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From MOSSES FROM AN OLD MANSE .......................................................................................................1

Nathaniel Hawthorne...............................................................................................................................1

In the latter part of the last century there lived a man of science, an eminent proficient in every branch of

natural philosophy, who not long before our story opens had made experience of a spiritual affinity more

attractive than any chemical one. He had left his laboratory to the care of an assistant, cleared his fine

countenance from the furnace smoke, washed the stain of acids from his fingers, and persuaded a beautiful

woman to become his wife. In those days when the comparatively recent discovery of electricity and other

kindred mysteries of Nature seemed to open paths into the region of miracle, it was not unusual for the love

of science to rival the love of woman in its depth and absorbing energy. The higher intellect, the imagination,

the spirit, and even the heart might all find their congenial aliment in pursuits which, as some of their ardent

votaries believed, would ascend from one step of powerful intelligence to another, until the philosopher

should lay his hand on the secret of creative force and perhaps make new worlds for himself. We know not

whether Aylmer possessed this degree of faith in man's ultimate control over Nature. He had devoted himself,

however, too unreservedly to scientific studies ever to be weaned from them by any second passion. His love

for his young wife might prove the stronger of the two; but it could only be by intertwining itself with his

Such a union accordingly took place, and was attended with truly remarkable consequences and a deeply

impressive moral. One day, very soon after their marriage, Aylmer sat gazing at his wife with a trouble in his

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

"No, indeed," said she, smiling; but perceiving the seriousness of his manner, she blushed deeply. "To tell

you the truth it has been so often called a charm that I was simple enough to imagine it might be so."

"Ah, upon another face perhaps it might," replied her husband; "but never on yours. No, dearest Georgiana,

you came so nearly perfect from the hand of Nature that this slightest possible defect, which we hesitate

whether to term a defect or a beauty, shocks me, as being the visible mark of earthly imperfection."

"Shocks you, my husband!" cried Georgiana, deeply hurt; at first reddening with momentary anger, but then

bursting into tears. "Then why did you take me from my mother's side? You cannot love what shocks you!"

To explain this conversation it must be mentioned that in the centre of Georgiana's left cheek there was a

singular mark, deeply interwoven, as it were, with the texture and substance of her face. In the usual state of

her complexiona healthy though delicate bloomthe mark wore a tint of deeper crimson, which

imperfectly defined its shape amid the surrounding rosiness. When she blushed it gradually became more

indistinct, and finally vanished amid the triumphant rush of blood that bathed the whole cheek with its

brilliant glow. But if any shifting motion caused her to turn pale there was the mark again, a crimson stain

upon the snow, in what Aylmer sometimes deemed an almost fearful distinctness. Its shape bore not a little

similarity to the human hand, though of the smallest pygmy size. Georgiana's lovers were wont to say that

some fairy at her birth hour had laid her tiny hand upon the infant's cheek, and left this impress there in token

of the magic endowments that were to give her such sway over all hearts. Many a desperate swain would

have risked life for the privilege of pressing his lips to the mysterious hand. It must not be concealed,

however, that the impression wrought by this fairy sign manual varied exceedingly, according to the

difference of temperament in the beholders. Some fastidious personsbut they were exclusively of her own

sexaffirmed that the bloody hand, as they chose to call it, quite destroyed the effect of Georgiana's beauty,

and rendered her countenance even hideous. But it would be as reasonable to say that one of those small blue

stains which sometimes occur in the purest statuary marble would convert the Eve of Powers to a monster.

Masculine observers, if the birthmark did not heighten their admiration, contented themselves with wishing it

away, that the world might possess one living specimen of ideal loveliness without the semblance of a flaw.

After his marriage,for he thought little or nothing of the matter before,Aylmer discovered that this was

Had she been less beautiful,if Envy's self could have found aught else to sneer at,he might have felt his

affection heightened by the prettiness of this mimic hand, now vaguely portrayed, now lost, now stealing

forth again and glimmering to and fro with every pulse of emotion that throbbed within her heart; but seeing

her otherwise so perfect, he found this one defect grow more and more intolerable with every moment of their

united lives. It was the fatal flaw of humanity which Nature, in one shape or another, stamps ineffaceably on

all her productions, either to imply that they are temporary and finite, or that their perfection must be wrought

by toil and pain. The crimson hand expressed the ineludible gripe in which mortality clutches the highest and

purest of earthly mould, degrading them into kindred with the lowest, and even with the very brutes, like

whom their visible frames return to dust. In this manner, selecting it as the symbol of his wife's liability to

sin, sorrow, decay, and death, Aylmer's sombre imagination was not long in rendering the birthmark a

frightful object, causing him more trouble and horror than ever Georgiana's beauty, whether of soul or sense,

