseen ; while if it
were attacked in the broad light of day, the assailants would be engulphed in the devouring sand long before they could obtain a footing on the firm rock.
The younger traveller gazed upon the scene with ever-increasing wonder and delight ; now pointing out to his companion
some shady nook in the dark forest, and now directing his attention
to the glittering of the rivers as they lost themselves in the sands.
“Ay,” said the old man, “it is a glorious scene — all France can boast
no fairer. I too, when the blood danced as merrily through my veins
as it now does through yours, ere the exposure of seventeen summers
had darkened the down upon my lip, I too beheld it from the same
spot on which you now stand, and with the same feelings of wonder.
Little did I then think that on yon sands I should one day narrowly
escape a horrid death ; little did I then think that within the gloomy
walls of that castle my nearest and dearest friends would one day
find a grave. Let us sit beneath the shade of this tree, and while the
cool sea-breeze fans our brow, I will tell you a tale of ‘the Fortress of
the Genii.’”215
214 Mont Saint Michel is a fortified monastery built in the 8th century on a rocky islet at the
border between Brittany and Normandy. A one mile causeway was built by the end of the 19 th
century connecting the island to the mainland from which it is separated by flat sands at low
tide and waters at high tide. The rising tide is reputed to reach the speed of a galloping horse.
215 A genius was a tutelary deity or the guardian spirit of a person or of a place, here obviously Saint Michael himself.
Mistakes, Treasons and Fabrications — 159
You may thank a benign Providence, my son, that your youth
has been passed in better days than those which, in your father’s boyhood, were burthened with gloom and danger, with civil war for our
beloved country, and family discord for her oppressed children. The
Wars of the League216 have indeed gone by ; but like the dread tornado we hear of in that new world beyond the sea, they have left behind a wide path of desolation, strewed with the blasted hopes and
ruined fortunes of the best and bravest of our land. The hand of war,
which was laid so heavily upon others, did not spare my kindred ;
and we are now gazing upon the place in which each of my brethren,
nearest in affection as well as in blood, were, in quick succession,
ruthlessly murdered.
We were all, as you know, the dependents of the Count de
Montgomeri, whose noble nature would not suffer him to behold the
wrongs of an oppressed people without attempting redress, and
whose arm was nerved by the thought, that his father’s murder was
yet unrevenged.217 His energetic spirit and undoubted courage made
him one of the most active and successful leaders of the Huegonots ;
and when therefore he announced to his brave companions his determination to attempt the capture of the celebrated fortress of St.
Michel—the impregnable fortress218—the declaration was received
with no surprise, though all doubted whether even Montgomeri was
equal to the task. But his hopes of success were well-grounded — no
thought of fear entered the bosom of him or his companions, and he
had every possible motive to urge him onward
On the wall of the castle, on the north side, there is erected a
small tower, which at this distance you can scarcely perceive, whose
base projects a little over the bare steep rock, which at that place
216 The Catholic League, an ultra-Catholic party founded by Henry of Guise in 1576, during
the French Wars of Religion, aimed at radically exterminating Protestantism in France.
217 Gabriel, Count of Montgomery (ca 1530 – 1574), who accidentally killed King Henry II
in a tilt, was the leader of the Protestants of Normandy during the Wars of Religion. In 1563
and 1574, he vainly tried to take over the town of Cherbourg, was arrested, sentenced to death
by Catherine of Medici and decapitated in Paris. His son took over his fight in Normandy. In
1591, he vainly tried to capture the fortress of Mont Saint Michel. The legend refers to that
episode of the French Civil War.
218 No onslaught on the Mont Saint Michel was ever successful and the place was consequently considered as protected by Archangel Saint Michael.
160 — A Legend of Mont St. Michel
goes down, almost perpendicularly, to the sands beneath. In the floor
of the tower there is a trap-door provided with tackle, through which
it is said the monks, who in days of yore possessed the place, were
accustomed to draw up those goods they were ashamed to carry in
through the open gate, and in the broad light of day. Though this is
the weakest point in the fortification, yet it was supposed to be so secure that but one soldier was stationed there to guard it. This man
was bound by the strongest ties, of what nature I know not, of gratitude to our noble master ; and though fortune had thrown him into the
ranks of our opponents, it was believed that he had not forgotten his
former faith, and was still eager to serve his former friends. It would
be of little use for me to tell of the difficulties that were met, and the
dangers that were overcome, before an agreement was made with our
friend within the walls. It was at length, however determined, that on
the appointed night, the Count, with a brave band of an hundred associates, should steal up to the rock, and one by one be drawn up by
the tackle of the monks.
The day came ; how wearily it passed ! The sun went down—
oh ! how different from that on which we are now gazing— amid a
mass of low black clouds that settled down and enveloped the
gloomy fortress, as if its guardian genii had summoned their black
battalions to come in mist and darkness, and protect their drear
abodes. This night advanced, and though the wind and the rain were
raging, though we had to grope our way, through thick darkness,
over lands, which even in mid-day are dangerous, yet calmly and determinately we gradually approached the rock, and at length stood
close at its foot. Would to God we had never reached it, that we had
all perished together in the quicksand ere we saw the beacon-light of
the faithless sentry ; would that his lying lips had become dumb ere
he spoke the words that led so many of my friends and kinsmen to a
bloody grave. But anger is now in vain ; it becomes rather to wait patiently for a death, how different from theirs !
I have said we stood beneath the trap-door, and you may imagine with what anxiety we gazed at the twinkling light above, and
with what joy we heard the creaking of the blocks and the crank of
the irons at the end of the ropes as they struck the ground. Then for
the first time we breathed freely ; for we heard in the sound a confirmation of the good faith of our ally. Our joy, however, was short-
Mistakes, Treasons and Fabrications — 161
lived ; for as we surrounded, by the light of dim lantern, the iron
cleets by which one of our number was to ascend alone, and with no
friendly hand to aid him, to unknown dangers, our hearts again sank
within us. Even the bold spirit of our leader was subdued at the
thought of the fearful risk which he who first ascended was to run.
At length my youngest brother, young in years but the bravest of the
brave, stepped forward, and without a parting embrace, without a
farewell word, with scarce a farewell look, placed his foot in the iron
and grasped the cord. Gradually he rose from the earth, gradually he
disappeared ; and oh ! how eagerly did each streaming eyeball gaze
after his lessening form ; yet breathless silence chained every lip, and
almost stopped the beating of every heart. But when the creak of the
descending rope reached our ears, when the clank of the iron was
once more heard, a smothered cry of joy arose ; confidence was restored to every bosom, and each man pressed forward with eagerness
to join his companions in the tower above.
In this manner did I behold my five brethren disappear ; in this
manner, in quick succession, did fifty gallant soldiers unhesitatingly
ascend. We listened eagerly to hear when the work of death began ;
we expected every moment to hear the shout of victory ; we panted
to peal forth the war-cry of the Montgomeri ; but all was silent as the
tomb. No clashing of steel or hurrying of feet told of the fierce encounter or the sudden surprise ; the light above still shone feebly
through the thick mist ; the rope was still constantly and regularly
lowered. Whispers and horrid surmises ran through the group. We
looked eagerly around for some mode of solving the mystery. A
large piece of timber, some forty feet in length, lay near at hand ; and
as the eightieth man was beginning to ascend, I proposed that, having
fastened myself at one end, I should be raised in the air until I might
be able to see over the ramparts. It was soon done. I was slowly and
cautiously raised ; I reached the top of the ramparts—I gazed
eagerly. Oh, God in Heaven ! what a sight of horror I beheld ! In an
open place, below, by the light of half a dozen torches, stood a grim
and bloodstained executioner, grasping a long two-handed sword ;
from the point of which the reeking gore fell drop by drop. By his
side was piled a horrid heap of ghastly heads ; and even while I
162 — A Legend of Mont St. Michel
gazed, the same man, from whom but a minute before I had parted,
the eightieth of our number, was led in ; his head bowed upon the
block, and I could distinctly hear the heavy blow of the sword, and
see the gush of the warm blood from the headless trunk. I could endure no more. I closed my eyes, and gave one long loud cry of agony
and fear. My startled comrades quickly lowered me. I recollect not
how I told the hideous tale ; but I well remember—oh ! I shall ever
remember — the taunting devilish laugh that broke from those accursed battlements. It came upon us as the cry of the bird of night
comes upon the ear of the murderer. It was echoed back from tower
to tower. I fancied that from every lowering cloud that swept by on
the wings of the wind, I could see mishapen forms leaning, and pealing forth that demoniac laugh. We paused not, we tarried for one another ; but clasping our trembling hands to our affrighted ears, we
rushed wildly, madly across the plain. How I reached the shore I
know not. The hand of the Almighty alone led me away from the
quicksand, and preserved me from the treacherous waters.
J. H. H.
________________
Uncanny Coincidences
Notice
The Exile
T
his text illustrates several aspects of the ambivalent relationships between the United States and France in the late
18th and early 19th centuries by highlighting the most obscure aspects
of the French Revolution seen from an American point of view. Undoubtedly, the narrator sides with the representatives of the ancien
régime presented as the victims of an oppressive, blood-thirsty Terror:219 “A breath, a whisper for the royal cause, turned the scales of
the French goddess . . . The mouth that one moment was stretched
with laughter, at the next, ‘grinned horribly’ upon the bloody pike”
(170). The narrator scoffs unreservedly at what the Revolutionary
has become by asserting that an “[e]quality of rights seemed, in those
times, to have produced nothing but an equality of wrongs” (170).
Thus the revolutionaries—derogatorily called “agitators” (170)—are
seen as indulging in violence for violence’s sake while their indiscriminate efforts were wickedly “directed to the prostration of the old
system” (170), just like “the Poissardes [who just] desired blood and
not tranquillity” (175). Hence the forced exile of many aristocrats
who searched in flight “the only security left” to them and who found
shelter in “the asylum of the oppressed” (170). Nevertheless, the
popular formula sounds somewhat ironical in a country in which the
Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 were passed by the Federalist Congress partly as a protection against presumed French agents of revolutionary propaganda in America, partly against the pro-French
Jeffersonians.
However, that French migration to America imposed its rules on
the newcomers who often had to abandon their social status so that a
noble and an ordinary person may no longer be distinguished one
from the other: “The valet who found that our sympathy was graduated by the scale of rank, assumed the name and bearing of his master. His master often finding it impossible to establish his own iden219 During the reign of Terror (1793-1794), thousands of presumed enemies of the State
were executed.
Uncanny Coincidences — 165
tity, quietly took up with his own family name, abandoned its titles”
(171). In this context, intermarriages still contributed to the confusion when “[t]he lovely Charlotte Le Blanc had well nigh given her
hand and fortune to a well dressed lacquey ; and our unfortunate
friend Count Fortbien, sans credit at his lodging house, accepted with
gratitude the heart and home of a rustic heiress” (171). The traditional boundaries between the rich and the poor, the noble and the
commoner, dissolved in the American social melting pot.
Once again, the reader’s entrance into the field of fiction is indicated in the text by a voyage on board a boat, namely here “along
the verdant shores and beautiful islands of the Oneida” (172). There,
the very francophile Mr. L discovers a French family of recently arrived aristocrats who live “in the wilds of America” (172) in a
roughly built cabin, “removed . . . from the comforts and enjoyments
of social life” (173). Their unrefined lodgings and rudimentary
equipment evoke the standard of living of pioneers on the Frontier:
“a few chairs, a few articles for the table, and a rough couch on
which were carelessly thrown the skins of some wild animals” (174);
we also note the absence of real furniture replaced by “[a] few
trunks, secured by heavy brazen bands . . . arranged about the room”
(174), not unlike in a pioneer’s log cabin. Once in America, the
French aristocrats had to give up the refined lifestyle they enjoyed
before the Revolution when they were “so happy and so gay” and
start a new simple life, “happy in [their] mutual passion” (176) and
waiting for a chance to improve their condition. This new start from
scratch parallels the experience and the hopes of many emigrants
who came to America to find a better life, and, in accordance with
the American Dream, “fortune . . . at last smiled upon the interesting
exiles” and after some time, they were “once again in affluence and
ease” (178).
What makes the story told remarkable is not only the peregrinations of the French couple but the fact that they meet their savior
three times as if by pure chance, a series of coincidences which is
structural to the story. They meet for the first time in Paris, on the
occasion of the countess’s birthday “in which [Mr L.] participated so
largely as [her] father’s American friend” (173), then on the Oneida
island, and later on one more time in Paris, when they were well-off
166 — Notice
again, already almost Americanized, not by the language they use—
they still speak French—but by their friends—among whom “notre
ami Livingston”—and by their sympathy for a man whom the countess relevantly calls “notre Fulton” and “our countryman” (177),
showing that she considers him as a compatriot. It can be concluded
that the Hudson valley should exert some magical influence on those
who dare abandon civilisation for its witching wilds: Rip van Winkle
spends happy days in old age, rid of his termagant wife, while ruined
aristocrats go from rags to riches again; this part of America is definitely a place in which dreams easily come true.
____________
The Snow Pile
T
his story, written by the fashionable Maine author of dime
novels Joseph Holt Ingraham (1809-1860),220 would be of
no particularly literary interest if it did not reveal by the recurrent use
of clichés some facets of the mentalities and popular imagery of his
time. The style of his prose is classic but the series of episodes composing the narrative lacks realism and sounds rather artificial, as the
author only seems to indulge in the description of implausible successive sketches leading to an unoriginal plain denouement that appears, however, as the outcome of an unforeseen coincidence. In fact,
Poe’s appreciation of Ingraham’s style in his widely-read novel
Lafitte, the Pirate of the Gulf (1836) could aptly be applied to “The
Snow Pile”:
Upon the whole, we could wish that men possessing the weight of talent and character belonging to Professor Ingraham, would either think
it necessary to bestow a somewhat greater degree of labor and attention
upon the composition of their novels, or otherwise, would not think it
necessary to compose them at all.221
Interestingly, it is one of the rare pieces published in the American Monthly Magazine which is explicitly signed by its author,
which may be explained by the notoriety of the signer. However, the
220 See supra note 179.
221 Edgar Allan Poe, “A
August 1836.
Review of Ingraham’s Lafitte”, The Southern Literary Messenger,
Uncanny Coincidences — 167
tone of the narrative is pleasant and gay though not devoid of some
of the serious issues and stereotypes which agitated the American society of the time. The episode of the West Indian sailor, for instance,
reveals Ingraham’s prejudiced attitude toward colored persons, a racially biased position clearly exposed in some of his other works
such as The Southwest, By a Yankee (1835) in which he advocates
the upholding of slavery as indispensable to the stability of the Union. In the same way, Ingraham’s deeply-held conservatism makes his
protagonist a paternalistic, whimsical and domineering master of his
servant John, even if their relationships are presented in a humorous
way sometimes turning the tone of the story into that of a farce. Similarly, the caricatural happy ending shows the protagonist in his domestic happiness with “[t]hat lovely young matron sitting sewing opposite [him], while [he is] writing” (188), the female character’s personality being eclipsed both by that of her new husband and that of
the “old gentleman, sitting by the fire reading a newspaper” (188),
namely her father who lives under the same roof.
Nevertheless, the author spices his text here and there with zesty
remarks which undeniably make it more comestible. For instance,
the narrator insists on the joyous mood in which he is plunged by the
perambulation of young women “in light dresses and sylphide
forms,” noticing impishly that it was “as if there was something improper in their appearing out in such undress, as if some modest article of apparel was forgotten” (180), thus suggesting to the reader
that their outfit is slightly indecent. More subtly, the snow pile which
“lay like an incubus on [his] thoughts” (181) alludes to disturbing
sexual fantasies, and so does the young boy, hit in his left eye by a
snowball, who “went off limping as if the hurt had been in his heel
instead of his head” (182), a behavior symbolically referring to the
lame Oedipus who gouged his eyes out. Significantly, the snow,
which the protagonist keeps in a bottle of Cologne, as if it were holy
water, miraculously brings back the young lady to life and cures the
narrator from his rheumatisms, so that he no longer needs his cane:
emotionally speaking, he is no longer a cripple and has gained the
right to found a family under the tutelary protection of his father-inlaw, a conventional ending which testifies—almost psycho-analytically—of a restored order in conformity with the Law. Nothing poten-
168 — Notice
tially subversive then can be found in Ingraham’s prose, but a good
solid conservatism tinged with a few discretely spicy details which
probably seduced to a fairly large extent the audience of the American Monthly Magazine.
_________________
Captain Thompson
T
he title of this text sounds like that of an adventure at sea.
However, the story is staged on dry land, even if it comes
to an end in the harbor of Boston. The protagonists are stereotypes of
nineteenth-century Romantic literature: a young student whose
lonely heart is immediately seduced by Julia, a young beautiful mysterious woman, echoing so many other enamored students such as
Irving’s Wolfgang in “The Adventure of the German Student”222 or
Giovanni Guasconti’s in Hawthorne’s “Rappaccini’s Daughter”.223
However, even if the life of the romantic hero is eventually and conventionally threatened by the consequences of his devotion for a forbidden woman, the author tackles the topic with an unexpected touch
of humor which defuses the dramatic effect of the situation: “My
heart was grieved for Mrs. Thompson; but if I was thrown down to
her from a fourth-story window, I reflected that I should probably be
in no situation to express my sympathy. It was philosophy to retreat”
(194).
Like Goethe’s Werther,224 and not more confident in the future
of his love life, the protagonist is a devotee of Nature, worshiping
“every striking tree and sheltered moss-knoll from its base to its
summit” (189) and finding in the countryside the reflection of his
mood. However, his feelings for the young woman are superficial
and stem largely, beyond their “elective sympathies,” from the romantic atmosphere and the cosy intimacy of the stage-coach: “Travelling after twilight, I have always remarked, makes one very affectionate. . . . I can answer for its effect upon myself and Mrs. Thompson” (191).
The ephemeral romance comes to a sudden end with their arrival
at the Marlborough Hotel when Julia “grew very amiably anxious
222 From Tales of a Traveller (1824).
223 First published in 1844 in The Democratic Review.
224 Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774).
Uncanny Coincidences — 169
about [her husband] as the coach rattled on to Washington Street”
(191). Then follows a series of coincidences which pure chance can
hardly explain. First, as expected, a Captain Thompson does stay at
the hotel, but his rough appearance and wild demeanor do not correspond to Julia’s and the protagonist’s anticipation. Somewhat bewildered by the presumed husband’s stunning behavior, the young
student, having realised with some embarrassment that the mother
and his child now “were decidedly on [his] hands” (194), is quickly
relieved by the appearance at the stage-house of “another Captain
Thompson, a stout, handsome fellow, who took ‘Mrs. Thompson and
little John’ into his arms at one clasp, and kissed them— as one
might be supposed to do after a three years’ voyage” (194).
Apparently, all is well that ends well, but the mystery is not entirely solved: first, no explanation is provided for the fact that Julia’s
husband does not stay in the Marlborough Hotel as expected;
secondly, there is a Captain Thompson at the Marlborough Hotel, so
that Julia’s information eventually proves to be reliable; thirdly, the
two Captain Thompsons share characteristics which make them uncannily alike: they have the same name, both of them are sailors,
with the identical rank of captain, and they were supposed to stay at
the same hotel. Last but not least, it seems that the sudden arrival of
Mrs Thompson and her son is plausible enough for the presumed
bachelor to make him cowardly and hurriedly go “to sea very suddenly,” which confirms the rumor according to which he had “a wife
and child whom he had deserted in some foreign port” (194). The
contrast and similarities of the two Captain Thompsons make one the
Doppelgänger of the other, one nice and faithful, and his mirror image dangerous and deceitful, so that the narrative, told in the tone of
an anecdote until it becomes more gloomy and evokes some of Poe’s
stories,225 verges unexpectedly on the supernatural genre in its conclusion.

225 In
particular the pangs of another deadly rivalry in “William Wilson” (1839).
THE
AMERICAN MONTHLY MAGAZINE.
Vol. I.
JUNE 1829
N° IIII.
THE EXILE.
“I will a round unvarnished tale deliver.”226
THE French Revolution227 threw upon our shores many interesting varieties of the French character. Equality of rights seemed, in
those times, to have produced nothing but an equality of wrongs.
Emigration was the only remedy that offered to the possessors of
light heels and heavy hearts, and, while the train of exiles was
swelled by dukes and princes of the blood, it was often marshalled
along by valets and dancing masters. Nor was this medley unnatural.
The efforts of the agitators were directed to the prostration of the old
system, whether upheld in the drawing rooms of Versailles,228 or suspected in the coffee houses of Paris. Thus it often happened, that the
humblest citizens, whose opinions were favorable to the ancient state
of things, became, from that circumstance, the objects of proscription. A breath, a whisper for the royal cause, turned the scales of the
French goddess, while the disturber of their equipoise felt at the
same instant the point of her sword pressing rudely against his
breast. A thoughtless expression, often gave a man the most fatal
celebrity. The mouth that one moment was stretched with laughter, at
the next, ‘grinned horribly’ upon the bloody pike. Flight was therefore the only security left the unfortunate, and ‘the asylum of the oppressed’229 received its due proportion of the unhappy. Once safe
226 “Yet by your gracious patience, / I will a round unvarnished tale deliver.” William
Shakespeare (1564-1616), Othello (Act I, scene 3).
227 The French Revolution started in 1789 with the storming of the Bastille fortress. Soon,
the abolition of privileges by the Assembly, together with strict anti-religious measures, led
princes and nobles to flee abroad.
228 Built by King Louis XIV in the mid-17th century, the Palace of Versailles was the residence of King Louis XVI and the royal family. On October 5, 1789, a crowd marched to Versailles and brought the king and queen back to the Tuileries palace in Paris.
229 Although he did not coin the phrase, these words were used by another revolutionary on
the eve of the American Revolution: as Joseph Warren put it in his Boston Massacre Oration
Uncanny Coincidences — 171
however, and those who had escaped the scene of tragedy, were soon
figuring in broad farce or pleasant comedy. The valet who found that
our sympathy was graduated by the scale of rank, assumed the name
and bearing of his master. His master often finding it impossible to
establish his own identity, quietly took up with his own family name,
abandoned its titles, and retreated from further observation. Many
ludicrous scenes, many pathetic incidents attended this bouleversement. When, as we sometimes thought, our tears were flowing for
the last of a noble line, we afterwards discovered that they had fallen
for the woes of a wandering fiddler ; and, on the other hand, while
we were undergoing the process of a course of French lessons, it was
perhaps an Orleans230 or Dubreisl who was teaching us the story of
Telemachus.231 The lovely Charlotte Le Blanc had well nigh given
her hand and fortune to a well dressed lacquey ; and our unfortunate
friend Count Fortbien, sans credit at his lodging house, accepted with
gratitude the heart and home of a rustic heiress.
The incidents we are about to relate are rather of a simpler character than usual, and yet they may amuse those readers, even in this
age of startling romance, who retain some quiet corner of their hearts
for sympathy and feeling.
As is well known, the Oneida lake232 was in the direct route of
communication between Schenectada233 and the western waters. The
adoption of the policy of the immortal Clinton,234 and the substitution
of a safe and artificial navigation,235 have almost effaced the recollection of the former tedious mode of travelling. It was a great relief
however to the boatmen, when the sinuosities of Wood Creek236 were
(5 March 1772) : “May our land be a land of liberty, the seat of virtue, the asylum of the oppressed, a name and a praise in the whole earth.”
230 The name of two branches of the royal family, the house of Valois-Orléans and that of
Bourbon-Orléans.
231 The son of Odysseus. Telemachus is the subject of François Fénelon’s The Adventures of
Telemachus, Son of Ulysses (1699), a stinging criticism of the French monarchy.
232 A lake of central New York, northeast of Syracuse.
233 Schenectady, founded in 1661, is situated on the Mohawk River and the Erie Canal.
234 George Clinton (1739–1812) was vice-president of the United States under Jefferson and
Madison (1804-1812). In 1777, he was elected the first governor of New York and was seen as
the father of New York State. During his long governorship (22 years), he settled Native
troubles and initiated the building of canals. A strong anti-federalist, he was succeeded by his
political opponent John Jay in 1795.
235 The construction of the Erie Canal started in 1817 and was pursued in the 1820s.
236 A river on which the city of Rome, NY, is built. The city was of strategic importance
during the French and Indian Wars and during the American Revolution: it was the starting
172 — The Exile
safely threaded, and the Lake opened upon their view. All was pleasure, when the merry breeze relieved the crews from labor, and carried them cheerily along the verdant shores and beautiful islands of
the Oneida.
At the time of our tale, a neat cabin had risen as if by magic
upon one of these oases of the watery waste. Its inmates became at
once the objects of speculation and curiosity. A light canoe always
lying at the waters edge indicated the fact that its owner was in correspondence with the inhabitants of the main shore, and the shrill
voice of a hound was often heard, waking the sleeping echoes in the
distant woodlands. Some navigators had sailed, accidentally or designedly, we know not which, so near the island as to have observed
much more. They had seen a young woman of surpassing beauty,
and habited in a foreign garb, laboring with her own hands, in a little
garden. They also reported that the lively notes of a violin were not
unfrequently heard by those who had passed by at the hour of nightfall. These circumstances came to the knowledge of a gentleman
whose business had called him in that direction, and by their singularity they induced him to pay the island an immediate visit. Motives,
honorable to his heart, prompted him to offer his services to its occupants, if upon examination he should find that they were worthy of
that attention. Leaving his bateau237 in a neighboring cove, he went
off alone in a skiff and landed at a short distance from the door of the
cabin. The faithful hound gave tongue as he approached, and, as he
pleasantly described it—“with a foreign accent.” In an instant, a
youthful looking man, came out with a fusee238 in his hand, surprise
painted on every feature. A female more beautiful than words can describe, rushed after him and caught his arm. “Oh,” said the islander,
scanning his visiter from head to foot—“Mille pardons ! Monsieur,
nos malheurs, ils nous ont rendus craintifs.”239—” En vérité,” added
the lady, with a smile playing about her mouth, “c’est ma faute Monsieur. Je suis sa gardienne”—“Gardienne tutélaire ! Madame !”240
replied the stranger, “And I must beg pardon,” he continued, in
point of the construction of the Erie Canal.
237 A flat-bottomed, clumsy boat used on lakes and rivers.
238 A flintlock gun, or given the context, a misspelling for the French “fusil”(gun).
239 The French for “So sorry, sir, but our shyness is due to misfortune.” (our translation).
240 The French for “To tell the truth, it’s my fault, sir. I’m her guardian.”—“A tutelary
guardian, madam!” (our translation).
Uncanny Coincidences — 173
French, “for interrupting the quiet of your charming retreat. I am
fearful, removed as you are from the comforts and enjoyments of social life, that you have sometimes regretted the pleasures of former
days. Can I be of any service to you ? I am Mr. L—of C—and nothing would give me greater pleasure than to be useful to you. Would
to God, I could be as fortunate in tracing the footsteps of one family
who since their arrival in America, have completely evaded my pursuit. But pray, whom have I the honor of addressing ?” The young
man seized his hand, and with the air of one accustomed to courts,
presented him gaily to the lady, as, “La Dame du Lac,241 mais autrefois, la Comtesse Genevieve St. Hilary !” “Heavens !” cried the
stranger, “can it be possible ? Do I indeed behold the daughter of
Clairmont ? Is it in the wilds of America, that the Belle of the Quartier St. Germain242 holds her levée ?” The lady and her husband
looked astonished. “Do you not remember me ?” said the gentleman ;
“have you forgotten the Champs Elysées243 and the fête given in honor of your birth day in which I participated so largely as your father’s
American friend. Thank Heaven I have found you at last, and yet
how strange are the circumstances that have brought me hither.”
The lady seemed awakened from a dream, but instead of returning the cordial pressure of the stranger’s hand, threw herself
upon her husband’s arm and wept. “Ah mes amis !” cried she, “Ah
chère France ! Adieu, Je ne te reverai (sic) jamais—tout est perdu—
tout est perdu !”244 The husband while he endeavored to soothe her
distress, overwhelmed the stranger with his thanks, and the latter “albeit unused to the melting mood,”245 found the plaintive tones of her
voice, and the unaffected expressions of her grief followed in spite of
herself by some natural tears. At this moment the awkwardness of
the scene was relieved by the young man’s entreaties, that he would
accompany them to the hut. As they moved onward, the stranger in241 In the Arthurian legend, the Lady of the Lake gave Arthur his sword, Excalibur. She
raised Lancelot and kept Merlin captive thanks to her magical powers.
242 During the 18th century, this historical fashionable district of Paris was inhabited by the
gentry who resided in sumptuous mansions and town houses.
243 So called since 1694. In the early 18 th century, it was already a very fashionable place,
stretching between the Place de la Concorde, built in the 1700’s and on which stood a guillotine during the French Revolution, and the Arc de Triomphe built by Napoleon I in 1806 and
completed in 1836.
244 The French for “Ah, my friends, Ah dear France! Farewell, I’ll never see you again—all
is lost!” (our translation).
245 William Shakespeare (1564-1616), Othello (Act V. Scene 2).
174 — The Exile
timated as delicately as possible his plan for their immediate removal. He enlarged upon his obligations of gratitude to the father of
the fair Genevieve, at the same time representing the necessity of
their accepting his offers, as a matter not admitting even a discussion. The conversation was for a time interrupted as they reached the
door of the cabin.
The Countess, stepping lightly before, received them as they
entered. “I am ashamed,” said she, “to have behaved so rudely ; but
here I throw away my griefs, to play the lady mistress of this hotel.
You are welcome, my dear friend, although our mansion is somewhat straightened since you were last a guest of the family. But sit
down, and give me an account of the strange occurrence which
brings you to the Island. Quel miracle vous amène donc ici, Monsieur.”246
Mr. L. then informed them of the nature of the business
which had led him so far into the interior, and related the stories, he
had heard on his way up the lake of which they were the unconscious
subjects. He expressed his happiness at having found the very persons about whom he had been so deeply solicitous, and ended by offering them an asylum under his own roof, and the society of a family who would be devoted to their comfort.
During the impressive silence which followed his remarks, the
visiter had leisure to look about him. The cabin was of the rudest materials. It was evidently the work of its inmates, with the exception of
a rude window and an ill constructed chimney, which some artizans
from the neighboring settlement had doubtless fabricated. The furniture consisted of a few chairs, a few articles for the table, and a
rough couch on which were carelessly thrown the skins of some wild
animals. A genuine cremona hung on a nail near the chimney, and a
cracked toilet glass over a tottering stand in the corner. The eye was
almost instantly attracted from these, however, to a small box of inlaid satin wood, which stood near the glass, half opened, and was
resplendent with jewels of gold and bizarreries of silver. A few
trunks, secured by heavy brazen bands, were arranged about the
room and completed its brief inventory, save that a silver tankard
curiously chased, and, like those sometimes seen in pictures of still
life, stood upon the hearth keeping company with a tin cup filled
246 The
French for “It’s a miracle to meet you down here, sir” (our translation).
Uncanny Coincidences — 175
with boiling milk, and by its fragrant odor proclaiming the intended
refreshment of Café au lait.
“You look about you,” said the Count, “and well you may. Yet
we have resided here for many months, and scarce know how we
reached this lonely spot. The treachery of our countrymen, and the
horrid crimes we have witnessed have almost led us to doubt the existence of social virtue. These alone have driven us to solitude. But
you shall know all. It is to a friend that we commit the story of our
wanderings.
“My Genevieve had scarce made me happy with her hand, ere
the frightful scenes of the revolution commenced. We flattered
ourselves that the concessions of the King to the people would lead
to mutual confidence, but the Poissardes247 desired blood and not
tranquillity. The father of the Countess did not live to witness its
greatest atrocities. Happily he did not anticipate the ruin of his estates, or the sufferings of his daughter. We retreated as soon as possible to the western coast, where I had a retired country seat, but in
our haste the most valuable of our personal effects were left behind.
Indeed the attempt to convert them to money would have led to our
detection, and the assignats248 which we should have received in exchange were already worthless even in the eyes of their inventors.
That casket is all we can call our own, and its value has been greatly
diminished, by its having been for a long time our only resource.
With that we fled to England, in a small fishing vessel which
hovered on the coast for the purpose of speculation. At Cowes249
where we landed, a Dutch vessel touched on her passage to New
York. In her we embarked for America. On our arrival we found so
many of our countrymen, that our means would not allow us the
pleasant relief of even occasional intercourse. We departed with the
intention of penetrating to some French settlement in the West,
where we might remain until the storm had blown over. Genevieve’s
health permitted no such effort. When we had travelled thus far, this
island attracted us by its beauty, and here we resolved to found a new
Arcadia.250 Occasionally I visit the nearest settlement, to part with
247 The Poissardes were Parisian market women who took part in the revolutionary uprising.
248 Paper currency issued by the French revolutionary government, guaranteed by the confis-
cation of lands.
249 A seaport town on the Isle of Wight, near Southampton, UK.
250 In this region of ancient Greece, the inhabitants lived simple secluded lives.
176 — The Exile
such ornaments as are least valuable, and I regret the necessity of my
absence more than the evil of our wants. In our little garden we work
with our own hands, and when the weather is fine we roam over the
island, or fish. That violin is our evening amusement. Genevieve’s
voice responds to its accompaniment, and even at my unskilful touch
it awakens recollections which for a moment restore us to our home
and country.
“I have been fearful that the loneliness of our situation, and our
solitary mode of life, might sometimes lead to suspicions, unfavorable to our characters. We are much nearer the frontier than we at
first supposed, but here we have lived, Genevieve and I, happy in our
mutual passion, and waiting that change in the affairs of our government, which will recall us from poverty and exile to the saloons and
circles where we were once so happy and so gay.”
When he had finished, the visiter seized the hand of the Countess, and urged her not to delay their departure for a moment. “The
hospitality I have shared in your father’s house shall in all but its
splendor, be returned in mine. Come, my batteau (sic) is close at
hand. We ourselves can easily remove the most valuable of your
goods. Come, on the banks of the Hudson you shall await the return
of tranquillity and the restoration of your fortune.”
We leave to the imaginations of our readers the surprise and
gratitude which manifested themselves in the conduct of the youthful
pair. After having made the obvious objections which delicacy and
the fear of a too easy compliance naturally inspired, they accepted
the invitation and prepared to bid adieu to the island.
In a few minutes they embarked in the skiff, and in the canoe
which was fastened to it behind, the hound, the cremona, and the
tankard were placed together. Every other article of furniture was
abandoned to its fate.
The island was so left behind them, and its identity gradually
lost in the surrounding scenery. The suddenness of this arrangement,
as it afterwards turned out, gave rise to many conjectures among the
residents on the lake shore. That the islanders had been murdered and
thrown into the lake, was believed by some—that they had run away,
was as firmly credited by others. At first, the cabin was not molested
by the superstitious boatmen, who saw, as they fancied, an occasional light flitting along the beach, or heard the voice of the hound
Uncanny Coincidences — 177
in the murmuring night wind, or the tones of the violin uttering
sounds most musical and melancholy. The dealer in jewelry, who, by
virtue of his science as a blacksmith, thought silver and gold high, at
double the price of old iron, and had made many a good bargain out
of the Countess’s jewels, cursed his stars when he heard they were
gone ; and never ceased lamenting that he had not made his fortune
out of “that ‘ere bloody Frenchman.”
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
Time rolled on, and the strange events which had convulsed
Europe were succeeded by comparative repose. One morning in the
year 1803,251 I was on the Pont Neuf252 at Paris viewing the crowd
which constantly assembles there, venders of nicknackery and lemonade and customers who resort thither to purchase the small wares
of itinerant industry. A number of Americans had met there by appointment to witness an experiment, since crowned with splendid
success in our own country. Fulton,253 the protégé of Barlow,254 was
about making a second attempt to navigate the Seine with a small
steamboat. It was presently seen coming along with tolerable speed.
We were all proud of the ingenuity of our countryman, and were intently gazing upon this specimen of his talent, when a dashing
equipage came rolling along, and drew up near the place where we
stood.
“Eh bien,” said a lovely woman in the prime of life, who was
seated on the back seat of the carriage,” Voila! moncher, voila le batteau a vapeur de notre Fulton—cela est etonnant, n’est ce pas
moncher (sic).”255
251 In January 1803, during the first Jefferson administration (1801-1805), Monroe and Livingston sail for Paris to complete the Louisiana Purchase. Napoleon Bonaparte, autocratic head
of the Consulate (1799-1804) had declared that France had finished with the “romance of the
revolution.”
252 The Pont Neuf, built by King Henri IV across the river Seine, is the oldest standing
Parisian bridge.
253 Robert Fulton (1765-1815), American painter and engineer who built an experimental
steam-operated vessel that sailed on the Seine (1803) in Paris. He later launched another steamboat—the Clermont—that sailed on the Hudson River between New York and Albany (1808).
254 Joel Barlow (1754–1812), an American writer and diplomat. His Letter to the National
Convention of France (1792) in which he advocated advanced revolutionary democratic principles earned him French citizenship.
255 The French for “Well, my dear, here is the steamboat of our Fulton—how surprising, isn’t it, my dear?” (our translation).
178 — The Exile
“Oui, Oui,” replied the gentleman who sat next her, and on
whose breast a red ribbon was displayed, though unostentatiously,
“Oui ma Genevieve, mais où est notre ami Livingston 256 ?”257
I started as if awakened from a dream. I looked intensely
anxious, to catch the lady’s eye. I succeeded. I marked its sparkling
joy, and in an instant I had left my wondering companions and was
at the side of the fair Genevieve, and the Count St. Hilary. Our mutual adventures were quickly related. I learned that fortune had at last
smiled upon the interesting exiles. They were once again in affluence
and ease, and as one who had known them intimately on the banks of
the Hudson, I was immediately the object of their marked attentions
and unvarying friendship. I was soon, very soon, although quite an
undistinguished traveller, in the enjoyment of a brilliant society, and
the received guest in a circle never, never to be forgotten.
C.
______________
256 Robert R. Livingston (1746–1813). In 1801, he was appointed Minister to France by Jefferson; there he conducted negotiations leading to the Louisiana Purchase. He was responsible
for steamboat operations in New York waters and exploited with Fulton the first American
steamboat to be commercially profitable.
257 The French for “Oh it is, Genevieve, but where is our friend Livingston?” (our translation).
THE
AMERICAN MONTHLY MAGAZINE.
____________
JULY, 1838. (vol. XII)
____________
THE SNOW PILE.
BY PROFESSOR INGRAHAM,258
AUTHOR OF “THE SOUTH-WEST,” “LAFITTE,” “BURTON” &c.
YOUNG Spring, with her opening buds, her springing grass, her
soft south wind, and singing birds, was fast subduing stern old
Winter. His icy bosom, all unused to the melting mood, dissolved beneath her warm glances and showers of April tears. I had been confined to my chamber through the long winter by a tedious illness ;
but when the sun, with summery warmth, shone through my window,
I grew rapidly better. How grateful to the convalescent is the mild
hue of the Spring sky, the tender green of the grass and young leaves,
and the smiling face of nature awaking from its wintry sleep !
When my chair was first drawn to the window, and I looked up
and down the streets thronged with passengers and gay equipages, I
felt as if I had come into a new world. How happy every thing and
every body looked ! All seemed gladness, and my own heart thrilled
with a new and strange delight.
I am, or rather was at the period to which I allude, a bachelor, on
the verge of thirty-five. My abode was in the heart of the city, at a
corner where four streets met. Opposite my window was a row of
stately elms and young locusts, the brown of their myriad buds just
258 Born in Portland, Maine, Rev. Joseph Holt Ingraham (1809-1860) became a teacher in
Jefferson College, Washington, Mississippi (1830) where he started to write. He published The
Southwest, by a Yankee (1835); Lafitte, the Pirate of the Gulf (1836), the first of his novels
which brought him some fame; and Burton (1838). After having written some eighty books of
average quality, “Professor” Ingraham started a religious career as a deacon in Trinity Episcopal Church at Natchez in 1851, then as an Episcopal priest in various localities of Mississippi. He continued to write dime novels until he died in an accident at the age of fifty-one.
180 — Uncanny Coincidences
tipped with green, so that the branches of the trees looked as if studded with emeralds. Along the outer edge of the opposite side-walk
Spring had just commenced working a border of new grass ; Ladies
had laid aside, or rather, chrysalis-like, come out of, their unsightly
cloaks, and tripped along the pave in light dresses and sylphide
forms. How odd to see slender waists in the streets after they have
been so long concealed ! It seems, when we first view the fair
creatures, as if there was something improper in their appearing out
in such undress, as if some modest article of apparel was forgotten ;
and it is some days before one is quite reconciled to the propriety of
the thing.
Notwithstanding these signs of Spring that every where met my
eyes as I gazed out of my window, there was one object amid all the
sunny cheerfulness that chilled my heart, and cast a wintry veil over
all. This was a huge bank of snow lying against the curb-stone directly beneath my window. The winter had been severe, and in the
middle of April there was a heavy fall of snow. My man John, in
shovelling it from the walk, had formed a pile four feet in depth before the door ; and after the snow had disappeared from the streets,
from the fields, and from the distant hills, and the trees had put forth
their leaves, that pile obstinately resisted the warmth of the sun and
the softening influences of the rain. From my bed, I had seen through
the upper lights of my window the mild deep blue of the sky, and felt
the cheering presence of the April sun as it shone in a bright glowing
beam through the half-opened shutter, and lay like a golden belt
along the carpet. How different the sunlight of summer and winter
even to the eye ! how readily does the invalid recognize and welcome the first smile of Spring in the warm glow of the returning
sun ! I should not have known winter had departed if I had not seen
the green tops of the budding trees, and had not been told that Spring
had come—Spring, that haven of hope for the suffering valetudinarian ! They had told me, too, that the snow was gone from the earth.
I was wheeled up to the window, and the bound of the heart with
which I looked forth on the gay and moving scene, was suddenly
stopped as my eyes rested on that bank of snow. I sighed, and threw
myself backwards in my chair in the bitterness of disappointment. In
that heap, to my excited imagination lay buried the body of the dead
Winter ! Although I soon became in some degree accustomed to it, I
The Snow Pile — 181
nervously watched its gradual disappearance. I marked the scarcely
melting away of its edges, the slow diminution of its height. It
seemed to me that it would never dissolve. I at length became so interested in its disappearance, that I sat for hours together with my
eyes intensely fixed upon it, and forgetful of every thing else. It lay
like an incubus on my thoughts. It was a walking nightmare to my
mind’s repose. If a passing wheel bore a portion of it away clinging
to its spokes, I involuntarily clapped my hands. If a vagrant schoolboy abstracted a handful to make up into a snowball, I blessed him in
my heart. If a cloud passed over the sun, I impatiently watched its
slow passage across its disk, and with jealous impatience noted every
shadow that obstructed, for a moment his melting beams.
Three days passed in this manner, and the snow pile had diminished but one third. Its shape, I remember, was an irregular oval
about nine feet in length, five in breadth, and two deep in the centre,
the depth gradually lessening to the edges, which were thin and icy.
The fourth morning came, and the buds of the locust trees had
burst into leaves ; a robin had begun his nest on the branch of an elm,
and the almanac told me it was the first day of May. Yet there lay
Winter in the lap of Spring. I formed an instant resolution. The tassel
of the bell-rope was within my reach, I leaned forward and pulled it
with an emphasis.
John entered in haste, with alarm depicted on his rubicund visage.
“John !”
“Sir.”
“Take a shovel, and remove that eternal snow bank from the
street.”
“Bank ?”
“Yes, bank. Snow bank ! A more hideous monster than the great
Hydra-Bank to my eyes.259 Remove it, I say.”
“Yes, Sir.”
John departed, and I gazed from the window on the pile of snow
with a sort of savage triumph and relief of mind I had not experienced for some days. While I was anticipating its demolition by
the muscular arm of my man John, two school-boys, of unequal size
259 An allusion to the monstrous hydra killed by Heracles, supposedly living on the island of
Hydra in Greece.
182 — Uncanny Coincidences
and years, came in sight. As they got beneath my window, the stouter
began to bully the smaller boy. I am naturally humane ; a lover of
justice and hater of tyranny. My feelings forthwith became enlisted
for the weaker lad, who showed proper spirit ; and so long as tongues
continued to be the only weapons, he rather had the better of his adversary. At length the big boy, stung by a biting sarcasm, gave him a
nice push, and sent him spinning across the trottoir into the snow. It
broke his fall, which else would have been violent, and I blessed the
snow pile for his sake. But, so far as my sympathies with the little
fellow were concerned, I soon had additional cause to bless it.
No sooner did the brave little lad touch the snow than he grasped
both hands full, and hastily and skilfully patted it into a hard round
ball the size of a three-pounder ; then taking sure aim at his lubberly
tormentor, who stood haw-hawing at his victory, he threw, and hit
him fairly in the left eye. His tune was now changed to a yell of pain,
and clapping both of his huge dirty paws to his extinguished orb, he
went off limping as if the hurt had been in his heel instead of his
head. The victorious little fellow compressed his lips with a decided
air, gave an emphatic nod, and glanced at my window with a sort of
apologetic look that meant “he deserves it, Sir, if it does put his eye
out !”
“So he does, my brave lad,” said I, in a look that he understood
to mean as much ; “that snow pile has done thee good service.” At
this moment John, who is somewhat deliberate in his movements
made appearance from the basement-front, shovel in hand and devastation in his eye. I rapped at the window as he prepared to attack
the bank, and for that gallant boy’s sake the snow pile remained inviolate for that day.
With the ensuing morning I had well-nigh forgotten the incident
of the snow-ball, and the summary punishment of tyranny that I had
witnessed, and which had afforded me so much gratification. The
first thing that met my eyes after I took my usual place at the window, was the snow bank, giving the lie-direct to gentle Spring, who
each day laid the flecks of green thicker and darker on the tree-tops,
and I resolutely determined to demolish without delay that last
vestige of winter, and banish a sight so full of December associations.
The Snow Pile — 183
With hasty zeal I laid a hand on each arm of my easy-chair, and
half rose to reach the bell-rope, when I saw a very pretty boardingschool girl, in cottage bonnet and pantalets,260 and neat white apron,
with the roses of fifteen summers in her cheeks, in crossing the
street, driven by a rude equestrian from the flags into the mud. My
ire was roused (for my feelings are readily enlisted for the gentler
sex), and I forgot the bell to turn and anathematise the careless horseman. Although in two or three light steps she safely gained the sidewalk, I saw that she had grievously mudded one of her nicely-fitting
Cinderillas.261 She stopped on the curb-stone, looked down at her
soiled slipper, shook her head, and seemed to be very much distressed. She was neatly and tidily dressed after that simple and becoming manner peculiar to school-girls. It was Saturday, and she was
doubtless going a visiting ; and to be made such a figure of by a lubberly tyro in horsemanship, was not a little annoying. I sympathised
with her from the bottom of my heart. She was very young, very
pretty, and in very great trouble. I could have taken my cambric
pocket-handkerchief and, on bended knee, with it removed the offensive soil. She surveyed her little foot all about. The mud came
within a quarter of an inch of the top of her shoe, and she was (as by
her perplexed looks she evidently herself thought) in too sad a plight
to walk the street. She essayed to scrape off the tenacious earth on
the outer angle of the curb stone, but this operation only left it in
frightful streaks.
“Dear me ! What shall I do ?” I could almost hear her say to herself ; and then, with a very prolonged and mortified air, she looked
up the street and down the street ; glanced over at the opposite windows and those above her head, and at last caught my eye. I had been
waiting for this, and eagerly pointed to the snow pile.
She glanced up her dark eyes full of thanks ; and in two minutes,
with the aid of a lump of snow, and by rubbing her foot on the pile,
now on this side and now on that, she cleaned her snug little slipper
till it outshone its unsoiled fellow. Then looking me a heart full of
gratitude, she tripped on her way rejoicing. For her sake the snow
pile remained inviolate another day.
260 Underpants
261 Slippers.
extending below the skirt, worn by women in the mid-19th century.
184 — Uncanny Coincidences
Forgetfulnesses of the yesterday’s courtesy came with the next
morning, and there remained, as I gazed from the window, only the
consciousness of my annoyance. The voice of Spring came to my
ears in every sound, and the winds murmured by laden with the
odors of May flowers. But the snow pile fixed my eyes like a spell.
There is a kind of fascination in hideous objects, which, while the
heart revolts, irresistibly draws the eye. In vain I resolutely turned
my eyes away from it, and strove to forget it in the contemplation of
the fleecy cloud, which Winter has not ; of the summer-blue of the
sky ; of the umbrageous foliage ; the bright streets and their lively
pageant ; but scarcely were they averted, before they flew back again
as if it moved by a watch-spring.
“That eternal snow bank !” I exclaimed, as my eyes, for the
fiftieth time averted, again rested on it ; “will it never melt ?”
I reached the bell rope, and rung a quarter of an hour without
ceasing. I had just regained my chair, when John came into the room
as if he had been ejected from a catapult.
“Good Lord, Sir ! I am here, Sir.”
“That pile of snow, John !”
“Yes, Sir.”
“1 shall have no peace till it is scattered to the four winds.”
“The shovel is below, Sir, shall I —“
“Do, John, do. Spread it on the street. If the sun wont melt it,
then carry it in baskets to the kitchen and boil it. It might as well be
winter all the time for what I see,” grumbled I as John departed.
I had hardly issued, for the third time, this mandate, and turned
to the window to take a farewell look at the glistening object of my
annoyance, when half a dozen seamen, on a shore cruise, came sailing along with that independent and inimitable swagger characteristic
of the genuine tar. In their wake followed a little foreign sailor-boy,
whom, by his olive skin, black, glossy hair, glittering eyes, and
slight, flexible figure, I knew to be a West Indian. His restless gaze
rested on the snow, and he uttered a loud exclamation of surprise and
delight.
“Halloo, manikin ! what’s in sight astern there ?” sung out an
old tar just ahead of him, bitching up his trousers, and coming to an
anchor in the middle of the side-walk.
The Snow Pile — 185
“Soogare ! Soogare !” shouted the little imp, pointing to the pile
of snow, and dancing up and down as if the sunny pavement had become red-hot to his naked feet.
“Sugar be ——”said the old sailor, with a look and tone of supreme contempt ; “try it and see !”
The boy bounded toward the delusive pile, grasped both hands
full of the deceitful substance, and was in the act of conveying one
portion of his treasure to his jacket pocket and to cram his mouth
with the other, when a shrill cry of pain escaped him ; and, dropping
the snow, he capered about, snapping his fingers and working his
flexible features into the most ludicrous grimaces.
His shipmates hove to at his signal of distress, and roared, one
and all, with lusty laughter, catching off their tarpaulins, and
swinging them aloft, and slapping each other on the broad of the
back in the excess of their merriment.
“Avast, there, my little hop-o-my-thumb,” said one of the sailors, as their mirth gradually subsided ; and steering up to the boy,
who continued to yell with undiminished vigor, “dontee set up such a
caterwauling in a calm.”
“Burnee ! Burnee !’
“Burnee my eye ! Ho, shipmates, all hands to put fire out ! Little
Carlo’s scorched his fingers with a sow-ball.”
All hands now gathered round the young West Indian, and made
themselves merry at his expense, with quip and joke, cutting the
while many a boyish prank.
“Come, Jack,” said one, making up a large lump of snow into a
ball, “lets take aboard a two-pounder apiece, and pepper some o’
these land lubbers that come athwart our hawser.”
“Aye, aye !“ was the unanimous response.
Forthwith, indifferent to the gaping passers-by, each went to
work to make snow-balls, and soon with two apiece stowed away in
either jacket-pocket, they got the little West Indian in their midst,
and moved off, a jolly troop, in full glee and ripe for a lark.
John, who had been kept in the back-ground by the belligerent
preparations of these sons of Neptune,262 having ascertained by a
cautious survey through the iron railing of the basement—his head
protruded just above the level of the side-walk—that they were quite
262 The
Roman god of water, the counterpart of the Greek Poseidon, god of the sea.
186 — Uncanny Coincidences
hull-down, now made his appearance beneath the window, shovel at
hand. Influenced by the whim of the moment, I rapped on the window, and made a sign for him to come in, resolved, for the amusement it had afforded me, to spare the snow pile another day.
The following morning, the sight of the scarce-diminished
snow-heap rendered me oblivious of the merriment I had received
front the little West Indian the day before, and mindful only of the
present. My philanthropy deserted me, and with a round oath I asseverated that for sailor nor saint, woman nor angel, would I let that
snow remain another moment longer.
“Ho ! Ding a ling, a ling ling ! Ho, John, ho ! Ding, ding, ding!
ling, ling, ding ! Ho, John, John ! Ding ling, ling ding, l——” and the
bell-rope parted at the ceiling, and came down in my hand.
My crutch stood beside my chair. “ Thump, hump, ump’ ! Ump !
Ump ! ! Thump ! !”
The door burst open ; the bolt-head flew across the room, and
half-buried itself in the opposite wall, and John pitched headlong in,
and landed on his face in the centre of the apartment. “C-c-c-comin’,
Sir !” was ejected from his mouth as his head struck the floor ; “C-cc-comin’, Sir !” scarce articulated he as he rolled over and over towards my chair; “C-c-c-comin’, Sir,” he gasped as he got to one knee
and pulled at his forelock as he was wont to do when he addressed
me. The next movement brought him to his legs. “Here I am, Sir.
Bless the mercies, Sir ! what is the matter, Sir ?’
“John !”
“Yes, Sir.”
I pointed silently to the snow pile.
John vanished.
I looked forth from the window (I need not here apologise to
those who have been invalids, such will readily sympathise with the
interest I took in this matter,) and enjoyed in anticipation the devastation about to be made. In less than a minute John made his appearance beneath the window, laden with two baskets, a large and a small
one, a bucket and coal-hod, and lastly his broad wooden shovel. He
ranged these various receptacles along the outer verge of the sidewalk ; moistened the palms of his hands after a summary mode wellknown to the school-boy when about to handle his bat-stick ; seized
hold of, and struck his instrument deep into the snow ; placed his
The Snow Pile — 187
right foot firmly on one of the projecting sides thereof, and bent his
shoulders to raise the gelid load.
I watched each motion with eager gratification. I noted the muscular shoulders of John as he essayed his task, with emotions of delight. I marked the opening chasms in the pile as he stirred the bulk,
and felt a thrill of joy as I beheld a huge mass yield before his wellapplied sinews. He stooped to lift the severed fragment to place it in
one of his baskets, when there arose a sudden shouting, followed by
the quick rattling of wheels and cries of warning and alarm. I had
scarcely drawn a breath, when two blooded horses, wild with terror,
harnessed to a landau, containing, I could see, a young and beautiful
lady and an elderly gentleman came dashing furiously up the street.
The fore-wheel struck and locked with the wheel of a doctor’s chaise
standing before the third door from mine ; and the landau, dragging
the chaise with it, was drawn a few yards further on two side wheels,
then upset and pitched its contents out upon the pile of snow beneath
my window.
The gentleman was thrown upon his shoulder, and lay senseless.
The lady’s fall was arrested by John, who caught her ere she reached
the ground ; but she had fainted and her fair brow was like marble as
I looked down upon it. I broke two panes of glass knocking with my
crutch, and shouted through the opening to have them both conveyed
into my front parlor. John, assisted by a gentleman, carried the lady
in, while two or three others took up the old gentleman.
I had not left my room for three months, and the rheumatism had
made me a cripple. I seized my crutch, snatched a cane, and was
down stairs and in the parlor just as the lady was being laid on the
sofa. She was still senseless. How beautiful her alabaster features !
the veined lid ! the polished and rounded neck ! her hat was removed. Her abundant hair fell in waves of gold about her shoulders. I
gazed, entranced with the bright vision. A rude hand dashed a glass
of water in her face. It roused me, and I lent my aid to effect her restoration. After repeated ablutions—animation continuing to remain
suspended —the Doctor, who was out lamenting over the fragments
of his gig, was called in. But no blood followed the insertion of his
lancet in the exquisitely veined arm. The aid gentleman in the meanwhile (thanks to the snow pile for saving his collar-bone) had recovered his senses, and was bending sorrowfully over his daughter.
188 — Uncanny Coincidences
A happy thought struck me. I had heard in my boyhood, among the
snow-covered hills of Maine, that snow was an unfailing restorative
in cases like the present. I despatched John from the room, and he instantly returned with a cubic loot of snow in his arms. I assiduously
laid a large piece on her forehead ; a fragment, the size of an almond,
on each eye-lid ; placed a piece on the back of the neck, and hinted to
the father to lay one on her swan-like throat and, taking her two
hands, I placed a lump between them, and clasped them in mine, till
it melted and trickled in drops upon the carpet. What a delicious moment of my existence was that !
In a few seconds she began to revive, and in half an hour afterwards thanked me with her own lips and eyes for saving her life,
as she chose to believe. The father thanked me also, I made a very
pretty disclamatory speech in return, and begged they would say no
more about it.
I had them to dine with me that day. I went to bed without any
rheumatism. In the morning I bade John keep watch, and see that no
one removed a flake from that sacred snow pile—he having previously, by my order, filled my ornamental cologne-bottle with a
portion of it, and placed on my toilet.
The time of this sketch is six years ago. I was then a bachelor. I
am now married. That lovely young matron sitting sewing opposite
me, while I am writing, in whose person simplicity and elegance are
charmingly united, is my wife. That old gentleman, sitting by the fire
reading a newspaper, is her father. There is a slight scar on his left
brow, which he received when he was thrown from his carriage before my door. If a blot could be printed, you would just here find a
sad one, made by a chubby little blue-eyed girl of two years in her
exertions to climb on my knee after her black-eyed brother Bob—
who has playfully stolen her doll, and is climbing up my back to get
it out of her way.
_______________
THE
AMERICAN MONTHLY MAGAZINE.
VOL. III
APRIL, 1831
N°I
CAPTAIN THOMPSON.
I WAS unfortunate enough, one bright July morning in my Senior
year, to receive an expressive note from my Tutor, which rendered a
journey of some hundred and fifty miles quite necessary. I was in the
coach in less than an hour with a travelling cap pulled over a very
long face, partly to avoid recognition by my classmates as we
whirled by the colleges, and partly with an indefinite feeling that a
pretty woman who sat in the opposite corner of the coach would observe a tear that was coquetting very capriciously with my eyelids.
The rumbling echo of the wheels from the broad front of East
Rock,263 roused me from a very bitter fit of reflection, and recollecting that there were now two miles between me and certain official gentlemen, I raised my cap and took a long breath and a look out
of the window. The lady on the back seat had a child on her lap. We
three were the only passengers.
It is surprising how ‘it’s all in your eye’ whether beautiful objects seem beautiful in this world. I do not think there is a sweeter
gem of scenery in New England than the spot upon which my eye
fell at that moment—the little hamlet of Whitneyville264 at the foot of
East Rock. I had rambled all over its wild neighborhood, and
threaded for hundreds of truant days its deep passes—I knew, and
loved as a romantic colleger will love, every striking tree and
sheltered moss-knoll from its base to its summit—I had stood on the
romantic bridge many a moonlight hour thinking of you, dear—
(ehem !) and stargazing in the black mirror of the tarn below—and
now, as I hoped to be recalled, I thought it the most exquisitely dismal spot. I ever looked upon—the trees ugly and distorted, the ‘fine
old tap-rock’ (the Professor’s epithets were as good as an apotheosis
to it) desolate and naked, and the pretty buildings below (the only
263 A hill that rises in the city of New Haven, Connecticut.
264 An area in which Eli Whitney, the inventor of the cotton
gin, established a gun manufacture in which Samuel Colt invented the automatic revolver in 1836.
190 — Captain Thompson
factory that ever adorned a stream) absolutely insulting with their
peaceful picturesqueness.
‘What a desolate place !’ said I, in a soliloquizing tone as the
coach rolled out from the covered bridge (a new one, by the way,
that was not half as pretty as the old one) and toiled slowly up the
steep hill beyond.
‘Sir !’ said the lady. She did know how a sudden start for home
in the middle of the term, affects the moral sensorium. I should have
called Dian265 a hag.
‘I mean, madam—I beg pardon’—and then I went into a long
rhodomontade to explain away my apparent want of taste, and the
lady told me her son’s name was John, and that he was named after
his father who was Captain Thompson of the brig Dolly,266 that had
just arrived in Boston after a three years voyage. &c. &c. &c.—ending in a request that I would assist her with my knowledge of localities when we arrived at the end of our journey.
In ten miles, I was on very sociable terms with Mrs. Thompson.
In ten more, by dint of gingerbread and good humor, Master John
was persuaded into my lap, and in ten more—but travellers have a
reputation for a long bow, and I shall not be believed. The day was
divine, and the season was June, and if it had not been for an occasional sight of the mailbag under my feet which I presumed contained a simple explanation of my journey, I could have contrived to
forget the imminent peril in which I stood of losing my graduate’s
sheepskin and my father’s blessing. The coach, however, rolled on,
and would have rolled on just as it did, probably, if I had been ten
times as miserable (I know nothing more provoking than the indifference of such vehicles to one’s feelings) and by and by, what with
now and then a very sweet smile from Mrs. Thompson, and a disastrous discomfiture of my sham shirt-bosom by Master John, I think
I may flatter myself that I was tolerably resigned to circumstances.
Have I described Mrs. Thompson ? She was not as delicate as
Seadrift, nor as bluff as Moll Marlinspike. Her cheeks were red, and
her lips to match, and she had ‘two eyes with lids to them’ according
to the inventory in the play267— but when the lids were up the eyes
were blue—(and very soft, and gentle, and dangerous eyes they
265 Poetic form of “Diana,” the Roman goddess of the moon, forests, animals, and women in
childbirth.
266 A trading ship launched in 1796, bound to India and the Pacific.
Uncanny Coincidences — 191
were)—and if it had not been for a very thin, spirited nostril, and an
expression like a cocked pistol about her pretty chin, I should have
thought she was made for a Niobe.268 Her name was Julia (I asked
her as it grew twilight, the second day) and that name always sounded to me, (as L. F. L. would say, calling for her eau de Mousselline)
like a gushing tear ! If she was not sentimental, there is no truth in
symptoms. At any rate I was tender to her upon suspicion. The chain
of circumstantial evidence would have borne me out, I think.
Travelling after twilight, I have always remarked, makes one
very affectionate. The forty miles between Worcester269 and Boston
on the mail route (they used to pass it before the ‘reform’ between
sunset and midnight) should be sacred to sentiment. If there were
‘tongues in trees,’270 or if the crooked fences could tell straight stories, a pedestrian tour over that part of the highway would be highly
interesting. I can answer for its effect upon myself and Mrs. Thompson.
We were aroused from a deep metaphysical discussion of elective sympathies, by the rattling of the wheels on the pavement ; and at
the same moment the city clocks struck twelve. The streets were all
deserted, and the lamp-posts and watchmen performed their duties in
dismal silence. Captain Thompson (so said Mrs. T.) was at the Marlborough Hotel ;271 and singularly forgetful as his lady had seemed to
be of his existence for the previous six hours, she grew very amiably
anxious about him as the coach rattled on to Washington Street. A
crack of the whip brought us up to the door after a turn or two, and
the half-dressed bar-keeper peered out with his flaring candle, and
gave us the gratuitous information that the house was full.
267 “I will give out divers schedules of my beauty: it shall be inventoried, and every particle
and utensil labelled to my will: as, item, two lips, indifferent red; item, two grey eyes, with lids
to them; item, one neck, one chin, and so forth.” William Shakespeare (1564-1616), Twelfth
Nights (Act I, Scene 4).
268 A daughter of Tantalus whose children were killed by Apollo and Artemis, and who was
turned into stone and wept perpetually.
269 A city situated west of Boston on the Blackstone River.
270 “And this our life, exempt from public haunt, / Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, / Sermons in stones, and good in every thing.” William Shakespeare (1564-1616),
As You Like It (Act II. Sc. 1).
271 Based on the principle of a boarding house in which many unmarried men resided permanently, the Marlborough Hotel became later on the first temperance hotel in the United
States.
192 — Captain Thompson
‘Is Captain Thompson here,’ said my companion in an eager
voice from the coach window.
The sleepy mixer of liquors wet his thumb and finger, and
snuffed two huge coffins from the wick of the candle, then sheltering
it with his hand, he walked towards the lady with his head protruded
inquisitively, and looked at her a minute in perfect silence.
‘Is Captain Thompson here ?’ thundered I, enforcing the question with a smart slap on the shoulder, for I thought he was not fully
awake.
‘Be sure !’ said the bar-keeper. But still he stood holding the
candle to the lady’s face, not at all disturbed either by the emphasis
of my question or the pathos of Master John, who was crying lustily
to get out. The driver by this time had got off the big trunk, and the
little trunk, and the bandbox, and the bag, and the two baskets, and
stood beside the heap very impatient of the delay.
‘What the d—l do you mean ?’ said I, getting into a passion. ‘If
Captain Thompson is here, take your candle away from the lady’s
face, and go up and tell him his wife and child have arrived.’
‘Wife and child !’ echoed the fellow, backing slowly into the
house, with an incredulous grin crawling slowly over his dull face—’
wife and child !’ And he coolly drew his slipshod feet over the
threshold and bolted the door. The driver looked at me, and I looked
at Mrs. Thompson.
‘You are sure’—I saw a tear in her eye, and left the sentence unfinished. I could not doubt her. ‘The barkeeper must be drunk,’ said
the driver opportunely ; and believing in my soul that the driver was
right, I thumped away once more at the door. In a few minutes the
master of the house answered the summons from a chamber window.
‘Is Captain Thompson here ?’ said I.
‘Yes Sir.’
‘Will you be kind enough to tell him his wife and child are at the
door ?’
‘Wife and child !’ said Boniface, repeating my words very
slowly ; ‘I have always understood that Captain Thompson was a
bachelor !’
Mrs. Thompson leaned back in the coach and sobbed audibly.
‘It’s no consequence what you have always understood, Sir—
will you convey that message to Captain Thompson, or not ?’
Uncanny Coincidences — 193
He withdrew his head, and came down presently to the door. ‘I
have no objection to showing you Capt. Thompson’s room, Sir,’ said
he, and you may carry your own message ; but I assure you he’ll be
very likely to pitch you over the banisters for your intelligence.’
I took the candle, and mounted after him three flights of stairs.
He stopped at the landing, and, pointing to a door at the extremity of
the entry, renewed his caution. I proceeded however, and rapped
boldly on the pannel. A gruff ‘Come in !’ was the immediate answer ; and opening the door, I walked up to the bed, and touched my
hat as courteously as I knew how.
‘Have I the honor of addressing Captain Thompson ?’
As I asked the question, I raised the candle, and got a fair look at
the premises. On a bachelor’s bed, narrow and well tucked up, lay a
man of the heaviest frame, whiskered to the eyes, and with a fist as it
lay doubled on the coverlid like the end of the club of Hercules. A
fiery lock of hair, redder than his face (I feel as if I was using a hyperbole) straggled out from a black silk handkerchief twisted tightly
round his head, and his nose and mouth and chin, masses of solid
purple, might have been, for delicacy of outline, hewn with a broad
axe from a mahogany log. He looked at me just about as long as I
have been writing this description before he answered my question.
‘What do you want ?’ he bolted at last, as if the words were
forced out of his mouth with a catapult.
‘I am sorry to disturb you, Sir, but—but—(I took a backward
position as I approached the crisis of my sentence, and stood prepared to run) Mrs. Thompson and little John are at the door——and
——and——’
A loud laugh from the landlord in the entry cut off the sequel of
my explanation, and completed my dismay. I looked at the Captain’s
fist, and stole a glance over my shoulder to see if the door was open,
and then the thought of Mrs. Thompson in tears shamed my courage
back again, and I recovered my first position. The Captain raised
himself slowly upon his elbow, and lowering his shaggy eyebrows
till they met his whiskers, fixed his eyes upon me and prepared to
speak. If he had levelled two pistols at me I should have been less
frightened.
‘I’ll tell you what, Mr. Milk-and-water,’ said he, in a voice as
deliberate and decided as the fall of a sledge hammer, (I was a
194 — Captain Thompson
slender student in those days, and paler than usual of course,) ‘I’ll
tell you what—if you are not out of this room in two minutes with
your “Mrs. Thompson and little John,” I’ll slam you through that
window—if I do n’t, ——‘me !’
The threat was definite. I doubted neither his inclination nor his
power to keep it. My heart was grieved for Mrs. Thompson ; but if I
was thrown down to her from a fourth-story window, I reflected that
I should probably be in no situation to express my sympathy. It was
philosophy to retreat. I bade the Captain good night in my gentlest
tone ; and as I turned away with some alacrity, he grasped a glass of
brandy and water that stood on the light stand, and muttering ‘Mrs.
Thompson and little John’ between his teeth, drank it at a gulp. As I
passed through the door the tumbler whizzed past my head like a
shot, and shivered to atoms on the entry wall.
I found ‘Mrs. Thompson and little John’ in a very moving state
of unhappiness. They were decidedly on my hands— that was clear.
If it had been at any other hour, I would have taken them home till
the mystery could be cleared up ; but to arrive from college unexpectedly at midnight with a woman and a child—I thought it highly
improbable that my motives would be appreciated.
‘I say Sir,’ said the driver, as I stood pondering the case, ‘had n’t
you better take her to the stage-house and leave the matter till morning.”
It was sensible advice, and I got in and comforted Mrs.
Thompson as we drove to Hanover Street.272
The first person that appeared on the step of the tavern door was
another Captain Thompson, a stout, handsome fellow, who took
‘Mrs. Thompson and little John’ into his arms at one clasp, and
kissed them— as one might be supposed to do after a three years’
voyage. I heard in the course of a day or two, that a rough old sea
captain at the Marlborough, who had been there, off and on, for
thirty years, and had always sworn himself a bachelor, had been
awaked at midnight by the arrival of a wife and child whom he had
deserted in some foreign port, and had gone to sea very suddenly.
The last part of the communication was great relief to my mind.
___________
272 The
main street of historic Boston North End.
Superstitions
and Mental Disorders
Notice
A Mystery of the Sea
H
ere is a story published in 1829, at the crossroads of the
fictions to come of Poe and Melville, in which the mixing
of scientific realism, imagination and superstition is emblematic of
the birth of the Fantastic genre in nineteenth-century American literature. The supernatural narrative itself is embedded between a long
introduction, in which the narrator exposes purported enlightened
scholarly views on superstitions, and a short conclusion attesting the
indisputable honesty of the original reporter of these extraordinary
facts.
The substantial prolegomena introduces ordinary superstitions,
widespread among “common sailors” (216), induced by their everyday observation of “the book of nature, striving to read, in its various
leaves, the sky, the stars, the clouds, and waters, the dim, but legible
traces of [their] destiny” (217). The narrator then adds tongue-incheek that these beliefs “would never be dreamed of on land, but by
some bed-ridden beldame of eighty” (216), while he reasserts his
faith in the human rational mind and in “the light which has been
shed upon it by education” (216). He completes his rationale on the
supernatural by declaring, in a way which modern logic would not
discard so easily, that “the creations of the fancy depend mainly on
the temperament of the man, and the structure and cultivation of his
mind” (217), making the superstitious persons what psychiatry
would fifty years later call neurotics: “To the man of well balanced
mind solitude has no terrors . . . But who are they that tremble at
their shadow when alone ? . . . Who, but the weak in mind ? Who but
those whose estrangement from society has nearly obliterated the
faint traces of an imperfect education ?” (217). In a statement which
Freud would not deny,273 the narrator reminds us that “[o]nce, poetry
and superstition were nearly synonymous, and exerted a united influence upon the minds of men” (216), before he concludes that although “thanks be to Heaven, the mind at length is free” (216), su-
273 See Freud’s essays “The Uncanny” (1919) about opposite meanings in words, and Delusions and Dreams in Jensen’s “Gradiva” (1907) as far as poets and the unconscious are concerned.
Superstitions and Mental Disorders — 197
perstitions are still lurking around in uncivilized regions of the earth
such as “the desert of the ocean” (197).
In a second step, the narrator endeavors to convince his readers
that he is not one of those credulous persons whose weak minds can
be easily deceived, boasting that for him “the churchyard has no terrors” (218) and that he had often “walked it merely for meditation ;
and the idea of encountering the spirits of the dead who slumber
there, never crossed [his] mind” (218). In fact, although he confesses
that he believes in the supernatural, the narrator asserts that he is not
scared of revenants for “[the] dead have nothing to ask at [his]
hands” (218). But even if “[a]ll tales of the kind are directly in the
teeth of reason” (218), some stories are “so well attested, that despite
of all [his] philosophy, [he] dare not gainsay them” (218). His presumed tolerance, ahead of an absolute scientist mental attitude inherited from the Enlightenment of the 18th century, makes him all the
more reliable and gives credit to the narrative he relates. The “real
effect” induced by this literary trick is reinforced by the unquestionable honesty of the second narrator, Captain Sharp, who is “neither
an ignorant nor a weak-minded man” (219) and who “merely tell[s]
[his] story, and leave[s] [readers] and every one who may hear it
hereafter, to put upon it what interpretation they please” (220). He is
thus identified as a reliable witness according to the preliminary criteria given by the narrator, and even after other living persons’ testimonies for “the patronage of the most eminent merchants in Rhode
Island, in early life, and the unqualified esteem of a large circle of
friends now, are sufficient testimonials in favor of his probity” (219).
Captain Sharp, like the narrator, seems to be cast in the same mould
as Melville’s Starbuck: “Uncommonly conscientious for a seaman,
and endued with a deep natural reverence, the wild watery loneliness
of his life did therefore strongly incline him to superstition; but to
that sort of superstition, which in some organization seems rather to
spring, somehow, from intelligence than from ignorance.”274
The supernatural story itself is relatively short and simple. Michael Dodd, a sailor whose ways are so strange that they perturb
gravely Captain Sharp’s crew, disappears mysteriously right in the
middle of the Atlantic. From the outset, Dodd’s personality is perceived as disquieting, as “[t]here was not a man on board the Char274 Herman
Melville, Moby-Dick (1851).
198 — Notice
lotte, who could say that he ever caught Michael Dodd’s eye long
enough to tell its colour” (220), and above all, while he does not utter
a word in daytime, at night when “he lies in his birth, [he] mutters
and groans like a man in a fit of the nightmare” (221) as if “he ha[d]
a mind to hold conversation with the devil” (222), evoking, although
he is not under the influence of hypnotism, the frightening behavior
of one of Poe’s doomed “sleepwakers.”275
The mystery deepens when Dodd confides to the Captain he has
the appalling premonition that he is going to be physically seized at
midnight by unidentifiable evil powers. However, the narrator, who
is not afraid of ghosts, is then literally taken aback by the nature of
the facts: although Dodds looks like a living dead with his eyes “like
pale fires from the tomb” (223), “his hands crossed before him, and
his head dropped upon his breast, like a condemned criminal” (224),
he does not come back to haunt the living, and, on the contrary, he is
abruptly and inexplicably withdrawn from the face of the earth.
Dodd embodies the opposite of an apparition or a revenant for, beyond the mystery of his presence, what is so disquieting about himself
is precisely his disappearance. In that mystery at sea, the traditional
schema of the ghost story is inverted: the spirit disappears, and light,
far from being divine, represents something devilish, “not of earth
nor heaven” (224). Unquestionably ahead of its time, this short-story,
by many aspects, foreshadows much more modern literary trends, including the late twentieth century theme of abduction so popular in
Science-Fiction.
_________________
The Hermit of Agualta
A
lthough America and Britain had passed laws to disrupt
slave trade in the first decade of the nineteenth century,276
American commercial involvement with the West Indies was still intense in 1831, and a large part of the economic prosperity of New
275 Edgar Allan Poe, “The Masque of the Red Death” (1842); “Mesmeric Revelation”
(1844); “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar” (1845).
276 The Abolition of the Slave Trade Act was passed by British Parliament in 1807; the
American Congress banned all imports of slaves in 1808.
Superstitions and Mental Disorders — 199
England ports was derived from what remained of the “triangular
trade.”277 The privileged links between New England and the British
West Indies led to a growing interest in the tropics and their particular lifestyle and natural as well as anthropological characteristics.
This text, particularly well documented, shows that the curiosity of
American travellers brought them to sail to the south seas and visit
their islands. The abundance of accurate details on the flora and the
fauna as well as on the geography of Jamaica is convincing evidence
that it was the case of the author. His romantic-styled description of
the vale of Agualta reveals his “propensity to paint nature” (199) in
terms which sometimes evoke pages of William Bartram’s Travels.278 Moreover, his solitary perambulations, “[c]ontrary to the custom of the country, and to the great scandal of [his] friends” (227), in
the tropical forests make him a precursor of Thoreau, at least as far
as his attitude toward his fellow-men is concerned, as he confesses
bluntly: “If to prefer communion with nature to the companionship
of men be misanthropy, then, I fear, I must be entered with that illfavored class of bipeds” (226).
The depiction of the place is tinged with mysticism and reveals
the kind of respect usually inspired by sacred monuments or buildings: “All around it the land rises to the height of one thousand feet,
and is clothed with gigantic trees, using, like the walls of an amphitheatre, column upon column, with their green capitals, and hung by
the whole family of vines with festoons and streamers” (229). Not
only is the landscape grandiose but the luxuriance of nature, combined with the sweetness of the climate, excites the narrator’s sensuousness while “[t]he most delicious sensation stole over [him]. The
Arcadian279 shades of classic Greece rose upon [his] memory” (230).
The valley of Agualta itself is a secluded place, “in some unknown way locked from the knowledge of men” (229), whose very
name evokes water (the name comes from the Spanish agua alta:
high water), which makes it an island within the island. It is not ex277 A trading pattern implying the American colonies, the West Indies, the western coast of
Africa, and Great Britain, based on the exchange of staples, sugar, manufactured goods and
slaves. All the various combinations of this pattern went through the West Indies.
278 William Bartram (1739-1823), Travels Through North and South Carolina, Georgia,
East and West Florida, the Cherokee Country, the Extensive Territories of Muscogulges, or
Creek Confederacy, and the Country of the Choctaws (1792).
279 A region of ancient Greece, surrounded by mountains, in which people lived a proverbially simple and pastoral life.
200 — Notice
actly desert though, since the narrator unexpectedly meets Velasques,
the master of the place whose appearance calls to mind Defoe’s famous castaway:280 “A large palm leaf hat covered his head, from which
long gray locks fell to his shoulder and breast, and mingled there
with a most majestic beard” (230). Like his fictional predecessor on
his island, the hermit of Agualta “found [him]self upon the beach a
shipwrecked and pennyless man” (235) and he lived his almost solitary life in the middle of clearings converted into gardens.
No Friday accompanies the once well-to-do hidalgo in his solitary life but his faithful servant Sancho who, not unlike his homonym
in Cervantes Don Quixote (1605-1615), “has ate [his] bread in
prosperity, and will not leave his old master now that the cloud is on
him” (232), waiting for the reward of his patience which he will obtain after his master’s death. However, what seduces the narrator is
not so much Velasques’s uncommon personality but the unanticipated presence in such a desolate place of his daughter, a beautiful
young woman whom the narrator immediately desires “for never was
the purity of heaven in the soul more clearly reflected than from her
calm black eye, nothing could be more beautifully majestic, and at
the same time more sweetly feminine, than the bend of the head and
the air with which she received [his] salutation” (232).
Like in so many short texts gathered here, the zest of the story
lay in a narrative within the narrative, namely here the account of
Velasques’s tribulations, a literary device supposed to bring credit to
what is told by giving it the appearance of the report of a true story
set in scenes which, even if exotic, are nevertheless real places. This
is the pretext to depict, in racially biased terms, the life of masters
and slaves in early nineteenth-century Jamaica. Velasques’s story reveals the great intimacy which existed between domestic slaves and
their masters, which accounts for the fact that his young girl displays
a great “knowledge of negro witchcraft far greater than [he] could
have imagined, and what was worse, that she believed it” (237), not
unlike his wife who “had been bred up in the same way” and who
“was familiar with all the superstitions of the negroes” (236).
Velasques thought that the superstitions generated by the Obi “might
280 Daniel
Defoe, Robinson Crusoe (1719).
Superstitions and Mental Disorders — 201
be an excellent tiling to keep the rogues in subjection” (237), a point
which may be contested, not only because of the tragedy which
strikes his family, but because, like voodoo in Haiti, it was commonly used by the Africans as a means of resistance to slavery.281
The ideological position of the narrator, mirroring that of his
host, is far from being that of an abolitionist, for the slaves are depicted in terms which make them as unreliable as wild beasts, like the
beggar in the woods, “a gigantic negro, armed with a cutlass” and
“confoundedly saucy” who seems to him as dangerous as “a tiger”
(228); or as perfidious as Velasques’s murderous nurse; or Congo
Jane herself, “a reputed witch” (237), an “old hag” (239), “as sinister
looking an object as you would care to behold “ (237). These prejudices are corroborated by the recurrent use of derogatory terms such
as “rogues” or “a gang of runaways that infested a neighboring district” (239), words however commonly used at the time in Jamaica to
refer to African slaves.
Moreover, the narrator does not seem to disapprove of the repeated ill-treatments inflicted by Velasques to his slaves, whether it
be whipping under the form of “nine and thirty” lashes, deportation,
or downgrading in the hierarchy of tasks, from domestic responsibilities to working in the fields.282 But beyond these punishments, authorized if not encouraged by slave codes, which were common practices at the time and exemplified the absolute power of the masters,
the atrocious killing of the nursery maid, even inspired by vengeance, could hardly be admitted by the most hard-hearted American
slaveholder. As Velasques reports allusively: “I watched the pile
when she suffered till she was burned to a cinder” (239). As a matter
of fact, the Jamaican slave code, until the late 1700s, allowed masters
to punish their slaves by mutilating or putting the worst offenders to
death by burning or starving them on gibbets.283 Let us note here that
281 About the importance of voodoo in Haitian history see Michel S. Laguerre, Voodoo and
Politics, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1989; A. Metraux, Voodoo in Haiti, New York:
Schocken Books, 1972.
282 See supra note 352.
283 It is only in later codes that the government’s authority was delegated to the masters for
minor crimes only, major offenses being judged in slave courts, composed of big planters and
specific to English colonies. For further detail see Russell Smandych, “’To Soften the Extreme
Rigor of Their Bondage’: James Stephen’s Attempt to Reform the Criminal Slave Laws of the
West Indies, 1813-1833,” Law and History Review, vol. 23, n° 3; Diana Patton, “Punishment,
Crime, And The Bodies of Slaves in Eighteenth-Century Jamaica,” Journal of Social History,
Summer, 2001.
202 — Notice
even if Velasques did not infringe the laws of his time and place, his
cruelty is never denounced by the American narrator.
__________________
Incidents in the Life of a Quiet Man
T
his narrative, unsigned but written by Nathaniel Parker
Willis,284 is not actually a short-story but rather the account
of a series of “incidents,” as indicated in the title, which spice the life
of a man who is decidedly not as “quiet” as he claims it at first. His
personality, like his narration, seems effectively based on paradox,
which is confirmed by his becoming a nurse by “accident” (242). His
past aversion to sickness is then “associated in [his] mind with confinement and pain and everything repulsive” to such a degree that it
suggests that he suffers from claustrophobia, so that he symptomatically “love[s] the open air with an eccentric affection” (242). His recovery is not less symptomatic for it transforms the previous signs of
mental trouble into their very opposite, as he now indulges in “an unhealthy passion for scenes of this description” (242). This new passion reaches even the proportions of an addiction for “it has sated itself with one degree of misery after another, till now nothing satisfies it but the deepest—death or wild insanity—whatever tries the
sufferer most, and demands in the spectator most of sympathy and
nerve” (242). The narrator should be aware of the morbid side of his
behavior when he confesses that “there is an excitement in the highwrought circumstances which accompany sickness, which feeds in
[him] a spring of curiosity, which [he] cannot but think, is one of the
deepest seated cravings of [his] nature” (242). From claustrophobia
to voyeurism, the narrator’s recovery is only apparent.
The three “incidents” reported sound heterogeneous but they
nevertheless share common traits that inform the reader on their very
nature. First, the three of them occur in the dead of night and each
284 The story was published anonymously, but the last section of it was revised and extended
into a longer version entitled “The Lunatic’s Skate” published in The New Monthly Magazine
and Literary Journal of London (November 1834), and again in the author’s Inklings of Adventure (1836). Willis (1806-1867) was then the editor of the American Monthly Magazine
which he founded in 1829.
Superstitions and Mental Disorders — 203
time the narrator is fascinated by the mystifying spectacle of the
night outside. In the first narrative, the protagonist is captivated by
“[t]he clear, sparkling snow [that] lay like fairy-work over the beautiful common, and the trees, laden with the feathery crystals, [which]
look[] like motionless phantoms in the moonlight” (244). In the second one, “[t]here [i]s no moon, but the stars look[] near and bright,
and the absolute silence and the sweet spiciness of the air combine[]
with the solemnity of [his] vigil in giving the night almost a supernatural beauty” (246). The third episode takes place during a night
with a full moon; neither his friend or the narrator can sleep, and, as
they go out skating, they are captured by “[t]he extreme polish of the
ice [which] sen[ds] us forward with very slight exertion at great
speed, and it seem[s] to [the narrator] as if [they] shot over the long
shadows from the shore with a superhuman swiftness” (249). “Fairy
work,” “motionless phantoms,” “supernatural,” “superhuman,” the
vocabulary used by the author belongs to the supernatural field.
The second common point is that the three extraordinary incidents concern the protagonist himself and another participant, but
seem to be ignored of any other person. When he feels that he is
about to be assaulted by the madman, the protagonist thinks of
“shouting for assistance, but even if [he] had been heard by the
sound sleepers in the rooms about [him], such noises are too common in college to excite anything but a curse on the rioter” (244).
After his fight with the wild cat, he realizes that his “two fellow
watchers, strangely enough, slept through it all” (244), and the solitary interminable ride of the two skaters seems to remain unnoticed.
Thirdly, each episode leads to a peaceful ending in which
everything comes back to normal after a stormy, agitated night, as if
nothing had happened. When the tutor finally enters the sick man’s
room, “the madman sl[inks] to his bed, and covering up his head lay
as quiet as a child till morning” (245). After he strangled the cat, the
narrator symbolically “washe[s] the blood from [his] hands, and
composing the sheet as decently as [he] c[an] over the desecrated
body, [he] resume[s] [his] walk and [his] excited thoughts till morning” (248), and when he wakes up in the morning following his midnight ride after a deep sleep in the open air by an unknown hunter’s
fire, he just “procure[s] a sleigh, with which, after a cold drive of
forty miles [they] reach[] home at noon” (250). Each episode re-
204 — Notice
spects the classic pattern according to which a return to order follows
an unusually intense disorder. But in each case, no explanation is
provided to account for the disorder, which makes these eerie narratives verge on the fantastic genre.
Finally, what typifies the three stories is above all violence and
the apparent irrepressible blindness and meaninglessness in which it
manifests itself. The madman looks as if “he was dreaming” (244)
and vain are the efforts of the protagonist to calm him down with
“the steadiness of [his] gaze” (244) as a hypnotist would do.285
Moreover, he wants to kill the young student for no particular reason,
only answering absurdly his question about his motives for murdering him: “I have found you alone, and I know you !” (245). Similarly, the necrophagous cat “d[oes] not seem to be aware of [his] approach, and [he] ha[s] grasped her round the throat with both [his]
hands before she t[akes] the least notice of [him]” (248). In the same
way, although in a less threatening register, the narrator’s nightly
ride soon “assume[s] a wildness which [he] trie[s] in vain to shake
off” (249) as his companion, “wild with a mysterious fear” (249),
skates as if he were alone, “speaking not a word, nor even turning his
head when [they] pass[], as [they] d[o] occasionally, the glare of a
hunter’s fire” (249). All these stories stage characters, whether they
be human or animal, who are the prey of some inner irrepressible
“wild” drives which make them behave as if they were mad.
Madness, night and irrationality call to mind the domain of
dreams and the unconscious, so that it is tempting to interpret the
three stories as the reports of successive dreams made by the unquestionably neurotic narrator around whom each scenario is centered
like in any oneiric production. They announce the murky, ambiguous
universe of Edgar Allan Poe, in particular his tale “The Black Cat”
(1843),286 in which his protagonist hangs his favorite pet in a fit of
neurotic violence, even if the necrophagous cat is white, a color
which symbolizes ominousness and mystery in the three narratives:
285 The main character in “The Crazy Eye” is more successful. Both stories refer more or
less directly to the influential works of the Austrian physician Franz Anton Mesmer (17341815). See supra note 357.
286 For a psychological interpretation of Poe’s tale see Ed Piacentino, “Poe’s ‘The Black
Cat’ as Psychobiography: some Reflections on the Narratological Dynamics” Studies in Short
Fiction, Spring, 1998.
Superstitions and Mental Disorders — 205
the snow in the first one, then the cat, then the ice in the last one. The
wild madness affecting the sick man, the frenzied white cat, and to a
lesser extent the skater who acts like a sleepwalker echo both Poe’s
mystery texts and the novels of Charles Brockden Brown (17711810)287 in which mental imbalance serves as a pretext to explore the
meanders of the human psyche.
_____________
The Crazy Eye
T
he literary status of this narration may justifiably remain
unclear to the modern reader. On the one hand, the author
makes sure that his story will be received without prejudices by introducing it with sophisticated epistemological arguments on the relative validity of scientific knowledge, arguing learnedly that “even
those maxims which we term general laws, are merely deductions
from a limited number of facts, and may be superseded, at any time,
by more extensive observations” (251). Then, to clear up suspicion,
he adds that “as the incident took place within the last fifteen years, it
has been thought advisable to suppress the names of the parties”
(253), as if it were necessary, for deontological reasons, to keep
secret the identity of presumed real persons. But on the other hand,
the narrator introduces now and again touches of humor which may
weaken the seriousness of his demonstration when he evokes tonguein-cheek, for instance, the “testimony of many respectable keepers of
mad-houses, who have found the success of the experiment [hypnotism] exceedingly precarious” (252). Moreover, although they are reported in a quite convincing and scrupulous tone, the two episodes
related sound more like fictions than like objective accounts.
However, the nineteenth-century reader was certainly impressed by
the seriousness of the narration and many of them, influenced by the
fascination of their time for paranormal phenomena, would not question the veracity of the testimony, in the same way as some of Poe’s
readers, abused by the author’s sense of hoax, believed in the unexpected effects of Valdemar’s “mesmeric trance.”288
287 One thinks of his most popular work Wieland; or, The Transformation (1798) or more
particularly of Edgar Huntly Or Memoirs Of A Sleep Walker (1799). See Marc Amfreville,
Charles Brockden Brown: La part du doute. Paris: Belin, 2000.
288 Edgar Allan Poe, “The Facts in the Case of Mr. Valdemar” (1845).
206 — Notice
The facts described evoke the modern word of “hypnotism,” although the term was only coined in 1843 by the Scottish physician
James Braid (1795-1860), in his seminal work “Neurypnology, or the
Rationale of Nervous Sleep,” in which, for the first time, the question was addressed scientifically.289 However, when “The Crazy Eye”
was written (1836), the term in use was still “mesmerism,” after the
controversial works of Franz Anton Mesmer (1734-1815) on animal
magnetism,290 prolonged by the studies of his disciple John Elliotson
(1791-1868) and those of the Marquis de Puységur (1751-1825) on
somnambulism and “magnetic sleep.” Noticeably, the narrative was
published some eight years before Poe’s “Mesmeric Revelation”
(1844) in which the author presents a case of hypnotic condition in
which the patient eventually dies, like Charles W—— and Sir William P——, and four years before the publication of Chauncy Hare
Townshend’s widely read Facts in Mesmerism: With Reasons for a
Dispassionate Inquiry into It (London: 1840) from which Poe borrowed entire sentences.291 The text is then unquestionably innovative,292 not only by its topic but also because it is presented as a scientific communication openly developed “in the hope that it may
lead to some further investigation of this remarkable phenomenon”
(259), which will be done much later in relation with mental troubles
in the 1880s in France by Charcot293 or to a lesser extent by William
James294 in the United States.
Beyond its apparent scientific rigor, the text also possesses undeniable literary qualities which brings it close to the conventional
genre of a fiction that takes the form of a real account. Although the
289 Alhough Braid himself was well aware of the difference between sleep and “neurypnology,” it is the term “hypnosis” which was remembered. For further detail on nineteenth-century practices of hypnotism, see Eric J. Dingwall (ed.) Abnormal Hypnotic Phenomena—A
Survey of Nineteenth-Century Cases (1968).
290 In 1874, a Royal Commission, including prominent scientific figures among whom were
Franklin (1706-1790), Lavoisier (1743-1794) and Guillotin (1738-1814), concluded that Mesmer’s animal magnetism had no scientific reality. See also supra note 357.
291 See Roger Bozzetto, “Poe ou le visionnaire expérimental,” Métaphores n°15/16, 1988.
292 Even if E.T.A. Hoffmann (1776-1822) had already published “Der Magnetiser” (1813) in
which a physician hypnotises a young woman to make her forget her fiancé.
293 Jean Martin Charcot (1825-1893 ) presented his works on hypnotism and hysteria to the
French Academy of Sciences in 1882.
294 William James (1842-1910), whose book The Principles of Psychology (1890) founded
psychology as a discipline in America.
Superstitions and Mental Disorders — 207
phenomenon is not totally unknown in America, as the narrator mentions one case “in the western part of Pennsylvania” (252), the two
anecdotes presented to illustrate the power of the eye on mentally
imbalanced persons are staged in far-off England, which makes
Great Britain appear as an exotic place in which inexplicable events
occur recurrently. In the first narrative, “a gentleman of family and
fortune” (253) learns on the eve of his wedding that he ha[s] been
unduly disinherited by “a rich but miserly uncle . . . of which he [is]
the direct heir” (253). The news precipitates the unfortunate bridegroom into an “unnatural exhilaration” (253) coupled with fits of
wild agitation and uncontrollable aggressiveness. This (self-)destructive behavior is easy to interpret: his being barred from a legitimate genealogy, and consequently from a marriage conditioned by
wealth, deprives Charles W—— of the brilliant future which constituted his reason to live, and which he prolongs in a desperate, almost
suicidal attempt to gamble for big stakes.
The following day, his mental state has considerably worsened
and the young man presents all the symptoms of a fit of mania. This
is when the hypnotist meets the madman, which is most suggestively
reported: “It was a strange sight,—the tall, athletic figure of my
friend cowering before the slight and feeble form of the simple
mechanic” (256). In this almost epic fight, the greatest importance is
given to the look of the “tamer”: “It was frightful. I cannot describe
it . . . The iris seemed to be contracted, and, as it were, concentrated
into the pupil, and the color had changed from hazel to a deep black ;
the lids were half-shut ; and the whole character of the eye was what
I may call snake-like” (256). The second case, that of Sir William P
——, “a considerable figure in the political world” and whose
“death, I remember, created a great sensation in England” (257), is
basically no different. The “spotless” (257) politician is challenged
in his reliability while he cannot face his future on “the eve of an
election” (257). At the peak of his political career, the old man can
no longer stick to the rigid conservative principles that have been so
far the indispensable struts of his character and his whole mental edifice collapses, all the more suddenly that the legitimacy of his position is harshly questioned. In both cases, the hypnotist takes the control of a broken personality in a way which could be authenticated by
208 — Notice
modern psychoanalytic views both on hypnosis and psychoses.295 As
a matter of fact, both accounts, although they are second-hand, do
not lack either accurateness or elegance of style, so that the narration
itself appears to be tinged with a “supernatural” tone generated by
the display of “a power which carries with it an appearance of
something superhuman” (258), foreshadowing many of Poe’s tales of
horror also inspired by the torment of the human psyche.
__________________
Anna’s Landing
A
nna’s life starts like a romance story set in an idyllic country in which water and land mingle harmoniously in a
maze of rivers, lakes and islands, under the tutelary protection of “an
immense elm” which “cannot be matched in New England” and
“stands unrivalled and alone, seen far up and down the river, extending its arms over it like a protecting genius” (260). Anna herself
is a girl with an “indescribable softness in her face” (261), betrothed
since childhood to Alfred, “a ward of her father’s” (262) whom she
plans to marry when she reaches the age of eighteen with her father’s
unrestricted blessing.
The sequel of the story oscillates between the relation of Anna’s
tragic destiny and a fierce criticism of religious fanaticism. In the village of P., the narrator notices ironically that although the inhabitants
are “in the main, intelligent, and many of them wealthy and indued
with the polish of a city education, yet there [is] among them a general want of religious knowledge” (262). By opposing intelligence
and obscurantism, the narrator stigmatizes those who “divest[] themselves of reason’s aid altogether, and place[] themselves in the capacity and attitude of children, not at the feet of Christ, but of his ministers” (262). The representatives of God on Earth are then seen as
potentially dangerous hypocrites endowed with the ability to manip295 Let’s remember that Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) and Josef Breuer (1842-1925) discovered psychoanalysis thanks to their works on hypnosis published in their Studies on Hysteria (1895). For more advanced theories on the etiology of psychoses, see Jacques Lacan
(1901-1981), The Seminar, Book III. The Psychoses, edited by Jacques-Alain Miller, transl. by
Russell Grigg, W.W. Norton & Co., New York, 1993.
Superstitions and Mental Disorders — 209
ulate those who naively ascribe “confidence to impudence and imposture, and respectability, and even reverence, to ignorance and
stolidity” (263). In the middle of the eighteenth century, the popular
religious turmoil caused by the Great Awakening (1730s-1750s)296
favored both breach of trust and misuse of power. Unscrupulous
preachers had then the opportunity to manipulate crowds of believers, and like Louis Beebee, they effectively often promoted
“some doctrines, which [according to the narrator] it seems blasphemous to impute to the character of Jehovah” (264).
Significantly, the text was published during the Second Great
Awakening (1820s-1840s), a wave of religious revival which swept
throughout the country to the remote areas of the Frontier where isolated pioneers convened in camp meetings to hear the passionate sermons of preachers who sometimes had limited religious education.
The author’s fierce denunciation of the “unaccountable mistiness”
(262) which veiled religious rationality, his advocation of reason and
his praise of the harmony of nature suggests that the text is one of the
numerous literary writings purposely published by Unitarians—they
often refused royalties from their publishers—to promote the ideals
of Rationalist Unitarianism as opposed to Calvinism or, as it is the
case presented here, any “foul perversion of the gospel” (266) and religious fanaticism.297 Louis Beebee, preaching under the tutelary elm,
consequently appears as a usurper of the divine authority.