At all the seasons which should have been their happiest, he invariably and without intending it, nay, in spite

of a purpose to the contrary, reverted to this one disastrous topic. Trifling as it at first appeared, it so

connected itself with innumerable trains of thought and modes of feeling that it became the central point of

all. With the morning twilight Aylmer opened his eyes upon his wife's face and recognized the symbol of

imperfection; and when they sat together at the evening hearth his eyes wandered stealthily to her cheek, and

beheld, flickering with the blaze of the wood fire, the spectral hand that wrote mortality where he would fain

have worshipped. Georgiana soon learned to shudder at his gaze. It needed but a glance with the peculiar

expression that his face often wore to change the roses of her cheek into a deathlike paleness, amid which the

crimson hand was brought strongly out, like a bassrelief of ruby on the whitest marble.

Late one night when the lights were growing dim, so as hardly to betray the stain on the poor wife's cheek,

"Do you remember, my dear Aylmer," said she, with a feeble attempt at a smile, "have you any recollection

"None! none whatever!" replied Aylmer, starting; but then he added, in a dry, cold tone, affected for the sake

of concealing the real depth of his emotion, "I might well dream of it; for before I fell asleep it had taken a

"And you did dream of it?" continued Georgiana, hastily; for she dreaded lest a gush of tears should interrupt

what she had to say. "A terrible dream! I wonder that you can forget it. Is it possible to forget this one

expression?'It is in her heart now; we must have it out!' Reflect, my husband; for by all means I would

The mind is in a sad state when Sleep, the allinvolving, cannot confine her spectres within the dim region of

her sway, but suffers them to break forth, affrighting this actual life with secrets that perchance belong to a

deeper one. Aylmer now remembered his dream. He had fancied himself with his servant Aminadab,

attempting an operation for the removal of the birthmark; but the deeper went the knife, the deeper sank the

hand, until at length its tiny grasp appeared to have caught hold of Georgiana's heart; whence, however, her

When the dream had shaped itself perfectly in his memory, Aylmer sat in his wife's presence with a guilty

feeling. Truth often finds its way to the mind close muffled in robes of sleep, and then speaks with

uncompromising directness of matters in regard to which we practise an unconscious selfdeception during

our waking moments. Until now he had not been aware of the tyrannizing influence acquired by one idea

over his mind, and of the lengths which he might find in his heart to go for the sake of giving himself peace.

"Aylmer," resumed Georgiana, solemnly, "I know not what may be the cost to both of us to rid me of this

fatal birthmark. Perhaps its removal may cause cureless deformity; or it may be the stain goes as deep as life

itself. Again: do we know that there is a possibility, on any terms, of unclasping the firm gripe of this little

"Dearest Georgiana, I have spent much thought upon the subject," hastily interrupted Aylmer. "I am

"If there be the remotest possibility of it," continued Georgiana, "let the attempt be made at whatever risk.

Danger is nothing to me; for life, while this hateful mark makes me the object of your horror and

disgust,life is a burden which I would fling down with joy. Either remove this dreadful hand, or take my

wretched life! You have deep science. All the world bears witness of it. You have achieved great wonders.

Cannot you remove this little, little mark, which I cover with the tips of two small fingers? Is this beyond

your power, for the sake of your own peace, and to save your poor wife from madness?"

"Noblest, dearest, tenderest wife," cried Aylmer, rapturously, "doubt not my power. I have already given this

matter the deepest thoughtthought which might almost have enlightened me to create a being less perfect

than yourself. Georgiana, you have led me deeper than ever into the heart of science. I feel myself fully

competent to render this dear cheek as faultless as its fellow; and then, most beloved, what will be my

triumph when I shall have corrected what Nature left imperfect in her fairest work! Even Pygmalion, when

"It is resolved, then," said Georgiana, faintly smiling. "And, Aylmer, spare me not, though you should find

Her husband tenderly kissed her cheekher right cheeknot that which bore the impress of the crimson