Alfred Darrach undoubtedly appears as one of the author’s fictional representatives both because of their common admiration for
Anna, and on account of their religious positions as they apparently
share a “disgust at most of the preachers” and are “opposed to revivals as managed by them” (264). Being a rational mind, Alfred diagnoses rightly the cause of Anna’s troubles and he condemns Beebee
in terms which reveal the true essence of the mental perturbation affecting his fiancée: “this Beebee— the incubus that sits upon your
296 See note 365.
297 Such was the case,
for instance, of the Bostonian William Austin (1778-1841), the author
of “Peter Rugg, the Missing Man” (1824, 1826, 1827). For further detail see Joseph A. Zimbalatti, Anti-Calvinist Allegory: A Critical Edition of William Austin’s “Peter Rugg the Missing Man” (1824-1827) Fordham University, Ann Arbor, MI, 1992; Under the aegis of the
American Unitarian Association founded in 1825, many Unitarian writers in Boston were the
propagandists of their liberal ethics against the strictness of Puritanism; see Lawrence Buell,
“The Literary Significance of the Unitarian Movement,” American Unitarianism, 1805-1865,
Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society Studies, 1989.
210 — Notice
peace of mind—should know his place” (265). Alfred correctly identifies the murky nature of Beebee’s influence on Anna’s mind: like
an incubus, he is the cause of nightmares whose contents are not
devoid of secret sexual fantasies,298 which utterly justifies Alfred’s
jealousy. Beebee, “a man in the prime of life” (264) whose age was
relevantly that of the Christ when he died, reveals the intensity of his
feelings for Anna by his gaze which “betray[s] the smothered fire
within” (265). “Struck with the uncommon loveliness of Anna Lowell” (266), he literally seduces her “with argument and scripture”
(267) so that she becomes so tragically torn “between love and reason” that “in her weak state, . . . reason fled forever” (267).
The ending of the narrative does not rest only on the confirmation of “Anna’s insanity” (267) and her realizing that she was abused
for, as she piteously repeats “there is no scripture, for that” (267). It
proposes a twofold epilogue which gives the narrative a touch of inscrutable mystery that goes beyond the understanding of the reader.
On the one hand, it is clear that after her meeting with Beebee, Anna’s health gradually deteriorates, and from being dejected and affected by “a general debility and nervousness” (265) she becomes
progressively devoid of all physical substance, walking “with the
noiseless step of a spirit, and . . . smiling occasionally the painful
smile of idiocy” (266) before she vanishes body and soul, her physical disappearance symbolizing her abandonment of her earthly existence. However, the enigma of Anna’s disparition remains unsolved as “it seem[s] as if she [was] spirited from the earth without
leaving any trace of her passage” (268). On the other hand, if the disappearance of Beebee has for some time remained unexplained
—“the bird had flown, and never more was he seen in the vale of the
Ashawang” (266)—, the narrator provides a last-minute explanation
which preserves the preacher’s reputation by excluding that he was
an ordinary crook by stigmatizing the irrational danger represented
by the unhealthy “unlimited influence over the thoughts, actions and
habits” (264) that some ministers can display when they endeavor to
convert believers like Anna, whose “searching, wandering spirit
f[inds] no rest” (264). From a propagandist’s point of view, the
298 See
supra note 366.
Superstitions and Mental Disorders — 211
demonstration is certainly more convincingly efficient than most
philosophical or theological arguments.
_______________
The Cold Hand; a Tale
H
ere is a story, published in 1837, presented as a pitiable
and dramatic testimony which, according to the narrator,
should be read as a “warning” (269) by some readers who may profitably recognize in it the echoes of their own tribulations. It is based
on a classic quandary about love and jealousy which assumes in its
first section the traits of a pathetic parable about appearances and
what they are supposed to reveal: an unattractive face reflects a dry
heart, whereas physical beauty harbors a pure soul. The narrator,
who is “the ugliest of all mortals” (269), feels consequently rejected
although she “wishe[s] to be social and love mankind” (270), whereas her handsome sister’s undeniable qualities are universally praised,
which “till[s] [her] heart with jealousy and rage” (271) and entails “a
sort of indefinite malignity towards her, which prompt[s] [her] to an
indefinite revenge” (271).
Devoured by an overwhelming feeling of envy, Catharine intrigues by manipulating her sister’s suitors so that she slyly contributes to Jane’s increasing state of depression which coincides with
a fit of “consumption” (279) that is fatal to her “just three months
after the news arrived” (279) of the tragic death of her lover. From
then on, Catharine’s feelings change radically for, to put it in her favorite poet’s words, if “envy feeds on the living, it fades away after
their death”.299 Jealousy gives way to a devastating feeling of guilt as
“all [her] turpitude c[omes] rolling on [her] mind” (279) so that she
“resolve[s] to put an end to [her] life” (280). But during the night she
is willing to drown herself, she is impressed by “a large black cloud,
gleaming with lightning, surcharged with thunder, . . . spreading its
vast, gloomy wings over the mountain” (280), a brewing storm
which seems as ominously vengeful as the thunderstorm pursuing
William Austin’s blasphemous protagonist Peter Rugg, whose wanderings are unendingly followed by a black cloud “doubling and
trebling itself, and rolling up . . . steadily, as if its sole design was to
299 “Pascitur
in vivis livor; post fata quiescit.” Ovid, Amorum (I, 15, 39).
212 — Notice
deluge some object”.300 In both narratives, heaven’s wrath is similarly symbolized, but here the protagonist’s fatal gesture is arrested in
extremis by “a very heavy clap of thunder” which “sh[akes] [her] to
the soul” and “suspend[s] [her] purpose” (280). The divine powers
have planned another destiny for the morbidly envious woman in
which she may have a second chance to rid her soul from the ravages
of the capital sin, a redemption apparently decided by Heavens in
conformity with the Calvinist theology in which God alone can accomplish the salvation of the sinner.
Catharine’s subsequent experience with opiates sounds like a resurrection. Persisting in her “purpose of self-destruction” (281), she
“resolve[s], therefore, . . . to take a quantity of opium, which should
quiet [herself], if possible, for ever” (281) and soon “th[inks] [she]
[i]s dying . . . and dreadful [are] the pangs of separation” (282). Then
follows a description of her phantasms while she is under the influence of opium as if she “lie[d] under the weight of incubus and
nightmare”301, in a manner which reminds one of the narcotic experiences of Thomas de Quincey (1785-1859). Being the prey of “an unspeakable horror” (282), Catharine, threatened by horrid monsters
and chimeras, repeatedly feels “a cold hand [that] would gently press
[her] forehead[,] [which] [i]s inconceivably horrible” (282), so that
she thinks she is dying when she “faint[s], and lo[ose] [her] consciousness” (282) until “there c[omes] a little smiling cherub . . .
with two looking-glasses in his hand, on the backs of which [i]s written—THIS FOR THE BODY ; THIS FOR THE MIND” (283). The sudden revelation of her hideousness, both physical and mental, is so unbearable
that Catharine exclaims, in an insight of what psychoanalysis would
later on call “repression”302: “‘Divide me from myself’ . . . ‘separate
my consciousness from my memory, or I am undone for ever’”
(284). Anticipating the Freudian perspective, this cathartic confrontation with the hidden part of herself in dreams leads Catharine to ac300 William Austin (1778-1841), Peter Rugg, the Missing Man (1824, 1826, 1827).
301 Thomas de Quincey, Confession of an English Opium Eater (1822).
302 In the same vein, de Quincey has a seminal intuition of the timeless nature of the
Freudian unconscious ; “There is no such thing as forgetting possible to the mind; a thousand accidents may and will interpose a veil between our present consciousness and the secret inscriptions on the mind; accidents of the same sort will also rend away this veil; but alike, whether
veiled or unveiled, the inscription remains for ever” (Confession of an English Opium Eater).
Superstitions and Mental Disorders — 213
cept her true nature and gives her the strength to continue to live on
less unhealthy bases. In “the after-dream of the reveller upon opium
—the bitter lapse into everyday life—the hideous dropping off of the
veil”,303 she turns to God and humbly but courageously resolves to
“dedicate [her]self to the business of making every body around [herself] as happy as possible” (285).
Interestingly, Catharine begins to behave like her sister Jane
used to, and when she “hear[s] of objects of distress, [she] immediately fl[ies] to relieve them” (285), as if she ought to replace her now
that she was dead, a common reaction in the mourning process which
corresponds to a masked denial of the disappearance of the deceased.304 In this case, it consequently obliterates Catharine’s responsibility in her sister’s too early death by timely soothing her
overwhelming sense of guilt. Moreover, her need to be retributed for
what she did makes her undergo the same maltreatments she used to
inflict on the only family she still has, and she accepts without
flinching her father’s constant “fretfulness” (286). Echoing her oneiric experience, she sees “[her]self pictured in him” and “resolve[s]
that his impatient temper should be the monitor to [hers]” (286).
However, her hatred has not vanished but its object has changed
and now she “bear[s] malice and ill-will to nothing under heaven, except [her] own former character ; that [she] perfectly hate[s]” (287).
Catharine’s evil drives have not calmed down but roles have
changed: her father is now as bad-tempered as she used to be, and
she is as charitable as her dead sister. The two of them restore and
prolong the pair of opposites which she formed with her sister, but
Catharine is now endowed with the role of the “agreeable woman,”
and though “she is not handsome[,] she looks less like the devil than
she used to” (288). Beyond its unquestionable moralistic vocation,
this tale interestingly reveals that its author had some seminal insights of what psychoanalysis would theorize some seventy years
later, corroborating Freud’s conviction that poets and novelists are
“with regard to the knowledge of the soul, masters of all of us.”305

303 Edgar Allan Poe, “The Fall of the House of Usher” (1839).
304 See Sigmund Freud’s essay “Mourning and Melancholy” (1917).
305 Sigmund Freud, Delusions and Dreams in Jensen’s Gradiva (1907).
THE
AMERICAN MONTHLY MAGAZINE.
Vol. I.
AUGUST 1829
N° V.
A MYSTERY OF THE SEA.
ANY one who is at all conversant with seamen, knows that
superstition forms a striking feature in the character of that numerous and useful class. Men of iron frames and nerves of proof, who
shrink not
“When the battle rages loud and long,
And the stormy tempests bow,”306
are known to give credence to such tales of supernatural horror as
‘the Flying Dutchman’307 and others that have not half the claims of
that romantic legend upon the imagination. Have you been upon the
ocean on a starlight night, with a few clouds hurrying along the sky,
dark and swiftly, and the sea rough, but black as ink, and fathomless ? On such a night, have you marked a group by the vessel’s
side, earnestly attentive to some tarry veteran, as with that low and
almost whispered tone that is in such admirable keeping with the
subject, and which seems to imply a belief in the old proverb, that “a
certain character” is always nearest when we are talking of him, and
with that accent and look of implicit belief in what he is saying
which gives the supernatural its climax of effect, he doles forth the
experience of some brother of the craft in nautical demonology ?
And if you became interested in the story, as the contagious influence of the scene and its associations will surely make you, and
caught the sighing of the wind, as it traversed the melancholy
waste ; and the fitful song of the look-out in the top as it swelled and
306 Verses from “Ye Mariners of England” (1801), a poem by Thomas Campbell (17771844).
307 The legendary Dutch captain of a phantom ship bound to sail the seas eternally.
Superstitions and Mental Disorders — 215
died on the breeze, like the accompaniment of a spirit of the air, you
have felt most powerfully, despite your skepticism, the cold fingers
of superstition creeping upon your heart. Though your countenance
may have worn the forced smile of incredulity, my life on it, you did
not shake off that icy grasp so easily. Your dreams, for a night, at
least, were of chimeras dire ; and that mysterious tone and melancholy song have haunted you since. It would seem, that, removed
from the haunted precincts of the churchyard, the abbey and deserted
castle—“her ancient solitary reign”308—superstition would not stop
with the shore, nor seek her prey upon the solitude of the ocean. But
she “can call spirits from the vastly deep,”309 and the dead are
strewed upon its bottom like pebbles. But were it not so, and were its
sands sown with pearls instead of corpses, disdaining the natural law
of associations she could call up a creation of non-descript monsters,
like the incongruous visions of an incubus, or the hideous abominations of Hindoo worship. Such, generally, is the character of nautical
superstition—wild as the domain over which it broods, unsystematised as the beings whom it rules with despotic power. The demonology of the landsman seldom seeks any other spirits from the shades,
than those of departed men. On the wave, all fear of them vanishes,
and the spirits, which even ghosts are said to dread, bear immediate
rule. And why ? There rise no monuments on the watery plain to tell,
“Hic jacet,”310 or to tether the spirit that has flown. Crime leaves no
record there but in the living hell within the bosoms of its authors.
The waves mourn, and sweep over the pirate’s bloody track, and who
shall point to the spot where the deed was done ?
“Man marks the earth with ruin : his control
Stops with the shore,”311
nor does there exist upon the wide blue sea, one solitary memento, to
give to any act of his, whether good or ill, a local habitation. But the
ocean—the glorious ocean, is full of poetry ; and poetry and superstition are gathered from the same field, by the same minister, imagina308 Thomas Gray (1716-1771) “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” (1768): “Save that
from yonder ivy-mantled tower / The moping owl does to the moon complain / Of such as,
wandering near her secret bower, / Molest her ancient solitary reign.”
309 William Shakespeare (1564-1616), King Henry IV (Part I: Act III, scene 1).
310 Latin phrase for “here lies.”
311 Lord Byron (1788-1824), Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (canto IV, st. 179) .
216 — A Mystery of the Sea
tion. The materials for each are the same, and take their shape and
color after entering the mind, like the different modifications which
light undergoes in eyes of different constructions ; forming, on the
retina of one, a confused and incongruous spectrum, and of another,
a beautiful and faithful copy of all the objects of vision. Whether the
fearful beauties of the deep, its flashing waters, and its clouds that
brush the firmament like the sweep of mighty wings kindle in the
soul the extatic dreams of poesy, or the living horrors and grovelling
fears of superstition, depends altogether upon the character of the
mind, and the light which has been shed upon it by education.
Once, poetry and superstition were nearly synonymous, and exerted a united influence upon the minds of men. Witness the fictions
of the ancient bards. Poets were the high priests of the invisible
world, and palmed upon the simple minds of the age their own creations for divine realities. But thanks be to Heaven, the mind at
length is free. Truth has set her seal upon all the efforts of human
genius. The gilding has fallen off the absurdities of old, and superstition, stripped of her tinsel robe, stands alone, palpable and odious.
Still, however, does she lurk in the bye-ways and corners of the
earth. On the desert of the ocean too, she has a throne, surrounded
with peculiar horrors, that shall last, while “they who go down upon
the deep in ships,”312 shall have among them so many of the weak
and the ignorant. I would by no means put this imputation upon the
whole of a class to which our country owes so much of its wealth
and honors. Of course, I am speaking of common sailors. And
neither would I impute it to them were I not acquainted with its cause
and its remedy. Every one knows a sailor’s belief in omens. And
many on his catalogue are true, and can be accounted for on natural
principles. He understands the signs of the sky perfectly, and can
predict the winds and weather in a manner, that, to a novice, is perfectly unaccountable. But he stops not here. He is led on to trust in
others for which philosophy has no support, and of which the like
would never be dreamed of on land, but by some bed-ridden beldame
of eighty. Thus, a whale, throwing up his flukes, brings a storm ; a
shoal of porpoises at night is accounted unlucky ; and I have heard
the captain of a New York brig order a cock’s head to be wrung off,
312 “They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters; these see the
works of the Lord; and his wonders in the deep” (Psalm 107: 23-24).
Superstitions and Mental Disorders — 217
for crowing at the unseasonable hour of nine at night. These and the
like notions being at times unluckily confirmed by striking coincidences, become matters of experience, and stand as high in a
seaman’s estimation as the signs of the weather. Thus, in the example above alluded to, it was not six hours after the cock had
crowed his unlucky vespers, when it came on to blow the most violent gale that I ever witnessed. The whale had shown his flukes, and
the porpoises visited us, on the same evening. This observation of
signs and omens, which is the natural result of the solitude of his
situation, is a principal cause of the sailor’s inclination for the marvellous. He is shut out from all other cares but to know whether his
wind is to be fair, and the seas smooth. To ascertain these, his eyes
are abroad upon the book of nature, striving to read, in its various
leaves, the sky, the stars, the clouds, and waters, the dim, but legible
traces of his destiny. And if he is thus enabled to understand things
which to other men are a mystery, and was once to himself, is it to be
wondered at, if, at times, he thinks his vision can go farther, and
there, read lessons with which reason and philosophy have no fellowship. Is it to be wondered at, that, shut out from his race, imagination should introduce beings of his own to give animation to the
dreadness that broods over the waste of the ocean ? I have said that
the creations of the fancy depend mainly on the temperament of the
man, and the structure and cultivation of his mind. To the man of
well balanced mind solitude has no terrors. He can sit upon a lonely
height, and look abroad upon the handy-work of his Maker, with the
pleasure of an epicure at a banquet. He can luxuriate upon the means
of life and happiness that are afforded to every living creature ; or, if
the scene lacks inhabitants, his imagination will never call up beings
that will defile this beautiful earth. But who are they that tremble at
their shadow when alone ? Who that shrink in the solitude of the
forest as if malignant eyes were fastened on them, and not that eye
which watched over their birth, and never slumbers nor sleeps ? Who
view, in each glancing star, or light from the marsh, presages of evil ;
and hear, in each sigh of the wind, unheavenly and unearthly voices ?
Who, but the weak in mind ? Who but those whose estrangement
from society has nearly obliterated the faint traces of an imperfect
education ? And who but such men are our common sailors ? The
book of nature is open to both, but different are the lessons which
218 — A Mystery of the Sea
they read there. To one, it is a sublime source of morals, and its
pages are filled with pictures of the beautiful and glorious ; to the
other, it brings terror, and the heads of monsters meet him whatever
leaf he turns. Thus, the same fountain, it would seem, literally sends
forth sweet waters and bitter. But it must be told them that nothing
bitter flows from that exhaustless reservoir which the God of nature
has opened to quench the immortal thirst. It is the corruption of their
own palates. Correct these, and they shall know the pleasure which a
rational man feels, whenever he views the ocean or the landscape, be
it in sunshine or in storm—a pleasure, like a spring to the pilgrim in
the desert, and which we must believe to be of that kind that will not
cease to flow in upon the soul, in its eternal march towards perfection.
For me, the churchyard has no terrors. I have walked it at all
hours and in every different mood. Not that I do not believe in the
supernatural. There are accounts recorded of the walking in this
world of the tenants of the next, to which I know not what to answer ; and, at which, to laugh or sneer, in my opinion, argues as
much weakness as to take for gospel every old wife’s legend. But I
have walked it merely for meditation ; and the idea of encountering
the spirits of the dead who slumber there, never crossed my mind. If
thought of them arose at all, it was but to think of that eternal home
to which they have gone, and the voice from the grave was not one
of alarm, but of heavenly, though solemn warning. And never while
there, have the frightful tales of the nursery obtruded themselves
upon me. The dead have nothing to ask at my hands ; and the powers
of the air, as well as their prince, cannot go beyond the length of that
chain with which omnipotence has bound them. By this time I have
perhaps raised a smile on the face of some sceptic, and am set down
for as arrant a believer in ghosts and witches as any old woman in
Cotton Mather’s day,313 or the venerable historian himself. My creed
on the subject, so far as it suited my purpose, I have stated. All tales
of the kind are directly in the teeth of reason, and counter to our imaginary laws of the spiritual world ; yet, still I say, there are some so
well attested, that despite of all my philosophy, I dare not gainsay
them. And now to our story.
313 Cotton Mather (1663-1728), American Puritan clergyman and writer of Boston, author of
the influential Memorable Providences Relating to Witchcraft and Possessions (1689) and
Wonders of the Invisible World (1693).
Superstitions and Mental Disorders — 219
In the capital of one of our New England States,314 resides captain Sharp. Twenty-five years ago, he commanded a ship in the Russian trade but he has long been retired from the sea. It is a most
happy life which the seaman leads, when enabled to leave his boisterous profession, and to settle down, for the remainder of his days,
upon a competency in the bosom of his early home. When a squall
rises he can lie and hear it ; he has no topsail halyards to stand by.
Such is the situation of Capt. Sharp. Let me add, that an hour’s conversation will convince any one that he is neither an ignorant nor a
weak-minded man ; and that the patronage of the most eminent merchants in Rhode Island, in early life, and the unqualified esteem of a
large circle of friends now, are sufficient testimonials in favor of his
probity.
It was in the year 1804 that Capt. Sharp returned from a
European voyage. The gentleman in whose family I reside, and
whom I have known and respected for years, was then living at
Pawtuxet,315 on the Narraganset Bay.316 He saw the ship pass up the
bay, and on the day following called upon the Captain at Providence.
The Captain received him with a warm greeting.
“I am glad to see you,” said he ; “I am glad to see every body—
in a word, I rejoice that I am once more safe upon the terra firma of
Rhode Island.”
“Rather unnatural for a seaman, that last expression,” observed
Mr. T—.
“By no means—by no means ;” said the Captain, “the most inveterate sea dog of us all, would be glad to be set on shore after such
a voyage.”
“Anything extraordinary ?” inquired Mr. T—.
“Extraordinary ? Yes—no—we have had seamen’s luck, fair
winds and foul, but, on the whole, a pretty fair run ; yet,” said he,
dropping his voice, “I would not make exactly another such a voyage, for the best ship that sails out of Providence.”317
“You talk mysteriously,” said Mr. T—.
314 I.e. Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont.
315 Pawtucket, a city near Providence, Rhode Island, on the Blackstone River.
316 Deeply indenting Rhode Island, Narragansett Bay was the home of the Narragansett
Indians nearly exterminated during King Philip’s War (1675-1676 ).
317 State capital of Rhode Island, situated on the Narragansett Bay, founded by Roger Williams (c.1603–1683) in 1636.
220 — A Mystery of the Sea
“I do ;” said the Captain ; “and the mischief of it is I must still
talk mysteries if I endeavor to explain myself. As we are alone,
however, you shall hear, if you have time to listen.”
After a moment’s pause he proceeded. “What I have to say, shall
be, without note or comment, a simple tale of facts. An opinion upon
those facts, of course, I have ; but there is no necessity of my publishing it ; I shall therefore merely tell my story, and leave you and
every one who may hear it hereafter, to put upon it what interpretation they please. We were bound, you will recollect, for St.
Petersburgh.318 The ship was in the stream, all ready for sea, excepting that we lacked a hand. In those days, before the embargo and
non-intercourse,319 when we were reaping golden harvests of the sea
while Europe was fighting, it was at times difficult to get experienced seamen. After I had waited a whole day, a short, white-livered
fellow presented himself, and though I did not like his looks, I concluded to ship him. I love to see a man who will occasionally give
me a full, square look in the face. If there is sometimes impudence in
it there generally is honesty. There was not a man on board the Charlotte, who could say that he ever caught Michael Dodd’s eye long
enough to tell its colour. Though his frame was large, he was lean almost to emaciation, and pale, as I said before, like one in a consumption. Altogether, with his unsocial habits, hanging look, and strange
mark on his right arm, that looked as if it were done with blood instead of India ink or gunpowder, he was a confounded disagreeable
fellow. On the outward bound voyage, however, he did his duty tolerably well, though he was never known to give a right seaman’s
pull, nor to join in that most cheering of songs, ‘Yo-heave-ho !’
There seemed, in fact, to be something tugging heavily at his heart,
whether remorse or sorrow we could not divine. There were times
too when he would take no food, and refuse it when offered, more
with the speechless loathing of a sick dog than like a rational creature. We soon, however, became accustomed to his ways, and as he
held intercourse with no one farther than his duty made it necessary,
318 Founded by Peter the Great (1672-1725) in 1703, St Petersburg became the capital of
Russia in 1712 and in the 19th century was Russia’s main seaport.
319 The Embargo Act (1807) passed under Jefferson’s presidency (1801-1809) forbade all
international trade to and from American ports in retaliation to British and French restrictive
commercial policies. It was superseded by the Non-intercourse Act (1809), resuming international trade except with Britain and France, soon replaced by Macon’s Bill No. 2 (1810), which
put an end to an ineffective experiment which weighed too heavily on the American economy.
Superstitions and Mental Disorders — 221
none knew any more about him when we reached Cronstadt,320 than
when we shipped him, and thought less.
We were advanced more than fifteen hundred miles on the
homeward bound passage, when one morning, as I was passing forward, I overheard the following conversation. “I wish to my soul,”
said Jones, one of our best men, to Dodd, who was leaning over the
vessel’s side and gazing at the water, in a kind of trance, “I wish to
my soul, brother, you would manage to do your talking upon deck,
and let the watch below have a chance to sleep, instead of doing
double duty. For one, I had as lief be keel-hauled as to be broke of
my natural rest in this way.”
Dodd turned upon him with a gleam of uncommon fierceness,
but the expression passed away in a moment, and with a melancholy
air he resumed his former position.
“I shall not trouble you long,” he said, in a quiet tone.
“The shorter the better, my dear fellow,” said the other, “If you
are to carry your tongue between your teeth all day, like a pin in a
smith’s vice, and then talk to yourself, or, may be, the devil, all
night.”
Dodd answered not, but with folded arms and a drooped head,
moved quietly by the irritated young seaman, into the forecastle.
I bade Jones follow me aft. “And now,” said I, “what is the matter between you and Dodd ?”
“It is even as I say, sir,” replied he. “ Since we got clear of the
British islands, there has been no sleeping for Dodd ?”
“Explain,” said I.
“Why sir, you know, that when upon deck, he has not a word to
throw to a dog ; but below, and when he ought to be asleep, his
mouth is afloat.”
“You are not obliged to talk to him.”
“Lord sir, if he was talking to us, we should care less about it.
But there he lies in his birth, and mutters and groans like a man in a
fit of the nightmare. Then he will thrash round and halloo, “They are
coming !” “They are coming !” “There !” “There !” And this has
been the tune for a week. “Tis very troublesome,” said Jones very de-
320 A
1710.
fortified Russian seaport near St Petersburg founded by Peter the Great (1672-1725) in
222 — A Mystery of the Sea
cidedly ; “for if he has a mind to hold conversation with the devil, I,
for one, don’t want to listen to it.”
“Conversation with the devil ?”
“Aye, sir ; with whom else should a fellow, who carries Lucifer’s mark in his forehead as well as on his right arm, hold converse when honest folks would be sleeping ? And the moment any of
us ask what ails him, or mayhap give him a hearty curse, mum—not
a word from Dodd ; but no sooner are we cleverly asleep, than his
eternal howl breaks in again, and ‘tis “They are coming !” “They are
coming !” and “There !” and “There !” till the morning watch.”
“The fellow has bad dreams,” said I.
“A man don’t have the same dream seven nights in a week for
nothing,” said Jones. “He is enough to make us all think we are
haunted.”
I confess I was puzzled, and not a little appalled at this account.
I knew not what to say, so bade Jones go to his duty. The next morning the same report was made by Jones and confirmed by all the men
of his watch ; some of whom feared and all hated the singular being
whose existence was now become a curse to others as well as to himself. I had remarked that his look had become more haggard : his eye
had almost entirely disappeared in its deep socket, and his whole deportment was strange in the extreme. Things grew so bad at last that
I was fearful some of the men might do Dodd a mischief ; for they
were all goaded to madness, some by loss of rest, and others by the
supernatural fears which his ravings excited. I determined therefore
to take him out of the forecastle. Three days after my first conversation with Jones, I ordered Dodd to come down and lodge in the cabin, the coming night. He received the command with the utmost indifference, and at eight o’clock, came down and turned in. He lay
perfectly still, and to appearance, asleep, for two hours. I began to
think that the fit would not come on that night, to observe which with
my own eyes had been a principal motive with me in bringing him
into the cabin. It was my watch on deck ; consequently I had not
joined in. I had been sitting by the table for more than an hour, leaning on my hand over a book, till I was almost fallen asleep, when I
was startled by a most unearthly voice. “They are coming ! They are
coming !” cried Dodd. He was half sitting up, and grasping convulsively the forward part of the birth, and his look was most hor-
Superstitions and Mental Disorders — 223
rible. His eyes were started into view from their deep sockets, like
pale fires from the tomb, and fixed on vacancy with such an unnatural light in them ! “ There !” he repeated, pointing with his finger,
“they are coming !” “Who ?” said I. “At twelve o’clock,” again he
uttered, in a voice that was heard from the bottom of his chest, “At
twelve ! they are coming !”
I felt my blood curdle. “Lie down in your birth, Dodd,” said I,
“and be quiet. He turned his eyes upon me with a glance, such as I
have thought a dead man might give, had his eyes motion, and then
groaned out ; “Ah, I shall not trouble you long. They are coming, at
twelve o’clock ! they are coming ! they are coming !” he continued
to murmur, as he shrunk down into the birth and huddled the clothes
over him, his voice dying away like a sound retreating to a distance.
I will confess that my blood did not resume its wonted flow for
many minutes ; especially, as the miserable man continued to lie before me, writhing and groaning in what I could not avoid considering
the anticipated agonies of the damned. What could have been his
crime ? Thought upon the subject returned back upon itself, baffled
and bewildered. A few minutes after eleven Dodd again raised himself in the birth, in a posture of deep attention. Then he whispered to
himself and pointed with his finger. At the same moment, I heard
loud voices on the deck.
“What is it Baxter ?” asked the man at the helm.
The answer came from a distant part of the ship and I did not
hear it distinctly, but it was something about a light. The next moment, the mate hurried down the stairs. “We have made a light, sir,”
said he in great alarm.
“A light in the middle of the Atlantic !” said I.
“Yes, sir, dead ahead, and not five miles off. If we were a thousand miles farther west I should swear it was Point Judith light.”321
I hastened upon deck. A little upon our weather bow, say half a
point, and apparently six or eight miles off was a bright steady light
like that of a common light-house. “How long since you made it ?” I
inquired of the mate.
“It may be ten minutes, sir. I took it at first to be a ship’s light,
but it cannot be, for it bears now as when we first made it.”
321
ence.
Point Judith Lighthouse, in the Narragansett Bay (Rhode Island), announcing Provid-
224 — A Mystery of the Sea
The night was overcast and dark, and it could not have been a
star. “What is the nearest land ?” I again inquired of the mate.
“The Western Islands322 are some three hundred miles to the
south ward, and Newfoundland three times that distance west.”
The question had been put mechanically, rather than for information, for I knew by my own reckoning that our voyage was but
little more than half completed. I studied the light attentively. It kept
its first bearing exactly. I puzzled my invention as to what it might
be. I looked at it again, and then at my men. Their eyes were fixed on
my face ; but I was obliged to shake my head and turn away in utter
inability to solve the mystery. My eyes fell upon a figure seated by
himself upon the binnacle. His hat was pulled over his eyes, his
hands crossed before him, and his head dropped upon his breast, like
a condemned criminal. It was Dodd. In spite of reason, the conviction flashed upon me that there was some mysterious connection
between him and the strange light. I took up a convenient position
with the determination of watching him narrowly. My eye wandered
from his motionless figure to the light with the vague expectation of
—I know not what. I took out my watch. It wanted just fifteen
minutes of twelve. I fastened my eye firmly upon him, determined
not to remove it till that hour which formed a link in the dreadful associations of his mind was passed. But how often in our eagerness to
gain some end do we overleap it ; and when there are in favor of our
success an hundred chances to one, that fated one is turned up to us. I
had watched Dodd I presume more than twice fifteen minutes, when
something, I could never tell what, called off my attention. I turned
my eye from my left shoulder forward ; the light was there, and
bright and steady as before. I turned it back upon the binnacle. Dodd
was gone ; and then forward again ; the light had vanished and it was
just twelve o’clock ?
Search was made for Dodd all over the vessel, but never more
was he seen on board the Charlotte. I cannot describe to you the dismay of my men, as they stood around me at that moment. They evidently felt that eyes not of earth nor heaven were fastened on them,
and they clustered together, as if each feared that his turn would
come next.
322 The
Hebrides, a group of more than 500 islands off the western coast of Scotland.
Superstitions and Mental Disorders — 225
Strange as it may seem, no one had seen Dodd or the light at the
moment of disappearance. They were gone—and that was all we
knew. Had I communicated to the crew any intention of watching,
we might have seen but to tell the truth, I was ashamed to let any one
know the strange suspicions that haunted me. I do not pretend to say
what the mysterious light was, nor what became of Dodd. The master
of a ship has cares enough without tormenting himself with pointless
speculations on the agency or non-agency of malignant spirits. I state
these therefore merely as facts that happened under my own observation, and which I confess my inability to explain.
Reader, this is no fiction. Captain Sharp is living only forty
miles from the place where I am now writing, and “can be produced.” But think not that I relate these facts to make proselytes to a
creed of which you will perhaps set me down as the apostle. Far from
it. Only, scoff not at things which thou dost not understand. “Thou
knowest not what is the way of the spirit,”323 nor in what fearful extent the sons of men may offend. Enough is it if we let not our belief
in the marvellous sink into the superstition of the vulgar ; and whether ghosts walk or not, whether the spirits of evil are ever permitted
to claim their victims in this world, will never be worth the decision
of a man who, according to his talent, endeavors to answer the end of
his existence.
S. H.
WESTERLY, R. I.324
______________
323 Ecclesiastes: 11-5.
324 A town situated at the
extreme southwest of Rhode Island.
THE
AMERICAN MONTHLY MAGAZINE.
Vol. II
JANUARY, 1831
n° X.
THE HERMIT OF AGUALTA.
BEAUTIFUL as a poet’s dream of that dawn “when the morning
stars sang together,”325 broke the 17th day of May, 18—. Silent lay
the glassy, slumbering sea, and motionless the mist upon the blue
hill’s side, catching, successively, from the increasing light, the hues
of purple, crimson and violet. And soft as a distant spirit’s murmur,
fell the hundred springs of Agualta326 from the impending heights,
libations from nature’s cup to Him, who made “the dayspring to
know its place.”327 I believe, that if I were to live an hundred years
within the tropics, the inexpressible beauties of the morning would
still come upon me like a spell. I never could resist its influences,
but, on some green hill, or by the sea-beat shore, would meet its first
indications, inhaling the fresh air with the zest of that delicate epicure, the camelion ; and turning to each point of the compass, with
the boundless wish that I had an eye that could command a whole
horizon. If to prefer communion with nature to the companionship of
men be misanthropy, then, I fear, I must be entered with that illfavored class of bipeds. But whether the feeling be natural to my
bosom or not, it was nurtured in the tropics, where pleasant indeed
must be the feast of reason or flow of soul, that can lure a man naturally reserved, from the greenest woods and brightest waters on
which the sun shines ; and where man has done his utmost to make
the contrast between nature and himself as glaring as possible. There
are none “whose passion pulses beat like yours.” You must either
325 “When the morning Stars sang together, / and all the Sons of God shouted for joy” (Book
of Job 38-7). Title of a watercolor by William Blake (1757-1827) for The Book of Job. (1820).
326 Agualta Vale, a place on the northern coast of Jamaica, in the parish of St Mary.
327 “Hast thou commanded the morning since thy days began, / And caused the dayspring to
know its place; / That it might take hold of the ends of the earth, / And the wicked be shaken
out of it?” (The Book of Job: 38: 12-13).
Superstitions and Mental Disorders — 227
forswear your nature, and plunge madly into the sweeping tide of
worldly pursuits and unworthy pleasures, or retire to the mountain or
the seashore, where you can feel that however “glory or freedom
fade, yet nature still is fair.”328 You will return from your solitude, it
is true, with a poorer relish for the intercourse of men, but I maintain
it, your heart will not be the worse ; you would relieve the distresses
of the most abandoned of the beings you shun, far more cheerfully
than would any of his mates. This is not misanthropy. The spirit that
stands open handed to alleviate the woes incident to mortality,
however it may shrink in turn from the sympathies of its kind, and
though it would rather pour forth its sorrows to the winds than to its
fellows, if it merits not equal thanks with those who make it their
business to visit the sick and imprisoned, surely deserves not so
harsh a name. Misanthropy should be made of sterner stuff.
I have been insensibly led to these remarks, I believe, by the
way of propitiating my readers if they should discover in me a
propensity to paint nature rather than the lords of creation, whose
feelings, passions and history must ever be accounted the most interesting study of mankind, and the most moving theme of story.
It was morning in the vale of Agualta. I do not mean a New England morning, with a drizzling north-easter ; nor a Canadian morning, with the air filled with invisible razors ; nor a Carolinian one,
with fever and ague rising in their dingy shrouds, from fen and morass, to seek whom they may devour ; nor yet an English morning,
where the blessed sun has to breakfast upon some hundred thousand
tons of fog before he can show his face ; but a genuine West Indian
morn, where the light bursts forth, now and vivid as at the first unsealing of its fountain, and the whole field of view, from the mountain’s tapering top to the transparent sea, seems as if it had literally
slept, and was now waking to fresh life. On such a morning I set out
on horseback, to explore the vale of Agualta, which lay a few miles
from my residence.
Contrary to the custom of the country, and to the great scandal
of my friends, I seldom took a servant with me on my journeys of
discovery. A West Indian never thinks of walking a mile, nor of riding that distance without a runner at his horse’s heels. But I was al328 “Art, glory, Freedom fail, but Nature still is fair.” Lord Byron (1788-1824), Childe HarOld’s Pilgrimage (Canto II: LXXXVII).
228 — The Hermit of Agualta
ways headstrong. I even thought of introducing the good old New
England custom of rambling into the woods on foot, as had been my
wont, during my days of tutelage, in the land of Roger Williams ;329
but the genius of the country came near taking a signal revenge for
my presumptuous attempts at innovation. It was thus :—On the
morning after my arrival at Water Valley,330 I broke away like a
newly caught Cherokee,331 and got a mile and a half into the woods
before I thought whether it would do or not. But my doubts on the
subject were soon resolved ; for, on turning round a huge cotton tree,
I was confronted by a gigantic negro, armed with a cutlass.
“Make bow for macaroni, massa,” said he, making a profound
salaam, but looking confoundedly saucy. “Me make bow for macaroni, massa,” he repeated, before my fright allowed me to guess at his
meaning. But the extended palm on the highway or in a dark wood
conveys but one idea the world over ; so I dropped a piece of money
into it in a hurry.
“Thankee, massa,” said he, seizing my hand and kissing it,
which I endured about as comfortably, as if the same ceremony had
been performed by a tiger.
To my shame I confess that I snatched away my hand and
bolted ; and stopped not till I dropped down by the old windmill of
Water Valley, a tired and a wiser man. And never did I venture forth
again, without having in my pocket an argument that would be more
than a quid pro quo for dirk or cutlass. But not having had, as yet,
any evil experiences in my equestrian expeditions, I concluded that
the genius of the isle, thinking me sufficiently punished by my late
fright, was willing to come to a truce, and meet me half way ; I giving up walking, and he the negro courant. Alone, then, and at sunrise, I found myself on one of the most remarkable points of this ro329 Roger Williams (c.1603–1683) was the founder of Rhode Island. Banished by the General Court of Massachusetts because of his criticism of local religious authorities, he founded
Providence on the Narragansett Bay in 1636.
330 A village, situated northeast of Agualta Vale, Jamaica, in the same parish.
331 The largest Native American people settled in the southern Appalachian Mounts, until removed to the Indian Territory in the 1830s. In 1827s, they adopted a constitution which established themselves as a democratic Nation. Thanks to Sequoyah’s invention of a Cherokee
phonetic alphabet in 1821, they were able to keep tribal records and publish newspapers. When
gold was discovered on their territory in 1830, the pressure of greedy white settlers forced
them to yield their land, which resulted, in 1838, in their deportation to the Indian Territory
(Oklahoma), during which thousands of them died along the tragic “Trail of Tears.”
Superstitions and Mental Disorders — 229
tund ball. The reader must imagine a peak of the Blue Mountains332
(Jamaica) rising to a rounded top, and then by an earthquake’s
power, split into three distinct summits, (for so says tradition of the
case in hand,) each standing in one of the angles of an equilateral triangle, and inclosing between them the valley in question. To see it as
it is, blooming and verdant, one is tempted to believe that it had been
always thus, but in some unknown way locked from the knowledge
of men ; and, that at some mysterious ‘Open Sesame,’ and with the
quickness of that magical scene in Cherry and Fair Star,333 when the
blighted grove is clothed instantaneously with flowers and fruit, the
mountain’s barren breast had been sundered, and the paradise it held
revealed. But here doubtless was a scene of hideous ruin, which the
hand of time, that softener of the rough ways of the earth, and redeemer of provinces from the empire of the great deep, has gradually
smoothed over, till, at length, it is filled with all that is rare and delicious in this wonderful climate. All around it the land rises to the
height of one thousand feet, and is clothed with gigantic trees, using,
like the walls of an amphitheatre, column upon column, with their
green capitals, and hung by the whole family of vines with festoons
and streamers. There is a single notch in the hills upon the north-east,
which seems to have been purposely left open to admit the earliest
beam of the sun, or to give its inhabitants a bird’s-eye view of the
glorious sea, or that the trade wind, that rover of the deep, might
have free course to enter and revel in its bowers. If it were stripped
of its foliage, I should pronounce it the crater of an extinguished volcano ; and the opening at the north, the ancient channel of the lava.
But there is not a trace of subterranean fire in this part of the island,
and the tradition of its formation, as above described, in the earthquake which destroyed Port Royal,334 is sufficiently authentic.
I had ascended the mountain in a very tedious serpentine upon
its northern face, and after pausing a moment in the gap to admire
the beautiful stream which conveyed off the superfluous waters of
the place, and here leaps down the precipice in an unbroken column
332 Blue Mountain Peak is the
333 Cherry and Fair Star; or,
highest point in Jamaica at some 7400 feet.
The Children of Cyprus; A Grand Asiatic Melodramatic Romance in 2 Acts : a play by an anonymous author, first performed on 8 April 1822 in the Royal
Theatre in Covent Garden, London.
334 An English city situated on a peninsula in Kingston Bay and destroyed in 1692 by an
earthquake and the ensuing tidal wave.
230 — The Hermit of Agualta
of three hundred feet, I spurred my steed, and plunged at once amid
the bowers of this green house of the topics. At length, after following the rivulet about a mile, I threw myself upon its bank to rest,
and to survey more leisurely the objects near me. There was an endless variety of trees and plants rarely seen in the lower regions. There
were birds of the gayest plumage, in the trees. The water literally
forced its way through vines and flowers, and played upon ruddy
pebbles, which, had they been rubies, could not have made it sparkle
more brightly, or chime more melodiously. The most delicious sensation stole over me. The Arcadian335 shades of classic Greece rose
upon my memory and nothing was wanting to complete the enchantment but the presence of the guardian spirit—some Dryad,336 such as
a poet might have dreamed of in my situation.
Something here frighted my horse. I rose quickly and saw hard
by, under a mountain cedar, a figure which, had it not been tall, and
erect as the tree by which it stood, I should certainly have pronounced the incarnation of Old Age. A large palm leaf hat covered
his head, from which long gray locks fell to his shoulder and breast,
and mingled there with a most majestic beard. The expression of his
eye was singularly unearthly—calm, yet full of the interest with
which a superior being may be supposed to regard the children of
mortality. Had I met him on ruinous Hecla,337 by the Nile, or amid
the upper solitudes of the Cordilleras, I should have paid him my
obeisance at once as the genius loci. As it was, methought he was
hugely out of place. He advanced towards me with a benignant smile
as if he read my thoughts.
“You are surprised,” he said, in a voice of great melody, and
slightly marked with a foreign accent, “to see one like me—the ruins
of your race—in these green solitudes, where nothing fades but him
who makes his boast of immortality.”
Notwithstanding his solemnity, my romance still kept uppermost. “After being ushered into such a paradise,” I replied, “I was
prepared for anything in the shape of nymph or fairy ; but not, I confess, for an apparition altogether as venerable as yourself.”
335 A region of ancient Greece, surrounded by mountains, in which people lived a proverbially simple and pastoral life.
336 A nymph of the forest.
337 Mount Hekla, a very active volcano in Iceland. Its most famous eruption dates back to
1766. It was believed to be one of the gates to purgatory.
Superstitions and Mental Disorders — 231
“I have lived in these valleys ten years, young man,” said he,
“and am not altogether so old or helpless as you imagine ; but sorrow,” he continued, “whitens the locks unto death’s harvest, as rapidly as that sun the fields to the reaper’s hand.”
In such conversation I walked on by the side of my singular
companion a few rods further up the beautiful steam, till rising a
little hill we came at once upon a neatly thatched cottage, so closely
embowered that it could not be seen till one was almost actually entering it. It was so situated, however, that when, at the old gentleman’s invitation, I had entered and taken a seat in its little verandah,
I could look through ‘the notch’ and see far, far away, hovering like
a spirit on the utmost verge of the earth, a solitary white sail ; but it
soon flitted past, like a white cloud before the night glass of the astronomer.
“And is it possible that you live here alone ?” said I after taking
a rapid survey of the premises.
“Not entirely,” said he ; “do you not hear the sounds from that
tree ?”
On a large bread-nut tree before the house were hundreds of
birds, hopping from branch to branch, and tilling the sun with music.
They were the most singularly beautiful creatures imaginable ; somewhat larger than a Canary bird, of the most glossy black, with a
bright red eye set in the centre of a white circle, like a ruby in a pearl
ring.
“They are the Barbadoes blackbird.”338 said the old gentleman ;
“they always settle in colonies upon a single tree. They prefer the
bread-nut tree, and at this moment there are more than one hundred
nests on the one before you. They have a prior right to the soil, for
they settled here before me, and no consideration would induce me to
cut down that tree.”
“It is natural,” said I, “that in your loneliness you should become
attached to beast and bird, and even to particular plants and trees.”
“It is true,” said he, “and well is it for man that it is so—and yet
I am not quite alone.”
He rose as he spoke, and passing under the magnificent awning of the palms, cedars and tamarinds, in the rear of the house
338 A member of the Icteridae family also known as the Carib Grackle, this indigenous bird
is extremely gregarious when roosting.
232 — The Hermit of Agualta
brought me to a clearing of several acres. Here were all kinds of
garden vegetables, rare fruits, and flowers and some hundred thrifty
coffee plants. A sturdy fellow, with a dark Portuguese looking countenance, was busily engaged in clearing up a thick growth of young
trees that skirted the little plantation.
“Here is the proof,” said he, “that my friend Sancho, at least, is
no common hermit, for he lives by the sweat of his brow. Poor fellow ! he has ate my bread in prosperity, and will not leave his old
master now that the cloud is on him, so I encourage him to cultivate
this tract to keep him contented and happy ! He labors all the week,
and with his wife goes to market on Sunday.”
“But why,” said I, “does he now and then leave a lank sapling
standing ?”
“These are coffee trees,” said he, “that the wood has grown up
and choked. All the plants I have were in this way rescued from the
dominion of the forest, and thousands more are still buried in that
thicket.”
“Then this spot has been inhabited before,” said I.
“Yes doubtless there have been hermits here before me,” replied
he, smiling as he used the term ; “but where are they now ?” he continued, and a change passed over his countenance, “and how shortly
may the same question be asked as fruitlessly, when some future invader of the wilderness shall discover here the plantations of Vincent
Velasques !”
We took another path and were once more near the rivulet, when
I thought I heard a guitar. I listened —it was no illusion, and now
there was a very rich voice accompanying it. My “Arcadia” again got
the ascendancy. “Ah, here is at last the genia loci,” thought I, almost
aloud, as on advancing a few steps further, I discovered in the musician a beautiful female. But instead of being equipped like a woodnymph, she sat by the stream, singing with an upward cast of countenance almost divine, what I now recognized as a Spanish hymn to
the Virgin. My romance vanished. I could have kneeled to her as the
Catholic bows to Madonna, but not as to a heathen goddess. The old
gentleman visibly enjoyed my surprise, but soon advanced and introduced me :—“My daughter Angelica,” said he ; and never did I bow
to one of the sex with deeper homage ; for never was the purity of
heaven in the soul more clearly reflected than from her calm black
Superstitions and Mental Disorders — 233
eye, nothing could be more beautifully majestic, and at the same time
more sweetly feminine, than the bend of the head and the air with
which she received my salutation.
“You have now seen us all,” said the old gentleman, “save Sancho’s wife, who may not care to be visible, and a mule or two.”
Time sped amazingly. I had spent the day—had dined with
them, my astonishment increasing momentarily at the polished sense
and occasional bursts of melancholy pathos that marked the conversation of the father, and my senses sufficiently bewildered with the
surpassing loveliness of the daughter,—and it was time for me to depart.
“We see but little company,” said Velasques, as I took my leave,
“but the Hermit of Agualta will always be happy to welcome you to
his solitude.”
How vastly more powerful an interest is attached to man than to
any other object on this globe of ours. I passed on my way without
heeding tree or flower, my thought intent on Velasques and his
daughter. Nature’s aristocracy was written on their brows, and there
was that about them that was redolent of other times. “There is evidently a tale to be told,” concluded I, as I emerged from the valley,
and became aware that one of the most splendid sunsets of this land
of light was deluging the broad west with its glories.
The old man’s invitation was not disregarded. I soon became intimate at the valley. One day, as we were sitting alone at a little distance from the house, after I had entertained him for some time with
speculations on the virtues of solitude like those at the commencement of this article, which he received with an incredulous
smile, Velasques spoke as follow :
“You are wrong—you are wrong, my young friend, at least, so
far as you think that contemplation alone can furnish proper aliment
for the mind. It may do for a while ; it is a most exquisite dessert
after the mind has reaped the substantial of its existence, ‘mid the stir
and shock of men ;’339 but continue it alone, and the ever craving
spirit, for want of that commerce with its fellows which seems essential to its healthful existence, will turn inwardly, and, with an unnatural appetite prey upon itself. It may also be taken as an anodyne for
339 “But ’midst the crowd, the hum, the shock of men, / To hear, to see, to feel, and to possess, / And roam along, the world’s tired denizen, / With none who bless us, none whom we
can bless.” Lord Byron (1788-1824), Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (Canto ii. Stanza 26).
234 — The Hermit of Agualta
light sorrow—that sorrow which agitates the surface of the deep
within us, but does not pervade, poison and whirl it up from the bottom ; it can no more affect the case of this last, than can the constant
flow of Jordan, or the visitings of the winds of Palestine heal that putrid lake which covers Sodom.340 Hear the experience of a man
whose heart was crushed in the world, and who fled hither for relief
and has been disappointed. My father was descended from an ancient
and wealthy family in Andalusia,341 but being a younger son, and
having a rapacious elder brother, when he came to his majority he
found himself comparatively destitute. But his was the true spirit of
independence—a spirit that would win him a fortune where others
would starve. Discarding the prejudices common to patrician families, he went to Cadiz342 and engaged in trade and finally died at a
good old age, leaving me, his only son, a wild youth of twenty-four,
with an estate little inferior to the proud heritage of the family at
Cordova.343 But there are those who seem born under an evil star—
whom misfortune follows like a blood-hound through the race of life
—whose only escape is in the grave. Is it destiny ? or how shall we
account for it, that the heavens should rain blessings continual and
unmingled upon one, while a malison,344 a mildew, blasts the efforts
of another in the bud, or lets them ripen only to be swept with the
whirlwind. Is it chance ? Chance never made this beautiful earth—
beautiful at times even to my eyes, to whom it has yielded nought
but thorns and poisons—nor does it govern it. Eternity shall explain
all. “At one fell swoop,”345 all my possessions were swept from me,
and a price set upon my head, for some suspicion of being concerned
in fanning the embers of liberty, which have periodically burst forth
in a flame, in my native province. The son of my father’s brother was
my principal accuser, and, no doubt, shared in the spoil. But my spir340 The Dead Sea, in the depths of which Sodom and Gomorrah are supposedly
341 Spain’s largest region, situated by the Mediterranean, the Atlantic and
engulfed.
the Strait of
Gibraltar. It was ruled by the Moors until most of it was reconquered by the kings of Castile in
the 13th century. The kingdom of Granada became Christian in 1492.
342 A city in Andalusia, a major port for Spanish commerce with the New World in the 18 th
and early 19th century.
343 Another Andalusian city. In 1492, Columbus received permission to sail to the “Indies”
by Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain in the Alcazar (“fortress”) of Cordoba. The city was sacked
by the French during the Spanish campaign (1808-1812).
344 An old word for “malediction” or “curse.”
345 “What, all my pretty chickens and their dam / At one fell swoop?” William Shakespeare
(1564-1616), Macbeth (Act 4, Scene III).
Superstitions and Mental Disorders — 235
it then was elastic as that tall bamboo by the stream. The hurricane at
whose presence I have seen it bowed even to the earth, is no sooner
passed than it springs erect as ever, shorn, it may be of some of its
feathery branches, but the sap which they consumed shoots upward,
and the plant is stronger for the pruning. Even so, in a week after the
catastrophe, and with a very few thousand dollars, I embarked at Lisbon for the British islands, the gayest of a large company of emigrants. We cast anchor at nightfall near the east end of Jamaica to wait
a pilot. But at daybreak I found myself upon the beach a shipwrecked
and pennyless man. A squall of an hour had dashed our brave bark
on a coral rock, and to escape with life was all that was permitted us.
This was a rude blast for the poor bamboo,—nevertheless, it rose.
I recollected that a branch of my mother’s family had long been
established in Kingston.346 Thither I travelled on foot—enquired out
my relative, and exhibited such evidence as convinced him of our relationship. John Montovio was rich ; he was more—one of the most
benevolent of men. I was put into his counting house, won his confidence by my integrity and perseverance ;—in two years was a partner in the business with his son ; in two more the husband of his only
daughter, and in ten the father of three lovely girls. In this time my
father and benefactor died, and I was as rich as I could well desire. I
sickened of the monotony and slavery of business. I had heard of
happiness in a cottage, and from the hot brick walls and dusty streets
of Kingston, I retired to a beautiful little seat which I had at the foot
of the Liguanea mountains.347 The picturesque country around was
thickly sprinkled with similar establishments. The circumstance of
my foreign birth had been no bar to the sympathies of the openhearted English, and here for six months I tasted almost to an intoxication of happiness, the inestimable blessing of “wife, children and
friends.” Blessed Triad of the heart ! well may ye be toasted forever
by all who have the least perception of your meaning. My wife was
all I could wish her—the most feminine of her sex ; and though she
possessed to excess some of the amiable weaknesses of woman, I
would not have had them exchanged for a strength of mind that
would have made even her thoughts independent of mine, for the
346 Jamaica’s capital founded in 1693 by the British.
347 In the Liguanea Plain, a broad alluvial plain overhung
by the Blue Mountains.
236 — The Hermit of Agualta
world. I always detested the character of the English Elizabeth.348 I
never could love a woman tinged with anything masculine. I would
as soon have taken a bearded man to my arms as a blue or a termagant. But here it was that I became fatally convinced of a woful error
of which rich people generally, and West Indians more particularly,
are guilty, in trusting their children to improper nurses. The nursery
maid with us is invariably an African, and without the utmost vigilance of the mother, before your children are six years of age they
will be the veriest little heathens extant. Ghosts, witches, the whole
generation of African devils, and, worst and blackest on the list, their
infernal Obi,349 will be as much matters of belief as any article of religion taught them by their mother. My wife had been bred up in the
same way. She was familiar with all the superstitions of the negroes,
and perhaps was on that account less guarded than a stranger to their
ways would have been. For myself, I will confess, that by a mistake
too common in this country, I considered the business of instruction
more appropriately the mother’s province, and seldom meddled with
her charge further than to caress or romp with the dear creatures.
When therefore by the merest accident I discovered to what extent
and depth their tender minds were imbued with these horrid superstitions, I own to you that I was frightened and enraged beyond measure.
I was sitting in the back verandah of my house one bright, starry
evening, with Anna Maria, my second girl, then in her fourth year
standing between my knees, swinging herself to and fro, and prattling in her sweet, laughing way, and ever and anon throwing back
her curls to catch my eye, or to ask some question, when suddenly
there appeared a bright light moving among the plantain trees of the
negro hamlet. The child crept close to me, with every symptom of
terror and whispered—“Congo Jane is flying to-night, but Anna
Maria has been good, ‘pa.”
“Congo Jane !” said I,
348 Elizabeth I, Queen of England and Ireland (1558-1603), known as “the Virgin Queen”
because she never married; she reigned for 45 years, showing a high sense of her responsibilities; the Spanish Velasques may also harbor some chauvinistic grudge for Spain was England’s
enemy and the Invincible Armada was defeated under her reign in 1588.
349 A form of sorcery, sometimes confused with voodoo, inherited from the Ashanti (Ghana)
tradition and widespread among the slave community in the West Indies.
Superstitions and Mental Disorders — 237
“Yes ‘pa—see the fire that she makes come out of her temples to
burn bad people ; but I have always been good to Congo Jane.”
I was astonished ; and by a few questions found her knowledge
of negro witchcraft far greater than I could have imagined, and what
was worse, that she believed it. “Nurse had told her so, and nurse had
said that Congo Jane would burn people that were not good to her.”
Thus it seemed that a regular system of propitiatory offering had
been instituted to the shrine of this female Moloch ;350 the nurse, who
acted as priestess, doubtless coming in for a large share of fees.
Congo Jane was a superannuated black who had been for a great
number of years a fixture on the estate. She was tall, gray headed,
one eyed, and a reputed witch ; and altogether, with her long walking
stick, and mouth constantly in motion, she was as sinister looking an
object as you would care to behold. Her Obi was accounted the most
potent in the parish, and many a dark legend was extant among the
negroes, of her having employed it successfully against human life.
But I never dreamed that these ridiculous stories would gain credit
among any but the negroes. I even thought Jane’s Obi might be an
excellent thing to keep the rogues in subjection ; and with true West
Indian indifference, hardly bestowed a second thought upon the subject, further than occasionally to jeer the old beldame on her art, or to
threaten in jest some refractory slave with it. She was proud of the
consideration which it gained her among the negroes and said to
have kept, as a symbol of her trade, a calabash filled with grave dirt
and parrot’s feathers, and covered with mystic characters, suspended
before her hut. It was also a source of revenue to her, for she was
constantly receiving presents from those who were desirous of purchasing her good will, or rather neutrality. But she broke her chain
when she presumed to levy contribution on my family. I ordered her
to be bound hand and foot, laid on a mule, and carried to the provision grounds five miles up the mountain, and threatened her with ‘a
nine and thirty’351 if ever she appeared at ‘Mountain foot’ again. The
nursery maid degraded to the kitchen, first giving her a nine and
thirty, and threatened her with ‘the field’352 if ever she tampered with
the children more. But there is venom enough in a toad to kill a man.
350 The god of the Canaanites and Phoenicians to whom children were sacrificed.
351 A penalty of nine and thirty lashes, according to the slave code.
352 Living and work conditions were considerably more painful for slaves who worked
fields than for those who were used for domestic tasks.
in the
238 — The Hermit of Agualta
Business called me to Kingston. In two days a frighted slave
rushed into my presence with the news that Congo Jane had set Obi
for the children. Notwithstanding what I had previously seen and
heard, I was inclined to treat the matter lightly.
“Well,” said I, “has it killed them ?”
“They sick, sir,” said the fellow, “and Misses she there sick too,
sir.”
I was thunder struck, and had my horse saddled immediately.
Convinced that there was something more in this than the idle fears
of the slave wot of, I took with me a medical friend and my brotherin-law. It was late in the day when we arrived. On one of the forbidden fruit trees before the house was a calabash with all the usual
paraphernalia of Obi, grave dirt, birds’ heads and feathers, and
marked with three coffins. None of the slaves had dared to touch it.
We entered the house. It was filled with the wailings of pain. My
wife and the two children (Angelica was then an infant) were in their
beds, with every indication of the most violent illness. My wife was
able to state as follows :—The children had been the first to discover
the accursed Obi, early that morning. Their terror almost amounted
to fits ; and she was herself greatly agitated. She succeeded, however, in soothing them sufficiently to eat some rice broth for their
dinner, which the cook had made very nice. But all would not do ;
from being frighted they became sick, and were now as I saw them.
The doctor here examined their pulses very carefully.
“When was this Obi set ?” he enquired.
“Last night, sir,” said one of the domestics.
“Rapid work this, for Obi,” said he, in a perfectly calm voice ;
“come, is there any of this rice left ?”
“There is my dish on the table with the spoon in it,” said poor
little Anna Maria, by whose bed he was standing, “the Obeah spoiled
it ; I did not love it.”
The doctor looked in the dish a moment, and then held up the
spoon. Horror of horrors ! the silver was black. “Poisoned ! Poisoned !” was the searing thought that flashed upon me, and might
have been my exclamation, but I recollected nothing distinctly of
those dreadful moments, only that when I recovered my senses there
were three corpses in my house.
Superstitions and Mental Disorders — 239
*
*
* Congo Jane could not be found ; but as it was said
that she had a son who was chief of a gang of runaways that infested
a neighboring district, it is probable that she found an asylum among
them.
The quondam nursery maid confessed, after condemnation, that
she had persuaded the old hag to set the Obi to further her own
schemes of vengeance ; supposing in her ignorance that all accidents
would inevitably be laid at the witch’s door. But she gave too strong
a dose, and———I watched the pile when she suffered till she was
burned to a cinder. *
*
Well, then followed a confused space of time—how long I know
not, only my Angelica had become a tall girl—taller than Anna
Maria—but she had not her look. I left her with her uncle and fled
from Kingston. There were so many black faces there—every one
seemed a gibbering fiend, sent from the pit of darkness to make faces
at me. Travelling northward, I found this spot—bought the whole—
and wo to the African who ventures to cross me here.
His tone had sunk to an unnatural depth, and his eye shone with
the burning thought of his wrongs. It affected me unpleasantly, but
he soon dropped his face upon his knee, and, in a few moments lifted
it again, calm and sedate as usual.
“And you have not then found in solitude the desired relief.”
“Relief !” echoed he, with a sad smile, “can you point me to a
plant in all this wilderness that can cure sorrow. My disease has been
only changed by coming hither. When I fled society it was a raging
fever, now it is a consumption ; slow, but no less sure. No, mind is
not thus the slave of matter. Immortal is its nature—so are its hopes ;
from immortality then must come its consolations. No, it is nature—
barren, dreary nature, that is healed and beautified by the healthful,
life-giving touch of mind. It is mind that casts its shadow on each
thing it passes. It is mind that colors the glass through which we look
at nature, as well as at futurity. This rotund ball is nothing. The earth
is dirt. Man makes the world and gives each spot its character—the
hills, the fields, the woods and streams, the blushing flowers—the
sparkling sky, their tints of loveliness. This same earth and heaven,
therefore, which to your undimmed eye may be clad in flowers and
gilded with sunbeams, to me is but strewed with ashes and hung with
sackcloth. But blessed be God, from eternity there gleams a ray
240 — The Hermit of Agualta
through this curtain of the dark, which does more to cheer my darkness than all the suns of the firmament. It has written upon my heart,
as with a sunbeam, that the ways of God are righteous though inscrutable, and that in the light of that eternal day whence it emanates,
all shall be revealed and justified. It is mystery but wisdom all. The
same sun which turns yonder plain to dust, draws up the shower to
the mountain, and the hand that dug the grave of Port Royal deep in
the sea, has opened an asylum for Vincent Velasques.”
He rose with a serene and elevated air, and made a motion to go.
But some points of his tale still seemed a little in the mist.
“Angelica, you say, was left in Kingston.”
“Yes,” said he ; “but my brother has brought her to me every
summer to spend a few weeks, and for the last two years, the dear
girl, at her own entreaty, has been with me constantly. Sancho, my
old faithful servant, the companion of all my fortunes, seemed so essentially a part of myself that I forgot to give him a separate
chapter.”
“But Angelica,” interrupted I——
“Well, what of her ? Is she not good ?”
“Too good,” replied I, with an uncomfortable sensation in my
throat, “to be left alone in this island.”
“I understand you,” said he—“The old man must soon sleep—
not, alas, with his fathers—but it matters not—it will be no less
sound ; but Angelica is provided for !”
Now I had not a doubt that at Velasques’s death, his daughter
would return to her mother’s brother. But then it did not seem to me
exactly the thing. Something more I thought was necessary to her
happiness.
“Angelica is provided for,” quoth the old man, and dashing his
hand across his brow, he walked away. It was well perhaps, that he
did so ; for I know not what folly I might have uttered next. Sundry
reminiscences of the sea also came to my aid, suggesting unanswerable questions, such as what I meant ? &c. and I mounted my
horse and departed. Business having called me to another part of the
island, it was several weeks before I re-visited the Hermit’s plantation. Something unusual was evidently in progress, for a number of
superb horses were tied under the trees near the house, and on approaching nearer I saw a group of persons of both sexes gathered
Superstitions and Mental Disorders — 241
round an open grave, their heads bowed in sorrow or devotion, while
a priest read the affecting service for the repose of the departed.
Nearest the priest stood the weeping Angelica leaning on the arm of
the handsomest youth I had ever seen. I understood the scene at a
glance. Vincent Velasques was no more—this was his grave—but
who was the stranger ? The grave was filled—‘the last deep prayer’
of the ritual read, and, after the Catholic fashion, the symbol of our
immortal hopes was planted in place of a headstone. The Youth lifted
the weeping girl upon a ready saddled steed—the whole group
mounted and moved slowly away. “A Dios,” murmured Angelica as
she passed me, and I saw her no more. The form of Sancho still sat
near the grave. “Do you not go too, Sancho ?”
“No,” said he—“master gave me these lands, and I shall live and
die here.” “But who was he, Sancho ?”
“He ? young Signor Montovio—my young mistress’s cousin —
her husband that is to be.”
“Oh now I understand,” thought I—and departed feeling less
wise than was my wont. And I never visited the vale of Agualta afterwards.
_____________
THE
AMERICAN MONTHLY MAGAZINE.
Vol. II
OCTOBER, 1830
N° VII.
INCIDENTS IN THE LIFE OF A QUIET MAN.
I WENT to College with but one very decided aversion—the
smell of a sick room. With a sanguine temperament and high health,
I had once been “laid up” for a winter with a lame knee, and the
odors of a physician’s appliances, never particularly agreeable, had
become associated in my mind with confinement and pain and
everything repulsive. I loved the open air with an eccentric affection.
Sleeping under a tree, or encamping for the night in the shaft of a
quarry, on my mineralizing excursion, were incidents I exulted in. To
awake at any time and snuff the morning air gave me a thrill like a
release from imprisonment. I lived out of doors.
Accident made me a nurse. My most intimate friend fell ill, and,
with the caprice of a boy, would submit to no government but mine. I
was under necessity of administering all his medicines, and watching
with him, and performing for him the thousand kind offices which
the sick demand. He lay in my room a month, and, one by one, I insensibly overcame my aversions. The smell of ether and the close air
and the sight of disgusting medicines had become at least endurable.
The day he got out, I was at a loss. Strange as it seemed to me, worn
out, and weary, and impatient of it all as I had become, I wished, him
back again, making the same nervous complaints, and calling upon
me for the same recurring services, and querulously refusing every
other watcher. From this time I have had an unhealthy passion for
scenes of this description. Like all other passions, too, it has sated itself with one degree of misery after another, till now nothing satisfies it but the deepest—death or wild insanity—whatever tries the
sufferer most, and demands in the spectator most of sympathy and
nerve. I think my heart was never hard, and I am sure that, instead of
becoming indifferent to distress, it grows more sensibly alive by
every repetition to sympathy and pity—but there is an excitement in
Superstitions and Mental Disorders — 243
the high-wrought circumstances which accompany sickness, which
feeds in me a spring of curiosity, which I cannot but think, is one of
the deepest seated cravings of my nature. Men are nowhere without
disguise but in a sick room. The character is nowhere else so tried,
the weaknesses so uncovered, the fine godlike under-traits, which it
is the way of the world to cover and keep down—disinteredness and
courage, and patience—nowhere else so irresistibly developed. I
could never be deceived in a man I had nursed in sickness.
In a body of five or six hundred young men, many of them
new to the climate, opportunities were not wanting to indulge such a
passion to its extent, and I soon became a desirable attendant from
my skill and knowledge of the offices so necessary to the patient. I
learned a thousand little assiduities, and studied the slight but refreshing changes of position, and could dispose a pillow skilfully,
and graduate the light pleasantly to the eye, and relieve, by many an
unseen wile, the terrible monotony and weariness of disease. I had in
my memory, too, stores of poetry and romance, and no one can tell,
who has not been so attended, how grateful it is to a mind weary with
feeding on itself and crowded upon with sickening images, to be
stolen away by a winning narration to the land of faery, and have the
self-sated sympathies diverted to the light and shadow of the beautiful changes in a tale. How often have I, by a touching story, drawn
tears which I knew had in them more healing than medicine ! It is
easy, for the heart is tender in sickness, and no one can tell how
pleasant it is, for tears when the eyes are hot, and the brain ironbound, as it seems to be, with the dryness of fever, exceed the freshness of water.
In the pursuit of such a passion, I have naturally met with many
distressing scenes, not only in sick rooms, but in all places where human nature is brought into extremity. There is here and there one in
my memory, the singularity of which may possibly excuse the painfulness of narration.
I sat one cold night in January, watching with a Senior who was
insane. He was otherwise in perfect bodily health, but had been confined now a week with a periodical madness to which he was subject,
and which was hereditary in his family. He was a man of powerful
muscular frame, gentlemanly and full of spirit, and with the passionate gesture and the wild energy of expression in his dark eyes
244 — Incidents in the Life of a Quiet Man
and fine countenance when the fit was on him, he was the handsomest creature I ever looked upon.
It was two o’clock in the morning. The moon shone bright out of
doors, and the late noises in the college rooms had all ceased, and the
night was as still as death. I was reading the Book of the Martyrs.353
The chapel clock startled me as it struck two, and I rose from a harrowing description of impalement, and walked to the window to collect my nerves. The clear, sparkling snow lay like fairy-work over
the beautiful common, and the trees, laden with the feathery crystals,
looked like motionless phantoms in the moonlight. I could see down
into the town, and far along the streets on either side of the common,
and there was not a figure to darken the white side-walks, and I
listened till my ear was pained with silence, and could not hear even
a dog’s bark. I turned from the window with an undefined feeling of
dread, and looking at my patient, replenished the fire, and sat down
again to my book. I had read perhaps half a page, when he rose suddenly in the bed, and pushing the long hair from his eyes, looked at
me steadily. I thought he was dreaming. His mouth had a fixed curl
of hatred, and the whole expression of his face was terrible. I sat still
and looked him fixedly in the eye. His fingers were working like a
man’s who is feeling for a weapon, and he was drawing his feet almost imperceptibly under him as if preparing for a spring. The unearthly fiendishness of his look at this moment is indescribable. The
glare of the bright fire on his face, his tangled hair, his white night
dress, and the utter malignity of his set teeth and frowning brows,
might have shaken stronger nerves than mine. I was convinced that
the least motion on my part would be followed by an instantaneous
spring ; and in the hope of looking him down with the steadiness of
my gaze, I sat as motionless as a statue with my eyes still fixed upon
him. The three or four minutes thus occupied gave me time to collect
myself. I was slender, and by no means remarkable for my personal
activity, and in the event of a struggle I knew I stood but little
chance. I thought of shouting for assistance, but even if I had been
heard by the sound sleepers in the rooms about me, such noises are
too common in college to excite anything but a curse on the rioter. I
353 John Fox (1516-1587 ), The Actes and Monuments of These Latter and Perilous Dayes,
commonly known as the Book of the Martyrs (1563), relates the sufferings of the English Protestant martyrs under the reign of Mary Tudor (1496-1533).
Superstitions and Mental Disorders — 245
thought I would speak to him. In a quiet and pleasant tone I called
him by his name and asked him what he was going to do.
“Kill you !” was the brief answer.
“For what ?”
“Because,” said he, speaking with his teeth shut as he rose upon
one knee and grasped the pillow firmly, “I have found you alone, and
I know you !”
The next moment he sprang into the middle of the floor, and
with a stealthy and rapid tread like a tiger’s, glided to the door and
locked it. I did not move from my position, except to place my feet
in an attitude to rise instantly. He approached slowly, putting down
one foot firmly after the other as if to be certain that the floor was
strong, until he stood close before me. The light-stand was between
us holding two candles and the large quarto from which I had been
reading. I still kept my eyes on him without moving a muscle and
once or twice he quailed under my gaze, and looked aside. I was beginning to hope he would abandon his intention, when with a single
motion of his arm, he swept away the stand, and sprang upon me.
The violence of the shock overthrew me and we fell to the floor. His
knees were upon my breast and his fingers at my throat in an instant.
For a minute I struggled hard to throw him off, but with his powerful
frame he sat as firmly as a rock, choking me nearly to strangulation
with the closeness of his grasp. As a last hope I attempted to shout.
Exhausted as I was, my feeble “help !” was scarce louder than a
whisper and I felt my eyes flash and the blood crowd into my head
with a terrible sense of suffocation. In the agony of the struggle I
threw out my hand into the fire near which I had fallen, and, with an
instinctive desperation, seized a handful of burning coals, and held
them for a minute to his side. They burned through his night dress instantly and he sprang to his feet with a curse, leaving me on the floor
with scarce the power to move a limb. The next moment the Tutor,
who had been disturbed by the noise of my fall, entered the room,
and with a singular habit of obedience, the madman slunk to his bed,
and covering up his head lay as quiet as a child till morning.
It is the custom in some parts of New England to watch by the
dead night and day till interment. I was once called upon for this service. A young girl whom I had known died in my neighborhood, and
I was requested to sit up for the night in an adjoining room with two
246 — Incidents in the Life of a Quiet Man
female relatives of the deceased. It was my office to go into the room
frequently where the corpse lay, and attend to the lights which were
burning at the foot of the bed ; and with this occupation and reading
aloud, the night passed without much weariness till twelve. About
that time my companions, two stout country girls, fell asleep. I threw
aside my book, and walked from one room to the other, looking out
sometimes upon the night, and sometimes stopping to gaze on the
ghastly features of the corpse. There was no moon, but the stars
looked near and bright, and the absolute silence and the sweet spiciness of the air combined with the solemnity of my vigil in giving the
night almost a supernatural beauty. I began to feel a kind of pleasure
in the powerful contrast of the scene. I turned from the still and
deathly face lying in its revolting fixedness before me, to look out
upon the starry and living splendor of the night, and breathe the lifegiving moisture of the wind, and inhale the delicious scents of the
flowers ; and when the strange feeling of saturation and insufficiency
which accompanies natural beauty came upon me, I returned, with a
pleasure I could not understand, to peruse once more the rigid features of the corpse, and muse on the terrible nature of death.
It requires intense thought to believe death real. To look upon
human lips formed and colored like our own, and wearing their familiar expression, and comprehend fully that they never will stir
again—to gaze on eyelids, softly and naturally closed, and believe
that they will never again lift from the eye—to peruse a forehead
marked with character and thought, the hair parted on it as if with its
own volition and taste, and know that the curious organs beneath it
will never work more—these are convictions as difficult as they are
painful to the mind, and such as are rarely attained by the ordinary
gazers on the dead.
And it seems to me that it is not the pain of dying, nor the dread
of corruption, nor any of the common horrors of death that make it
most terrible. These are circumstances, fearful, it is true, but such as
the courage of a strong heart may meet. But it is that nature will survive—that our friends will live on without us—that the stars will
sparkle and revolve, and the flowers come in their seasons, and the
ambitious and the pleasure-loving seek fame and pleasure—and not a
star’s ray be interrupted, nor a leaf fall, nor a human foot slacken in
its pursuit because we are not with them. It is this leaving us behind
Superstitions and Mental Disorders — 247
—this thrusting away and forgetting us, like broken instruments, that
touches us. To me, at least, Death would lose half its terrors with this
thought. If I could escape it in any way, my happiness would be tenfold. If my spirit would pass into a flower and consciously live on—
if I could become a voice and speak my own name, at ever so distant
periods, to my friends—even if an urn containing my ashes might lie
in a familiar place, and be a pleasant ornament in the house of some
one who had loved me, I should be more content. I love this world,
and its scenes, and its people, too well to pass willingly away, I
know not whither. The thought of a disembodied and spiritual life
apart from the tangible objects I have grown to, and the delightful affections I have given and won, is, with all its mystery and beauty, delightful. I would live forever where I am, if it were mine to choose.
There is not an evil except death that appalls or sickens me. The daylight, and the air, and the interchange of social life, and simple
health, are blessings enough, and give me but these, and mankind as
they are, and much as the world is abused, I will take it for my portion while it endures.
With such thoughts passing in my mind, I walked away from the
corpse to a window in the adjoining room. It opened on a flowergarden, and with my mind excited to the highest pitch, I stood
breathing the scented air, and gazing intently on the stars. A sudden
noise from the room in which the body lay startled me. It seemed to
me like the struggle of animals or the beating of wings. Totally unable as I was in the rapid reflection of the moment to imagine the
cause, my courage half failed me. I was about waking my companions, who slept soundly in their chairs, when the thought of their
probable fright and uselessness deterred me ; and summoning my
resolution, I entered the room. Everything was as I left it, but the
noise was still there. The corpse lay unmoved, and the candles burnt
clear ; and though the noise was loud, in the confusion of my senses I
stood doubting from what quarter it came. It grew louder, and my
hair seemed absolutely to creep. Still louder—and then a plunge—
and the fire-board was dashed down, and a large white cat sprang
into the room, and was on the corpse in an instant. I had heard of the
demoniacal appetite these animals have for the flesh of the dead, but
though it flashed upon me immediately, it was a minute at least before I had sufficient strength to move. She had buried her claws
248 — Incidents in the Life of a Quiet Man
deeply in the cheek and breast, and her white face was smeared with
the blood when I seized her. She did not seem to be aware of my approach, and I had grasped her round the throat with both my hands
before she took the least notice of me. Her claws were fastened in the
sheet, and fearing to pull her off too roughly, I tried to choke her on
the spot. The moment my fingers tightened, she sprang out of my
hands with a suddenness for which I was not at all prepared, and flew
into my face with the fury of a hyena. I succeeded after some struggling in seizing her again, and throwing her to the floor. I held her
down with my feet till she strangled. A wild beast could not have
shown a more desperate ferocity. My two fellow watchers, strangely
enough, slept through it all. I went to the well, without waking them,
and washed the blood from my hands, and composing the sheet as
decently as I could over the desecrated body, I resumed my walk and
my excited thoughts till morning.
I once had a friend who could never sleep at the full of the
moon. If it was a clear night, he would draw the shutters, and stop
every crevice in the windows to exclude the light, and pace the floor
with a most troubled face till daylight. Sometimes it would seem too
much to bear, and he would go out and ride furiously for hours, or
row his skiff over the lake as if his life depended on his swiftness.
While we were students together, I once made a Christmas visit with
him at his father’s, a wealthy landholder on one of the Western
Lakes.354 The full of the moon came round, and it was as cold as midwinter. It was fine sleighing, but the broad waters about us had
frozen completely over since the fall of the snow, and had been
safely crossed by adventurous passengers.
As I lay one night, wakeful with some uneasy thoughts, I heard
my friend’s voice in the next room, talking passionately with himself. A moment after, he came muttering into my chamber, and, evidently supposing me asleep, took down his skates which hung in the
closet, and left the house. I dressed myself hastily, and took my own
skates, and, descending to the shore-edge, found him as I expected,
upon the ice. He turned his head as I stopped, but, accustomed to my
presence at such times, he did not speak. As I fastened the last buckle
around my ankle, he sprang upon his feet, and with the long safety
rod in his hand (carried always in that part of the country as a secur354 A
mountainous region of Maine with many lakes, including Sebago and Rangeley Lakes.
Superstitions and Mental Disorders — 249
ity against the holes in the ice) he shot away down the lake like the
wind. We were both tall men and excellent skaters. The ice had
frozen in a dead cairn, and was without a flaw for miles along the
shore, and with a strong westerly breeze directly in our backs, we
skimmed it like birds. For the first mile or two I was occupied with
the simple exhilaration of the exercise. The extreme polish of the ice
sent us forward with very slight exertion at great speed, and it
seemed to me as if we shot over the long shadows from the shore
with a superhuman swiftness. We kept down, following the curve of
the bank, where the water, from the shelter of the land, had frozen
smoothest, till I saw by some marks familiar to me that we were ten
miles from home. Still my companion led on. His strength seemed
unabated, and leaning forward eagerly he threw out his limbs in long
and powerful strides, speaking not a word, nor even turning his head
when we passed, as we did occasionally, the glare of a hunter’s fire. I
began to grow fatigued, but at the same time my interest in the adventure assumed a wildness which I tried in vain to shake off. The
extreme rapidity of our motion, the dim haze of the moonlight, the
partial distinctness of the naked trees on shore, and, when we crossed
a longer shadow than usual, the transparency of the ice, reflecting
every star as distinctly as a mirror far beneath us, all combined with
the knowledge that I was following one who was wild with a mysterious fear, in exciting and bewildering my imagination. I could not
speak to him. My heart rose in my throat at the effort. Another hour
we skated on before the wind in silence. My limbs began to grow
stiff, and obeyed mechanically and painfully the impulse of motion.
Hill after hill went by, and I began to see more rarely the objects
with which I had become familiar in my Summer excursions. We
were getting beyond the point of my most adventurous voyages. The
shore grew bolder and wilder and the fires of the hunters occurred
more rarely, and still my companion’s speed was unslackened. With
my greatest efforts I could not overtake him. He was a better skater
than I, and, with an instinctive quickness, he instantly apprehended
my intention, and sprang on with increased velocity at the attempt.
My eyes began to grow dizzy. I have an indistinct remembrance of
skating on and on, long after I ceased to feel or notice anything but
the necessity for following the figure before me, and I remember
nothing more till I was awakened by a rough shake in broad daylight.
250 — Incidents in the Life of a Quiet Man
The embers of a large fire were glowing round a stump near me, my
friend lay soundlessly asleep with his head across my body, and
through a break in the trees I could see the broad icy bosom of the
Lake stretching away in the clear light of the morning with a look of
almost interminable distance to the opposite shore. It was with some
difficulty that I could stir. With the help of the hospitable hunter who
had granted my friend’s request for a shelter by his fire, I gained my
feet, and after a walk of three or four miles to a farm house, procured
a sleigh, with which, after a cold drive of forty miles we reached
home at noon.
________________
THE
AMERICAN MONTHLY MAGAZINE.
APRIL, 1836
(VOL.VII.)
THE CRAZY EYE.
“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”355
IT is certain that many opinions, long since discarded by the
learned world have still continued to keep that hold of the minds of
the vulgar, those, for instance, connected with witchcraft, lucky and
unlucky days, judicial astrology, and the like. Perhaps no stronger
evidence could be adduced, to prove that there exists, in the mind of
man, a principle of delight in all that is dark, mysterious, and terrible,
—whose tendency is to give to the fictions of the imagination the
power and reality of truth,—a principle which may be considered the
source of all superstition, and from whose effects only the considered
exercise of the highest powers of reflection can enable us to escape.
Whether there be not danger in wholly disregarding the dictates of
this feeling, and in listening altogether to the conclusions of a partially enlightened reason, is a question deserving of careful consideration. A wise man who takes in view our acknowledged ignorance of the efficient causes of a thousand operations which are
hourly going on around us,—who reflects that even those maxims
which we term general laws, are merely deductions from a limited
number of facts, and may be superseded, at any time, by more extensive observations, will hesitate in pronouncing decisively on the
absurdity of any belief, however inconsistent with his own preconceived notions.
These remarks may serve to dissipate some of the suspicion with
which the following narration will naturally be received. It concerns
a persuasion current, as far as I know, among the multitude in all
ages and nations, and which, though often ridiculed, has found supporters even in men of reflecting and cultivated minds. I refer to the
355 William
Shakespeare (1564-1616), Hamlet (Act 1, scene V).
252 — The Crazy Eye
power which certain individuals are supposed to have of affecting
others through the medium of the eye ; I do not mean, of course, the
effect of strong passion or feeling, speaking in the bright orbs of a
beautiful woman, or in the dilated and flashing pupils of an angry
man ; this has never been denied. The power of which I write seems
to reside in the organ itself, and to be arbitrarily bestowed, like genius or ventriloquism, on a few individuals. The superstition of the evil
eye is common to every barbarous people. That certain persons, generally sorcerers or old women, are able by a look to blast the fortune,
or wither the bodily vigor of their unhappy victims, is believed as
firmly and implicitly under the burning sun of Congo, as on the
frozen plains of Kamschatka or in the pleasant islands of the Pacific.
Among the Romans of the most enlightened period expiatory sacrifices were appointed for those who had felt the influence of a “malign eye,” (malus oculus,) and we learn from the interesting accounts
of Browne356 that the primitive inhabitants of the Canaries are sufferers under the same apprehension.
The following anecdote, however, refers to an influence of a different cast. It is firmly believed, in many parts of Great Britain, especially the north,357 that there are men who possess the ability of mastering and rendering powerless the most ungovernable of the insane,
in the highest of their frenzy, by the sole efficacy of a look. It is indeed often asserted that no maniac can support the direct and steady
regard of a sane man,—an idea which was sufficiently refuted by
testimony of many respectable keepers of mad-houses, who have
found the success of the experiment exceedingly precarious. The life
of one in the western part of Pennsylvania had nearly fallen a forfeit
to a rash attempt to subdue, by this means alone, the violence of a patient. But in those of whom I speak the influence seems to be of a peculiar character, and is remarked never to fail of effect. The following instance of successful application was received from an Eng356 Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682), an English writer and physician, learned in various
fields such as religion, science and the esoteric, the author of Religio Medici (1642) in which
he tried to reconcile science and religion.
357 Although the technique invented by Franz Anton Mesmer (1734-1815) was largely ridiculed in the medical circles of the early 19th century, a few physicians, like John Elliotson
(1791-1868), continued to support the Austrian physician’s theories, even if they cost him his
professorship at the London University. Modern hypnotism was the result of a chance discovery by the Scottish eye doctor, James Braid (1795-1860) who coined the term. However,
even if Braid was a specialist of the eye, the author’s allusion to the north of Great Britain may
be purely accidental since Braid began to be involved in hypnotism only in the 1840s.
Superstitions and Mental Disorders — 253
lish gentleman of undoubted veracity, and an eye-witness of most
that he related. As the incident took place within the last fifteen
years, it has been thought advisable to suppress the names of the
parties.
A gentleman of family and fortune, in the west of England,
by name Charles W——, had paid his addresses to the beautiful
Miss P. youngest daughter (sic) of the Earl of H——, and had been
favorably received. It was well known to the friends of Mr. W., of
whom my informant was one, that his hopes of happiness were
centered in the prospect of their approaching union, in which his afflictions were wholly engaged. No one who was acquainted with the
amiable character of his bride, and the fairness of his worldly prospects, would have considered his expectations of future and lasting
enjoyment ill-founded. About a week before the day fixed for the
marriage, a letter was received from the executors of a rich but
miserly uncle, informing him that the estate, of which he was the direct heir, and which alone (his own fortune being but moderate) had
entitled him to intermarry with the wealthy and noble house of H
——, was entirely lost to him, being, for some slight and unintentional offence, diverted from the direct course of inheritance in favor
of a distant relation. His agitation on the receipt of this letter was remarked both by the inmates of his family, and by a party of gentlemen whom he joined a few hours afterwards in a fox-chase. During
the course, and the dinner which followed at the inn of B., his actions
as well as words were wild and extravagant. His excessive and even
unnatural exhilaration was remarked by all, but it was attributed to
the peculiar happiness of his present situation, (for the sudden defeat
of his expectations was yet entirely unknown,) and to the wine,
which, though habitually temperate, he drank that night in large
quantities.
Late in the evening cards were introduced, in which Mr. W.
joined with unusual eagerness, playing with a fierce recklessness that
lost him almost every game. Yet any proposal to break off or reduce
the stakes was received by him with high indignation, and resented
as a personal affront. He swore several times, with bitter imprecations, that “he would let them know that he was rich enough for them
yet.” At length, after the gentleman had lost at least a thousand
pounds by the most careless and injudicious play, one of the party
254 — The Crazy Eye
declared that he could not conscientiously continue while Mr. W.’s
nerves were in their present excited state—offering him, however,
his revenge at any time he chose. At this declaration Mr. W. took
fire, insisting that “His nerves were perfectly composed,—the proceeding was unfair and ungentlemanly—that the whole was a cursed
plot to trick a poor man out of the small remnant of his fortune ;—
but he would suffer no imposition,—he would show them that
though poor he was still equal to the best of them.” It was with much
difficulty that a challenge was prevented from passing, and he went
away in a state of high excitement, leaving the company amazed at
the avowals of poverty from one who was supposed to be the richest
man present. No one suspected that his losses on that evening had
exhausted above a year’s income.
“Early the next morning,” continued the narrator, “I was
awakened by a message from the housekeeper of my friend, an old
and faithful domestic, requesting me to come immediately to the relief of her master, who was, as she expressed it, “in a desperate bad
way.” I learned from the messenger that his master had risen about
an hour before, and during that time his actions had been so wild and
irrational as to excite in the servants a suspicion of insanity. When I
arrived, the report of the housekeeper left no doubt on my mind of
the truth of their surmises, though of the cause of this sudden outbreak all were ignorant. The fit, she said, seemed to have seized him
while shaving, and since then he had amused himself with talking
tragedy—with breaking every article of furniture, or throwing it out
of the window,—and at last by calling the servants to him, and driving them from the chamber with his open razor. He seemed to consider this an excellent joke, and I heard, as I entered, his convulsive
shouts of laughter at the precipitate flight of a terrified footman.
“I opened the door of his chamber, and beheld a singular spectacle. The floor was strewn with fragments of furniture, the bureau
and dressing-table were overturned, and the bed-curtains torn down,
one of them being wrapped around his left arm as if he had been engaged in fencing. He was half dressed and half shaved,—his morning
gown hung in strips from his shoulders, and the lather still clung to
one ghastly cheek, while down the other ran a stream of blood from a
gash which he had accidentally inflicted when the frenzy seized him.
His head was sunk on his chest, and his arms folded,—the right hand
Superstitions and Mental Disorders — 255
still grasping the open razor. Suddenly he raised his head and the
wild glare of his unsteady eye told too surely that reason had for a
while deserted her throne. He did not remark my entrance but began,
in a most feeling accent, and with a tone and gesture which I have
never seen surpassed, (for it was from nature,) one of the most affecting of Lear’s speeches. Before he had finished it, some noises
which I made attracted his attention ; he started, gazed a moment irresolutely, and then advancing to me, saluted me with much courtesy. ‘You must excuse my dishabille, Mr. G——,‘said he, ‘from the
earliness of the hour. I am very glad to see you, however. The reason
of my sending for you was to ask a small favor of you, which I know
you will not refuse. I want you to stand my friend in a certain affair
which I have on my hands. I am determined to challenge A——, and
N——, and V——, (naming the gentlemen who had been his companions at play the night before,) all of them — all at once, by G—
d ! I will show them that I am still a match for the whole pack of
them, though I am poor. And this is the way I’ll take them ; you see I
have been practising tussle-fencing this morning ; I will catch N.’s
point under my own, so——, and settle V. with a side-lunge, thus
—— ;’ and he made a furious stab at me with his weapon, which I
escaped by a hasty retreat ; upon which he made the hall ring with
his bursts of maniac laughter.
“I suggested to the housekeeper the propriety of securing the unhappy man and depriving him of his razor, otherwise there was every
reason to fear some irreparable injury to himself or others. She had
already sent, she said, for the family physician, and also for a certain
William Waldo, a locksmith, who had acquired considerable reputation for his remarkable success in subduing the violence of insanity ;
and as the power was said to reside in his look, he commonly went
by the name of ‘the Crazy Eye.’ I had heard of such individuals before, but never having given much credit to the accounts of their
feats, I had naturally great curiosity to witness an attempt. In a short
time Waldo arrived ; he was a middle-aged man, with the look of an
intelligent artisan, but nothing remarkable in his appearance. His
eyes, I remarked, were of a dull hazel. He seemed to understand perfectly the business in which he was engaged, and to act like a man
accustomed to such scenes. Opening the door of the chamber, he advanced boldly to the madman, who was in the heart of a soliloquy ;
256 — The Crazy Eye
and laying his hand firmly, but respectfully, on his shoulder, said,
‘Sir, you are my prisoner.’ The glare which he received was in the
highest degree fierce and deadly, and I trembled for the fellow ; but it
was only for a moment,—the next instant the eye of the madman
quailed before the steady, unwavering gaze of the tamer,—the wildness vanished from his look, and he yielded, without resistance, to
the grasp of his conqueror. It was a strange sight,—the tall, athletic
figure of my friend cowering before the slight and feeble form of the
simple mechanic. He was immediately put to bed, and by the direction of the physician, who arrived soon after bled and cupped. To all
these operations he submitted with a patient sufferance, amounting
almost to unconsciousness ; for he was still under the influence of
the locksmith’s eye, which seemed to exert an almost fascinating effect upon him. I had a momentary glimpse of it, and I was not surprised at the power of the look. It was frightful. I cannot describe it ;
but I remember thinking, many years after, when I first read Coleridge’s Christabel, that the picture of the sorceress’s eye358 bore a
most vivid likeness to the image impressed on my memory. The iris
seemed to be contracted, and, as it were, concentrated into the pupil,
and the color had changed from hazel to a deep black ; the lids were
half-shut ; and the whole character of the eye was what I may call
snake-like. You will say that much, if not all, of this metamorphosis
was supplied by my imagination ; but the remembrance which I bare
of the look itself, and of my own horror at the sight, will not allow of
such an explanation as satisfactory, at least to my own mind.
“My friend’s malady, I am sorry to say, was never wholly subdued ; and he died, a few months after this occurrence, of a brain
fever. His betrothed is still single ; I understand that she has since refused several unexceptionable offers. They loved each other, I think,
with an affection that I have never seen surpassed.
“My curiosity was much excited, as you may suppose, by the
scene of which I had been a witness ; and I put several questions to
the man on the nature of the singular power which he possessed. I
obtained but little satisfaction. He himself was altogether ignorant of
its origin, and had not even been aware of the change which took
place in his eye, until it was remarked by his neighbors. The occasion
358 “those shrunken serpent eyes.” Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), “Christabel”
(1816).
Superstitions and Mental Disorders — 257
on which he discovered that he possessed the power was somewhat
remarkable.
“You may have heard of Sir William P——, who made a considerable figure in the political world about eighteen years ago. His
death, I remember, created a great sensation in England. He had been
a member of parliament from B—— for several years, and had distinguished himself by his vehemence in debate and his eccentricity.
The latter quality had displayed itself during the last session, rather
awkwardly for him, in the introduction and support of several bills
totally inconsistent with his known political sentiments and with the
wishes of his constituents, among whom he was exceedingly popular. It being the eve of an election, they were desirous of hearing
from their old and much-loved member an explanation of the course
he had latterly pursued, not doubting but it must be perfectly satisfactory ; for calumny itself had not dared to breathe a suspicion
against the spotless integrity of Sir William P——. A grand dinner
was accordingly given him, at which many hundreds of the most respectable landholders in the county were present. The speech which
he delivered at the close was a singular medley. With much of sound
political reasoning and statesman-like policy, there were mingled
opinions and principles which the most fanatical Jacobin359 would
have hesitated to utter—principles of an alarming tendency, yet advanced with an earnest warmth which left no doubt of his sincerity,
and maintained with an acuteness of argument that few but himself
were capable of. The auditors sat in speechless amazement, hardly
able to believe the evidence of their senses—yet none suspected the
real cause.
“Among those present was Waldo. He sat very near and opposite
Sir William, so that he had a fair view of him throughout the evening. He remarked, as he said, an unusual wildness of the eye and
tremulous movement of the hands, and he could not help regarding
the baronet with a fixed look of astonishment,—with perhaps a slight
mingling of indignation at what he heard. On a sudden their eyes
met, and the effect was singular. The orator paused, leaned forward
over the table at which he was speaking, and for the space of a minute fixed on his astonished constituent a glare of absolute horror ;
the expression of his eye, Waldo said, resembled that of a brute’s un359 A
radical republican during the French Revolution.
258 — The Crazy Eye
der the influence of terror—dilating, and, as it were, shivering. At the
end of the minute the baronet seemed by a strong effort to recover
his recollection ; shading his eyes with his hand, he sank pale and
trembling into a seat, and was heard to say faintly— ‘Take him
away,—for God’s sake, take him away ! I cannot bear it.’ Waldo, of
course, immediately left the hall, but Sir William found himself unable to proceed in his address. The next day he was a raving maniac,
and shortly after perished by his own hands in a most shocking manner.
“Waldo was surprised, on this occasion, by the universal declaration of all present, that his eye, while he regarded the baronet,
had undergone an almost incredible change ; some said it was contracted,—others that the color had altered ; all agreed in terming the
expression a terrible one, though none could account for its peculiar
effect on the speaker, otherwise than by the supposition of some
mysterious sympathy between that look and the insane mind. Waldo,
naturally enough was inclined to consider the assertion as the offspring of that fondness for the marvellous which loves to account for
every inexplicable event by a still more wonderful cause. It was not
till after numerous and careful experiments had been followed by invariable success that he dared to attribute to himself a power which
carries with it an appearance of something superhuman. At present,
however, so settled is his conviction of the infallible efficacy of that
look, that he does not hesitate to approach the most ungovernable
maniac in his wildest paroxysm. He had never, he said, seen another
possessing the same power, but he heard that in the north of Britain
and in Ireland they were not uncommon ; in the latter country they
were generally known by the appellation of tamers.”
How much of my English friend’s narrative is to be ascribed to a
lively imagination, and how much of truth there may be in the account, is left with the reader to decide. If the hypothesis of a real organic efficacy in the eyes of certain individuals be allowed, an explanation will perhaps be furnished of some remarkable facts that
have for centuries perplexed the ablest physiologists. Whence arise
the common belief that no animal, however furious, can endure the
steady gaze of a human eye ? Fatal experience has proved that of all
eyes this observation cannot be true ; but the opinion could never
have been so extensively diffused without the support of well-estab-
Superstitions and Mental Disorders — 259
lished instances. The epithet snake-like, applied by my friend to the
expression of the locksmith’s eye, leads to the consideration of the
fascinating power which certain reptiles are said to possess,—a
power which was once confidently denied, until multiplied observation had ascertained its existence, and which naturalists have attempted in vain to explain. Concerning the origin of this ocular influence,
no conjecture in the present state of our experience can be hazarded ;
in the hope that it may lead to some further investigation of this remarkable phenomenon, the foregoing relation is submitted to the attention of the curious.
H. E. H.
____________
THE
AMERICAN MONTHLY MAGAZINE.
Vol. II.
APRIL 1830
N° I.
ANNA’S LANDING.
THROUGH the whole line of New England there flows not to the
ocean a more beautiful stream than the small river Ashawang. A
day’s ride will enable one to trace it from its sources to the sea, and
to survey it in the various characters of brook, rivulet, and river.
There is nothing very extraordinary in it, but it is a very pretty
stream, flowing in beautiful sweeps through rich meadows, whose
green fringes trail in its waters, and round bold, precipitous points,
clothed to the water’s edge with laurel, the pride of our northern
woods, or with luxuriant vines, to gather whose clusters we had to
ascend the ruin and pick them as we sat in our boats. And rich beyond description from one of these heights is a summer view of its
course through the meadows—winding away like a sinuous sheet of
silver set in emerald, with the purple clouds of evening sleeping at a
far depth within it, and the button-woods on its banks standing as
distinctly in its mirror as life, but with all the wire edge of reality
taken off. For the last five miles of its course, it is cut up into a succession of lake-like sheets, by low wooded points, whose trees, unembarrassed by underwood, rise from a smooth carpet of turf,
straight, and graceful, like Corinthian columns. In the distance they
appear exactly like islands, or like trees standing in the water, and remind one forcibly of the floating gardens of the lake Tescuco.360
Two miles below the village of P., and five from the mouth of
the Ashawang, is one of the largest of those low beautiful points
already noticed. It is occupied solely by an immense elm, which rises
to a height, and spreads to an extent, which, in this latitude, is truly
astonishing. I verily believe that it cannot be matched in New England. Not another shrub grows upon the point, or island, as it is at
flood tide, but it stands unrivalled and alone, seen far up and down
360 A salt lake near the Aztec city of Tezcuco, near present-day Mexico City. In the valley of
Mexico, vegetables and flowers were traditionally cultivated in floating gardens or chinampas.
Anna’s Landing — 261
the river, extending its arms over it like a protecting genius. The
stream here has expanded to the breadth of half a mile, and, in its
rapid whirl round the point, discloses a continuous line of granite ; so
that it is highly probable that the whole point is a vast pillar of flat
rock drawn from the depths of the stream,—a fitting basis for the immense Colossus of the vegetable race which it sustains. The tide and
eddy on the south side form a little bay, so that the point presents an
area nearly circular of about two acres, rising gently from the water
to the center where stands the tree. The turf is close, and green
enough for the foot of a fairy, an idea which the damsels of the place
in former days improved upon ; and had the redoubted Basil Hall,361
and others of his cockney brethren, visited it some fifteen years ago,
they might have seen a sight which in all his career of ‘sight-seeing’
in this country it seems he never saw, and which is a sine qua non in
his creed of civilization,—he might have seen a score or more of
youths and maidens dancing on that beautiful green to the music of
their own sweet voices.
The neighboring domain, as well as the spot in question, belongs to the Lowells, whose family seat stands at a little distance in
full view of the elm and river. It is one of those large, old fashioned
mansions, built long before the revolution, and which, by continuing
in the same family ever since, and that family maintaining a uniform
and elevated rank, begins to have something extremely aristocratical
associated with it. After all our prosing about democracy, such families had a certain importance attached to their antiquity, which is far
from being uncomfortable, as I have more than once remarked, when
I have been shown the family pictures of the Lowells. I cannot imagine anything more imposing than General Lowell’s tall, erect figure,
surmounted as it is with a most majestic brow shaded with the silvery honors of sixty years. Nor can I conceive of a finer model of
feminine grace than the person of Anna Lowell, as, thirteen years
ago, she moved, like an angel of a better sphere, through the ranks of
society, the cynosure of each eye, and the blessed of every heart.
Child as I was, I recollect distinctly the impression made upon me
when first I saw her. There was an indescribable softness in her face,
even when composed and silent, which was irresistibly winning, and
361 Captain Basil Hall (1788–1844) was a British naval officer who commanded vessels on
scientific and exploration voyages. After he left the navy, he traveled in the United States and
published his Travels in North America (1829).
262 — Superstitions and Mental Disorders
I thought that if a frighted bird were to enter the room, it would fly
instinctively to the bosom of Anna Lowell. It was the thought of a
child, but the reader will probably form from it a better idea of the
character of her beauty, than if I were to spend an hour in describing
it. Of course so bright a jewel could not be hidden. But vain were any
attempts at appropriation, on the part of the stranger youths who visited the vale of Ashawang. By the young men of the place it was
never dreamed of ; for every body knew that she was betrothed in
heart almost from infancy to a ward of her father’s, who was every
way so worthy of her, that competition was out of the question. So
close had been their connection from childhood, and so completely
did they seem made for each other, that their marriage was expected
as a thing of course. ‘Matches are made in heaven,’362 said the neighbors, whenever they alluded to the subject, and indeed, they could
not have quoted a better commentary on this favorite adage than the
loves of Alfred Darrach and Anna Lowell. Her life had passed like a
dream of Elysium,363 up to her eighteenth summer ; and she had
promised at its close to ratify at the altar the tacit vows of her childhood and the blushing confessions of mature years. Alfred was in all
the bustle of preparation, the joy of his heart scarcely allowing him
to sleep. A spacious house was going merrily up at a short distance
from the General’s, and high beat the heart of Alfred as he thought of
it as his future home, and in the delightful train of associations connected with the idea fell into a light slumber to dream of bliss more
exquisite than often falls to the lot of mortals.
The village of P., at the period of which I write, was often visited by religious awakenings. But it must be confessed, that the fruits
of these seasons were too often like mushrooms, or, more aptly, like
the seed scattered by the way side. The truth is, that although the inhabitants of P. were, in the main, intelligent, and many of them
wealthy and indued with the polish of a city education, yet there was
among them a general want of religious knowledge. An unaccountable mistiness involved the whole subject. Rational upon every
other, whenever they approached the most interesting of all subjects,
they divested themselves of reason’s aid altogether, and placed them362 “Marriage and hanging go by destiny; matches are made in heaven.” An adage attributed
to the English clergyman and writer Robert Burton (1577-1640).
363 In Greek mythology, it was a heavenly place which welcomed those who were favored
by the gods when they died.
Anna’s Landing — 263
selves in the capacity and attitude of children, not at the feet of
Christ, but of his ministers, or of any one who chose to assume that
title. Hence, they were exposed to the greatest impositions. Many
wolves in sheep’s clothing came among them, and others who,
though they might have been sheep of the true flock, were vastly unfit for shepherds. The ministerial garb, like the friar’s hood and
mantle in Catholic countries, often covered a multitude of absurdities, if not of sins. It gave confidence to impudence and imposture, and respectability, and even reverence, to ignorance and stolidity. I said the ministerial garb ; but this phrase needs correction ; for
the preacher was as likely to mount the pulpit in a drab pea-coat, as a
sober suit of black ; and ‘motley’s the only wear’364 has more than
once been my thought, on seeing some fantastical nondescript rise,
with his eyes set in his head, to address the congregation at P.
It was in the latter part of the summer above mentioned, the
eighteenth of Anna’s age, that a powerful ‘awakening,’365which had
been gathering strength in the neighboring towns, burst like a torrent
along the vale of Ashawang. It was urged on by a new and very extraordinary preacher. In those days the congregations being very
large, and a meeting house unable to contain them, with the simplicity of the Apostolic age they repaired to the fields, where I verily
believe the excitement was greater than could have been produced
within walls. I am not describing a camp meeting. Christians of
every name under heaven, attended these meetings ; and preachers of
every creed addressed them. This movement was merely the effect of
necessity, and of a certain rural taste in the people, caught unavoidably from the beautiful scenery of the neighborhood. It was
time and place best suited to the talents of Louis Beebee. It was
where his bold and flowing rhetoric could range without let or
bound, and in the most impassioned strains, he could call upon inanimate nature to aid his argument for the truths of revelation, and
upon the heavens and the earth to be astonished at the obduracy of
his race. His was plainly a mind of no ordinary stamp, and his style
and language betrayed that no ordinary pains had been bestowed on
364 William Shakespeare (1564-1616), As You Like It
365 The Great Awakening was a series of religious
(Act II. Scene 7).
revivals which arose in the American
colonies by the middle of the 18th century. It was promoted by rousing preachers, such as
Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758), whose eloquence deeply moved crowds of believers, sometimes to the point of falling into a trance.
264 — Superstitions and Mental Disorders
its cultivation. His personal appearance was very striking. A figure
slender but rather tall, sharp features, contrasted by an unusually
high and ample forehead, at whose base burned two coal black eyes,
with a light as shady, and apparently as quenchless as two stars,
made him sufficiently remarkable. Never shall I forget the feeling of
awe, not unmingled with fear, with which I saw him rise for the first
time, beneath the Great Elm, and with a deliberation peculiar to himself, pass his cold, and at the same time burning eye, over the multitude who sat beneath and still, as if fascinated by his gaze. His appearance did not belie him : rarely has any man since the apostolic
age addressed an audience with such unction. But powerful as was
his preaching, Louis Beebee depended mainly for success in his
labors (the divine blessing always excepted) upon his private conferences with the awakened. In these, as to a father confessor, they
would communicate to him their feelings, their hopes and fears. The
deep insight which he thus gained into the characters of the people,
joined to the sanctity of his life, and his dazzling talents, soon gave
him unlimited influence over the thoughts, actions and habits, which,
had he been an ambitious or a less holy man, might have proved a
dangerous possession. But thus far he had labored with a single eye
to the glory of his Master ; and though he held some doctrines,
which, to me, it seems blasphemous to impute to the character of Jehovah, yet he had the discretion to touch but lightly upon them in
public. Would that he had been equally careful in private !
Anna Lowell, although every action of her life might challenge
scrutiny, had never made any pretensions to religion. Darrach,
through disgust at most of the preachers, had avoided meetings, and
though strictly moral, was a little opposed to revivals as managed by
them. Anna had often stayed away to oblige him ; but the subject of
religion was one on which she had speculated much and at times felt
acutely, and as yet her searching, wandering spirit found no rest. She
resolved to go once more. It was on the day when Beebee made his
debut under the Great Elm. Every word he uttered seemed addressed
to herself. She went again, and her distress increased to such a degree
that she begged her mother to send for Mr. Beebee.
Beebee was a man in the prime of life, certainly not more than
thirty-three, and though his brow was pale as marble and his cheek
thin and chastened by constant toil to the same hue, yet his eye be-
Anna’s Landing — 265
trayed the smothered fire within, and we will not say whether his
anxiety was not greater, and his labors more zealous for the lovely
sinner, than was his wont in ordinary cases.
The labors of Louis Beebee at length were blessed. Anna found
peace, or thought she found it, although her exercises had been sufficiently severe to impair her health, and there still lingered upon her
mind a dejection which not all her efforts could throw off. Her cheek
had faded, her eye from the frequent flow of tears had lost its brightness, and a general debility and nervousness seized her frame. Darrach beheld this change with sorrow not unmixed with indignation at
what he thought her weakness. He almost quarrelled with her parents
for allowing Beebee to gain such an influence over her, and to the
preacher he could hardly bring himself to give a pleasant word or
look.
‘Do not tell me that you are happy,’ said he, as he paced the
room with a troubled step and a tearful eye, ‘this change that I see in
you is not happiness ? It was not always with such cold eyes and
such freezing solemnity, that you received me. Would to God you
were mine indeed !—this Beebee— the incubus that sits upon your
peace of mind366—should know his place.’
Thus he would frequently address her, but as she answered only
with her tears, he would lose all patience, and leave her, muttering
curses upon him who, he feared, had made her wretched forever. As
the only remedy, he resolved to have an early day appointed for the
marriage, endeavored to sooth his chafed spirit by hurrying forward
his preparations, inwardly exulting in the unlimited control he would
soon have over her happiness, and divising sundry vague plans of
chastisement for the preacher if he ever dared to enter his door. He
was high spirited, and rash, and cared not for public opinion, when
once his temper was raised. In this state of mind, he went to New
York to provide some articles for their domestic establishment.
Although every day of absence seemed an age, he was detained
much longer than he had anticipated, and did not return till the end of
the first week in September. He hastened immediately to Lowellpoint, to see his bride elect, and to fix his wedding day. As he was
366 A lascivious demon, or fallen angel, supposed to sit on women’s chests during their sleep
and have sexual intercourse with them. Because of the pressure on the chest, and the corresponding feeling of anxiety, the incubus is often associated with the nightmare, a theme powerfully illustrated in Fuseli’s painting “The Nightmare” (1781).
266 — Superstitions and Mental Disorders
entering the house, he encountered Beebee. The blood rose in his
brow as he met the confused look of the preacher ; and he turned and
looked after him, half tempted to follow and to do he did not know
what. At length, stifling his passion, he entered the house. Mrs. Lowell was in tears—the General looked angry and perplexed, and, after
shaking hands with Alfred, left the room.
‘What is the matter,’ said Alfred—’ where is Anna ?’ But observing that her distress increased, he was hurrying to the dot of Anna’s parlor, when it opened. But instead of rushing forward to meet
his betrothed, the unhappy youth recoiled and stood as if transfixed.
Merciful heaven ! was that wan, wasted figure, his own Anna? He
gazed upon her till his eye drank in from the vacant, unmeaning stare
of her’s, the whole dreadful truth, and then dropped upon a chair and
hid his face. Anna approached him with the noiseless step of a spirit,
and endeavored to raise his head, smiling occasionally the painful
smile of idiocy, till her lip began to work convulsively, and to mutter
certain inarticulate sounds.
“Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers,” at length
she said ; and dropped as if the words had annihilated her. Oh, the
horrid truth which these words revealed !
‘Fiend !—devil !’—screamed Alfred, springing from his seat.
‘Alfred, Alfred !’ said Mrs. Lowell, in alarm, coming from the
sofa where she had laid Mary, and laying her hand on his shoulder,—
‘he is a minister—he thought it his duty.’
‘Duty !’ shouted the despairing youth, ‘were an angel of light
to come to me, with such a foul perversion of the gospel on his
tongue, I would not believe him.’ As he spoke he pointed to the sofa
and groaning in uncontrollable agony, out of the house. He instinctively made for Beebee’s quarters, but he had gone to hold a
meeting in a neighboring village. The next day was Sunday,
however, and he was preaching under the ‘great elm.’ Sunday came,
but not Beebee, and the people after waiting in vain, till a late hour,
dispersed to their homes. The bird had flown, and never more was he
seen in the vale of the Ashawang.
Beebee had gone too far. Struck with the uncommon loveliness
of Anna Lowell, and ignorant of the strength of her attachment to
Darrach, he had been tempted with what views we know not, to
quote to her the text which haunted her memory when everything
Anna’s Landing — 267
else but the image of Alfred had been obliterated as with searing
lava. It startled her at first, but at length in his solemn and persuasive
way, he supported it so well with argument and scripture, that it
settled upon her conscience with the weight of conviction. Instant
war arose between love and reason ;—the conflict was dreadful, but
in her weak state soon decided, and reason fled forever. Beebee was
frighted at his own work. The extent of his success appalled him.
Had he not been blinded by passion, and pressed for time, (for
September was already come, and one of its days was to be chosen
for their nuptials,) he would have been wiser than to start so harrassing a subject in the present state of her nerves. But it was done.
Remorse drove him nearly distracted, and he was hurrying from the
house on his last visit, pretty much with the sensation of one who has
unconsciously set his own house on fire over the heads of his family,
when he met Alfred. The haste with which he decamped, probably
saved Alfred from some act that might have embittered his recollections forever.
Time progressed, and the snows of December whitened the
fields, and the winds of the north whistled through the half covered
house which Alfred had begun, and which now stood neglected and
desolate, the very image of his heart. Anna’s insanity became more
settled, and as the month of January drew near, her fits of wildness
became frequent. Day after day would she walk her chamber, till she
dropped upon the bed from utter exhaustion. All night would she
moan and talk to herself, or to some invisible being, with whom she
would reason and expostulate, and then turn away and weep. At
times, as if she had exhausted her entreaties, she would rise and fly
shrieking out of the room, and, not unfrequently, drop upon her
knees in an imploring attitude, as to some one pursuing her—‘I have
given him up,’ she would cry,—‘I have—I have—but you—you !—I
cannot have you !’—and then rising and shaking her clenched hand
and laughing the air of one who had wrestled with her eternal enemy,
she exclaimed, ‘there is no scripture, for that !—no—no—there is no
scripture for that !’
One morning, late in January, having, like most other boys of
the village, risen early in order to gain one precious hour for play before the odious chime of nine, I was surprised to see several groups
of men collected in the streets, some talking earnestly, but in a low
268 — Superstitions and Mental Disorders
tone, and others standing pale and silent as if listening to some horrible tale. I was too young to ask questions. I passed on to another
group, in the centre of which sat Horace Lowell, Anna’s youngest
brother, a lad of fifteen, on horseback. The extremity of distress was
pictured on the expressive face of the boy, and the stunned look of
dismay and curiosity and sympathy might be traced, passing his successive shades over the faces of his auditors, as they listened to his
oft repeated tale. ‘His poor sister was lost—he knew not how—nor
where !’ But curiosity, which often delights in puzzling itself, at
length yielded to the omnipotent voice of humanity, and with one
impulse all set off for Lowell Point, where a scene of distress was
enacting, difficult to describe, and aggravated to its acme by the most
horrid suspense.
Anna, the evening previous, had been unusually calm, and had
been left at a late hour by her mother to the care of her own maid.
The girl appeared much frightened, and gave a very confused account ; it was evident that she had been asleep and knew nothing of
the matter. Anna had undoubtedly risen in one of her fits of wildness,
and to escape from the fiend that haunted her imagination, had
rushed out of the house. Every, thicket, rock and building, within a
circuit of two miles had been searched, but in vain. The river was not
forgotten. It was strictly examined as being the most suspicious
place ; but she was not to be found, and it seemed as if she had been
spirited from the earth without leaving any trace of her passage.
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
And yet Louis Beebee was no common man. He preached well,
and lived even better than he preached ; and but for one error, might
have been held up as a perfect model of evangelist. Two years after
the date of this narrative the following paragraph appeared in a
southern paper :—
“Died in the Insane Hospital, where he has been kept the last
eighteen months, the Rev. Louis Beebee, aged 36, in the only lucid
season he has had for that period.”
_____________
THE
AMERICAN MONTHLY MAGAZINE.
1837
Vol X.
THE COLD HAND ; A TALE.
___________
“THE PURITAIN”
___________
BY THE AUTHOR OF
MY story is a mournful one, for when I tell you I am a female,
with an ugly face and a vain heart, you will understand at once that I
am a child of sorrow. I will relate my narrative ; for it cannot gratify
my vanity, and some may take warning.
I was the daughter of a wealthy merchant in New Haven,367 who,
having only one child besides myself, resolved to give us both a finished education. He spared no expense, for he loved us with excessive fondness ; and gowns, and ribbons, and feathers were bestowed upon me from my earliest childhood, as fast as blossoms
drop from the trees to the ground at the close of the vernal season.
His other child was a sister, about one year and six months older than
myself, whom every body complimented as being excessively handsome. She was obviously my father’s favorite ; and many were the
compliments she received for her beauty before her charms were
fully unfolded. I can seem to see her now, (for she has long since
been in her grave,) with her chestnut locks, her hazel eyes, her
slender frame ; all of which were objects of envy and hatred to me.
In our earliest years I had no doubt of my own superiority to her. At
school I was our instructress’s favorite ; my powers were evidently
superior, and I had not the least doubt I should find a better fortune
in subsequent life.
But as we grew up to womanhood, she became the handsomest and I the ugliest of all mortals. I was very tall, with large
hands and feet, a sallow, olive skin, grey eyes without the least ex367 A city in Connecticut on Long Island Sound. Founded in 1637-1638 by Puritans, it was a
strict theocratic colony absorbed by Connecticut in 1664.
270 — The Cold Hand; A Tale
pression ; I had the scars of the scrofula368 on my neck. My eyebrows
were white, like the hair of a man affected with the leprosy ; my
voice was hoarse and unmusical ; and, in short, heaven seemed to
display its avengeful skill in encasing my spirit in a carcase fit only
for a fiend. Yet such is the pleasing self-flattery and self-deception in
which we are apt to allow ourselves to be lost, that it was a long time
before I suspected the reason why my sister ran away with all the attentions in every party. My jokes were heard without laughter, and
my smiles never spread gladness through the room. Whenever I approached a youth of the other sex with a look of confidence and a
smile of familiarity, he shrunk back as at the sight of a ghost. I
wished to be social and love mankind, but they receded from me
with horror whenever I approached them.
It will perhaps be asked me why I did not keep a looking-glass ;
and whether it was possible for a woman, even with such a face as
mine, not sometimes to place herself before it. But I would reply to
the philosophy of him whose ignorance prompts him to ask such a
question, that a looking-glass can as little show us the deformities of
our faces as the common measure of self-knowledge can reveal to us
the imperfection of our minds. I was ignorant of both.
The students of the college were accustomed frequently to wisit
at our house. I was passionately fond of literature, and their conversation and company to me were entertaining. Among the rest there
was one youth by the name of Wardwell, who used to pay some attention to me. He conversed with me on such books as I had read ;
sometimes disputed my observations and sometimes confirmed
them. I was anxious to show him the beauties of my own mind ; for
as I began to suspect that I had few other beauties, it was by these I
must expect to captivate his heart.
My sister Jane, (for that was the name of my elder sister,) was
considered as very fascinating in her manners, and was always surrounded by a troop of admirers ; she was quick in her apprehensions,
witty, always in good humor ; and, being always admired, she could
afford not to be envious or jealous towards me. But my feelings were
different towards her. I am unwilling to believe that all sisterly love
was extinguished from my breast. If she had been poor, I should certainly have relieved her ; if she had been sick, I should have watched
368 Lymph
nodes of the neck.
Superstitions and Mental Disorders — 271
around her bed. But I could not bear the praises that were always bestowed upon her, the marked preference which in every company she
was sure to receive. Poor I was always thrown into the back-ground.
If she went out of town and returned, there was much joy ; such a
cordial shaking of the hand ; if she entered a party, there was such a
brightening in every face—there were so many good things said of
her when absent—so many tells, while there were no tells for poor
me ; in short, her constant superiority tilled my heart with jealousy
and rage ; so that, like Joseph’s brethren,369 I hated, and could
scarcely speak peaceably to her. I knew myself to be her superior in
mental endowments ; and to be always seen in her superior light—to
be always cast into shade—to be a perpetual foil to set off her agreeables, it was more than I knew how to bear ! I was very unhappy ;
and I am afraid that my homely features were made still worse by a
moral expression, which I knew not how to conceal. My sister, on
the contrary, was artless and open-hearted ; she never returned my
taunts or peevish expressions ; but, alas ! it is a cheap virtue to be
good-natured when life is prosperous and every eye smiles upon you.
It was evident my compassionate sister pitied my case, and that was
the most exasperating thing that she could have done. To be the object of her pity blew my temper into seven-fold rage. I felt a sort of
indefinite malignity towards her, which prompted me to an indefinite
revenge.
There was a young gentleman, a member of the senior class, and
the first scholar in his class, who was then becoming very particular
in his attentions to my sister. It seemed very strange to me, I confess,
that a man of his taste and discernment should be so taken with the
superficial accomplishment, beauty, and overlook all the superior
qualities of mind, that deathless principle, which will last when form
and colors, with all their graces and roses, shall have passed away.
But so it was ; Mr. Harwood (that was his name) was all attention to
Jane ; and, what was more provoking, I could hardly interest him
enough to detain his attention. If Jane was absent when he visited our
house, his stay was sure to be short ; and if for a moment on such occasions he sat down with me for a transient chat, he would dance his
vacant foot or hum a tune, and return such answers to my observa369 Joseph was the favored son of Jacob and Rachel; having renounced to kill him, his brothers sold him into slavery out of jealousy (Genesis: 37).
272 — The Cold Hand; A Tale
tions as to show his thoughts were away wool-gathering in other regions. Is this the treatment due to a lady ? Is this the discrimination
of a man of sense ? Alas, men may talk about superficial accomplishments and the vanity of our sex ; but place the most gaudy rose in
their sight, and they will trample on all the encrusted jewels in their
path to gain it ; and in my opinion the greatest scholars make the best
fools.
For some time Mr. Harwood had been paying his attention to my
sister, and I must confess she never gave herself any airs of superiority, never treated me with the pride of an insolent beauty ; but
somehow I saw, or thought I saw, an insult in her very kindness and
condescension. Her very acts of sisterly affection seemed to me a
poor thin covering to conceal her own superior happiness. Many
were the taunts and sharp replies with which I met her most innocent
questions ; and I used to call her Madame Beauty ; I used sneeringly
to say—“O, you are all perfection ; you are the universal favorite ;
your loveliness needs not the foreign aid of ornament ;” and I found
occasion to pick a quarrel with her every hour in the day. She had a
sweet temper, and I was angry that heaven had withheld all its best
gifts from me to rain them with superfluous profusion on her more
fortunate head.
It may be asked, perhaps, how such dreadful passions find their
way into human breasts. I had read in Ovid (for I was quite a scholar)
a description of Envy—
“Pallor in ore sedet ; macies in corpore toto ;
Nusquam recta acies ; livent rubigine dentes.”370
I had always considered it as the worst passion of the human
breast ; it is also highly unreasonable, even on selfish principles ; because it never inflicts a blow without jarring its own hand more than
it wounds its object. It may be asked, then, how, with my clear perception, I admitted a passion into my soul which I knew at once to be
both hateful and tormenting ? The fact is, I had no idea that I was actuated by envy ; I was like a scholar whom I heard say—that he always despised a glutton, and yet became one himself because he
knew not the sin when it became his own. It is always thus with our
370 Ovid, Metamorphoses, (Book 2, lines 775-76): “Pallor lies in her face; gaunt is her whole
body; / She has a perpetual squint and a bluish rust covers her teeth.” (our translation).
Superstitions and Mental Disorders — 273
impetuous passions ; fixed on their objects, they have no leisure or
disposition to contemplate their own natures.
But I could have better borne my sister’s superiority, at least in
beauty, had it not been for an incident which put the finishing stroke
to my bud passions. Beauty I could have conceded to my sister ;
graces, taste, dress, outward accomplishments—these were all indisputably hers ; and I was trying so to adjust the balance, that I
could contentedly give her these things while I claimed for myself
the inward adornings of the mind. I had heard her praises in every
company, and was beginning to be willing to hear them, when, one
evening as I was walking home from a religious lecture, I happened
to come behind a party of youth, of whom I soon discerned that Harwood was one. Perhaps I ought to mention, that almost the only bodily perfection which heaven had seen fit to bestow on me, was a remarkably acute ear. Whether it was my feverish solicitude or my
nerves, whether it was nature or practice, yet so it was, that no mortal
could hear a fainter sound at a farther distance than I. I could hear a
whisper from the farthest corner of any room while the whole company were talking ; and this faculty, I believe, exasperated my temper ; for I often heard more remarks about myself than I desired. I
found these youths were talking about the New Haven girls, and
among the rest, of our family. “Jane,” said one, “is a most accomplished beauty ; what an eye ! what a shape ! what a matchless expression ! But I believe she looks better for being set off in contrast
to her sister Kate. Did you ever see,” continued he, “such a fright ?
She would make a good witch to ride on a broomstick !”
“Yes,” said another, “she looks like a Fury371 and acts worse ;
but you must allow she has some sense. She is at least equal to her
sister in that point.” “I doubt that,” cried the first. “She has read
some books and has some vanity, but that only makes her a greater
idiot ; I called her a witch, but she lacks talents even for that.” Only
think of it ; this very wretch who made this remark, had paid me a
compliment on my understanding a few evenings before, and had
begged a copy of verses which I had composed, and which he had
pronounced beautiful ; and, as it was one of the few compliments I
ever received in my life, I thought it sincere. O ! the deceitfulness of
371 Winged
female divinities of the Greek mythology embodying revenge.
274 — The Cold Hand; A Tale
mankind ! O, the hypocrisy of their hearts and the honey of their
tongues ! If I hate them, is the fault wholly my own ?
I went home that night in a perfect rage ; and my heart, like
Nebuchadnezzar’s furnace, was heated seven times hotter than it was
wont to be heated.372 After my head and that of my sister had pressed
our several pillows, (for we slept together,) “So,” said I, “Jane, I
have found out a new perfection, in your character—I find you are
not only a great beauty, but a great genius.”
“What do you mean, sister,” replied she.
“O, I mean that there never was such a character as my sister
Jane. She is a pattern of perfection.”
“My dear sister,” said Jane, “it seems to me your heart is not towards me as it formerly has been, Pray tell me, what have I done ?”
“Done ! Such an angel as you of course can do no wrong. It is I
that do all the harm.”
“No, my dear Catharine, I charge you with nothing. Do explain
yourself. What is my fault ?”
“You are proud as Lucifer.”
“What instance can you give ?”
“Why,” continued I, “it is seen in every thing ; in all you say or
do ; in every word, motion, look, action. You are the vainest creature
that ever walked the earth ; you are an insolent beauty.”
“But your expressions are too strong to be true ; besides, Catharine, you speak in an unsisterly tone. Do you expect to benefit me by
such reproofs as these ?”
“Well I have the most hateful temper. I am wrong, my dear Jane,
I know I am wrong. Do forgive me.”
Here we kissed each other, and went to sleep.
The next morning the sun shone into our chamber with a sweet
tranquillity, and on the cherry-tree which grew before our window a
red-breast sung his matins with artless animation. I arose in somewhat better temper, and resolved never after to charge my sister with
a fault for the purpose of relieving my own spleen. I lifted the window and caught the balmy breeze ; I saw the leaves trembling on the
boughs ; I heard the bird finish her carol. “Privileged creatures” said
372 Nebuchadnezzar was a King of Babylonia (605–562); he destroyed Jerusalem and carried
the Israelites into captivity. In a terrible fit of anger, he threw three of them into a fiery furnace
cranked up “seven times hotter” than usual, but they came out unharmed, saved by their faith
(Daniel 3: 1-30).
Superstitions and Mental Disorders — 275
I, “nature has made you all alike. The same nest gives you equal
melody and tinges your feathers with equal lustre. The ideas of
beauty and comparison never enter your choirs. You are without sin,
because you dwell apart from temptation. How much happier than
our accursed race.” I shut the window with violence, and went down
to the household drudgery, for which I felt myself principally born.
I resolved, however, to govern my temper, and never more to reproach my sister. It was about this time that Wardwell began to pay
his faint, cold, doubtful addressee to me. He was an awkward youth
from the country, a charity scholar, who entered college at about the
age of twenty-five. Fresh from the plough, he was the most ungainly
fellow I ever saw ; and without the least pretensions to it, he had a
great desire to be a ladies’ man. He was a perfect contrast to Harwood, my sister’s beau ; who, although his conversation was solid
and sensible, was a perfect gentleman ; and, moreover, the first
scholar in his class.
Commencement came ; Harwood graduated and, after delivering
the valedictory oration, which was admired by all, went to Litchfield
to study the law.373 There were the usual protestations and promises,
sighs and tears, at the leave-taking between him and my sister. He
was deeply in love with her, and she with him ; though with the common policy of a cautious beauty, she concealed passion and he exaggerated his. (And, after all, even in this very paragraph perhaps I am
only venting my hateful spleen ; and what I call in her female policy,
may have been a nobler passion. Please therefore, reader, to correct
my language, and for “female policy” read “female modesty.”) Harwood left us, and for the first time in my life I saw my sprightly sister dejected ; and our house was now haunted by my poor beau,
Wardwell.
I should certainly not for a moment have admitted the attentions
of a raggamuffin, whom I considered so much my inferior, had it not
been that I wished for a casting weight to make my condition equal
to that of my sister. Besides, it is the hardest thing in the world to occupy a vacant heart. Wardwell was an absorbent for my envy ; he
seemed as an opiate to put jealousy and rage asleep. It has been said
373 A city in Connecticut founded in 1721, and in which the first Law school in the United
States was opened in 1784.
276 — The Cold Hand; A Tale
by some, that poor company is better than none, and I am afraid that
some of our sex have said the same of their lovers.
But, alas ! to the discontented the humblest path leads to mortification. I had noticed that Wardwell’s eyes, whenever she was in the
room, were straying to my sister ; he paid greater attentions to her remarks than to mine ; and whenever she was away, the first question
he was sure to ask was, whither she had gone ; and sometimes the
blundering wretch, when he spoke to me, would call me by her
name. Once he had the carelessness, or insolence shall I call it ? to
write me a billet, in which it was manifest from the superscription
that her name had been erased and mine substituted. It was provoking when we were in company together to see, though he were sitting
by my chair and my sister in the other part of the room, how perfectly absent he was from me while professedly talking with me ;
how quick his ears were to hear every observation of hers ; how his
eyes would steal away to watch her motions ; in short, he was mine
in profession and hers in reality. At length the detestible hypocrite
had the presumption to request me to bear a message to my sister
avowing his love ; and he told me, that, supposing I must know that
his attentions could not have been originally designed for me, he
hoped I would do him and my sister the disinterested office of
friendship to help them to that union on which his heart had all along
been secretly set.
It is impossible for words to express the passions which flamed
in my heart on this discovery. Rage, resentment, jealousy, despair, all
mingled their black waves in my bosom. I was almost ready to curse
the sun, the light of heaven, my own existence, and all mankind. I almost literally screamed in anguish ; I beat my breast, I tore my hair,
and muttered some profane expressions, which are never more out of
place than when found in a woman’s mouth. “Go,” said I, “insolent
wretch ! and never let me see your face more. Flatterer, hypocrite,
liar, deceiver, traitor, devil, leave my sight.” And what was his
reply ? “Miss,” said he, “now you are handsome ; your face exactly
tallies with your heart.”
Yet, strange to tell, my rage was not half so strong against the
guilty dissembler as it was against her who had been the innocent
cause of it. Strange weakness of our sex we mistake the origin of our
injuries, and impute malice where it is least to be suspected or found.
Superstitions and Mental Disorders — 277
My resentment towards Wardwell cooled the moment he left the
house ; nay, my fancy suggested apologies and palliation for his
wrong. But towards my sister my rage was unconquerable, nor could
any thing have cured it but her ceasing to be beautiful.
Resentment leads to revenge, and I immediately sat down to devise some plan to punish her for the pain she made me suffer. “Let
me see,” said I ; “If I scold at her, it will be nothing ; for I can’t provoke her. A war of words will be vain ; if I poison her, it will be poor
revenge. She will be a martyr, and I at once the executioner and tyrant. The whole pity of mankind will go with her. Besides, these poor
material weapons cannot reach her heart. I wish to make her suffer
where she has made me, I would blast her affections.” I resolved,
therefore, somehow or other, to separate her from Harwood, to
whom she was becoming more and more attached.
I ought here to mention, that among all the excellences of Harwood’s character, there was one weakness which in him was a perfect disease—he was excessively prone to be jealous ; and he could
hardly bear, on the most indifferent occasion, to have a gentleman
speak to my sister. It must not be concluded from this propensity he
was a weak man ; people who judge from moral affinities are often
most egregiously deceived. Jealousy, I know, is commonly thought
to be the accompaniment of a strong passion and a weak head. In
Harwood’s case, the first part of the remark is true, but not the
second. In fact, the associated qualities of our mind are strangely
joined. I have known even a dandy to be a literary man, and a sloven
a fool. Harwood was excessively jealous, and that was almost his
only infirmity.
I at first thought I would write him a letter, telling him part of
the truth ; and telling him farther that Wardwell was likely to be encouraged in his daring attempts to supplant him in my sister’s affections. But on deeper reflection, a more refined plan struck my
fancy. There was a youth in college, a brother to Harwood, whom he
had delegated (such was his jealousy) to watch over my sister and
see that none invaded the property which he wished to appropriate to
himself. This office, which was a secret, gave him frequent access to
our house. I therefore sent for Wardwell ; I told him I was sorry for
the passion with which I had treated him ; I pretended that I never
really expected that his views were directed to me ; and I promised to
278 — The Cold Hand; A Tale
favor his courtship of my sister provided he would first remove the
only obstacle, the rival, which now occupies her heart. He, supposing
I meant Harwood the elder, said, “And that, I suppose, will be no
easy task.” “Yes,” said I. “It will be very easy ; but your thoughts are
on a wrong track. You must know it is not he, but his brother, who
now stands in your way. He is a lover only in name. Your best way
will be to write him at Litchfield that his brother is supplanting him
in my sister’s heart ; and what with the contest and the jealousy, both
may be out of your way, and there may be a fair passage for you to
the haven of your happiness.” Thus I deceived him ; for though
nature has denied to our sex the strength of men, yet they are no
match for us in malice or wit.
I need not dwell on this hateful story. Suffice it to say, my dupe
wrote ; Harwood became alarmed, wrote a strange letter to my sister
and another to his brother, received their replies, was not satisfied.
The green-eyed monster374 had affected his imagination. He came on
to New Haven, charged my sister with the crime which my malice
had formed and his imagination had exaggerated. High words arose
between them ; much sighing, many perturbations, many tears ; mischief was at work ; and when they could no longer talk by words,
they conversed by angry letters. It seemed also, that in parrying the
charge, my sister had informed him that he had entirely mistaken the
object of his jealousy ; for it was not his brother, but Wardwell, who
was the traitor and supplanter of his affections. But this only increased his suspicions. Cooped up between two conditions, finding
that there was an acknowledged rival in the case ; seeing that he was
in some degree losing my sister’s respect ; he suddenly broke the
connexion, and went on board an Indiaman375 for a three years voyage. In that voyage he was washed from the quarter-deck by a terrible wave, as the ship, in a tempest, was doubling the Cape of Good
Hope.376 My sister received the tidings from a newspaper just as she
was inditing to him a letter of explanation, in which she thought she
could not be too tender, nor hope for too happy an effect.
374 “O! beware, my lord, of jealousy; it is the green-ey’d monster which doth mock the meat
it feeds on.” William Shakespeare (1564-1616), Othello (Act 3: Scene 3).
375 A large sailing ship engaged in commerce with India.
376 The southernmost tip of Africa, first circumnavigated in 1488 by the Portuguese navigator Bartolomeu Dias (1450?-1500 ), who relevantly named it “Cape of Storms”.
Superstitions and Mental Disorders — 279
Her health had been failing for several months before this event
had taken place. There was a poor Irish family which lived in the
next street to ours, in which the mother, amidst her eight children,
had been thrown on a bed of sickness, destitute of almost all the necessaries of life. The story reached us and touched my sister’s compassion. For my part I troubled my head very little with the wants of
such wretches. I considered them as born to suffer, and I left them to
suffer ; but my sister was always poking her head into some of these
scurvy hovels of misery and want. She might have sent relief but it
was a maxim with her always to see the victims before she relieved
them. How she could visit such abodes, I could not imagine. It was,
however, in the spring ; the snow was melting, she took a cold, and
had a cough all that season. Then came her trouble of mind—the
agitation of parting from her lover—his absence and his death ; and
not one kind word or look from me, for how could I sympathize with
a humbled beauty. She was evidently going into a consumption, and
we buried her just three months after the news arrived of the death of
Harwood.
Just before she expired, she called me to her bedside, and taking
my hand in the most affectionate manner, she asked me, since we
were soon to part, to forgive all the negligences with which she
might have treated me. “Sister,” said she, “since you have regarded
me of late with increasing coldness, and it is inexpressibly distressing to view myself as the guilty cause, shall I ask too much if
——.” Here she fainted, and never recovered strength to finish her
question ; the next day we were parted by death, for ever.
It was not until she had been dead a week that all my turpitude
came rolling on my mind. But as I was retiring to rest, and saw the
vacant pillow where she used to lie, the lines of Montgomery377 came
to my recollection,
“The head that oft this pillow prest,
That aching head has gone to rest.”
I retired to sleep, but could not sleep ; I was agitated, feverish,
nervous. The thought for the first time struck my mind that my nefarious plotting might have caused my sister’s death. Her last dying
377 James Montgomery (1771-1854), a British editor and poet, who was a strong abolitionist
and an active member of the Bible Society; besides secular poetry, he wrote some 400 hymns.
280 — The Cold Hand; A Tale
words were ringing in my ears ; that she should ask pardon when the
crime was mine, overwhelmed me. I seemed to see her pale, placid
cheek, even in death softened with a gentle smile. It is impossible to
describe the horror that came over me. My envy, my hatred, my rage,
seemed to stand around me like so many fiends. I saw my selfishness
in its true light. I regarded myself as the very worst being in creation.
“Yes,” said I, “Heaven is just ; it has stamped my heart’s deformity
on my face ; it has hung out a sign that all beings may avoid me ; and
thou, my poor, martyred, injured sister, happier in thy sorrows than I
in my success how gladly would I, with a scantling of thy virtues,
sleep with thee. But I am one to whom life is insupportable, and the
grave offers no refuge.”
I tossed on my bed until the morning, and that day the thought of
suicide entered my mind. It may seem strange, but though I had a full
belief in a future existence and the retribution of eternity, I resolved
to put an end to my life. I hardly know what were my expectations.
There is a degree of moral distress which amounts to distraction. My
feelings were too confused to analyse them. When evening came, I
walked down to a little stream which runs beneath the cast rock, resolved to throw myself in, and sink to rise no more. I had a confused
impulse on my spirits which urged me to this effort or relief. As I
was walking to the scene, a little after sunset, a large black cloud,
gleaming with lightning, surcharged with thunder, was spreading its
vast, gloomy wings over the mountain ; and ever and anon the peals
were falling on my ear. The scene suited my feelings and my purpose. As I walked over the lonely field, and saw the rugged peaks of
East rock, and heard the tempest growling in the sky, every horror in
nature seemed to add firmness to my purpose. I had resolved, and
nothing seemed able to shake my resolution. Whoever has walked
from the thicket of houses in New Haven to this spot, must have remarked the stillness and retirement that reigns around ; a few straggling trees shade the brink ; the water slumbers in its course ; the
craggy precipices of the mountain lift their rocky heights ; and then,
as you gaze below, the few trees on its brow seem growing in the
sky. At this time the dreary scene was overspread by an exceedingly
black cloud, emblem of the darker tempest which was warring in my
breast. As I stood meditating for a moment on the awful prospect
previously to my plunging into the water, there came a very heavy
Superstitions and Mental Disorders — 281
clap of thunder, and the long repercussion of its roar shook me to the
soul. It is strange, the sound alarmed me ; I had always been exceedingly fearful of thunder ; and though I thought I was resolved to die,
yet this heavy sound suspended my purpose ; I walked home
drenched in the rain, resolving to find some other passage to the
world of spirits.
Still my purpose of self-destruction was not removed. To think
was impossible ; to pray or hope for mercy was beyond my expectations, almost beyond my desire. It has often been observed of
our sex, that the more violent forms of death, as of the sword or pistol, are not generally the chosen methods. The gentle opiate, laying at
once conscience and consciousness asleep, is more pleasing to the female mind. I resolved, therefore, that night to take a quantity of opium, which should quiet me, if possible, for ever. The world was
nothing to me ; I was a stranger in it. Even my venerable parents,
only child as I now was, must almost cease to love me. Dissevered
from the social tie, why should one linger in a world to which one
ceases to belong.
I had placed my candle in a chair by my bedside ; and near, in a
piece of blue paper, the dose which was to convey death to my hated
body. My little morocco-bound bible lay on the table, and my sister’s, just like it, lay by its side. I dared not look into them. But Southerne’s Oroonoko378 happened to be near me ; I opened it, and my
eyes fell upon these lines
“I would not live on the same earth with creatures
That only have the faces of their kind.”
Act IV. Scene 2.
“Tis so,” said I ; “these same faces are all.” I took my opiate,
and laid my head on my pillow as I supposed to rise no more.
But whether it was that my dose was not large enough, or whether it was that I had been accustomed to the use of opium, yet so it
was, that, instead of death that night, I had a remarkable vision.
Every one knows that opium, when it fails to produce death, fills the
mind with phantoms and shadows created by a stimulated fancy.
378 Oroonoko, a Tragedy (1695) a play by the Irish dramatist Thomas Southerne (16601746), inspired by Oroonoko, or the Royal Slave (1688), a short novel by Aphra Behn (16401689), one of the first professional women writers in English.
282 — The Cold Hand; A Tale
However, I thought all real ; it seemed to me supernatural. I thought I
was dying in consequence of my dose, and dreadful were the pangs
of separation. My guilt lay like a mountain on my breast, and over
me stood a fiend ready to catch my departing spirit. I felt myself to
be expiring in the deepest fears, and the deepest despair. A cold hand
seemed to cross my brow, and a low voice seemed to murmur IT IS
ALL OVER WITH HER. I strove to groan, and could not ; to move, but
strength was denied me. The candle looked as if it were waning, and
the chamber was soon involved in almost total darkness. I seemed to
be swimming off in an ocean of darkness, beyond the world, beyond
the sun, moving with a fearful velocity ; and every little while a cold
hand would gently press my forehead. It was inconceivably horrible.
I supposed they were bearing me to hell, which I imagined lay far
beyond the material creation. I thought I saw frightful monsters
around me, winged beasts, birds of gigantic size with human faces,
and dark hags, with their fingers dripping with blood. But amidst all
these frightful forms there was a deep silence, and nothing seemed so
dreadful as those intervals when the cold hand would just touch and
cross my brow. It shot an unspeakable horror through my trembling
frame. After moving on with a velocity compared with which that of
light would be slow, all at once I saw the shades around tinged with a
dim, livid flame. The monsters that were bearing me stopped, as if
preparing to let me drop ; and, crying out in the sailor’s phrase
“stand from under,” they let drop, and I felt myself to be falling
through a vast vacuity ; every moment increased my progress, and I
had no doubt I should soon plunge into that fiery lake where the
wicked are believed to groan away their infinite ages of horror and
despair.379 At last I reached the bottom ; a sudden jar seemed to shake
all my frame and beat the breath out of my body. I fainted, and lost
my consciousness ; but in a little time recovered, and the first thing I
felt was that same cold hand crossing my brow. I started up with horror, and looked around expecting to see ghosts screaming, fiery
waves rolling, and tormenting fiends waiting to seize me for their
prey,—when lo ! I found myself in a beautiful garden, the very image of paradise ; trees with mingled blossoms and fruit, crystal
streams, clustering roses, birds in the branches, and every form of
379 Certainly borrowed from Milton’s (1608-1674) vision of Hell in Paradise Lost (1667);
see note 432.
Superstitions and Mental Disorders — 283
happiness and delight. A little cherub, with a basket of flowers in his
hand, came and presented me one ; but I could not smell, it smelt like
brimstone ; another came with a cup of wine, which he offered me to
drink, but to me it tasted like fire ; a third came and bound a garland
of roses around my brow, but the cold hand thrust it off, and all its
leaves lay withering at my feet. I arose, and strove to walk ; but
every step was painful, and wherever I trod I saw a track of blood. If
I touched a leaf or a tree, they immediately died and I thought myself
more wretched than if I had, as I expected, dropped into a lake of
fire. I saw a great many beautiful, happy beings, but they all began to
shun me, so that I was in danger of being for ever alone. O, the horror of solitude ! I could not bear it. “Plunge me among the devils,”
said I ; “let me roll on burning oceans in company, but let me not
dwell alone.” At length there came a little smiling cherub, looking
like a little healthy child about two years old, (I at first thought him
smiling, but at length saw the tears mingled with his smiles,) with
two looking-glasses in his hand, on the backs of which was written—
THIS FOR THE BODY ; THIS FOR THE MIND. “Would you like,” said he, “to
look into these glasses ?” I assented, and the first he held up was that
for the body. I looked in ; but oh, such a face ! I never saw myself so
before. It seemed to me that the most miserable old hag that was ever
bent down by age and infirmity in a poor-house, was an angel to me ;
and yet I thought that the expression of the face was worse than the
face itself. But when he came to present the other glass, no metaphors can paint, no language express, the forms of darkness and deformity I saw assembled in my own breast. I then knew for the first
time what Young380 means when he says—
“Heaven spares all beings but itself,
That most revolting sight—a naked human heart.”
Then I saw Envy, in the shape of an enormous serpent, curling
around my heart, the venom oozing from his mouth ; Rage, in the
shape of a vulture, tearing my soul ; Ingratitude to heaven, in the
shape of a swine ; all my little low arts, in the shape of a fox ; every
reptile of every name was there, and every corner of the mansion was
polluted. I felt as if a ray of self-knowledge was now shot into my
380 Edward Young (1683-1765) English poet known for his dramatic monologue Night
Thoughts on Life, Death, and Immortality (1742-1745).
284 — The Cold Hand; A Tale
soul, and the sight filled me with despair. I never felt such a shuddering at toad, asp, crocodile, lizard, snake, scorpion, as I now felt at
myself. “Divide me from myself” said I ; “separate my consciousness from my memory, or I am undone for ever.” I thought that my
piercing cries filled the whole garden, and the celestials came around
me in a circle, all standing and weeping, with inexpressible pity in
their faces, but looking as if they knew not how to help me. At length
I saw at a distance, under a tree, a man of middle stature, serene and
melancholy in his aspect, with his hair parted on his forehead,
covered with a white mantle, and holding a branch of a tree in his
hand, he approached me ; his step was slow and majestic ; I noticed
the scar of some previous wound in his hands and feet. He fixed his
eye upon me, but his look was melting but very terrible. I fell at his
feet and said— “O thou wonderful one, restore me to life once more ;
let me once more have the privilege of probation, and I will try to
move to the passion which I now see beaming from thy eye and pictured on thy brow.” He laid his finger on my head and said— “The
dead cannot return ; but——” There was an awful emphasis on the
monosyllable but. But what ? The agitation awoke me, and I found
the robin, which used to cheer my sister in her sickness, singing on
the cherry-tree before my window.
I arose, and felt for the first time a gleam of gratitude that I had
been restored from death when I had madly attempted to throw my
life away. Opening my sister’s bible, I happened to light on that passage in which the penitent woman is represented as washing the feet
of Jesus with her tears and wiping them with the hairs of her head.381
I was excessively affected ; I read and wept. Never had I shed such
tears before. Tears of rage and resentment were familiar to me, but it
was the first time I had ever shed the tears of grief. I felt as if my
heart was melted, and I could pour it out like water. I sat weeping for
an hour with emotion that no words could utter. At last the thought
came into my mind that I ought to pray, but I knew not how ; the
very attempt seemed to me impiety and presumption. At last, after
many sobs and ineffectual solutions, I knelt by my chair, and said—
God be merciful to me a sinner. ‘Twas all I could say. I arose and
walked my chamber for two hours with clasped hands, and it seemed
to me I could walk there for ever, I never wished to see a human be381 Mary
Magdalene, who was the first redeemed sinner to see Christ after his Resurrection.
Superstitions and Mental Disorders — 285
ing again. “No, vain world !” said I, “I will shun thy temptations, I
will never mingle in thy circles again.” At length a new thought started in my mind ; “I will go down,” said I, “and meet my parents with
smiles ; I will, if possible, never utter another peevish or malignant
word ; I will from this moment dedicate myself to the business of
making every body around me as happy as possible. I will forget myself—what am I ? a little bubble on the boundless ocean ; and whether I sparkle in the sun or sink into the waters, it matters not. A right
heart is all.” I went to my glass, and thought I saw an expression that
I never saw before.
It was now nearly noon, and I met my father and mother at the
dinner table ; I spoke to them with the tenderest voice I could. After
dinner I took hold of the first household affairs that occurred at hand.
I even went to help the servants in the kitchen. After we had cleared
up as the saying is, I went up to my chamber, and took all my fine
clothes (for I had hitherto been very dressy), and packed them up in
several bundles, and made it my business every day to go and distribute one of them in the negro families about town. I took my
costly ring, and went to a jeweller’s and sold it, and the avails I gave
to the poor Irish family in which my sister was so interested. My
father was a very close man, but to me he would always impart his
money. I took it only to distribute it to the sons and daughters of
need. Every day I took some walk of usefulness. Of certain people to
whom I never thought of speaking before, I now kindly inquired after
their health, and that of their fathers, brothers, uncles, and cousins. I
returned the smiles of all who would condescend to smile on me, and
was willing to visit every creature who would receive my company.
If I heard of objects of distress, I immediately flew to relieve them. I
was very fond of watching with the sick. Formerly to be broken of a
night’s rest, except it were for a ball or a party, threw me into a fit of
the spleen for a week ; but now these occasions hardly could come
too often. In short, I filled my mind with so many objects that I utterly forgot myself. I can truly say, that from one month’s end to the
other, the thought never entered my mind whether I was witty or
handsome, or accomplished or the reverse. I was a cypher in creation, and no calamity could make me less.
One fault I fell into at first, which I afterwards rectified. I had
been so excessively fond of dress that I thought I could not go too far
286 — The Cold Hand; A Tale
to the opposite extreme, and I began to dress like a fright—to wear
the coarsest materials, and to put them on in a negligent manner ; insomuch that some malicious people began to say that Miss Catharine
was aiming at the same object by an opposite road. She wants to be
distinguished. I soon, however, altered my mode. I dressed as plain
as possible, kept the middle of the fashion, and am now so fortunate
as to escape notice.
My father was now growing old, and was very much broken by
trouble and by age ; and although during the days of my peevishness
he had treated me with the utmost indulgence, (alas ! he almost
spoiled me by his kindness,) he now became peevish in his turn. It
was impossible to please him. I seemed to see myself pictured in
him. I knew what it was to be displeased in ourselves, and vent our
displeasure on some innocent object ; to feel the wound, and impute
it to the wrong arrow. Indeed, some charity is due to the unhappy ;
for if vice in its influence rankles in our hearts and produces misery
—misery, in its turn, operates by a reciprocal causation, and produces vice.
I resolved never to return to my father’s fretfulness one impertinent word. He had taken a fancy never to eat any thing but what
was cooked by my hands, and yet I scarcely could please him by my
cookery. One day I prepared his dish six times, and almost received
his execrations for not accomplishing impossibilities. Once, as I was
kneeling to put on his slippers on his gouty feet, I happened to hurt
him, and he kicked me almost across the room. Often has he warned
me to leave the house—threatened to disinherit me. But I resolved
that his impatient temper should be the monitor to mine. Since the remarkable morning, I have never answered him with a passionate
reply.
I was now an only child, with a prospect of being rich, unless
my father should, in a fit of spleen, disinherit me. But as this was not
very likely, I had now several offers of marriage. They were real
ones ; but whether it was love or money that brought my bumble adorers at my feet, I could not doubt for a moment when I looked in my
looking-glass or my father’s money bags. I was never handsome ; I
was now passing over thirty, and Time never repairs the injuries of
nature in a woman’s face. Sometimes I confess my vanity would almost get the better of my prudence, and suggest that possibly it
Superstitions and Mental Disorders — 287
might be love which brought my admirers around me. But when I
saw them languishing and yet shrinking, longing to rush to my arms
and yet starting back from me as if I were a wild beast, I could not
doubt as to the motive. Yet I was very patient with human nature. I
dallied with no man’s passions, though it might be gold that inspired
it.
Yet sometimes I could not help laughing to see the ridiculous
figure which some of my disinterested admirers would make. There
was a young lawyer in New Haven, an ambitious fellow, who wished
to rise in the world, about ten years younger than myself. He had
already offered himself to one old widow in Stamford,382 and a rich
girl, half a fool, in New-York ; and now he brought his tender addresses to me. He once acted his part most abominably, and pretended to be dreadfully in love. Among other things, the simpleton had
the presumption to praise my beauty, and ask me to let him have my
portrait in miniature, with a lock of my hair, which he promised to
wear in his bosom. I pretended to agree, and told him he must first
give me his picture ; I took it, and inclosing it in a very beautiful case
of gold which I had, returned it to him with this inscription :—
“The shell is yours ; O wear it in your breast,
And kiss the picture, which you love the best.”
But why should I sport with the follies of human nature ? let me
rather sorrow for my own.
Within a few years my father and mother have died ; and I am
left with a handsome property. An orphan girl, whom I took from her
mother’s death-bed, is my constant companion. I spend my time, like
Dorcas of old,383 in making garments for the poor, and visiting them.
I bear malice and ill-will to nothing under heaven, except my own
former character ; that I perfectly hate. I always spend one day every
year in fasting rigorously, and that is the anniversary of my sister’s
death. Then I weep and pray for twenty-four hours in succession,
without food or sleep. I have long since forgiven all my enemies, and
am determined never to speak another malicious word ; and though I
cannot say I am perfectly happy, (that would be too much for a wo382 A
383 A
city in Connecticut, founded in 1641, on Long Island Sound.
Christian woman, raised from the dead by St. Peter, who made clothes for the poor.
288 — The Cold Hand; A Tale
man past thirty, with such a face as mine,) yet I have ceased to be
miserable. I am most happy when I most forget myself.
One thing I would not omit. One evening, as I was walking
home alone, (for a woman of my face and age need not fear to walk
by night alone,) I happened to be behind two gentlemen who were
talking about me. I had too much female curiosity not to listen.
“What a change,” says one ; “she is now really an agreeable
woman.” “Yes,” said the other, “and I’ll be hanged if the change has
not reached to her face. She is now almost handsome.” “No,” said
the first, “she is not handsome ; she looks less like the devil than she
used to.” Such are the eulogies on poor Catharine.
__________
Conversations with the Devil
Notice
De Diabolo
I
n a most satirical tone, the author of this little fable parodies
Dante’s Inferno and the protagonist’s voyage through each of
its concentric circles, transposed into the realm of literature. His long
pseudo-historical presentation ironically points out the Ancients’ insufficiencies as regards their “simplistic” conceptions of the “universal friend, our great enemy” (302), for they ignored “[s]ociety, as it
exists among modern civilized nations” (302), before it summarizes
some of the most famous fictional descriptions of the Devil and his
dominions, from Dante and Milton to Goethe and Thomas Moore.
Deliberately criticizing the superficiality of modern society which he
reduces to “the iron grasp of etiquette” (302), the narrator brings his
substantial introduction to a close by underlining humorously “the
difference between a German and an English Devil” (304): the
former, “a student, with long, dirty-looking, sandy hair, and wild
blue eyes, and a face ten times as ugly as his own ; shabbily dressed ;
and walking more like a locomotive than a man” (304), embodying
German Romanticism and Goethe’s early years as a student in
Leipzig and Strasbourg, whereas the latter, wearing “a handsome
coat from Stultz’s, and a most knowing hat . . . behav[ing] very much
like a gentleman, too, throughout his walk” (305) caricaturing Beau
Brummell’s384 and Byron’s dandyism. Clearly enough, European literature, and in particular Romanticism, which inspired so many
American writers, is here presented as devilish in essence.
Then follows a long dream inspired by the author’s ruminations
about the Devil which takes the form of a voyage into “the hell of
books” in which he is guided, like Dante was by Virgil, by a
“hideously ugly” (305) man whose “skin [was] appearing very much
like wet paper, and [his] forehead [was] covered with those cabalistic
signs whose wondrous significance are best known to those who correct the press” (305). From the limbos385 of “all still-born and abort384 See note 160.
385 An ironic echo
ferno (canto IV).
of Dante: “Suspended in that Limbo many a soul / Of mighty worth.” In-
Conversations with the Devil — 291
ive publications” (307) to the “deeper division” destined to receive
“American re-prints of English publications” (313), the narrator visits one after the other the different categories of publications, from
the most apparently innocent or naïve to a “class of books that were
unknown in former times” (313), relegated to a place which would
correspond, in Dante’s Hell, to that dedicated to the worst of all sins:
treachery.386
In his peregrinations through “the hell of books,” the narrator
observes the behavior of several kinds of literary works that “have
souls as well as men” (306) and have sinned someway or another,
and he sorts them out in so many categories, scattered in various
areas according to the nature of their sins. One of the kinds which the
narrator obviously decries is that of books which are far from being
mature pieces and whose “infantine” attitude evokes that of “newborn puppies, kittens with disk eyes unopened, and babes just come
to light, . . . whelping, mewing, and squalling at once” (307). Among
many other literary failures lies Fenimore Cooper’s The Monikins
(1835) a “work [which] was hastily written” and whose lack of formal achievement proved “that publishers may sometimes mistake
their own interests”.387 Moreover, the narrator unquestionably seems
to have little consideration for some of the feminine writings of his
times, as he scorns “’Young Ladies’ Albums,’ which it was necessary to souse in the slough, to prevent them from stealing passages
from the various works about them” (308), but also Miss Evans’s
Resignation (1828) which suffered from “the injustice and severity
of critics” but revealed the “bad taste of the public” for that “first effort” of a “feminine mind” (307), together with Elizabeth Palmer Peabody’s Records of a School (1835)388 which is supported by “two of
the most abstruse, learned, and incomprehensible of the metaphysical
productions of Germany (312); only the Irish female novelist Maria
386 Treachery is thus defined by Dante: “Fraud, that in every conscience leaves a sting, /
May be by man employ’d on one, whose trust / He wins, or on another who withholds / Strict
confidence. . . . Whence in the lesser circle, / Point of the universe, dread seat of Dis [the god
of the underworld], / The traitor is eternally consum’d.” Inferno (canto XI: 55-69).
387 Quoted from James Fenimore Cooper’s daughter, Susan Fenimore Cooper (1813-1894),
Pages and Pictures from the Writings of James Fenimore Cooper, with Notes by Susan Fenimore Cooper, New York: W.A. Townsend and Co., 1861, 275. Thirty years later, Mark Twain
(1835-1910) wrote about Cooper’s literary art: “It has no invention; it has no order, system, sequence, or result; it has no lifelikeness, no thrill, no stir, no seeming of reality; its characters
are confusedly drawn” in his essay “Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses” (1895).
388 See supra note 457.
292 — Notice
Edgeworth (1767-1849), who wrote with such a “beautiful serenity”
(310), seems to merit his praise.
However, even books whose unquestionable qualities are universally acknowledged seem to deserve their unfortunate condition:
among them, the works of famous writers: “Fielding, Smollett,
Maturin, and Godwin” and even “D’Israeli, Bulwer, and Hugo”
(308) and above all Byron,389 “the Prince of this division of hell”
(310), are “longing for repose, and they can get none on account of
the insatiable vanity of their authors, whose desire for distinction
made them careless of the sentiments they expressed and the principles they advocated” (309). Even the works of the “Infidel” enlightened by reason, “are doomed to everlasting torpor” (311), like
those of Voltaire390 and the German philosophers; but still worse are
the newspapers, grotesquely emitting “a confused sound like the
quacking of myriads of ducks and geese” (311), placed “deeper in
hell than the Infidel publications . . . because they are so much more
extensively read, and thereby do much greater mischief” (311). What
their “sins” are becomes clearer as the narrator castigates moral dereliction more than literary weaknesses, even if his recurrently ironic
and caricatural tone sounds more like a denunciation of superficiality, obscurantism and prejudices than like a sincere conservative
condemnation.
Metaphysics and religion are not better treated and “all the false
works upon theology which have been written since the beginning of
the Christian era” together with “all the minor works to which it gave
origin” (312), and above all “German Metaphysical works, and other
treaties of a similar unintelligible character” are condemned “to
wander about all eternity in the hopeless maze of this labyrinth”
(312). But the worse sort of books, confined in “the original chaos on
which [the devil’s] domains are founded” (313) is that of “American
re-prints of English publications” (313). The narrator’s guide rightfully asserts that his evil domain is founded on American reprints,
often pirated from original or official editions.391 Indeed, this prac389 See supra note 446 and 447; infra note 161.
390 See supra note 454.
391 Among many other examples, in 1744, Benjamin
Franklin (1706-1790) pirated Samuel
Richardson’s (1689-1761) first novel Pamela: or, Virtue Rewarded (1740) ; in 1842, Harper issued a pirated version of Charles Dickens’s (1812-1870) American Notes (1842) and Martin
Chuzzlewit (1843).
Conversations with the Devil — 293
tice, encouraged by the absence of extended copyright laws, was supposed to favor the education of the Americans, but in fact established
an unfair competition for local writers, often obliged to pay their
publishers. The Copyright Act of 1790, inspired by the lexicographer
Noah Webster (1758-1843),392 was designed for “the Encouragement
of Learning, by securing the Copies of Maps, Charts and Books, to
the Authors and Proprietors of such Copies” but it protected only
“the author and authors of any map, chart, book or books already
printed within these United States, being a citizen or citizens
thereof”,393 leaving the possibility to copy foreign authors freely.
Published twelve years after John Neal’s American Writers
(1824),394 this little pseudo-philosophical tale not only denounces the
mores and the wrongs of the American publishing circles of the time,
but it establishes moral criteria for the literary world by underlining
their occasional absence. Its use of parody establishes by contrast,
the bases of an authentic code of ethics.
_______________
Hans the Horse-Breaker
T
his story would have slavishly followed the classic pattern
of the Faustian tragedy, if its denouement had not differed
markedly from the standard ending. It is set back in time, in “a little
isolated township, which is perhaps unchronicled on any map” where
life is that of “the original Dutch settlers . . . who are still “cherishing
immemorial customs, and full of old world virtue and morality”
(315). Here again, the setting is that of the colonial past of the United
States, a literary region assuredly conducive to the telling of Americanized supernatural tales inspired by European legends. The style reflects adequately the author’s care to render the ancient background
of his narrative, in particular with his occasional use of archaisms
such as “wroth” (320) or “monied” (321), even if humor is never absent as, for example, when the narrator ironizes about the protagon392 His major work An American Dictionary of the English Language (1828), contributed to
the standardization of the American language.
393 As it appeared in the Columbian Sentinel of July, 17, 1790, published in Boston.
394 John Neal (1793-1876), American author and literary critic. He was a promoter of American literature to which he brought a clean, sometimes simple style, far from British literary
standards.
294 — Notice
ist’s recklessness by asserting that he “verily believe[s] he would
have faced a cannon’s mouth to sustain his reputation—especially if
the deadly engine were unloaded” (317).
The personality of the protagonist, Hans Hopper, borrows from
several of Washington Irving’s characters, not unlike the general
tone of the narrative:395 Rip van Winkle, but also Brom Bones and
Dolph Heiliger,396 at least as far as his “extreme mobility of body”
(316) is concerned. Like Rip, Hans’s father proves unable to run his
estate as “[h]e was grievously afflicted with the murrain among his
cattle and the blight among his corn, and if he ever had a crop that
promised remarkably well, the neighbors’ cows were sure to break
into the field, or some prodigious hailstorm to arise, which made no
havoc on adjacent farms” (316).397 Similarly, he is the victim of a
“vixen of a wife” (316) who owes nothing to Dame van Winkle.
While Rip had “an insuperable aversion to all kinds of profitable
labor,” Hans himself “was much too indolent to work” (316), and
when “not a dog would bark at [Rip] throughout the neighborhood,”
then in the same way “not a dog could come into the town without
acknowledging the charm of [Hans’s] voice” (316). But Hans himself is far from sharing Rip’s indolence and his reputation of a
trouble-maker in the neighborhood equals that of Irving’s Brom van
Brunt:398 “when engaged in the perpetration of any mischief, there
was no labor too severe for him. He grew up the terror of all the good
housewives in the village” (316). Both men are “strongly-built, with
square shoulders” (316), and while Brom “was famed for great
knowledge and skill in horsemanship, being as dexterous on horseback as a Tartar,” Hans is also an expert in horses and he “could subdue the fiercest horse” (317) so that his reputation owed him the
395 On humor in Washington Irving, see Daniel Royot “Washington Irving et Diedrich
Knickerbocker : L’humour de Janus sur les rives de l’Hudson” Alizés, n° 17, “Washington
Irving”, Université de La Réunion, June 1999.
396 See “Rip van Winkle” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” in The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. (1819-1820); “Dolph Heiliger” and its sequel “The Stormship” in Bracebridge Hall (1822).
397 Rip’s supposed “ill luck” is described in almost similar terms: “every thing about it went
wrong, and would go wrong, in spite of him. His fences were continually falling to pieces; his
cow would either go astray, or get among the cabbages; weeds were sure to grow quicker in his
fields than anywhere else; the rain always made a point of setting in just as he had some outdoor work to do” (“Rip van Winkle”).
398 Brom van Brunt, alias Brom Bones, “was always ready for either a fight or a frolic” so
that the “old dames” look at him “with a mixture of awe, admiration, and good-will” (“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”).
Conversations with the Devil — 295
nickname of Dare-Devil Hans.399 Dolph Heiliger may have served as
an other model for Hans Hopper for he also “was continually getting
into scrapes” and “could not, for the life of him, resist any new
temptation to fun and mischief”.400 But the main source of inspiration, as far as the general intrigue is concerned, is certainly Irving’s
“The Devil and Tom Walker,” in which a man in need, afflicted with
“a tall termagant, fierce of temper, loud of tongue, and strong of
arm” signs a contract with “Old Scratch” to become “a rich and
mighty man.”401 Both men meet the “Evil One” at night in a dark
forest and they cannot resist his shifty proposition. However, the unexpected ending transforms the supernatural tale into a farce when
the aptly named Dare-Devil Hans eventually subdues his master at
the end of the three-year compact, beating him on his favorite
ground: horsemanship. Dominated by Hans, the devil is turned into a
horse as he “roared beneath the lash, reared, plunged, and used every
mischievous exertion of which his tremendous strength was capable,
to unseat his rider, but in vain. At length, when he was totally obedient, Hans vaulted lightly to the ground and let him go. The liberated
demon fled like a bolt from a bow” (322), and Hans lived happily
ever after.
The forces of Evil have often been the source of inspiration of
literary works, and among them, Goethe’s Faustian tragedy is emblematic of the vanity of dealing with Satan. By ridiculing the Devil
in person, this American tale does not only declare its independence
from the Faustian line, but at the same time from the European tradition, by showing humorously how a Dutch colonist in the New
World can outwit the Devil himself on the American ground and
make a fortune with his “valuable” (322) horse.
_____________
399 Brom’s favorite horse was also called Daredevil.
400 “Dolph Heiliger” (1822).
401 Washington Irving, “The Devil and Tom Walker”
(1819) in Tales of a Traveller (1824).
See Alain Geoffroy “Desire and Death in Washington Irving’s ‘The Devil and Tom Walker’”
Alizés, n° 17, “Washington Irving”, Université de La Réunion, June 1999.
296 — Notice
A Visit to the Clerk of the Weather
I
n this fable, possibly written by Nathaniel Hawthorne402 and
partly inspired by Dante’s Inferno,403 a “sober citizen” (323)
is conducted to the lair of the Clerk of the Weather so that he can
learn whether and why the coming spring would be late or early. Although he is not actually led to the Devil’s very home, many disquieting details color his adventure with devilish undertones. His
guide, “a little old woman in a gray cloak . . . encircl[es] [his] arm as
if [he] had been in the grasp of a skeleton” (323), and from the outset, she makes it clear that she does not belong to the world of God
by stressing the protagonist’s own latent unbelief: “You have taken
his name in vain . . . often enough, and it is evident that you believe
not in his existence” (323).
At the term of his journey, the protagonist discovers “a pile of
rocks of a singular form” whose shape irresistibly evokes that of a
volcano: “About a dozen tall, slate-colored rocks—each one of
which was seven acres in height—had been thrown together in a
circle in the form of a pyramid, the points meeting at the top . . . I observed a light smoke rising up through a small aperture on the very
apex of this gigantic cone” (324). In this abode lives a formidable
Vulcan,404 “a venerable, stately old man, with long gray locks . . .
[and a] massive frame and [a] fierce expression [in] his eyes” (324),
while in his forge, a “quantity of thunderbolts [are] manufactured”
and earthquakes are patched up (327). Soon the visit takes a humorous turn, especially when the old man answers, after the visitor
has indicated that he came from Boston: “I do not recollect any planet of that name” (325), which makes the fame of the revolutionary
city quite relative...
The next backbiting from the Clerk of the Weather’s part aims at
“persons on [the protagonist’s] little planet who pretend to be of [his]
council, and who send out little printed missiles, pretending to great
ingenuity, wherein it is set forth that on such and such a day there
402 Although published anonymously, this tale is generally attributed to Hawthorne (18041864). The same character reappears in his short story “A Select Party” (1844).
403 See supra note 429.
404 The son of Jupiter and blacksmith of the gods, who manufactured thunderbolts for the
exclusive use of his father..
Conversations with the Devil — 297
shall be a tempest—thunder and lightning—or fervent heat” (325).
Weather forecasting was still quite approximative in those days and
often based either on weather lores405 or local observation. Meteorology began to be more reliable after the thermometer and the barometer were perfected in the seventeenth century, but before the invention of the telegraph in 1837, no integration of scattered local
data could be made, which did not prevent various publications to
propose weather forecasts eagerly-awaited, especially by farmers and
sailors. Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) was a pioneer in this domain
and he lay the bases of scientific weather forecasting. He proposed a
theory of the formation of storms406 prolonging Edmond Halley’s
discovery of the origin of winds,407 and suggested the establishment
of a network of observers, which would only be realized later on,
thanks to the invention of the telegraph,408 by James Pollard Espy
(1785-1860), then meteorologist to the War (1842) and Navy (1848)
departments.
In colonial times and before meteorology became a federal business, the information about the weather was conveyed by several
widely read almanachs, among which were Franklin’s famous Poor
Richard’s Almanac409 and the Old Farmer’s Almanac410 which is still
published annually today. But weather forecasts were not always seriously dealt with and were often parodied. To some extent, this text
belongs to the same tradition of humor, that of a self-derisive America embodied by the congressman on the head of whom a thunderbolt
“unfortunately alighted” and “bounded back to the skies” (327). Although he never actually was a “member of Congress,”411 the person
405 Pre-scientific maxims or adages supposed to predict the weather.
406 The lunar eclipse of Autumn 1743 was the occasion for Franklin
to elaborate a theory of
the formation of the tempests in New England. See Keith C. Heidorn, “Eclipsed by Storm” in
The Weather Doctor’s Weather Almanac, October 2003.
407 The British astronomer Edmond Halley (1656-1742) discovered that winds are caused by
air flowing in to replace heated air that has risen, and thus that they were conditioned by barometric pressure.
408 In 1844, Samuel F. B. Morse (1791-1872) sent the famous message “What hath God
wrought” over a wire from Washington to Baltimore.
409 Published yearly from 1732 to 1757. It proposed a calendar, weather forecasts, astronomical and astrological information, as well as poems and a collection of Franklin’s aphorisms and proverbs.
410 Founded by Robert Bailey Thomas (1766-1846) in 1792, The Farmer’s Almanac became
the Old Farmer’s Almanac after 1832. It contained weather forecasts, tide tables, information
about gardening or astronomy.
411 Franklin served in the Continental Congress from 1775 to 1776.
298 — Notice
of Benjamin Franklin, the witty almanach editor, the inventor of the
lightning rod and a visionary meteorologist, comes irresistibly to
mind.
_______________
Lazy Jake. Or the Devil Nonplussed
T
he myth of Faust, combined with a parodic version of The
Book of Job,412 is one more time revisited in this novelette
in five chapters which owes a lot to the “yarn” tradition.413 However,
unlike Irving’s “The Devil and Tom Walker”414 also inspired by the
Faustian contract, the ending is far from being dramatic: announcing
the happy denouement of “Hans the Horse-breaker,”415 it stigmatizes
the mortifying defeat of Satan. Chapter I starts like a classic fairy tale
as it is staged “[a] long, long while ago, in the good old days when
witches had a legal existence” (328), but the mentioning of witches
instead of the awaited fairies sets the tone of the narrative from the
very outset. The Devil is then recurrently and humorously nicknamed, which discredits his person by making him almost familiar,
as he is successively called “old Nick,” “old Clootie,”416 “old
Scratch,” “old Hornie,” “the old Serpent,” “he of the fabulous tail,”417
“Sathan,” “Beelzebuth,” or else more conventionally “the Prince of
Darkness.”
Benjamin Peasblossom is a prosperous man owning “houses and
lands, and bonds and mortgages, and horses and cattle : and
moreover, certain old chests which, despite their iron ribs, were near
bursting with the gold and silver” (328) that he acquired with the
help of the Devil, who in due time—relevantly on the week preceding “quarter day”418—comes to claim his due. However, Benjamin, who refuses to fulfil his part of the contract, by referring to “a
proviso [according to which] if the said Benjamin at the day of for412 One
413 The
of the books of the Christian Old Testament. See supra note 437.
“yarn” was a long often complex narrative of real or fictitious adventures told in a
humoristic tone, belonging to the New England folklore.
414 See infra note 168.
415 “Hans the Horse-breaker”, The American Monthly Magazine, February 1836.
416 See supra note 328.
417 See supra note 35.
418 See supra note 481.
Conversations with the Devil — 299
feiture could enjoin old Clootie a task that he could not perform in a
twelvemonth, then he, the said Benjamin, should stand free and absolved” (328), defies his creditor “to make [his] neighbor, Lazy Jake,
rich” (330). The sequel of the story is inspired by another myth, that
of Job who was similarly tested by Satan who had defied God to preserve Job’s faith even in his worst moments of adversity.
Like Job before him, Jake had “a fairer chance for a life of prosperity” (334) as he inherited, besides a thriving farm, “money out at
interest, and a secret hoard of Spanish dollars” (334). However, his
proverbial laziness led him to lose one by one the riches he held from
his ancestors, until “[i]n a few years his money was called in, and in
a few more spent” (334). This flaw of character echoes Irving’s Rip
van Winkle who likewise displayed “an insuperable aversion to all
kinds of profitable labor” and “declared it was of no use to work on
his farm.”419 Moreover, the description of the degradation of Jake’s
estate borrows substantially from another tale by Irving, like in the
evocation of his extreme poverty which echoes that of Tom Walker’s
wretched farm, embodied by the poor “wall-eyed horse . . . hanging
his head out of the weather-boards of the stable” (335), a miserable
double of Tom’s scrawny “horse, whose ribs were as articulate as the
bars of a gridiron.”420 In the same Irvingian vein,421 Jack has a dream
of the revelation of the presence of a treasure buried by his ancestor:
“he had a vision of his grandfather, who told him that in the orchard
. . . was buried a huge jar of gold, which he had hidden there during
an Indian incursion, and afterwards left as a safe deposit” (337).
Jake, who once was “a mass of soft unhealthy fat” (335), eventually
“gr[ows] thinner and thinner” (337), while his poverty increases under the malevolent undermining action of Satan, as enigmatically as
Job’s: “[Jake] could not see into it; it was very mysterious” (337).
Having unsuccessfully tried to make Jake rich by encouraging him to
marry a “fat widow, aged forty and upwards, of large person and income” (339), the Devil tries to seduce Jake at all cost, resorting to all
the supposedly morally unacceptable means he can think of, such as
“pride, ambition, patriotism, and I know not what beside” (340), but
all in vain. Like his illustrious biblical predecessor, Jake resists both
419 Washington Irving, “Rip van Winkle” (1819).
420 Washington Irving, “The Devil and Tom Walker” (1819).
421 In “Dolph Heiliger” (1822), the protagonist is informed by
treasure is hidden in a well.
an old man in a dream that a
300 — Notice
temptation and mortal sins—among which patriotism—, and like in
the Book of Job, the Devil eventually gives up, vanquished by a quality apparently as powerful as faith: laziness, a comparison which
could not have failed to offend puritan ears still numerous in the first
half of the century.
However, the provocative tone of the story is tempered with a
good solid humor following the tradition of many fashionable New
England writings.422 The longstanding puritan—or Jeffersonian—opposition between the country and the town is deliberately blurred for
satirical reasons in this tale as the village is not more virtuous than
New York, the city of all sins in which brokers make their wealth,
not unlike Benjamin, with the Devil’s help, and where the avaricious
dairyman’s milk is scandalously devoid of cream... The interview between Benjamin and the Devil turns into a farce when Susan, the
“heroine introduced” (328) in the subtitle of chapter I, in fact “a fine
bouncing maiden of fourteen” (330), appears unexpectedly in the
middle of the conversation and cannot resist Satan’s advances. The
author exploits the conventional goldmine of women’s moral weaknesses by revealing that afterward, Satan “became the god of her idolatry” and that “even at church, the poor ignorant creature fancied
he might be present” (341). More than misogynistic, the intention is
to denounce in a light tone the too numerous puritan writings condemning women as the mere playthings of carnal desires for want of
moral strength and discernment. The author’s irony is still visible
when he mentions the classical writers which were the customary
references of right-minded readers: “The Christian Soldier,” the British theologian Jeremy Taylor,423 and even Shakespeare and Byron;
similarly, the Devil is shown as “a tall “Werter-faced sort of a man,”
“melancholy and gentleman-like” (329), a cutting comparison directed not so much at Goethe424 or Ben Johnson,425 but at the conformist
intellectual and elitist tastes of the New England Brahmins.426 In the
same way, all the village notables are shown under their meanest col422 On humor in nineteenth-century New England, see Daniel Royot, L’humour américain:
des puritains aux yankees, Lyon: Presse Universitaires de Lyon, 1980.
423 See supra note 483.
424 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832), The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774), an
epistolary novel, partly autobiographical, telling the tragic story of a young artist who falls in
love with a woman who is already engaged and eventually kills himself out of despair.
425 See supra note 480.
426 Members of the cultural and social elite of the descendants of old New England families.
Conversations with the Devil — 301
ors: the greedy parson dreams of a “pulpit of the next town which
gave a higher salary” (332), whereas the apothecary dreams that he
poisons his patients to increase his income as well as that of the sexton, his partner in the business; as to the doctor, he refuses to visit a
dying person knowing “that he would never be paid for his services”
(332). However, times have changed since then, and the world is
now ruled by brokers who, according to the Devil’s “great idea,”
grow rich by “buying and selling stock on time.” (341) They all echo
Benjamin’s inextinguishable thirst for wealth, while making money
at all cost seems to have become the worst of sins, in the real world
as well as in this humorous parody of virtuous capitalism.

THE
AMERICAN MONTHLY MAGAZINE.
JANUARY, 1836.
(VOL. VII)
De Diabolo.
THE very existence of the Devil has been denied in these latter
days of unbelief and schism ; and this I pronounce to be a most foul,
abominable, and soul-destroying heresy ; and, in all probability, one
of the most cunning devices of the great enemy himself, to enable
him the better to accomplish his wicked ends. With this, however,
we have nothing to do, as our object is to write a treatise and not a
sermon.
The Greeks and Romans had no Devil ; and how they managed
to get along without one, is a perfect mystery to me ; to be sure their
gods, and more especially their goddesses, went very far towards
supplying his place ; but nothing could make up for the want of a
real unsophisticated Devil. When we reflect how much he has to do
with all the concerns of life, what a resource in all dilemmas, what a
comfort to the desperate, what a support to the most abandoned and
wretched, what an all-accommodating friend, we can hardly imagine
the machinery of life, among classic nations, to have gone on with
any sort of smoothness or regularity without him. One remarkable
feature in those nations, was the absence of what we call society.
They do not appear to have been acquainted with such a system. Society, as it exists among modern civilized nations enlisting in its
numbers all who pretend to rank or standing in the world, with all its
laws, stronger than the fiat of a despot, not bending under the terror
of dungeons and chains, nor even giving way before the slow but visible approach of death, holding us in the iron grasp of etiquette ; all
this was unknown to them.
This universal friend, our great enemy, “notre ami l'ennemi,”
has always made his character conformable to the times, and has
evidently been deeply imbued at every period with the spirit of the
age. Among the ancient Hebrews he assumed the same simplicity of
Conversations with the Devil — 303
character by which men were distinguished in those early times ; and
what Job would have done, if Satan had been up to his present tricks
in those days, I know not—but I am thinking his patience would
have been less famous427 if he had been tasked as the Devil tasks us
now a days — for instance, in reading Cooper’s novels, Cary, Lea &
Blanchard’s edition.428 Since the days of Job he has made his appearance in several very distinguished forms, besides the constant care he
has taken of the ordinary affairs of life. Nor have there been wanting
men of sufficient assurance to call upon him in his own dominions,
chez lui. The first and most remarkable of these visiters is, undoubtedly, Dante.429 The great Florentine, in his journey down the infernal tunnel, saw, to be sure, a number of minor devils ; but it was
not till he reached the bottom430 that he came into the presence of the
great Lucifer, Devil of devils, the father of evil, the enemy of God
and men, stretching his gigantic wings over the sea of ice, the everlasting prison of traitors.431 Dante, I believe, is the only poet who has
imagined hell to be an icehouse, the contrary theory being supported
by Milton432 and others, and rendered nearly certain by the testimony
of many a writer, now departed, whose experience is not to be
doubted. Chaucer was the second distinguished poet who made a visit to Satan in his own dominions.433 He was accompanied on this enterprise by an Angel, who very politely did the honors of the place to
him. After wandering about for some time viewing all the curiosities
427 In the Old Testament, Job, a prosperous virtuous man, was severely tested by Satan who
imposed upon him a series of hardships and afflictions until he lost all he owned. Despite his
disarray and resentment, Job did not lose his faith and was eventually rewarded by God. Hence
the phrase “as patient as Job.”
428 Carey, Lea & Blanchard, a publisher of Philadelphia. All the novels of James Fenimore
Cooper, including The Last of the Mohicans; a Narrative of 1757, 2 vol. (1826), originally appeared in this edition, from 1820 to 1850.
429 Alighieri Dante (1265-1321), Italy’s greatest poet. His masterpiece, The Divine Comedy
(1308-1321), relates a journey through Hell, Purgatory and Paradise.
430 Guided by Virgil, Dante goes through the nine circles of Hell, each one more evil than
the other, until he reaches the last one where Satan resides.
431 In the last circle, the damned are frozen in a lake of ice and ordered at various heights in
four concentric circles (Cantos 32 through 34).
432 John Milton (1608-1674), an English poet, best known for having written Paradise Lost
(1667), in which Satan and his damned angels are chained in Hell to a lake of fire. Incidentally,
Milton’s Areopagitica and his republican writings were consulted by the drafters of the Constitution of the United States.
433 Geoffrey Chaucer (1340?-1400) the greatest poet of medieval England, the author of The
Canterbury Tales (1387–1400). After having heard “The Friar’s Tale,” the Summoner, in the
prologue to his tale, evokes the story of a friar’s visit to Hell, during which he was made aware
of the complicity of friars and fiends.
304 — De Diabolo
and obtaining several introductions to the land, Chaucer inquires,
with no small astonishment why he had seen no monks there. “Is it
possible,” says he to the Angel, “that there are none of them here ?”
“By no means,” replied his celestial companion ; and leading him to
the side of our great enemy, he said—“Haud up thy tail, Sathanas.”434
Whereupon the Devil gave his tail a whisk, and out flew myriads of
friars from under it like swarms of mud-wasps from their nest. When
Chaucer had seen enough of them, the Angel ordered them all back
again to their hive, and the Devil slapped down his tail and fastened
them in.
The next remarkable exhibition of the Devil is in Milton—and
his Satan is too lofty a character to be properly discussed here. Every
one knows what he is, and I will say nothing about him to remark
that he is the last instance of a heroic Devil.435 Since the days dilutes,
our great enemy has never attempted sublimity of character. Goethe’s Mephistopheles436 is a simple incarnation of placid malice—he
would have made an excellent ambassador and minister plenipotentiary to any modern court in Europe, to say nothing of the figure he might have cut at Washington, if he could have managed not
to be outwitted there. I have sometimes thought, when I have been
reading certain of our newspapers, that he would have made an admirable editor.—But the editors themselves know best whether the
duties would not have proved too arduous for him. Now, only observe the difference between a German and an English Devil—
between Goethe’s creation and Coleridge’s ;437 the latter is a gentlemanly Devil, which is a phase of Satan that would never appear in
Germany ; Mephistopheles is hardly human enough to be likened to
any mortal in Germany ; if he had taken the character of a man there,
it would undoubtedly have been that of a student, with long, dirtylooking, sandy hair, and wild blue eyes, and a face ten times as ugly
434 (sic). In middle English : “Hold up thy tayl, thou sathanas! — quod he” (1689), in Chaucer’s “The Summoner’s Prologue.” See also supra note 35.
435 In Paradise Lost, Satan appears as a heroic character whose seduction is all the more
dreadfully efficient.
436 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), German writer and scientist, author of
Faust (1808; 1832) in which the eponymous alchemist sold his soul to the Devil in exchange
for youth and power.
437 “The Devil’s Thoughts” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge (see note 256) & Robert Southey,
first published in The Morning Post and Gazetteer, 6 September 1799 (N° 9569).
Conversations with the Devil — 305
as his own ; shabbily dressed ; and walking more like a locomotive
than a man.—But in England he appeared like a gentleman,
“And backwards and forwards he switched his tail
As a gentleman switches his cane.”438
And he probably wore a handsome coat from Stultz’s,439 and a
most knowing hat, &c. &c., and he behaved very much like a gentleman, too, throughout his walk. Tom Moore’s Devil in London440
was quite a gentleman, though he had some difficulties with the editors, which is apt to be the case with all gentlemen as the times go.
Indeed, the Devil has become so much like a gentleman in these latter days, that it is impossible sometimes to distinguish one from the
other.
I had written thus far when sleep overpowered me as I sat in my
arm chair ; the pen fell from my hand, and my head reclined upon the
desk. I had been thinking so much about the Devil in my waking
hours that the same idea pursued me after I had fallen asleep. I heard
a gentle rap at the door, and having bawled out as usual, “come in,” a
little gentleman entered, wrapped in a large blue cloth cloak, with a
slouched hat, and goggles over his eyes. After bowing and scraping
with considerable ceremony, he took off his hat, and threw his cloak
over the back of a chair, when I immediately perceived that my visiter was no mortal. His face was hideously ugly ; the skin appearing
very much like wet paper, and the forehead covered with those cabalistic signs whose wondrous significance are best known to those who
correct the press.441 On the end of his long hooked nose there seemed
to me to be growing like a carbuncle, the first letter of the alphabet,
glittering with ink and ready to print. I observed, also, that each of
his fingers and toes, or rather claws, was in the same manner terminated by one of the letters of the alphabet ; and as he slashed
round his tail to brush a fly off his nose, I noticed that the letter Z
438 Which the sequel of the poem confirms : “And how then was the devil drest? / Oh! he
was in his Sunday’s best: / His jacket was red and his breeches were blue, / And there was a
hole where the tail came through.”
439 Joseph Stultz, the English dandy Beau Brummel’s tailor. See note 160.
440 Thomas Moore (1779-1852), an Irish poet and songwriter who wrote: “Though an angel
should write, still ‘tis devils must print.” The Fudges in England. Letter III (1835).
441 “Printer’s devil’s,” in Thomas Moore’s words. “A Blue Love Song to Miss— ” The
Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore Collected by Himself with Explanatory Notes.
306 — De Diabolo
formed the extremity of that useful member. While I was looking
with no small astonishment and some trepidation at my extraordinary
visiter, he took occasion to inform me that he had taken the liberty to
call, as he was afraid I might forget him in the treatise which I was
writing—an omission which he assured me would cause him no little
mortification. “In me,” says he, “you behold the prince and patron of
printers’ devils. My province is to preside over the hell of books ;
and if you will only take the trouble to accompany me a little way, I
will show you some of the wonders of that world.” As my imagination had lately been much excited by perusing Dante’s, I was delighted with an adventure which promised to turn out something like
his wonderful journey, and I readily consented to visit my new
friend’s dominions, and we sallied forth together. As we pursued our
way, my conductor endeavored to give me some information respecting the world I was about to enter, in order to prepare me for the
wonders I should encounter there. “You must know,” remarked he,
“that books have souls as well as men ; and the moment any work is
published, whether successful or not, its soul appears in precisely the
same form in another world ; either in this domain, which is subject
to me, or in a better region, over which I have no control. I have
power only to exhibit the place of punishment for bad books, periodicals, pamphlets, and, in short, publications of every kind.”
We now arrived at the mouth of a cavern, which I did not remember to have ever noticed before, though I had repeatedly passed
the spot in my walks. It looked to me more like the entrance to a
coal-mine than any thing else, as the sides were entirely black. Upon
examining them more closely, I found that they were covered with a
black fluid which greatly resembled printer’s ink, and which seemed
to corrode and wear away the rocks of the cavern wherever it
touched them. “We have lately received a large supply of political
publications,” said my companion, “and hell is perfectly saturated
with their maliciousness. We carry on a profitable trade upon the
earth, by retailing this ink to the principal political editors. Unfortunately, it is not found to answer very well for literary publications,
though they have tried it with considerable success in printing the
London Quarterly442 and several of the other important Reviews.”
442 The London Quarterly Review was a publication of the Methodist Church of England,
founded in 1809 by the publisher John Murray (1778-1843) on Walter Scott’s initiative, to oppose the liberal views of the Edinburgh Review.
Conversations with the Devil — 307
The cavern widened as we advanced, and we came presently
into a vast open plain, which was bounded on one side by a wall so
high that it seemed to reach the very heavens. As we approached the
wall I observed a vast gateway before us, closed up by folding doors.
The gates opened at our approach, and we entered. I found myself in
a warm sandy valley, bounded on one side by a steep range of mountains. A feeble light shone upon it, much like that of a sick chamber,
and the air seemed confined and stifling like that of the abode of illness. My ears were assailed by a confused whining noise, as if all the
litters of new-born puppies, kittens with disk eyes unopened, and
babes just come to light, in the whole world, were brought into one
spot, and were whelping, mewing, and squalling at once. I turned in
mute wonder to my guide for explanation ; and he informed me that I
now beheld the destined abode of all still-born and abortive publications ; and the infantine noises which I heard were only their feeble
wailing for the miseries they had endured in being brought into the
world. I now saw what the feebleness of the light had prevented my
observing before, that the soil was absolutely covered with books of
every size and shape, from the little diamond almanac up to the respectable quarto. I saw folios there. These books were crawling
about and tumbling over each other like blind whelps uttering, at the
same time, the most mournful cries. I observed one, however, which
remained quite still, occasionally groaning a little, and appeared like
an overgrown toad oppressed with its own heaviness. I drew near,
and read upon the back, “Resignation, a Novel.”443 The cover flew
open, and the title-page immediately began to address me. I walked
off, however, as fast as possible, only distinguishing a few words
about “the injustice and severity of critics ;” “bad taste of the public ;” “very well considering ;” “first effort ;” “feminine mind,” &c.
&c. I presently discovered a very important-looking little book,
stalking about among the rest in a great passion, kicking the others
out of the way, and swearing like a trooper ; till at length, apparently
exhausted with its efforts, it sunk down to rise no more. “Ah ha !”
exclaimed my little diabolical friend, “here is a new comer ; let’s see
who he is ;” and coming up, he turned it over with his foot so that we
could see the back of it, upon which was printed “The Monikins,444
443 Miss Evans, Resignation; A Novel, 2 vols. Portsmouth: New Hampshire, 1828.
444 A popular satirical animal fable written by James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851)
in 1835.
308 — De Diabolo
by the Author of, &c. &c.” I noticed that the book had several marks
across it, as if some one had been flogging the unfortunate work. “It
is only the marks of the scourge,” said my companion, “which the
critics have used rather more severely, I think, than was necessary.” I
expected, after all the passion I had seen, and the great importance of
feeling, arrogance, and vanity the little work had manifested, that it
would have some pert remarks to make to us ; but it was so much exhausted that it could not say a word. At the bottom of the valley was
a small pond of a milky hue, from which there issued a perfume very
much like the smell of bread and butter. An immense number of thin,
prettily bound manuscript books were soaking in this pond of milk,
all of which, I was informed, were “Young Ladies’ Albums,” which
it was necessary to souse in the slough, to prevent them from stealing
passages from the various works about them. As soon as I heard
what they were, I ran away with all my speed, having a mortal dread
of these books.
We had now traversed the valley, and, approaching the barrier of
mountains, we found a passage cut through, which greatly resembled
the Pausilipo,445 near Naples ; it was closed on the side towards the
valley, only with a curtain of white paper, upon which were printed
the names of the principal reviews, which my conductor assured me
were enough to prevent any of the unhappy works we had seen from
coming near the passage.
As we advanced through the mountains, occasional gleams of
light appeared before us, and immediately vanished, leaving us in
darkness. My guide, however, seemed to be well acquainted with the
way, and we went on fearlessly till we emerged. into an open field,
lighted up by constant flashes of lightning, which glared from every
side ; the air was hot, and strongly impregnated with sulphur. “Each
department of my dominions,” said the Devil, receives its light from
the works which are sent there. You are now surrounded by glittering
but evanescent corrucations of the more recent novels.” Thy department of hell was never very well supplied till quite lately, though
Fielding, Smollett, Maturin, and Godwin,446 did what they could for
445 The Seiano Grotto, an 800-meter tunnel through the Posillipo hill, built by the Romans.
446 Henry Fielding (1707-1754), English novelist and dramatist, the author of Tom Jones
(1749). Tobias George Smollett (1721-1771), Scottish writer of picaresque novels such as Peregrine Pickle (1751). Charles Robert Maturin (1782-1824) Irish author of the Gothic novel
Melmoth the Wanderer (1820). William Godwin (1756-1836), English author and political
Conversations with the Devil — 309
us. Our greatest benefactors have been D’Israeli, Bulwer, and Victor
Hugo ;447 and this glare of light, so painful to our eyes, proceeds
chiefly from their books. There was a tremendous noise like the rioting of an army of drunken men, with horrible cries and imprecations,
and fiend-like laughing, which made my blood curdle ; and snob a
scrambling and fighting among the books, as I never saw before. I
could not imagine at first what could be the cause of this, till I discovered at last a golden hill rising up like a cone in the midst of the
plane, with just room enough for one book on the summit ; and I
found that the novels were fighting like so many devils for the occupation of this place. One work, however, had gained possession of it,
and seemed to maintain its hold with a strength and resolution which
bade defiance to the rest. I could not at first make out the name of
this book, which seemed to stand upon its golden throne like the
Prince of Hell ; but presently the whole arch of the heavens glared
with new brilliancy and the magic name of “Vivian Grey”448 flashed
from the book in letters of scorching light. I was much afraid, however, that Vivian would not long retain his post ; for I saw Pelham
and Peregrine Pickle, and the terrible Melmoth449 with his glaring
eyes, coming together to the assault, when a whirlwind seized them
all four and carried them away to a vast distance, leaving the elevation vacant for some other competitor. “There is no peace to the
wicked, you see,” said my Asmodeus.450 “These books are longing
for repose, and they can get none on account of the insatiable vanity
of their authors, whose desire for distinction made them careless of
the sentiments they expressed and the principles they advocated. The
philosopher; his Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793) advocated that human beings
should live without laws or institutions for they are basically guided by reason.
447 Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881), the founder of the British Conservative party, published
his first novel, Vivian Grey in 1826. He served as Prime Minister in 1868 and from 1874 to
1880. Edward George Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873), English novelist, author of historical novels
such as Pelham (1828) or The Last Days of Pompeii (1834). Victor Hugo (1802-1885), a
towering figure in nineteenth-century French literature; in 1836, he was already known as the
author of the revolutionary play Hernani (1830) and the historical novel The Hunchback of
Notre Dame (1831).
448 Published in 1827, Disraeli’s novel, portraying the career of an ambitious young man,
was an immediate success.
449 Bulwer-Lytton’s Pelham (1828), partly inspired by Disraeli’s Vivian Grey, fed popular
gossips on the leading figures of the time; like Smollett’s picaresque novel Peregrine Pickle
(1751), it fictionalizes the world of dandyism. In Maturin’s Melmoth the Wanderer (1820), a
man sells his soul to the devil in exchange for a hundred extra years of life.
450 A demon of the Hebrew history in the Book of Tobit.
310 — De Diabolo
great characteristic of works of this stamp is action, intense, painful
action. They have none of the beautiful serenity which shines in
Scott451 and Edgeworth ;452 and they are condemned to illustrate, by
an eternity of contest here, the restless spirit with which they are inspired.”
While I was looking on with fearful interest in the mad combat
before me, the horizon seemed to be darkened, and a vast cloud rose
up in the image of a gigantic eagle, whose wings stretched from the
east to the west till he covered the firmament. In his talons he carried
an open book, at the sight of which the battle around me was
calmed ; the lightnings ceased to flash, and there was an awful stillness. Then suddenly there glared from the book a sheet of fire, which
rose in columns a thousand feet high, and tilled the empyrean with
intense light ; the pillars of flame curling and wreathing themselves
into monstrous letters, till they were fixed in one terrific glare, and I
read—“BYRON.”453 Even my companion quailed before the awful
light, and I covered my face with my hands. When I withdrew them,
the cloud and the book had vanished, and the contest was begun
again —“You have seen the Prince of this division of hell,” said my
guide.
We now began rapidly to descend into the bowels of the earth ;
and, after sinking some thousand feet, I found myself on terra firma
again, and walking a little way, we came to a gate of massive ice,
over which was written in vast letters—“My heritage is despair.” We
passed through, and immediately found ourselves in a vast basin of
lead, which seemed to meet the horizon on every side. A bright light
shone over the whole region ; but it was not like the genial light of
the sun. It chilled me through ; and every ray that fell upon me
seemed like the touch of ice. The deepest silence prevailed ; and
though the valley was covered with books, not one moved or uttered
a sound. I drew near to one, and I shivered with intense cold as I read
upon it— “Voltaire.”454 “Behold,” said the demon, “the hell of infidel
books ; the light which emanates from them is the light of reason,
451 See note 203.
452 Maria Edgeworth
(1767-1849), Irish novelist, author of novels of Irish life such as Castle
Rackrent (1800).
453 George Gordon Byron (1788-1824), author of Manfred (1817), Childe Harold (18121818), Don Juan (1819-1824) See note 161.
454 François Marie Arouet, alias Voltaire (1694-1778): author of poetry, subversive political
treatises and satirical novels such as Candide (1759).
Conversations with the Devil — 311
and they are doomed to everlasting torpor.” I found it too cold to
pursue my investigations any farther in this region, and I gladly
passed on from the leaden gulf of Infidelity.
I had no sooner passed the barrier which separated this department from the next, than I heard a confused sound like the
quacking of myriads of ducks and geese, and a great flapping of
wings ; of which I soon saw the cause. “You are in the hell of newspapers,” said my guide. And sure enough, when I looked up I saw
thousands of newspapers flying about with their great wooden backbones, and the padlock dangling like a bobtail at the end, flapping
their wings and hawking at each other like mad. After circling about
in the air for a little while, and biting and tearing each other as much
as they could, they plumped down, head first into a deep black-looking pool, and were seen no more. “We place these newspapers deeper in hell than the Infidel publications,” said the Devil ; “because
they are so much more extensively read, and thereby do much greater
mischief. It is a kind of pest of which there is no end ; and we are obliged to allot the largest portion of our dominions to containing
them.”
We now came to an immense pile of a leaden hue, which I found
at last to consist of old worn-out type, which was heaped up to form
the wall of the next division. A monstrous u, turned bottom upwards
(in this way ∩) formed the arch of a gateway through which we
passed ; and then traversed a drawbridge, which was thrown across a
river of ink, upon whose banks millions of horrible little demons
were sporting. I presently saw that they were employed in throwing
into the black stream a quantity of books which were heaped up on
the shore. As I looked down into the stream, I saw that they were immediately devoured by the most hideous and disgusting monsters
which were floundering about there. I looked at one book, which had
crawled out after being thrown into the river ; it was dripping with
filth, but I distinguished on the back the words—“Don Juan.”455 It
had hardly climbed up the bank, however, when one of the demons
gave it a kick, and sent it back into the stream, where it was immediately swallowed. On the back of some of the books which the little
imps were tossing in, I saw the name of—“Rochester,” which
455 Either the long unfinished humorous and satirical poem by Lord Byron (1819-1824) published in 1821, or Molière’s (1622-1673) play Don Juan (1665) based on the story of the libertine.
312 — De Diabolo
showed me the character of them which were sent into this division
of the infernal regions.
Beyond this region rose up a vast chain of mountains, which we
were obliged to clamber over. After toiling for a long time, we
reached the summit, and I looked down upon an immense labyrinth
built upon the plain below, in which I saw a great number of large
folios, stalking about in solemn pomp, each followed by a number of
small volumes and pamphlets, like so many pages or footmen watching the beck of their master “You behold here,” said the demon, “all
the false works upon theology which have been written since the beginning of the Christian era. They are condemned to wander about to
all eternity in the hopeless maze of this labyrinth, each folio drawing
after it all the minor works to which it gave origin.” A faint light
shone from these ponderous tomes ; but it was like the shining of a
lamp in a thick mist, shorn of its rays, and illuminating around it.
And if my companion had not held a torch before me, I should not
have discerned the outlines of this department of the Infernal world.
As my eye became somewhat accustomed to the feeble light, I discovered beyond the labyrinth a thick mist, which appeared to rise
from some river or lake. “That,” said my companion, “is the distinct
abode of German Metaphysical works,456 and other treaties of a similar unintelligible character. They are all obliged to pass through a
press ; and if there is any sense in them, it is thus separated from the
mass of nonsense in which it is imbedded, and is allowed to escape
to a better world. Very few of the works, however, are found to be
materially diminished by passing through the press.” We had now
crossed the plain, and stood near the impenetrable fog, which rose up
like a wall before us. In front of it was the press managed by several
ugly little demons, and surrounded by an immense number of
volumes of every size and shape, waiting for the process which all
were obliged to undergo. As I was watching their operations, I saw
two very respectable German folios, with enormous clasps, extended
like arms, carrying between them a little volume, which they were
fondling like a pet child with marks of doating affection. These folios proved to be two of the most abstruse, learned, and incomprehensible of the metaphysical productions of Germany ; and the bant456 A movement of thought which, from Christian Thomasius (1655-1724) to Immanuel
Kant’s (1724-1804) critical philosophy, promoted the independence of reason.
Conversations with the Devil — 313
ling which they seemed to embrace with so much affection was registered on the back —“Records of a School.”457 I did not find that a
single ray of intelligence had been extracted from either of the two
after being subjected to the press. As soon as the volumes had passed
through the operation of yielding up all the little sense they contained, they plunged into the intense fog, and disappeared for ever.
We next approached the verge of a gulf, which appeared to be
bottomless ; and there was dreadful noise, like the war of the elements, and forked flames shooting up from the abyss, which reminded me of the crater of Vesuvius. “You have now reached the ancient limits of hell,” said the demon, “and you behold beneath your
feet the original chaos on which my domains are founded. But within
a few years we have been obliged to build a yet deeper division beyond the gulf to contain a class of books that were unknown in former
times.” “Pray, what class can be found,” I asked, “worse than those
which I have already seen, and for which it appears hell was not bad
enough ?” “They are American re-prints of English publications”
replied he, “and they are generally works of such a despicable character, that they would have found their way here without being republished ; but even where the original work was good, it is so degenerated by the form under which it re-appears in America, that its
merit is entirely lost, and it is only fit for the seventh and lowest division of hell.”
I now perceived a bridge spanning over the gulf, with an arch
that seemed as lofty as the firmament. We hastily passed over, and
found that the farthest extremity of the bridge was close by a gate,
over which was written three words. “They are the flames of the
three furies who reign over this division,” said my guide. I of course
did not contradict him ; but the words looked very much like some I
had seen before ; and the more I examined them, the more difficult
was it to convince myself that the inscription was not the same thing
as the sign over a certain publishing house in Philadelphia.
457 Records of a School (1835) by Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, (1804-1894), American educator, lecturer, and reformer, whose sister Sophia married Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864).
The book exposes the most advanced educational theories of transcendentalist Amos Bronson
Alcott (1799-1888).
314 — De Diabolo
“These,” said the Devil, “are called the three furies458 of the hell
of books ; not from the mischief they do there to the works about
them but for the unspeakable wrong they did to the same works upon
the earth, by re-printing them in their hideous brown paper editions.
As soon as they beheld me, they rushed towards me with such
piteous accents and head-moving entreaties, that I would intercede to
save them from their torment, that I was moved with the deepest
compassion, and began to ask my conductor if there were no relief
for them. But he hurried me away, assuring me that they only wanted
to sell me some of their infernal editions, and the idea of owning any
such property was so dreadful that it woke me up directly.
____________
458 The Furies were frightening female embodiments of vengeance. When Dante and Virgil
approached the city of Dis, they encounter the Three Furies or Erinyes: Alecto, Megaera and
Tisiphone: “three hellish furies stain’d with blood: / In limb and motion feminine they seem’d”
(Inferno Canto IX: 40-41).
THE
AMERICAN MONTHLY MAGAZINE.
SEPTEMBER, 1837.
(vol. VII)
HANS THE HORSE-BREAKER.
ON the good old island of Nassau,459 not many leagues distant
from the ancient city of New-York, there lies a little isolated township, which is perhaps unchronicled on any map. Its houses are
scattered sparingly upon the southern shore of the island, and are defended from the keen sea-breezes by the high bluffs that encircle the
small bay. The land rises with a gradual swell from the seashore, until it attains a somewhat elevated height, and the hills which oppose
their brown summits to the northern blast, are clothed with stunted
forest trees, apparently of great antiquity, which, being rather broadbottomed and rusty, are not unlike the original Dutch settlers460 of
this old-fashioned place. The present inhabitants partake of the amphibious character of their township, being alternately fishermen and
farmers, and equally expert in bringing forth the treasures of the sea
and land. They are an industrious and thriving race, cherishing immemorial customs, and full of old world virtue and morality. I must
except, however, from this eulogy, a certain individual, whose history forms the subject of the present sketch.
Hans Hopper was the only son of one of the most industrious
farmers of the village we have mentioned. The old gentleman was a
little plodding agriculturalist, but one doomed to suffer variety of
ills. It seemed as if the same seasons which were favorable to his
neighbors always brought ill luck to him. He was grievously afflicted
with the murrain among his cattle and the blight among his corn, and
if he ever had a crop that promised remarkably well, the neighbors’
459 An old name for Long Island, given after King William III who came from the German
House of Nassau. The name eventually fell into disuse and reappeared when Nassau County
was founded in 1899.
460 Long Island was occupied by the Dutch from 1611 and became part of New Netherland
until 1664, when English colonel Richard Nicholls proclaimed Long Island English territory.
316 — Hans the Horse-Breaker
cows were sure to break into the field, or some prodigious hailstorm
to arise, which made no havoc on adjacent farms. Then he was as unsuccessful in his fishing. Although his nets were formed with extraordinary care, the shad seemed to have a peculiar faculty or getting through them, or the horse-shoes were immeshed in amazing
numbers, and broke their way out to the infinite discomfort of Old
Hopper. Thus, although as hard-working a man as any in the village,
he was doomed to suffer continual losses.
The villagers, who, like the people of most country towns, are
never at a loss to account for similar events, declared that the old
gentleman’s ill luck was attributable to prodigality and want of thrift
in his vixen of a wife and his incorrigible son. In truth, the youthful
Hopper did not promise to retrieve the fortunes of his family. Being
an only son he was the spoiled darling of father and mother, and inherited the faults of each. He was much too indolent to work, but
when engaged in the perpetration of any mischief, there was no labor
too severe for him. He grew up the terror of all the good housewives
in the village, for not a hen could cackle in his hearing without his
discovering her favourite retreat and securing the new-laid treasure
in all its spotless beauty.
Unfortunately for the villagers, Hans contrived to be on good
terms with all the mastiffs of the neighborhood ; not a dog could
come into the town without acknowledging the charm of his voice,
and giving him a tacit passport to all the treasures that he guarded.
Hans was a famous bird charmer, and many an escaped canary has
he whistled back to perch, none of which ever returned to its original
master. He could wile away squirrels from their autumnal granaries,
and call in the screaming wild fowl from the ocean ; in short, he
seemed to be a universal favorite. But it is high time that I should attempt some description of the hero of my tale. He was short, but
strongly-built, with square shoulders, and a person equally adapted
for feats of activity and strength. His limbs were incessantly in motion, and it was even a penance for him to sit quietly at table. But this
extreme mobility of body was not participated by the features of his
countenance. These remained ever in repose. Sometimes, indeed, his
dull blue eyes would light up with the smothered fire of merriment or
anger, but in general it was a bootless task to search his countenance
for a proof of what was passing in his mind. Let me add that his lips
Conversations with the Devil — 317
were thin, his nose sharp, his face covered with light freckles, and his
head with wiry reddish hair ; and you will have as complete an idea
of his appearance as I can possibly convey.
Hans had no sooner attained his majority, than his father and
mother died, leaving him their little property, which consisted of the
paternal homestead and a few hundreds in cash at interest. He now
began to think of living like a gentleman, and having laid down a few
acres to oats, he purchased a fiery young colt, and witched the village
with his noble horsemanship. I have mentioned that he possessed a
wonderful power over animals, and horses were not exempted from
his sway. The secret of his magic was unknown, but, like Cahir na
Cappul,461 the Irish rapparee,462
“He had but to whisper a word, and your horse would trot out of his
stall.”
Every one has heard of Jerry Sullivan, well known at Newmarket463 and Epsom,464 and on the Curragh of Kildare,465 who was a
famous whisperer, and had a magic word by which he could subdue
the fiercest horse ; but I take it on me to assert, that not Jerry Sullivan, in his high and palmy days of equestrian distinction, could exert
so powerful an influence over his noble steeds as did the redoubtable
Hans Hopper. So remarkable, indeed, were the exploits of the latter,
that he was called Dare-Devil Hans ; and it was confidently whispered in the cosy coteries that assembled under the patriarchal roof of
mine Host of the Green Flagon, that the youthful Hopper was more
than a match for the Evil One himself. Hans was aware of the distinction he had gained, and to such a pitch was he inflated thereby,
that I verily believe he would have faced a cannon’s mouth to sustain
his reputation—especially if the deadly engine were unloaded.
461 The surname of James Sullivan, the whisperer, “a native of the county of Cork, and an
awkward ignorant rustic of the lowest class, generally known by the appellation of the
Whisperer, and his profession was horse-breaking.” after William Carleton, Traits and Stories
of the Irish Peasantry, New York: Collier Publishers, 1881.
462 An archaic word meaning “a vagabond”, “a wild Irish plunderer of the 17th century.”
463 A city in Suffolk, England, a horse-racing center since the early17th century.
464 A city in British Surrey, famous for its Derby first run in 1779.
465 An Irish county, west of Dublin, with a tradition in horse-breeding and horse-racing since
1741.
318 — Hans the Horse-Breaker
Hans had something of a travelled reputation too, for he had
more than once passed the low barrier of hills that sheltered the village on one side, and brought news from the fair regions that spread
in boundless luxuriance beyond them. Mounted on his fiery colt, he
made semi-annual excursions to Oyster-Bay,466 and once crossed the
perilous stream of the East River,467 and penetrated to Bloomingdael,468 an exploit which is yet talked of by the gossips of his township. In pleasant summer weather he would trot his horse upon the
shining beach of Coney Island,469 and fairly win the money of the
gentlemen jockeys who ran their steeds against him. A couple of
months he devoted to the ungrateful task of tilling his paternal acres ;
but that once over, he idled away the remaining portion of the year.
He was lazy enough to be a poet, but his exploits in literature were
confined to the perusal of an odd volume of the Turf Register,470 and
a well-thumbed copy of Degrafton’s Farriery.
It was not long before the cash his father left him disappeared ;
and, forced to take up some employment, he became a jockey, and
passed his time in breeding, training, swapping, and selling horses.
He was a constant attendant at the Union and sometimes came off a
great winner. But the money thus acquired was always spent in vulgar dissipation—at the tavern or the cockpit ; and Dare-Devil Hans,
with all his magic power over horses, had much ado to support his
own smart ‘bit of blood.’
At length he became quite desperate ; being deprived of the
means of keeping up a figure, and revolved the expediency of parting
with a favorite horse, which he still kept, notwithstanding the decline
of his fortunes. One night, returning homeward rather late, he
entered, in a gloomy mood, the piece of woodland which commences
on the decline of Flatbush hill, between that and the pretty village of
466 A village in southeast New York.
467 A tidal strait separating the boroughs
of Manhattan and the Bronx from Brooklyn and
Queens.
468 An old village situated south west of Bloomingdale Road—present-day Broadway. A
mental asylum was built there in 1821.
469 A former island, now a peninsula situated south of Brooklyn, NY, with a beach on the
Atlantic Ocean; it became a popular resort in the mid-nineteenth century and was originally
overcrowded with rabbits (“coney” is an old English name for “rabbit”) which were commonly
hunted before the place became fashionable.
470 The American Turf Register and Sporting Magazine, published for the first time in 1829
by J. S. Skinner in Baltimore.
Conversations with the Devil — 319
Flatbush.471 The axe has somewhat thinned this little forest, but at the
time of which I write it was luxuriant and dense. Hans patted the
neck of his favorite steed, and sighed at the thought of parting with
him. No Arab of the desert was ever more affectionately attached to
the animal that carried him. “My poor Selim,” said he, “I’m sorry to
part with thee, lad, fort thou art, in truth, the horse of my heart. But
poverty parts good company—They call me Dare-Devil Hans
—‘Egad ! I wish I could only get the speech of the Old One, I fancy
we could strike a bargain in the strapping of a saddle-girth.”
The words had no sooner passed his lips than he “became
aware” of a gentlemanly stranger, clad in black, and mounted on a
powerful charger of the same sable hue. It did not strike Hans that he
had called a spirit from the vasty deep, and he accordingly saluted
his companion.
“A fine evening for riding—rather coolish though.”
“Cool!” returned the stranger in surprise—“I call it as hot as —”
‘twas a lapsus lingae, and he checked himself.
“Hot !” cried Hans—“Egad, Sir, you must come from a cold climate.”
“The contrary, I assure you,” replied the other. They rode on
awhile in silence.
“I say,” said Hans, with another effort at conversation ; “You’ve
a nice horse under you. Suppose you try paces with me.”
The stranger, nothing loth, consented. Each spoke cheerfully to
his horse and touched him with the spur. The two horses, fired with
emulation, launched at once into the rapid fury of the race. They
warm apace, their joints become suppler, their action freer, they toss
their manes upon the night-breeze, and snort with joyous enthusiasm.
The riders are as men insane—the steeds are as mad as their masters.
They stretch like greyhounds in their headlong progress ; the nightbreeze alone outstrips them. The flints of Flatbush sparkle for a moment under foot, and then the spire of its hoary church is left away
behind. Victory hovered for a moment, and then the black steed shot
ahead.
471 Originally a Dutch colony of the name of Midwout (1651), captured by the British in
1664, now incorporated in Brooklyn City.
320 — Hans the Horse-Breaker
“Pull up ! pull up !” cried Hans, reining in his reeking nag.
“you’ve distanced the best horse on the island, and you must he the
very d—l.”
“At your service,” replied the other, bowing very gracefully.
Hans was overjoyed—he shook hands with Eblis,472 and invited
him to honor his humble dwelling with his presence. The invitation
was accepted, and over a strong jug of Hollands a Compact was
agreed upon. The old gentleman promised Hans to be his banker for
three years, during which he was to enjoy unlimited health and credit ; but at the expiration of that term his Satanic Majesty was to call
for the devoted Dutchman. The bargain once concluded, the two allies smoked pipes innumerable, and it was not until the shrill crowing of chanticleer proclaimed the near approach of morning that the
gentleman in sables mounted his black horse and vanished in a very
equivocal manner.
Hans went to bed, and awoke about ten o’clock in a very happy
state of mind. He eat (sic) his breakfast, and then sauntered down to
his usual haunt, the bar-room of the tavern, where he surprised some
of his phlegmatic townsmen into an ejaculation by displaying a
handful of gold corns. It was soon rumored about that Hans had
come into possession of a handsome legacy ; and all who had previously shunned him, crowded eagerly to make his acquaintance. Foremost among the herd of flatterers were those whose hen-roosts had
been oftenest visited by the youthful Hopper—but they forgot all in
the enthusiasm of the moment.
Hans was now able to hold up his head among the best, and kept
company with celebrated training grooms and famous jockeys, the
magnates of the land. He bought a full-blooded Virginia mare, and
became a member of the Jockey Club. All his speculations on the
turf were fortunate, and all his drafts upon his secret banker duly
honored. In fact, his affairs were soon so prosperous that he refunded
to his ally all the money he had loaned him with handsome interest,
and refused any longer to receive his aid. The Devil waxed exceedingly wroth at this, and became as impatient for the time when he
might claim his due as Hans was reluctant to have that time approach.
472 A
devil of Islamic mythology.
Conversations with the Devil — 321
Meantime our hero, feeling the growing responsibility of a
monied man, determined to reform his evil habits, ceased to frequent
the bar-room of the Green Flagon, and assumed a serious demeanor.
He repaired the venerable mansion of his fathers, and having placed
his household affairs in the strictest order, led to the hymeneal altar
the daughter of a wealthy farmer of Jamaica, a young and blooming
girl. In less than a year after he was assured that his possessions
would not pass out of the family for want of an heir. But in the midst
of all this happiness poor Hans often shuddered when he reflected
how rapidly the time was passing, and how soon his infernal creditor
would come to claim his dues.
As the fatal night drew near, his spirits seemed to forsake him.
He was often absent and moody, and would sometimes sit by the
hour together gazing on his wife and child with tearful eyes, and
shaking his head mournfully if any question was asked him. The
green hues of summer had brightened into the hectic tints of autumn ; the evenings were bleak and desolate ; and Hans, as if sympathizing with universal nature, shuddered as he drew his chair
closer to the fire. He now seldom stirred abroad except to exercise
his horses. He frequented no races, went to no merry makings, and
seemed a sadly altered man. One night his wife had gone to bed betimes, and he was left sitting up alone. It was the fatal night, and the
hour was approaching. Poor Hans sat gazing at the dial-plate of the
old clock, and counting every tick with feverish solicitude. At length
the clock struck twelve. Hans started up, and listened. Directly after
there was a thundering knock at the back door, and he hastened to
open it. Though the night was dark, he recognized his fiendish creditor by the fiery glare of his eye-balls, and the ruddy glow that issued
from his mouth ; while his barbed tail, that verified the portraits in
the picture books, was whisking restlessly to and fro, and describing
arcs of circles on the frozen ground.
“Come !” cried his Majesty, “you’re wanted.”
A thought, so vivid and instantaneous, that it seemed providential, flashed across the mind of Hans. He knocked the hat from the
head of his fiendish visiter, and ere the latter could recover himself,
he seized one of his horns with both hands and dragged him to a
range of pegs on which he hung his harness. Before the astounded
demon could recover himself, Hans snatched a formidable cowskin,
322 — Hans the Horse-Breaker
and thrust a severe bit into the mouth of the arch enemy. He then
began beating him with might and main. The tortured fiend fell upon
his hands and knees. In an instant Dare-Devil Hans sprung upon his
back and inflicted the severest discipline. The fiend bolted and
leaped from the house, but Hans was as firmly seated as the old man
of the mountain on the back of Sinbad.473 His degraded majesty
roared beneath the lash, reared, plunged, and used every mischievous
exertion of which his tremendous strength was capable, to unseat his
rider, but in vain. At length, when he was totally obedient, Hans
vaulted lightly to the ground and let him go. The liberated demon
fled like a bolt from a bow, leaving behind a long trail of fiery light
that shone like the track of a comet in the evening air. Hans breathed
freely—he was free—but this was not all ; for on going into his front
yard he discovered the Devil’s horse tied firmly to the palings. He
endeavored to lead the animal to his stable ; but the beast proving refractory, he vaulted lightly on his back, and applied to him the same
discipline which had subdued his master with the same success.
From that time horse and man were friends. The creature (named
Beelzebub in commemoration of his former owner) was a valuable
acquisition, for he won many a plate and sweepstakes for his master,
and introduced a breed of colts into the island of extraordinary
strength and fire. Hans is yet alive, and from his own lips I learned
his story. He concluded his narration in the following words : “That
black horse was a jewel—and there was but one bad thing about him
—when he was taken sick, brimstone wouldn’t physic him.”
______________
473 In “The Fifth Voyage of Sindbad the Sailor”—A Thousand And One Arabian Nights—
Sindbad meets an old man on an unknown island who climbs on his shoulders and rides him as
if he were a horse.
THE
AMERICAN MONTHLY MAGAZINE.
MAY, 1836.
(vol. VII)
A VISIT TO THE CLERK OF THE WEATHER.
“I DON’T know—I have not yet spoken to the clerk of the weather,”— said I, in common parlance to my friend and kinsman, who
had asked me the wise question— “Do you think we shall have an
early spring?” We stood on the steps of the M— hotel. The night was
not very dark, but sundry flakes of snow, that came wavering to the
ground, served to render the vision indistinct. Nevertheless I could
plainly perceive that a little old woman in a gray cloak, who was
passing at the moment, had caught my words ; and her small black
eyes rayed up through the mist as I spoke, with an expression of intelligence rather uncomfortable to a sober citizen like myself. My
friend, at the same moment, turned on his heel with a slight shudder,
and sought a warmer climate within. The little old woman stood at
my side in a twinkling, and when I would have withdrawn myself, I
felt her bony hand encircling my arm as if I had been in the grasp of
a skeleton.
“Unhand me, madam, or by Heaven—”
“You have taken his name in vain,” said she, in a hoarse whisper, “often enough, and it is evident that you believe not in his existence. Come with me. Nay, do not hesitate, or I will weigh your manhood against the courage of an old woman.”
“On, fool !” exclaimed I.
Away scampered the old woman, and I followed—drawn by an
impulse which I could not resist. Streets, houses, woods, fences,
seemed running back as we progressed, so rapid was our motion. At
length I was lifted from my feet, and whirled through the air at such
a rate that I nearly lost my breath. The gray cloak of the old woman
could be discerned at some distance before me—clouds sprang apart,
and rolled themselves in ridges on either hand of her as she passed,
making a clear path for herself and follower. How far we travelled
thus I am unable to say. But suddenly we struck the land, and I stood
324 — Conversations with the Devil
upon the green turf : the sun flamed full upon my head, and I now,
for the first time, felt travel-worn and faint.
“I can assist you no farther,” said the old woman ; and in a moment she had disappeared.
At a little distance from the spot where I stood, was a pile of
rocks of a singular form. About a dozen tall, slate-colored rocks—
each one of which was seven acres in height—had been thrown together in a circle in the form of a pyramid, the points meeting at the
top. As I stood gazing at this singular structure, I observed a light
smoke rising up through a small aperture on the very apex of this gigantic cone. I determined to obtain ingress to this strange dwelling,
for that it was inhabited I no longer doubted. I walked around the
natural fabric several times before I discovered an entrance ; several
rugged rocks had hidden it from my view. But the opening was large
enough to admit a dozen horsemen abreast. Slowly and cautiously I
entered the lofty chamber. It was about five hundred yards in circumference. Several singular objects immediately drew my attention ; of
course the animated forms were honored with my first notice. There
were three gigantic beings lounging about in different parts of the
room, while a venerable, stately old man, with long gray locks, sat at
the farther side of the apartment busily engaged in writing. Before
advancing to speak to any of my new acquaintances, I glanced
around the rocky cavern. In one corner was piled a heap of red-hot
thunderbolts. Against the wall hung several second-hand rainbows,
covered with dust and much faded. Several hundred cart loads of
hail-stones, two large sacks of wind, and a portable tempest, firmly
secured with iron bands, next engaged my attention. But I saw that
the venerable personage mentioned above had become sensible of
my presence, and as he had half risen from his seat, I hastened to
present myself. As I drew near to him, I was struck by the size of his
massive frame and the fierce expression of his eyes. He had stuck his
pen behind his ear—which pen was neither more nor less than the
top of a poplar tree, which some storm had rudely disengaged from
its trunk, and the butt of which he had hewed down to a proper size
for dipping into his inkhorn. He took my hand into his broad palm,
and squeezed it too cordially for my bodily comfort, but greatly to
the satisfaction of my mind, which had experienced some painful
A Visit to the Clerk of the Weather — 325
misgivings from my first entrance. I saluted him in the fashion of my
country, and he replied,
“I am tolerably well, I thank you, for an old man of threescore
centuries—from whence come you ?”
“I am last from Boston, sir.”
“I do not recollect any planet of that name,” said he.
“I beg pardon—from the earth, I should have said.”
He thought a moment. “Yes, yes, I do recollect a little mud-ball
somewhere in this direction ;”—he pointed with his arm—“but,
truly, I had almost forgotten it. Hum ! we have neglected yea of late.
It must be looked to. Our ally, Mr. John Frost, has had some claims
on us, which we have liquidated by giving him permission to erect
sundry ice-palaces, and throw up a few fortifications on your soil ;
but I fear the rogue has made too much of his privilege. He must be
checked !”
“Really, sir, not only my gratitude, but the gratitude of all the
world would be yours, if you would attend to us a little more vigilantly than you have done.”
He looked grave a moment—shook his head, and rejoined
—“But sir, I have, myself, some complaints to make with regard to
you. I have been somewhat slandered by your fellows, and in truth,
that was one inducement that led me to yield so readily to the request
of my kinsman, Mr. Frost. You probably know there are some persons on your little planet who pretend to be of my council, and who
send out little printed missiles, pretending to great ingenuity, wherein
it is set forth that on such and such a day there shall be a tempest—
thunder and lightning—or fervent heat. Nay, some of them have carried it so far as to publish caricatures and drawings—have prophesied that there should be snow in August, and——”
Here we were interrupted by a loud fussing noise, which caused
me to start and turn round.
“You must have a care. You have scorched your garments, I
fear,” cried my host to a squat figure, who came trudging towards us,
wrapped in sheets of ice and wearing a huge wig powdered with
snow.
“It is nothing, your Honor,” answered the other, in a hollow
voice which chilled my blood—“I only trod upon that cursed coil of
326 — Conversations with the Devil
chain-lightning which your servant has placed so near the door to be
my bane as often as I visit you !”
I was too much taken up with this uncouth visiter to notice the
entrance of another guest, who had placed herself directly between
me and the clerk of the weather before I beheld her. She was a lovely
young damsel, dressed in a variegated gown, of the most beautiful
colors, her head surmounted by a green turban, and her feet shod
with moccasins of the same hue, bespangled with dew-drops. The icy
dwarf shrunk aside as she approached, and lowered at her from under
his thick brows. She cast a glance at him, and pouted like a spoiled
child. She then turned to me, and said in a tone of ineffable sweetness,
“You are the stranger from the Earth, I conclude ?”
“ At your service, fair lady.”
“I heard of your arrival,” continued she ; “and hastened to meet
you. I wish to inquire after my good friends, the inhabitants of your
globe. My name is Spring.”
“My dear lady,” said I, “your countenance would gladden the
hearts of us all ; I assure you that your presence has been desired and
earnestly prayed for by all classes of my fellow-sufferers.”
“It is too provoking !” cried she, dashing her green turban upon
the ground, and stamping with her little foot until I was besprinkled
with the dew-drops that it shed. “I suppose that I am blamed—nay,
execrated, for my tardiness by my children of the earth—while heaven knows that I long to bound over your valleys and hills, and linger
by the side of your running brooks as of yore. But that wretch—that
misshapen wretch—“and she pointed at Jack Frost, for he it was,
“that soulless, withering demon, holds me in his power. I brought an
action against him last year ; but, unfortunately, I was advised to put
the case in Chancery,474 and summer arrived before it was decided.
But assure your fellows that I will not neglect them in future. I shall
be amongst them early. Mr. Frost is obliged to take a journey to the
north to procure a polar bear for his wife, who has lingered amongst
you, with her husband, so long, that she affects some of your customs, and must needs have a substitute for a lap-dog.” She then
turned away and held communion with the clerk of the weather,
474 Originally a court of Justice in England and Wales presided by the Lord Chancellor. In
the United States, courts based on laws softened by ethic principles of fairness were called
“courts of chancery” or “courts of equity”.
A Visit to the Clerk of the Weather — 327
while I sauntered about the cavern to examine its singular contents.
A gigantic fellow was sweating over the fire and cooking his master’s breakfast. In a moment I saw him ascend by a sort of rope ladder, and pick a small white cloud out of the heaven, wherewith to
settle the coffee. I sauntered on until I came to a heap of granite, behind which sat a dozen little black fellows, cross-legged, who were
laboring with all their might to weave a thunder gust. The part of the
business which seemed to puzzle them most was the working in of
the boils, which they were obliged to handle with long pincers. Another important point was sewing on the fringe, which was made of
chain lightning. While I stood surveying these apprentices, a strapping fellow came reeling towards me, and inquired whether I had
visited the forge. I told him that I had not. He said that it was not
now in operation as there was a sufficient quantity of thunderbolts
manufactured for present use, although there might soon be a trifle of
an earthquake to patch up. I observed that his wrist was swathed with
a crimson bandage, and inquired if he was injured in that part. He
said that he had received a trifling scratch there, for that last year he
had been commissioned to discharge several thunderbolts upon our
earth, which he did to his satisfaction until he came to the last,
which, having been hurled like a rocket against our globe, unfortunately alighted on the head of a certain member of Congress, where
it met with so much resistance that it bounded back to the skies and
grazed his wrist.
At this moment somebody seized my arm from behind ; I turned
my head and saw the little old woman in the gray cloak. I was hurried from the massive hall and conveyed, with as much speed as before, back to the world from which I had set out on this strange and
wonderful adventure.
_____________
THE
AMERICAN MONTHLY MAGAZINE.
FEBRUARY, 1836
(VOL. VII.)
LAZY JAKE. OR THE DEVIL NONPLUSSED
___________
A NOVELETTE
______________
CHAPTER I
Interview between two gentlemen — a difficulty propounded — A
heroine introduced.
A LONG, long while ago, in the good old days when witches had
a legal existence, and old Nick, by the wilfulness of man’s belief,
was allowed converse with the human race, lived old Benjamin Peasblossom. He had houses and lands, and bonds and mortgages, and
horses and cattle : and moreover, certain old chests which, despite
their iron ribs, were near bursting with the gold and silver— the joes
and half-joes,475 the pistoles476 and the pistareens,477 he had crammed
into their capacious mouths. Now, as the story goes, Benjamin had
not come as honestly and fairly by this money as he might have
done ; but it was said, that once as the clock struck twelve at night, in
a damp vault in the church-yard, and on the lid of a coffin, with
blood out of his veins, and with a pen made of a dead man’s nails,
Benjamin had given and granted, released, enfeoffed, conveyed, and
confirmed, his soul unto the devil, in consideration that he, the devil
aforesaid, would prosper said Benjamin in all his undertakings; with
a proviso, nevertheless, that if the said Benjamin at the day of forfeiture could enjoin old Clootie478 a task that he could not perform in
a twelvemonth, then he, the said Benjamin, should stand free and absolved.
475 “Joey”: a former coin of the United Kingdom with a value of three pennies.
476 Either a former gold coin of France, or a former gold coin of Spanish America
equal to
two escudos.
477 A silver coin used in America and the West Indies in the 18th century, from the Spanish
peseta.
478 The Scottish name for the Devil.
Conversations with the Devil — 329
Now, after this, Benjamin waxed richer and richer ; he became
the most important man in the village ; he was appointed overseer of
the poor, one of the selected men of the town, and at the time when
Old Nick called on him for payment, he was actually an elder of the
village church.
The manner of the visit was this. One cold winter’s evening,
Benjamin was sitting alone by his fire, the wind moaning around his
house like the cries of the widowed and fatherless after their dower
rights and patrimonies, and he, thinking about foreclosing a mortgage, when he heard a gentle tap at the door, and a tall “Werterfaced479 sort of a man,” “melancholy and gentleman-like,”480 entered,
and took a seat opposite to Peasblossom.
“Ha ! Already !” exclaimed Benjamin, stretching out his arm for
a small pocket-bible which lay on the table.
“I have been patient enough methinks,” said his visiter ; “and although it be a naughty night to swim in, as my friend Will has it, I
hope the honor of your company.”
“I cannot go yet,” said Benjamin, removing his chair a little
ways. Next week comes quarter day,481 and then there is Deacon
Gray’s interest to come in, and old Thompson’s mortgage to be foreclosed ; indeed, my friend, it’s quite inconvenient to go just now.”
“I fancy,” replied the other, with a courteous smile,” thou wilt
find it inconvenient always ; so thou must e’en away tonight.”
“I cannot follow thee,” said Benjamin, staring wildly around and
gasping for breath.
“But thou must, unless thou wilt give me a task that I cannot
perform, and that I fancy thou canst scarcely do.”
Benjamin’s head sunk between his hands ; to puzzle old Scratch
he thought was no easy matter. His visiter, who felt secure of his
prey, leisurely drew a cigar from his pocket, lighted it, and commenced puffing. It emitted a bluish flame, and indeed in itself much
resembled a half-grown roll of brimstone. When the fume reached
the nostrils of Benjamin, he wiggled uneasily in the chair, and fell
into a great perturbation of spirit, bethinking himself of devilled turkey legs, poached eggs, roasted potatoes, and beef steaks and grid479 From Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774).
480 “I will be more Proud, / and Melancholy, and Gentleman-like,
than I have been; / I’ll ensure you.” Ben Johnson (1572-1637) Every Man in his Humour (1598), (Act I, Sc. 3).
481 One of the four days of the year when rents and rates were traditionally due.
330 — Lazy Jake. Or the Devil Nonplussed
irons. Meanwhile the mortgagee of Benjamin’s worse half his soul,
sought to amuse himself with a book or two lying on the mantel. He
passed instinctively by “The Christian Soldier,”482 and “Holy Living
and Dying ;”483 yawned a moment over Shakespeare ; but espying a
newspaper, the father of lies felt that he had reading congenial to his
taste.
At length, Benjamin’s face brightened, and he exclaimed, “I
have it, I have it ! I defy thee to make my neighbor, Lazy Jake, rich.”
“Oh ho !” quoth the devil, “sits the wind in that quarter ? vexing
Job484 was a trifle to that : but since thou hast set me the task, it
would be unseemly in me to forfeit my prize without an endeavor to
serve it.”
“Suppose we cancel the bond at once,” said Benjamin, “and I
will give you an acquittance.”
Old Hornie forgot his accustomed good breeding at the proposition and unqualifiedly grinned. “No,”said he, “it is now a point
of honor with me, and my friends, the lawyers, can help me at a
pinch.—They have such an ingenious way of transferring estates,
that if I can get Jake admitted to the bar I shall have the pleasure of
your company very soon.”
After uttering this pleasantry, the head of the legal profession
looked cautiously round, fearing that some of the fraternity had overheard him.
But the only addition to the company was Benjamin’s daughter
Susan, a fine bouncing maiden of fourteen, with a heart as free of
guile as New-York dairyman’s milk of cream.
“La, Paa.” said Sukey, “I did n’t know of your having company.”
The devil bowed—devils are always so polite—Miss curtseyed.
The devil has such a taking way with him.
“Well, friend Peasblossom,” quoth he of the fabulous tail, “this
little affair will soon be settled, and then—”
“La, Paa,” interrupted Sukey, what a smell of brimstone !”
482 “...ignorance will not result in a tactical strategic victory for the forces of evil. The Christian solder must know the enemy (First Epistle of Paul the Apostle to Timothy; 2 Cor. 2:11).
483 Jeremy Taylor (1613-1667) Holy Living And Dying With Prayers Containing the Whole
Duty of a Christian And the Parts of Devotion Fitted to All Occasions And Furnished for All
Necessities (1650-1651). An English bishop and one of the most widely read and finest theological writers.
484 See infra note 427.
Conversations with the Devil — 331
“And then,” continued old Clootie to Benjamin, “you must—”
Benjamin coughed very loudly, looked imploringly at Sathan, intimating that he would dispense with the peroration.
“Paa has got such a bad cold,” said Susan.
“Well, as extremes meet,” replied Clootie, “he will soon have
bad heat.”
Benjamin shivered, but the impracticability of Lazy Jake again
sent a glow through his breast.
“Would n’t the gentleman like a glass of sweet-cider ?” inquired
Susan, who was of an affable and loquacious turn.
“If Miss Susan would only write her name in his pocket-book as
a sort of rememberancer !”
“Away, tempter,” shouted Benjamin.
“Such a pair of red cheeks, and two such sparkling eyes,” continued the arch fiend, “might tempt even Solomon.485 But, friend, I
must away, as I have business of much importance to attend before
daylight. Let me see, let me see,” said he in an under-tone, “the big
paunched Justice yonder wants a good reason for an unjust decision ;
Miss Tabitha Spinster must be taught the last improvement upon the
amorous waltz ; the grocer’s doubt of the propriety of sanding his
sugar must be settled ; and then I have to strike the moon into three
or four youths, and make poets of them ; for when once they have
coupled love and dove, they are mine as sure as stupid rhymes to Cupid486—but I forget myself ; good night, friend Benjamin—‘parting is
such sweet sorrow’—good night, Miss Susan, I hope we may become better acquainted ;” and so saying, he bowed slowly ; and ere
Susan, who turned to see why the candles burned so bluely, was
aware, the old Serpent (I hate to call him names) had vanished, and
Peasblossom gruffly ordered her to bed ; where, I fear, she dreamed
of the polite gentleman, not being aware what a profligate character
he was, and how he had played the very devil with the world ever
since the first weakness of woman, which, I believe, was in the year
one.
___________
485 King Solomon ruled over Israel from 960 to 922 BC. He is famous for his proverbial
wisdom and for having built the Temple of Jerusalem.
486 The Roman version of the Greek god of erotic love Eros, often evoked in poetry.
332 — Lazy Jake. Or the Devil Nonplussed
CHAPTER II
A midnight prowl through a Village
WHEN the devil left the residence of Peasblossom, it was his intention to visit all his acquaintances in the village, renew old friendships, make new ones, and insinuate himself into the good graces of
his enemies, if he had any. He now recollected that it was past the
usual bed-time of the villagers, and that he would find nobody up,
save those who stood in no need of his visitation ; and that therefore
he must make his presence known by his spirit and not by his assumed form. As this thought floated across his brain, he found himself in front of the parsonage. Now, the good man having indulged
somewhat in mulled beer and a Welsh rabbit, was naturally dreaming
of a good living ; and the devil suggested to him, as he settled on his
breast in the shape of a huge Cheshire cheese, that as there was a vacancy in the pulpit of the next town which gave a higher salary, it
was his duty to go thither ; and having thus given the parson a call,
Beelzebuth whisked off to the parson’s neighbor, the apothecary.
The apothecary presently dreamed that he and the sexton had entered
into partnership, and that they employed the doctor as a clerk. Then
the apothecary fancied that he was filling his laudanum jar with juice
of the pokeberry,487 but why, he could not tell, till the high price of
opium rose up as an excuse. “But prithee,” cried one of the devil’s
grand-children, named Subterfuge, who was present, “will not the
poor souls sleep as well on the juice as the extract ?” “Aye, much
better,” quoth that slippery knave, Conscience ; so the apothecary
turned him over, and slept soundly until morning. The devil walked
into the doctor’s as a messenger came from a poor person in extremity requesting his immediate presence. The doctor hearing who
it was that required his aid, knew that he would never be paid for his
services, and so bade his servant tell the messenger that he had been
suddenly called out and would not be back until morning. Hereupon
the doctor drew his bed-clothes tighter around him, and sunk into a
nap ; wherein he dreamed that he fell grievously sick, and his
487 Phytolacca americana: an American plant with small white flowers, blackish-red berries
and a poisonous root.
Conversations with the Devil — 333
friends, in great alarm, proposing to send for a brother Æsculapius,488
it struck him as such ridiculous nonsense that he burst into laughter
and awoke. The Devil next visited his friend the Justice ; and as the
grocer’s sugar was sanded the following day, and Miss Tabitha practised the Mazurka489 in the evening at the village ball, it is presumed
our hero also paid them a passing visit. He inoculated two young
geniuses with the love of rhyme, and three young misses with flirtation ; so he felt secure of five new votaries at least. He passed by the
window of a learned judge, and a subtle metaphysical fluid which
could not disprove the existence of witches, passed into the judge’s
pericranium. Then the Devil thought he would call on his special
agent, the village attorney ; and he found him asleep with one eye
open, and he studied a long while for some new device to inspire the
lawyer withal ; but after examining the stock already on hand, the
Devil found that he, himself, had acquired a new wrinkle ; so, well
contented, he left the house, and bent his steps towards the dwelling
of Lazy Jake.
__________
CHAPTER III.
A Reflection — Lazy Jake’s House — His Bed-chamber —
A Discovery, or an instance of Inductive Reasoning.
HAD the task allotted to our hero been that of overcoming any of
the cardinal virtues, or of combatting the vice gluttony, lust, intemperance, writing for magazines, avarice, pride, or even dozing in
church, he had not troubled himself much about the result ; but when
he reflected on the nature and influence of laziness, he felt appalled
by the vis inertia490 opposed to him. Of all the sins which most easily
beset a man, this is the darling of their progenitor, for it makes its
way insidiously and so easily, like a huge anaconda, gliding through
a country, and tainting all things with its poisonous breath ; and it
has such a tenacity of its conquests, that it is one of the most powerful engines of evil ever devised. Might I in a sober narrative like
488 In Greek mythology, Aesculapius was a legendary physician who knew how to revive the
dead, which led Zeus to kill him and make him the god of medicine.
489 A dance of Polish origin popular in the United States at the beginning of the 19th century.
490 Latin phrase for “force of inertia.”
334 — Lazy Jake. Or the Devil Nonplussed
the present allude with propriety to the profane history of the Grecians, I would say that laziness, like the apparently harmless peaceoffering of the Greeks to the Trojans, carries the armed vices in its
womb, who will soon spread havoc through the town, and surprise
the citadel.
Before commencing his operations, the old Serpent thought it
advisable to survey the residence of Jake, and observe whereabouts
lay the best avenue for his approach.
About half a mile from Peasblossom’s, in the outskirts of the village, Jake reposed on his patrimonial remains. He had inherited
many a broad field and rich meadow ; his house had been encompassed by luxuriant gardens and thrifty orchards, flocks of cattle
covered his pastures, the loud neighing of steeds, the soft bleating of
sheep, the piteous lowing of cows, the complaisant grunting of
swine, tilled the atmosphere around him. Turkeys gobbled, hens
cackled, ducks quacked, and geese gabbled through his barn-yards.
He had money out at interest, and a secret hoard of Spanish dollars in
his house. Never had man a fairer chance for a life of prosperity. But
in vain ; a blight had been on Jake from his youth upwards. He was,
in truth, one of the laziest of mortals. Nought loved he beyond his
bed ; and when he had rolled out of that, he would swallow his
breakfast, and then lighting his pipe, sink into his arm-chair, and puff
away the live-long morning. His laborers, too, imbibed the sweet
poison : his seeds were never in the ground until his neighbors were
talking of reaping... his winter grain was not sown until the frosts had
set in. Weeds choked up his gardens—his unpruned trees spent their
juices in unfruitful shoots—his fences gradually fell down—his
cattle were neglected—his horses died of the distemper—his eggs
turned addle in their unsought-far nests — his turkeys ran wild in the
woods—and the foxes and weazles stole into his yards and carried
off his geese and chickens. The rains gradually rotted away the
shingles on his roof, and caused his walls to moulder. In a few years
his money was called in, and in a few more spent ; and still his disease was upon him. To-morrow he would bestir himself, and to-morrow be would arouse ; but what signified his doing it to-day. But on
the morrow he slept so late that it was useless to make the effort ; he
could do nothing in half a day, he would begin with the next week.
But perhaps the next week was stormy, or Jake did not feel very well,
Conversations with the Devil — 335
or his boots were without soles, “he must send them to the cobbler’s
that very day.” The cobbler bent over his lap-stone all the week, but
not on Jake’s account. And then the next week was too late in the
season, and why should a man worry himself to death ? he would reform with the new year ; but January is so cold. And thus would Jake
go on, rousing himself up desperately every half hour to fill his pipe,
and eating his dinners, and suppers, and breakfast, and teas, and
luncheons, with an energy that astonished himself, and sleeping with
a resolution undisturbed by aught but indigestion and surfeit.
The grayness of morning was stealing over the heavens, when
our adventurer came in sight of Lazy Jake’s abode ; and ere he had
completed his survey, the pale wintry sun was high advanced ; but
still scarcely a sign of life about the premises. A half-starved cow
was turning “its sides and shoulders and heavy head” on some
scattered straw near the barn, and endeavoring to obtain “a little
more sleep and a little more slumber.”491 A wall-eyed horse was
hanging his head out of the weather-boards of the stable, while a
skeleton pig was assisting his weak steps towards the kitchen, by
leaning against the straggling paling on his path.
Every thing about the house appeared in a state of dilapidation ;
the rains had washed the paint from the boards and the pointing from
between the stones. The shutters had disappeared from the windows
or hung by half a hinge, the glass was broken, and a panel wanting in
the door betrayed an uncarpeted and filthy floor. Within doors things
were in a grievous plight : bottomless chairs and broken tables—the
clock unwound—the locks all out of order—blue mould on the walls,
and grease and dirt on the floor. There was a bedstead in the parlor,
and kitchen utensils in the bed-room, where, stewing and steaming in
his dirty blankets, lay Lazy Jake himself :
Jake had eaten and slept until he had become a mass of soft unhealthy fat ; so that, wrapt up as he was in the woollens, he might
have been compared to a roll of rancid butter enveloped in a yellow
cabbage leaf. He was of an easy good-natured disposition as pliant as
the conscience of a politician, or as the gum catoutchoe, or whatever
its unorthographable name may be.492 Jake had a decided aversion to
motion, and he once indulged in an astronomical speculation, which
491 “... so he on his bed, / Turns his sides and his shoulders and his heavy head. / ‘A little
more sleep, and a little more slumber;’ / Thus he wastes half his days, and his hours without
number,” Isaac Watts (1674-1748), “The Sluggard.”
336 — Lazy Jake. Or the Devil Nonplussed
was, “why the devil the stars and planets keep moving about as they
did, seeing they have nothing in the world to do.” He used to wander
why the
“ little busy bee”
did not
“improve each shining hour,”493
by a nap in the sun instead of keeping up such an incessant toil and
pother.
But we have not leisure to detail all the sayings and doings of
Jake, though a few pages would suffice for the actions of his life.
The devil perambulated the room with a curious eye and an incurious
nostril ; but still he was unsatisfied in one particular. He cautiously
approached the bed, raised the end of the clothes, and discovered the
fact to be as he had suspected,—that such a lazy, uncleanly person as
Jake slept in his stockings.
____________
CHAPITRE IV.
A Moral Phenomenon, or Temptations to become rich resisted—
—Mining and Countermining—Gold—Lore—Land Speculation and
Stock-jobbing.
WHEN the devil retired to ruminate on his plans, he betook himself to the banks of a neighboring mill-pond. In truth, when he reflected on what he had just seen, he felt sorely perplexed, and, like an
enamoured swam, cast many a desperate look at the water. But honor
soon came to his aid, and he roused himself up manfully to his task.
The result of his cogitations will be portrayed in the following
492 In fact, “caoutchouc” or rubber. Used by Native peoples of South and Central America, it
was brought to Europe by Charles de la Condamine and François Fresneau in the mid-eighteenth century. Until the early 1800s, rubber was used only for elastic bands and erasers—hence
the name “rubber.” In 1823, Charles Macintosh reinvented the waterproofing of fabrics—
which Pre-Columbians already mastered— and in 1839 Charles Goodyear discovered vulcanization, which revolutionized the rubber industry.
493 “How doth the little busy bee / Improve each shining hour, / And gather honey all the
day / From every opening flower!” from “Against Idleness and Mischief” (1715) by Isaac
Watts (1674-1748), English poet and theologian.
Conversations with the Devil — 337
pages ; and we must leave this one of our heroes for the present to return to the other.
Matters grew worse and worse with Lazy Jake, for the plan of
the first campaign appeared to be to reduce Jake to such misery that
he should imbibe the idea of the necessity of exertion. Exertion once
commenced, the devil knows so well how to temper the love of gain
with the labor of its acquisition, that the richest self-made men are
generally the most industrious and untiring. Jake’s horse died of the
colic, his cow of the distemper, and his pig of the measles. The supply of his table grew scantier, and his creditors clamorous. Judgment
after judgment was entered up, and execution after execution lodged
in the sheriff’s hands. His lands were still greater in value than the
amount of his debts. He could have made an agreement with his
creditors for a mortgage, the money to be applied to the discharge of
their claims ; but Jake felt an unconquerable aversion to all exertion.
True, he needed but to ride to the attorney’s and have it arranged ;
but his horse was dead. He could have walked there, but next week
he would borrow a conveyance ; and one week earlier or later could
make but little difference. At length his creditors let the law take its
way ; and in the spring Jake was master of nought but his homestead
and the curtilage.494 He grew thinner and thinner ; for, after grim-visaged want has stared us in the face for awhile, we become wonderfully assimilated to the spectre. At last a dinnerless day brought on
the crisis ; and poor Jake, sinking into his arm-chair, cursed his unlucky stars. “Nothing ever prospered with him ; his neighbors, who
had started life with nothing, were rich ; while he who had every
thing at command, through his perverse luck, was reduced to
poverty. He could not see into it ; it was very mysterious. But
something must be done ; he would see what he could turn his hand
to— in the morning.”
So Jake lighted his pipe, and resigned himself to the influence of
that vacuity of thought in which the smoker indulges, and miscalls
reflection. Presently he fell into a gentle nap, dreaming of huge joints
of roasted meat and savoury sauces, placed before him in great profusion, but just beyond his reach. Then the viands disappeared and he
had a vision of his grandfather, who told him that in the orchard
which had been sold to his neighbor Peasblossom, was buried a huge
494 The
enclosed area surrounding a house.
338 — Lazy Jake. Or the Devil Nonplussed
jar of gold, which he had hidden there during an Indian incursion,
and afterwards left as a safe deposit ; but having been called away by
an apoplexy, his heirs had never been the wiser. Then the old gentleman vanished, and when Jake awoke, the sun had again arisen, and
was peeping in at the window. The loud demand for breakfast from
his inner-man first recalled him to a sense of his misery ; then gradually his dream arose to mind, indistinctly at first, but at last vivid and
impressive. “But of what use is it ?” said Jake ; “three months since,
and it would have saved me from my troubles ; but now what can I
do. These is no use of trying to purchase it back, I know Peasblossom will not sell. He got it for a song, and all King David’s psalms
played by the royal minstrel himself could not redeem an inch of it.
However, the next time I meet him I will ask him about it ; I am resolved to lose nothing for want of exertion.”
Now, as the devil would have it, Peasblossom began to feel extremely uneasy. True, Jake was not growing rich, but waxing
poorer ; still there was something very suspicious in that very fact.
And it entered into Benjamin’s noddle to conceive, that as Jake still
had the homestead left, it might be a foundation for future acquisitions ; so he resolved to deprive Jake of this last resource if possible.
“I have been thinking,” said Benjamin, taking Jake kindly by the
hand, that it was due to our old friendship that I should lend you
some aid in your need. I had your orchard of you for a trifle and although honestly purchased, still if thou wilt thou mayst have it for a
small advance.”
“What !” cried Jake, “the orchard next the garden ?” “Yes, the
same, “replied Peasblossom ; “so give me a note at a short date for
the amount, and a mortgage on your house as security ; for, Jacob, I
have a family to provide for, and although I am of a generous disposition, still prudence dictates a certain course. So, Jacob, go down to
Fifa’s and execute a mortgage on the house, and thou shalt have the
orchard.”
Jake’s eyes twinkled with joy, the pot of gold was already in his
greedy grasp, and he actually went that day to the lawyer’s and
signed the note, bond, and mortgage, and took his deed. So he sate
himself down, and devised a hundred ways of spending his money,
which, alas, was not yet his. Early in the morning he intended to go
out and search for it, and he must rest after his hard work. Jake
Conversations with the Devil — 339
awoke early, and felt an impulse to rise and commence his search ;
but what was the use of hurry ? he had a few dollars yet which had
been unexpectedly paid him—” the more hurry the worse speed ; besides evening would be better for his work, as there would be nobody
to watch him.
Jake waited till evening, and still the same reluctance to bestir
himself. “The gold was safe where it was, and he could get it when
he wanted it.” Day passed after day in this manner, although, it must
be confessed, Jake kept a vigilant eye to the orchard when awake,
and dreamed of it by night. At last Jake began to dig. But the work
went on slowly ; and as the orchard contained a couple of acres, and
Jake knew not where the treasure lay, his heart grew faint. Week
after week elapsed, and nothing could rouse Jake to vigorous action ;
his note became due ; Peasblossom, in fulfilment of his plan, commenced suit ; Jake could have delayed it by attending to it but he was
absolutely too lazy : judgment was entered, execution followed ; the
orchard was sold, and the house to satisfy the balance ; the overplus
was paid to Jake, and without a roof to call his own, he betook himself to the tavern, and gave way to deep melancholy, only relieved by
eating, drinking, smoking, and sleeping. The shrewd fellow who had
purchased the orchard suspected something from the state in which
he found it, and rested not until he had upturned the whole soil, and
satisfactorily solved his doubts.
Love was now called in by the devil to his aid. A fat widow,
aged forty and upwards, of large person and income, cast amorous
glances on Jake as he sat at the tavern window, from her room on the
opposite side of the way. Jake was not iron or stone ; and if he had
been, the ardent glances of the widow would have heated him redhot. As it was, Jake felt indescribable longings to move, aye, actually
to walk ; and one day, fired beyond control, he went over to the widow’s. Fortunately one or two visits so overcame the retiring modesty
of the fair, that Jake was the happiest of men, save in the necessary
trouble and fatigue he was put to in promenading with his lady fair.
This did very well for a day or two ; but then—shame on his manhood—Jake, buried in an oblivious snooze after dinner, forgot love,
honor, the widow and her money bags. Impatiently did the fair one
sigh, fume, scold, rave ; and it was really thoughtless to Jake to allow
such a mass of inflammable matter to become so heated. He might
340 — Lazy Jake. Or the Devil Nonplussed
have known the consequences. A rousing box on his ear awoke him
from his slumbers. Unhappy Jake ! torrents of expletives rolled
around him like lava from a volcano ; heated epithets fell upon him ;
and, at last, like Herculaneum,495 he was completely buried under
showers of invectives, red-hot, and reproaches at white heat. The
game was up ; Cupid and Somnus496 were at sword’s points, and Cupid quit the field.
Jake was now assailed in various ways. Land speculations were
presented to his imagination ; for such a rage possessed the good
people of the village, that they began buying up all the land within
three miles of the town. What they bought one day in farms or plantations, they the next day offered at auction, nicely surveyed into
building lots, and the prices were immense. But Jake let all slip
through his fingers. He had a keen foresight and a good judgment,
but he was ever too lazy to move.
Then his brain teemed with improvements in various useful machines, by patenting which he could have made great sums ; but Jake
never had resolution sufficient to draw up his specifications.
The Prince of Darkness strove manually against the inertness of
Jake ; he assaulted him in every way ; pride, ambition, patriotism,
and I know not what beside ; but Jake was impracticable. The Devil
became uneasy ; his disappointment preyed on his spirits ; he grew
thin, pale, and interesting.
Never before had he been so puzzled. When he had set to work
in earnest, he had always succeeded, except in one case ; and his ill
success in that Satan attributed to the malign influence of Mrs. Job.497
Eleven months of the allotted time had elapsed, and yet Jake was
poorer than ever. The Devil began to despair, melancholy seized
upon him, and he was evidently rapidly falling into a consumption.
He actually indited some verses in the Byron vein—“I have not
loved the world, nor the world me;”498 he went about like one distraught—he would have fallen into dyspepsia had it been then invented ; but as it was, he never shaved himself without experiencing des495 A city in the Bay of Naples (Italy) completely buried by a pyroclastic flow, along with
Pompei, after the eruption of Mount Vesuvius (AD 79).
496 Somnus or Hypnos, brother of Thanatos, the Greek god of sleep.
497 Overwhelmed by misfortune and adversity, Job’s wife said to her husband: “Do you still
hold fast your integrity? Curse God, and die.” (Job 2:7-9). See note 427.
498 Lord Byron (1788-1824), Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto III: Stanza 113.
Conversations with the Devil — 341
perate thoughts. I know not how he could have existed through the
last and still unsuccessful week of the term of probation ; but musing
one day on his apparently diminished power in the world, and the necessity of reviving it he had the vision of a board of brokers, and the
Devil laughed to think what a great idea it was. About a century afterwards he put his scheme in operation in New-York, and he has
since had no fear for his dominion in the world ; for he drew up his
specifications in terms plain beyond dispute, and thus it stood, “buying and selling stock on time.”
__________
CHAPTER V.
Our narrative is drawing to a close. An author, even though his
characters be fictitious, acquires an acquaintance with them that he is
loath to terminate. We, dealing in truth severe, cannot distribute poetical justice to our characters as the critic might demand. Poor
Susan never could forget the polite gentleman who wanted her to
write in his pocket-book, he became the god of her idolatry. She
sighed for him, and sought for him everywhere. If a carriage passed
door, she expected to see him leaning from its window ; if a stranger
arrived in town, she knew it must be him. At all the village gatherings she looked but for him ; and even at church, the poor ignorant
creature fancied he might be present. Twice or thrice she detected
him in the heroes of fashionable novels ; but they merely fed her
imagination. She once went to a camp-meeting, and thought she saw
him there ; and he may have been.
But be this as it may, the year elapsed. * * Benjamin is again
seated by his fire—he is wealthier and more hard-hearted than ever.
His eye is on the clock—the fatal hour is past—a rap at the door, and
Benjamin’s old visiter enters ; but alas, how changed ! His cheek is
hollow, his eye dim ; he says nothing, he draws forth the contract ; he
throws it into the flames. But the parchment used by him is of course
fire-proof ; so Benjamin takes it out, and the Devil honorably erases
Peasblossom’s name and tears off the seal.
“If I ever,” said he solemnly, “undertake again to make a lazy
man rich, may I be—sainted.”
342 — Lazy Jake. Or the Devil Nonplussed
“Cheer up,” said Benjamin, for men with whom all things
prosper are great consolers ; “cheer up, you have got much to be joyous for.” “True,” replied the Devil despondingly, “but I have been
foiled ; there is one vice I cannot manage, one failing too stubborn
for me, and that is LAZINESS.”
Our story is finished. If there is a moral in it, the reader can apply it. We have but to dispose of our dramatis personæ, and lay aside
our quill.
Lazy Jake died as he lived. Peasblossom lived long enough to
become the Devil’s without a formal agreement ; the Devil recovered
his cheerfulness, and Susan, surviving her first love, grew up to womanhood, was married, and went the way of all flesh.
_____________
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___________
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
Alphabetical Index
-AAbolitionist...................... 201, 280
Adirondacks.............................. 98
Aesculapius.............................. 334
Aesop................................. 113, 156
Africa........................................ 279
African................ 18, 201, 237, 240
Agualta..28, 33, 198-200, 227-229,
234, 242
Albany.......................................177
Alcott, Amos Bronson ..........314
Algonquin...................................88
Alleghany................................... 70
Allen, William........................... 52
American..................................112
American........................31, 32, 44
America... 9, 16, 17, 24, 67, 74, 82,
137, 164-166, 173, 175, 177, 198,
206, 291, 293, 298, 314, 329, 337
American. 9, 11-19, 21, 27, 28, 3032, 34, 44-46, 49, 56, 58, 65, 67, 70,
72, 78, 82, 109, 111-115, 117, 137,
146, 164-166, 173, 177, 196, 198,
199, 201, 202, 221, 291, 293, 294,
296, 314, 333, 345, 349
American Dream....................165
American Revolution. 44, 52, 94,
170, 171, 262
American society.................... 167
Andalusia................................. 235
Angel.. 95, 186, 203, 233, 240, 241,
249, 262, 266, 267, 284, 304, 305
Antastic.......................................25
Appalachian.................19, 50, 229
April.................................. 179, 180
Arcadia............. 175, 199, 231, 233
Arthur (King)..........................173
Ashawang. 210, 261, 263, 264, 267
Atlantic 16, 30, 117, 119, 197, 235,
319
August..................... 12, 45, 82, 326
Austin, William .....14, 20, 23, 33,
209, 212, 344, 352
Autumn.........56, 80, 144, 317, 322
Avranches................................ 157
-BBabylonia................................. 275
Balboa (de), Vasco Núñez ... 120
Baltimore..........................298, 319
Barbadoes................................ 232
Barbey d’Aurevilly........ 109, 344
Barlow, Joel .................... 177, 344
Bartram, William...........199, 344
Basil, Hall................................. 262
Beaujeu, Daniel ........................71
Beauty...... 59, 60, 64, 78, 119, 122,
134, 144, 145, 172, 175, 247, 248,
263, 270, 272-276, 280, 288, 317
Beelzebub................................. 323
Behn, Aphra ................... 282, 344
Bernardin de Saint-Pierre.. 108,
344
Bible...........152, 280, 282, 285, 330
Blackstone River............ 191, 220
Blake, William ....................... 227
Blood..... 80, 85, 86, 88-91, 93, 116,
132, 138, 158, 159, 162, 164, 170,
175, 187, 203, 221, 224, 235, 246,
249, 255, 267, 283, 284, 310, 319,
326, 329
Bloomingdael...........................319
Blue Mountains.......................230
Boat...17, 27, 38, 43, 61, 63, 65, 66,
68, 97, 111, 119, 123, 125, 136-138,
165, 171, 176, 177, 261
Book....58, 133, 196, 218, 223, 245,
247, 271, 308-312, 314, 315, 322,
331, 332, 342
Boston.11, 12, 19, 30, 31, 115, 137,
145, 168, 170, 190, 191, 209, 219,
294, 297, 326
Bozzetto, Roger...............206, 344
Braddock, Edward......11, 44, 70,
71, 73, 78-81
Bradford, William .................. 40
Brahmins......................16, 31, 301
Braid, James..............29, 206, 253
Breuer Josef.............................344
Bridge 60, 61, 65, 67, 189, 190, 314
British..... 12, 14, 44, 45, 64, 70-72,
74, 81-83, 87, 94, 125, 198, 199,
221, 222, 236, 262, 280, 294, 298,
310, 318, 320
Brittany.....................................158
Bronx.........................................319
Brooklyn...........................319, 320
Brown, Charles Brockden ... 14,
28, 205, 344
Browne, Thomas ................... 253
Brummell, Beau..............109, 291
Bryant, William Cullen... 12, 22,
23, 344
Buckingham, Joseph T..... 12, 20
Buell, Lawrence..............209, 344
Bulwer-Lytton, Edward...... 293,
310, 344
Bunker Hill................................ 58
Burgoyne, John ........................94
Burnet, William .......................82
Burton, Robert .......................263
Byron (Lord).... 15, 109, 127, 140,
141, 216, 228, 234, 291, 293, 301,
311, 312, 341, 345
-CCabeza de Vaca...................... 117
Cadiz......................................... 235
Calvinism................................. 209
Calvinist....................209, 212, 352
Campbell, Thomas ........215, 345
Canada............56, 71, 95, 136, 228
Canaries....................................253
Canarsie....................................144
Canoe.... 52, 61, 63, 69, 95-98, 100,
102, 172, 176
Cape Cod..................................157
Cape of Good Hope....... 120, 279
Capitalism................................ 302
Carleton, William ......... 318, 345
Carroll, Lewis ................ 142, 345
Castile........................................235
Castle.........................45, 49, 74, 75
Catherine of Medici..............159
Catholic......16, 116, 159, 233, 242,
264
Catskills. 17, 20, 22, 36, 38, 50, 51,
57
Cervantes, Miguel de....113, 200,
345
Champs Elysées...................... 173
Chancery.................................. 327
Channing, William Ellery...... 14
Charcot, Jean-Martin........... 206
Chaucer, Geoffrey 304, 305, 345
Cherbourg................................159
Cherokee............ 18, 199, 229, 344
Cheshire....................................333
Choctaw......................18, 199, 344
Christ.........................208, 264, 285
Christian......46, 60, 122, 264, 293,
301, 313, 331
Clay, Henry................................12
Clinton, George................ 18, 171
Cockney......16, 111, 112, 136-143,
262
Cole, Thomas.........19, 21, 51, 345
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor... 257,
305, 345
College........58, 118, 131, 133, 134,
189, 194, 203, 243, 245, 271
Colt, Samuel ........................... 189
Coney Island............................319
Congo.........................237-240, 253
Congress...... 37, 52, 109, 130, 164,
198, 298, 328
Connecticut.......26, 118, 119, 149,
189, 220, 270, 276, 288
Constitution............................. 304
Consumption..... 64, 211, 240, 341
Cooper, Fenimore....... 12, 17, 47,
292, 304, 308, 345
Cooper, Fenimore Susan.....292,
345
Cordilleras............................... 231
Cordoba....................................235
Cork...........................................318
Coventry...................................131
Cowes........................................ 175
Cronstadt................................. 222
Cumberland...............................71
Cupid.........................................341
-DDandy.......... 32, 109, 110, 131, 278
Dandyism......................... 109, 291
Dante, Alighieri....... 15, 291, 292,
297, 304, 345
Darkness 40, 53, 62-64, 77, 83, 9093, 97, 160, 240, 241, 283, 284,
299, 309, 341
De Luna, Tristan ................... 117
Dead Sea................................... 235
December......................... 182, 268
Defoe, Daniel................... 200, 345
Degrafton’s Farriery............. 319
Delaware.....................................76
Devil 30, 80, 98, 111, 113-116, 124,
132,
222,
296,
315,
343
137, 149, 151, 153, 162, 213,
223, 237, 267, 284, 289-291,
297, 299-307, 309, 310, 312,
318-321, 323, 329-334, 337-
Diana......................................... 190
Dias, Bartolomeu ...................279
Dickens, Charles.............293, 345
Dingwall, Eric J.............. 206, 346
Dinwiddie (Governor).............79
Disraeli, Benjamin.. 15, 293, 310,
346
Doctor....... 138, 139, 152-156, 187,
239, 333
Dolph Heiliger.................295, 296
Dream...28, 39, 48, 54, 56, 78, 104,
108, 122, 124, 125, 145, 150, 173,
178, 196, 204, 212, 213, 216, 217,
223, 227, 231, 238, 245, 252, 263,
300, 332, 333, 338-340
Dublin........................................318
Duquesne (Fort).....19, 44, 70, 71,
73, 79
Dutch.... 11, 16, 20, 50, 51, 87, 115,
144, 152, 153, 155, 156, 175, 215,
294, 296, 316, 320, 321
Dutchman (Flying)...................24
-EEast Indies................................121
Eather........................................298
Edgeworth, Maria .292, 311, 346
Edwards, Jonathan ...............264
Egend...........................................38
Egeria.......................................... 60
Elliotson, John................ 206, 253
Emerson, Ralph Waldo .. 22, 42,
346
England..12, 16, 27, 45, 49, 58, 61,
64, 66, 67, 70, 74, 76, 79, 109, 146,
150, 175, 189, 207, 220, 228, 229,
246, 254, 258, 261, 306, 307, 318,
327, 347
English... 11, 15, 32, 54, 66, 74, 81,
86, 88, 98, 112, 116, 157, 201, 212,
228, 230, 236, 237, 245, 253, 259,
263, 282, 284, 291, 293, 304, 305,
309, 310, 314, 316, 319, 337
Epsom........................................318
Erie...................................... 50, 171
Espy, James Pollard.............. 298
Essex County...........................144
Europe....... 15-17, 20, 58, 220, 337
European..9, 14-16, 19, 31, 41, 45,
49, 62, 109, 117, 157, 220, 291,
294, 296
Evans (Miss)............ 292, 308, 346
Evil..62, 83, 99, 108, 127, 146, 151,
152, 176, 198, 218, 226, 229, 235,
248, 253, 304, 318, 322, 334
Excalibur..................................173
Eye..... 25, 34, 39, 42, 48, 52, 54-56,
58, 63, 66, 67, 72, 73, 78, 80, 81,
83, 85-91, 98, 103, 104, 110, 124,
126, 128, 130-135, 140-142, 146,
147, 152-154, 157, 161, 162, 174,
175, 178, 180-185, 188-190, 192,
193, 198, 200, 207, 217, 218, 221,
223-225, 227, 230-232, 234, 235,
237, 238, 240, 244-247, 250, 252254, 256-260, 262, 265-267, 270,
271, 279, 282, 285, 292, 297, 300,
305, 306, 308, 310, 313, 317, 322,
324, 325, 332, 334, 336, 337, 339,
340, 342
-FFairy.... 36, 122, 203, 231, 245, 262
Fantastic...... 24, 26, 27, 34, 40, 50,
196, 204, 264
Farm..... 51, 97, 114, 115, 145, 146,
148, 149, 151-156, 251, 295, 298,
300, 316, 317, 322, 341
Faust.............. 30, 31, 294, 296, 299
Fay......................................... 36, 50
Fénelon, Francois ..................346
Fénelon, François ..................171
Fielding, Henry.15, 293, 309, 346
Fire....38, 40, 46, 51, 54, 63, 81, 84,
86, 89, 91, 96, 98, 139, 167, 185,
188, 203, 204, 210, 230, 238, 245,
246, 248, 250, 251, 255, 266, 268,
284, 311, 317, 322, 323, 328, 330,
342
Flatbush............................319, 320
Florida.......................117, 199, 344
Forest 22, 23, 44, 46, 50, 55-57, 59,
60, 68, 70-74, 77-80, 82-85, 92, 9497, 108, 128, 145, 149, 157, 158,
218, 233, 316, 320
Forester, Frank ........................12
Fox, John..........................245, 346
France 12, 16, 17, 24, 70, 116, 157,
158, 164, 173, 177, 178, 206, 221,
329, 344, 347
Franklin, Benjamin...... 206, 293,
298
French.... 16, 17, 37, 51, 70, 71, 79,
82, 88, 116, 139, 143, 159, 164,
165, 170-175, 177, 178, 221, 258,
310
French and Indian War...18, 44,
47, 70
French Revolution.. 24, 164, 170,
173, 175, 177, 258
Freud, Sigmund..... 196, 213, 344,
346
Freudian............................. 48, 212
Friday........................................200
Frontier.............................111, 165
Fulton, Robert.....16, 24, 166, 177
Fuseli, Henry........................... 266
-GGenisee Farmer........................ 51
Geoffroy, Alain............... 296, 346
Georgia............................. 199, 344
German....15, 16, 21, 51, 146, 168,
291-293, 305, 313
Germany.....................................16
Ghost 23, 34, 37, 56, 198, 216, 219,
226, 237, 271, 283
Gibraltar.................................. 235
God... 36, 54, 55, 90, 122, 123, 133,
135, 151, 160, 161, 164, 170, 173,
185, 208, 212, 213, 219, 233, 240,
241, 244, 259, 266, 285, 297, 298,
300, 301, 303, 304, 309, 332, 342
Godwin, William ... 293, 309, 346
Goethe.... 15, 30, 31, 168, 291, 296,
301, 305, 330, 346
Gold...... 65, 71, 113, 144, 148, 150,
151, 153-156, 174, 177, 187, 288,
299, 300, 321, 329, 337, 339, 340
Gomorrah................................ 235
Goodyear, Charles ................337
Gothic............15, 28, 48, 49, 58, 79
Granada....................................235
Gray, Thomas................. 216, 346
Great Awakening...... 18, 28, 209,
264
Great Britain 19, 45, 70, 198, 207,
221, 253, 259
Great Spirit........................87, 101
Greece......................................... 15
Greek....54, 59, 122, 175, 181, 185,
199, 231, 274, 303, 332, 334, 335
Greeley, Horace........................12
Guillotin, Joseph-Ignace...... 206
-HHaiti...........................................201
Hall, Basil.................................346
Halley, Edmond......................298
Hamilton (county)....................94
Harrison, William Henry 17, 18,
37, 52
Hawthorne, Nathaniel 12, 14, 17,
49, 168, 297, 314, 347
Heaven..... 34, 62, 68, 84, 125, 126,
131, 145, 155, 161, 173, 196, 200,
212, 213, 217-219, 225, 233, 235,
240, 252, 263, 264, 267, 271, 281,
284, 288, 308, 310, 324, 327, 328,
336
Hebrew......................126, 303, 310
Hebrides (the)......................... 225
Hecla..........................................231
Heidorn, Keith C............298, 347
Hell.... 216, 283, 291-293, 304, 307,
309-312, 314, 315
Henry of Guise........................159
Heracles.................................... 181
Herbert, Henry William 12, 347
Herculaneum...........................341
Hesiod................................132, 347
Hildreth, Richard.............11, 347
Hill.. 50, 52, 53, 58, 60, 68, 99, 105,
113, 144, 145, 180, 188, 190, 227,
230, 232, 240, 250, 310, 319, 327
History..... 9, 18, 20, 21, 25, 34, 38,
45, 46, 58, 60, 99, 114-117, 157,
228, 335
Hoffman, Charles Fenno .......12
Hoffmann, Ernst Theodor
Amadeus...................................206
Horace Smith............................ 54
Horror....24, 48, 93, 102, 104, 109,
116, 126, 129, 130, 143, 149, 161,
212, 215, 217, 239, 247, 257, 258,
281, 283
Horse 31, 53, 78, 81, 119, 130, 155,
187, 228, 231, 239, 241, 295, 296,
299, 300, 316-323, 329, 335, 336,
338
Hotel. 36, 37, 51, 52, 130, 144, 174,
Island 22, 26, 28, 49, 59-61, 65, 67,
191, 324
97, 107, 118-121, 124, 125, 129,
165, 172, 174-176, 197, 208, 220,
222, 230, 236, 241, 253, 261, 316,
319, 323
Israel..........................................332
Italy..............................16, 304, 341
Hudson...13, 19, 21, 22, 24, 33, 35,
36, 38, 42, 50, 51, 54, 58, 76, 94,
98, 137, 139, 176-178, 295, 350
Hudson, Henry .......................130
Hugo, Victor...... 15, 293, 310, 347
Huguenot..........................115, 159
Humor 16, 32, 39, 47, 58, 109, 111,
156, 167, 168, 190, 205, 271, 301,
302
Hurricane.........................117, 236
Hydra........................................ 181
Hyperion...........................110, 132
Hypnotism.. 29, 198, 205-207, 253
-IIchabod Crane............ 36, 39, 114
Ightmare...................................266
Incubus.... 167, 181, 209, 210, 216,
266
India.......................................... 279
Indian 13, 27, 32, 33, 43, 46-49, 51,
60-64, 68, 70-73, 75, 76, 81, 82, 8488, 90, 92, 93, 95-99, 101, 103, 104,
144, 171, 184-186, 220, 228, 229,
237, 238, 300, 339
Indiana........................................52
Ingraham, Joseph.. 166-168, 179,
347
Insanity..... 124, 244, 259, 269, 320
Ireland.........................16, 259, 318
Irish................. 11, 16, 44, 306, 318
Iroquois.......................................95
Irrational...13, 14, 25, 27, 40, 204,
210, 255
Irving, Washington.....12, 14, 15,
17, 19, 20, 25, 32, 33, 36-38, 41, 50,
52, 58, 113-115, 144, 146, 168, 295,
296, 299, 300, 346, 348
Irving, William......................... 32
-JJamaica.19, 33, 121, 199-201, 229,
230, 236, 322, 349
James, Henry...............13, 25, 348
James, William............... 206, 348
January.....................244, 268, 336
Jay, John ................................. 171
Jefferson, Thomas.164, 171, 177,
178, 221, 301
Jerusalem......................... 275, 332
Job.............. 299-301, 304, 331, 341
Johnson, Ben........... 301, 330, 348
Johnson, William .................... 97
Jouffroy d’Abbans...................16
July.................... 38, 57, 71, 95, 189
June..................................... 71, 190
Jupiter.......................................297
-KKaatskills..............................42, 58
Kamschatka.............................253
Kansas.......................................117
Kant, Immanuel .................... 313
Kauterskill..................... 38, 55, 56
Kildare, Curragh of...............318
King..................... 73, 170, 175, 339
King Philip...............................220
Kingston............ 230, 236, 239-241
Knickerbocker, Dietrich........20,
344, 348, 350
-LLacan, Jacques................208, 348
Laguerre, Michel S........ 201, 348
Lake...22, 24, 42, 48, 50, 59, 65-69,
91, 94-100, 102-104, 136, 145, 171,
172, 174, 176, 235, 249-251, 261,
283, 284, 313
Landscape....21-23, 36, 49, 53, 67,
68, 94, 144, 145, 199, 219
Latin.................... 59, 153, 216, 334
Lavoisier, Antoine..................206
Lee, Vernon..................... 116, 348
Legend.... 13, 23, 43, 47-49, 58, 96,
98, 105, 116, 117, 157, 215, 219,
238, 294
Leipzig.......................................291
Lewis, Matthew Gregory.... 116,
348
Lightning.....23, 62, 63, 83, 87, 97,
129, 148, 211, 281, 297, 309, 311,
326-328
Like..............................................84
Lisbon........................................236
Litchfield.......................... 276, 279
Livingston, Robert R....166, 177,
178
London..............202, 206, 253, 352
Long Island.......19, 119, 144, 270,
288, 316
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...................................................... 12
Louisiana....................70, 177, 178
Lovel, James.............................. 58
Lovell...........................................18
Lucifer.......................................304
-MMacintosh, Charles ..............337
Mad...124, 142, 204, 205, 253, 311,
312, 320
Madman........... 203, 246, 256, 257
Madness...28, 29, 33, 48, 100, 202,
204, 205, 210, 223, 243, 244, 255,
268
Magic 115, 153, 155, 172, 230, 310,
318, 319
Maine......19, 58, 64, 166, 179, 188,
220, 249
Manhattan............................... 319
March..........................................12
Mark Twain.....................292, 348
Marriage..108, 113, 128, 142, 143,
165, 254, 263, 266, 287
Mary Magdalene.................... 285
Mary Tudor.............................245
Massachusetts...... 16, 19, 33, 113,
115, 117, 144, 220, 229
Mather, Cotton............... 219, 348
Maturin, Charles Robert ..... 15,
293, 309, 349
May.... 37, 52, 64, 90, 181, 184, 227
Mayflower Compact..............157
McHenry, James........ 11, 44, 349
Medicine..................... 58, 243, 244
Mediterranean........................ 235
Melville, Herman.... 17, 196, 197,
347
Mercury....................................133
Merican.......................................49
Mesmer, Franz Anton...206, 253
Metraux, A.......................201, 349
Mexico.......................................261
Midnight..24, 31, 54, 69, 149, 155,
191, 194, 198, 203, 333
Milton, John .... 15, 283, 291, 304,
349
Missionary...... 107, 108, 118, 119,
121, 125-129, 351
Mississippi..........................70, 179
Modernity............................ 14, 39
Mohawk.......18, 87, 95, 97-99, 171
Mohegan...............18, 98, 144, 149
Mohican........................18, 98, 304
Molière..............................312, 349
Money....... 31, 37-39, 56, 115, 137,
146, 175, 229, 286, 287, 300, 302,
319, 321, 329, 335, 338-340
Monongahela....70, 71, 74, 78, 81,
82, 85
Mont St. Michel... 17, 19, 25, 115,
157-159
Montcalm, General .................82
Montgomery (Count of) 33, 115,
116, 159, 161
Montgomery, James ............. 280
Moore, Thomas.......291, 306, 349
Morris, George Pope ..............12
Morse, Samuel F. B............... 298
Morton, Thomas ......................11
Motley, John Lathrop ............11
Mountain......33, 36, 51, 53, 55-57,
94-99, 104, 123, 145, 157, 228, 230,
231, 236, 238, 241, 281, 283, 309,
313, 323
Mountain House....38, 50, 51, 5355, 57
Murray, John ......... 307, 345, 348
Mystery.. 11, 13, 17, 23-25, 29, 34,
43, 68, 148, 156, 161, 169, 194,
196, 198, 204, 205, 210, 215, 218,
225, 241, 248, 303, 349
-NNahant.......................................144
Naples........................................341
Napoleon...........................173, 177
Narragansett..............18, 220, 224
Nassau....................................... 316
Natchez............................... 18, 179
Native 16, 18, 21, 27, 33-35, 40, 43,
46-48, 65, 67, 76, 77, 79, 82, 95,
107, 114, 117, 123, 149, 171, 229,
337
Nature..... 14, 20-24, 28, 31, 36, 38,
39, 41, 42, 44, 45, 47, 54, 59, 60,
62, 64, 66, 67, 69, 71, 74, 79, 89,
90, 94, 95, 101, 108, 113, 116, 122,
124, 125, 141, 159, 160, 168, 174,
179, 196, 198, 199, 202, 209, 210,
213, 218, 219, 227, 228, 234, 240,
244, 247, 256, 257, 264, 272, 274,
276, 279, 281, 287, 288, 322, 334,
336
Neal, John ....................... 294, 349
Nebraska.................................. 117
Nebuchadnezzar..................... 275
Negro (sic). 54, 200, 201, 229, 237,
238, 286
Neptune.....................................185
New England.9, 12, 14-16, 19, 20,
25, 58, 61, 64, 67, 146, 150, 189,
198, 208, 220, 228, 229, 246, 261,
298, 299, 301
New Hampshire...... 220, 308, 346
New Haven 19, 189, 270, 279, 281,
288
New York.... 11, 12, 19, 20, 32, 50,
51, 55, 58, 82, 87, 95, 98, 119, 120,
128, 139, 144, 152, 171, 175, 177,
178, 217, 266, 288, 301, 316, 319,
331, 342
Newburgh...................................51
Newfoundland.................120, 225
Newmarket.............................. 318
Niagara....................................... 56
Nicholls, Richard....................316
Nightmare.. 34, 181, 198, 212, 222
Nile.............................................231
Normandy...........17, 116, 157-159
Nurse 126, 201, 202, 237, 238, 240,
243
-OOcean......40, 62, 64, 65, 74, 83, 97,
158, 197, 215-219, 261, 283, 284,
286, 317
October............................... 12, 133
Oedipus.....................................167
Ohio............................................. 70
Oklahoma.........................117, 229
Oneida...........24, 26, 165, 171, 172
Oppelgänger............................ 169
Oswego (Fort)............... 19, 45, 82
Otmar..................................15, 349
Ovid..................... 15, 211, 273, 349
Oyster-Bay............................... 319
-PPacific.....19, 26, 28, 107, 118, 120,
253
Palasades.................................... 51
Palenville.................................... 55
Palestine....................................235
Palmer Peabody, Elizabeth.292,
314, 349
Palmer, Job................................11
Paris 24, 26, 56, 110, 117, 159, 165,
170, 175, 177, 238, 276
Park, Benjamin.........................12
Passion. 58, 89, 142, 165, 176, 192,
202, 227, 228, 243, 244, 253, 267,
268, 273, 274, 276-278, 285, 288,
308, 309
Pater, Walter ..........................116
Patterson, A. D. ....................... 12
Patton, Diana...........................349
Paulding, J. K. ................. 32, 348
Pawtucket.................................220
Pennsylvania........44, 70, 207, 253
Pequot................... 18, 58, 114, 149
Peter Rugg....... 20, 23, 33, 34, 211
Peter the Great....................... 222
Philadelphia.................11, 44, 304
Physician..... 11, 44, 204, 206, 243,
253, 256, 257, 334
Piacentino, Ed......................... 204
Piacentino, Ed......................... 350
Pike, Albert........................12, 350
Pilgrim Fathers.......................117
Pioneer................ 20, 165, 209, 298
Plymouth Colony....................157
Poe, Edgar Allan... 12, 14, 17, 25,
40, 49, 112, 166, 169, 196, 198,
204, 205, 208, 213, 350
Poison. 33, 235, 239, 278, 302, 334,
335
Ponce de Leon, Juan..............117
Pond.... 41-43, 49, 64, 65, 114, 309,
337
Pope, Alexander ...... 15, 122, 350
Port Royal........................ 230, 241
Portland..............................64, 179
Portuguese....................... 233, 279
Poseidon....................................185
Poughkeepsie.............................51
Prince George (Fort)......... 71, 79
Protestant................. 116, 159, 245
Providence.... 19, 41, 46, 127, 136,
159, 220
Psychoanalysis.......... 30, 212, 213
Puritan................ 40, 219, 270, 301
Puritanism............................... 209
Puységur, Marquis de........... 206
-QQueens.......................................319
Quincey, Thomas (de)... 212, 345
Quogue......................................119
-RRadcliffe, Ann........... 49, 116, 350
Raleigh, Sir Walter.................. 74
Rangeley................................... 249
Reason...... 25-27, 33, 40, 106, 148,
197, 204-210, 218, 219, 225, 227,
252, 256, 263, 268, 271, 273, 293,
301, 311, 332, 334
Religion.......................14, 208, 209
Revolution... 11, 16, 33, 44, 52, 58,
94, 164, 165, 170, 171, 173, 175,
177, 258, 262, 349
Rhine........................................... 19
Rhode Island...... 17, 19, 197, 220,
224, 226, 229
Richardson, Samuel ..... 293, 350
Rip van Winkle17, 20, 21, 33, 3639, 41, 42, 50-52, 56, 58, 113-115,
166, 295, 300
River. 22, 29, 50, 57, 59, 61, 63, 65,
71, 75, 78, 97, 98, 113, 144, 145,
208, 261, 262, 269, 312, 313, 319
Roanoke......................................74
Rochester....................................51
Rockaway.................................144
Roman..68, 75, 122, 134, 152, 171,
185, 189, 190, 215, 231, 233, 253,
303, 309, 332
Romantic.................................... 22
Romanticism.....14, 15, 31, 43, 47,
109, 168, 291
Rome............................... 15, 59, 60
Royot, Daniel...........295, 301, 350
Russia................................ 221, 222
-SSabago.........................................43
Sacandaga Valley..................... 97
Sachem............................ 72, 86-93
Sacondaga.............................97-99
Sag Harbor...................... 119, 120
Sailor 24, 27, 32, 34, 167, 169, 185,
186, 196, 197, 217, 218, 283, 298
Salisbury, Sylvester ................ 51
Salvation.............................31, 212
Saratoga...18, 19, 94, 99, 109, 130,
131, 144
Satan....... 14, 30, 32, 296, 299-301,
304, 305, 321, 341
Schenectada............................. 171
Schoolcraft, Henry ..65, 347, 350
Scotland...................... 12, 225, 347
Scott, Walter ... 15, 114, 146, 153,
307, 350
Scottish..............................206, 329
Scroon......................................... 98
Sea.......17, 56, 61, 65, 97, 103, 117,
120, 123, 126, 129, 158, 159, 194,
215, 216, 220, 221, 227, 228, 230,
241, 261, 304, 316
Sebago....18, 21, 23, 41, 64-66, 249
September..... 50, 55, 57, 113, 144,
147, 266, 268
Sequoyah.................................. 229
Shakespeare......15, 113, 141, 144,
147, 156, 157, 170, 173, 191, 216,
235, 252, 264, 279, 301, 331, 350
Shawnee................................18, 52
Shelley......................................... 54
Ship..... 47, 107, 108, 120, 123, 124,
126, 217, 220, 221, 224, 226, 279,
294, 316
Sickness.......75, 202, 244, 280, 285
Sigourney, Lydia Huntley..... 11,
118, 351
Sin.............................................. 302
Skinner, J. S. .......................... 319
Slave.......................... 198, 201, 349
Slavery...................................... 167
Smandych, Russell......... 201, 351
Smith, Horace........................... 54
Smollett, Tobias George ....... 15,
293, 309, 351
Snow..... 23, 27, 79, 91, 97, 99, 166,
167, 179-188, 203, 205, 245, 249,
268, 280, 324, 326
Snow ......................... 182, 184, 186
Sodom........................................235
Solitude.. 41, 44, 45, 54, 65, 71, 74,
122, 124, 175, 196, 216, 218, 228,
231, 234, 240, 284
Solomon.................................... 332
Somnambulism................. 29, 206
Somnus......................................341
Sorceress...................................257
Sound....... 111, 119, 121, 136, 137,
270, 288
South Carolina................199, 344
South-Hampton (NY)............119
Southampton (UK)................ 175
Southerne, Thomas........282, 351
Southey, Robert .............305, 345
Spain............................................16
Spanish.28, 33, 120, 155, 199, 233,
235, 300, 329, 335
Spirit...47, 56, 62, 87, 95, 101, 137,
139, 152, 155-159, 161, 182, 191,
197, 210, 216, 219, 226-228, 231,
232, 234, 235, 244, 248, 265-267,
269, 271, 281-283, 303, 311, 320,
322, 330, 333, 341
Spring.....26, 36, 51, 59, 61, 64, 77,
81, 84, 100, 109, 118, 130, 179-182,
184, 202, 219, 244, 245, 259, 280,
324, 327, 338
Spruce Creek.............................55
St. Germain............................. 173
St. Lawrence River.................. 95
St. Petersburgh....................... 221
St. Regis................................ 95, 99
Storm 40, 46, 47, 51, 62, 63, 65, 76,
83, 97, 104, 108, 121, 126, 152,
175, 215, 217, 219, 295, 298, 317,
325, 335, 347
Strasbourg............................... 291
Stream.... 49, 59, 66, 78, 81-84, 89,
96, 100, 123, 145, 157, 161, 190,
221, 230, 233, 236, 240, 255, 261,
262, 281, 283, 312, 319
Street, Alfred Billings.13, 17, 70,
351
Suffolk.......................................119
Sullivan, James ...................... 318
Summer... 42, 60, 66, 95, 101, 144,
157, 158, 179, 180, 183, 184, 241,
250, 261, 263, 264, 319, 322, 327
Sunday...................... 233, 267, 306
Supernatural........................... 116
Supernatural..... 13, 21, 23-26, 29,
34, 40, 41, 43, 47, 48, 103, 169,
196, 197, 203, 208, 215, 219, 223,
247, 283, 294, 296
Supernature...................20, 23, 41
Superstition....... 13, 176, 195-197,
200, 215-217, 226, 237, 252, 253
Syracuse....................................171
-TTale....13, 17, 20, 21, 25, 28-31, 33,
36, 47, 49, 75, 96, 111, 113-115,
144, 158, 162, 166, 170, 172, 177,
183, 197, 204, 208, 211, 213, 215,
219, 221, 226, 234, 241, 244, 264,
265, 269, 270, 274, 294, 296, 299301, 317, 345
Tall tale..................................... 111
Tartarus......................................53
Taylor, Jeremy..15, 301, 331, 351
Tecumseh................................... 52
Telemachus.............................. 171
Tempest. 64, 83, 97, 126, 129, 215,
279, 281, 297, 298, 325
Texas......................................... 117
Tezcuco..................................... 261
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
.................... 20, 36, 39, 58, 115, 295
Thomas, Robert Bailey ........ 298
Thomasius, Christian ...........313
Thoreau, Henry David...42, 199,
351
Thunderstorm.23, 40, 46, 47, 211
Timon of Athens....... 15, 113, 144
Tippicanoe................................. 52
Titan.......................................... 132
Titus Livius..................15, 59, 351
Tornado............................ 117, 159
Townshend, Chauncy Hare. 206
Tradition.................................. 165
Tradition..... 14, 16, 20, 22, 28, 30,
32, 43, 48, 49, 60, 63, 68, 99, 112,
198, 230, 296, 298, 299, 301
Trail of Tears.......................... 229
Transcendentalism......14, 23, 42,
314
Transgression......................32, 34
Traveller......55, 58, 60, 61, 65, 99,
112, 136, 137, 140, 158, 178, 190,
199
Treasure.. 113, 119, 127, 152, 185,
316, 317, 340
Tucker, Luther......................... 51
Turf Register...........................319
-UUnconscious...... 30, 110, 132, 174,
204, 257, 268
Unitarian...................... 14, 30, 209
Unitarianism......................14, 209
United States.... 19, 32, 33, 36, 37,
117, 137, 164, 171, 206, 262, 276,
294, 304, 334
-VValley... 50, 54, 103, 145, 229, 230,
232, 234, 308, 309, 311, 327
Van Bergen, Martin ............... 51
Vermont....................................220
Versailles.................................. 170
Vesuvius....................................314
Virgil............. 15, 95, 291, 304, 351
Virginia. 71, 73, 74, 76, 79-81, 321
Volcano .................................... 341
Voltaire............... 15, 293, 311, 351
Vulcan....................................... 297
-WWalden........................................42
Walpole, Horace ......................49
Walton, Izaak ..................66, 351
Wampanoag...............................64
War....62, 63, 70, 72, 80-82, 84, 87,
98, 116, 117, 131, 159, 161, 220,
268, 278, 298, 314
War of Independence......18, 109
Ware, Henry .............................14
Warren, Joseph.............. 170, 352
Warrior..43, 60, 68, 69, 72, 75, 77,
81, 85-91, 93, 100, 101
Wars of Religion.............116, 157
Washington (D.C.)......... 298, 305
Washington, George...17, 44, 45,
51, 70, 71, 73-75, 78-81, 169, 191,
305
Water Valley........................... 229
Waterfall..... 37, 56, 57, 59, 60, 65,
81, 92, 96, 129, 180, 182, 187, 193,
246, 247, 249
Watts, Isaac....... 15, 336, 337, 352
Weather. 30, 42, 43, 104, 147, 176,
217, 218, 224, 296-298, 300, 319,
324, 327, 336
Webster, Noah ............... 294, 352
West.11, 58, 76, 104, 175, 184-186,
228, 237, 238
West Indian..................... 167, 228
West Indies..... 198, 201, 237, 329,
351
West Virginia............................ 70
Western Islands...................... 225
Whitney, Eli ............................189
Whitneyville.............................189
Wife...... 53, 56, 118, 121, 124, 128,
142, 145, 156, 169, 188, 192, 194,
219, 233, 234, 236, 237, 239, 317,
322, 327
Wilde, Oscar............................110
Wilderness... 11, 22, 40, 43-46, 62,
64, 67-69, 71, 74, 97, 98, 233, 240
Williams, Roger........17, 220, 229
Willis, Nathaniel Parker11, 202,
352
Winter.. 23, 59, 64, 91, 95, 99, 147,
157, 179-182, 184, 243, 249, 330,
335
Witch 137, 139, 200, 201, 219, 237,
238, 240, 252, 274, 299, 306, 318,
329, 334
Wood 22, 38, 45, 57, 65, 67, 68, 71,
73, 77, 88, 96, 100, 144-148, 156,
171, 172, 174, 186, 227, 229, 233,
240, 261, 272-274, 276, 312, 319,
324, 335
Wood Creek.............................171
Worcester................................. 191
-YYankee.............................. 301, 350
Yarn...........................................299
Yorkshire.....16, 145-148, 151-153
Young, Edward ..............284, 352
-ZZeus........................................... 334
Zimbalatti, Joseph A.....209, 352
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