The next day Aylmer apprised his wife of a plan that he had formed whereby he might have opportunity for

the intense thought and constant watchfulness which the proposed operation would require; while Georgiana,

likewise, would enjoy the perfect repose essential to its success. They were to seclude themselves in the

extensive apartments occupied by Aylmer as a laboratory, and where, during his toilsome youth, he had made

discoveries in the elemental powers of Nature that had roused the admiration of all the learned societies in

Europe. Seated calmly in this laboratory, the pale philosopher had investigated the secrets of the highest

cloud region and of the profoundest mines; he had satisfied himself of the causes that kindled and kept alive

the fires of the volcano; and had explained the mystery of fountains, and how it is that they gush forth, some

so bright and pure, and others with such rich medicinal virtues, from the dark bosom of the earth. Here, too,

at an earlier period, he had studied the wonders of the human frame, and attempted to fathom the very process

by which Nature assimilates all her precious influences from earth and air, and from the spiritual world, to

create and foster man, her masterpiece. The latter pursuit, however, Aylmer had long laid aside in unwilling

recognition of the truthagainst which all seekers sooner or later stumblethat our great creative Mother,

while she amuses us with apparently working in the broadest sunshine, is yet severely careful to keep her own

secrets, and, in spite of her pretended openness, shows us nothing but results. She permits us, indeed, to mar,

but seldom to mend, and, like a jealous patentee, on no account to make. Now, however, Aylmer resumed

these halfforgotten investigations; not, of course, with such hopes or wishes as first suggested them; but

because they involved much physiological truth and lay in the path of his proposed scheme for the treatment

As he led her over the threshold of the laboratory, Georgiana was cold and tremulous. Aylmer looked

cheerfully into her face, with intent to reassure her, but was so startled with the intense glow of the birthmark

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

Forthwith there issued from an inner apartment a man of low stature, but bulky frame, with shaggy hair

hanging about his visage, which was grimed with the vapors of the furnace. This personage had been

Aylmer's underworker during his whole scientific career, and was admirably fitted for that office by his great

mechanical readiness, and the skill with which, while incapable of comprehending a single principle, he

executed all the details of his master's experiments. With his vast strength, his shaggy hair, his smoky aspect,

and the indescribable earthiness that incrusted him, he seemed to represent man's physical nature; while

Aylmer's slender figure, and pale, intellectual face, were no less apt a type of the spiritual element.

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

"Yes, master," answered Aminadab, looking intently at the lifeless form of Georgiana; and then he muttered

When Georgiana recovered consciousness she found herself breathing an atmosphere of penetrating

fragrance, the gentle potency of which had recalled her from her deathlike faintness. The scene around her

looked like enchantment. Aylmer had converted those smoky, dingy, sombre rooms, where he had spent his

brightest years in recondite pursuits, into a series of beautiful apartments not unfit to be the secluded abode of

a lovely woman. The walls were hung with gorgeous curtains, which imparted the combination of grandeur

and grace that no other species of adornment can achieve; and as they fell from the ceiling to the floor, their

rich and ponderous folds, concealing all angles and straight lines, appeared to shut in the scene from infinite

space. For aught Georgiana knew, it might be a pavilion among the clouds. And Aylmer, excluding the

sunshine, which would have interfered with his chemical processes, had supplied its place with perfumed

lamps, emitting flames of various hue, but all uniting in a soft, impurpled radiance. He now knelt by his

wife's side, watching her earnestly, but without alarm; for he was confident in his science, and felt that he

"Where am I? Ah, I remember," said Georgiana, faintly; and she placed her hand over her cheek to hide the

"Fear not, dearest!" exclaimed he. "Do not shrink from me! Believe me, Georgiana, I even rejoice in this

"Oh, spare me!" sadly replied his wife. "Pray do not look at it again. I never can forget that convulsive

In order to soothe Georgiana, and, as it were, to release her mind from the burden of actual things, Aylmer

now put in practice some of the light and playful secrets which science had taught him among its profounder

lore. Airy figures, absolutely bodiless ideas, and forms of unsubstantial beauty came and danced before her,

imprinting their momentary footsteps on beams of light. Though she had some indistinct idea of the method

of these optical phenomena, still the illusion was almost perfect enough to warrant the belief that her husband

possessed sway over the spiritual world. Then again, when she felt a wish to look forth from her seclusion,

immediately, as if her thoughts were answered, the procession of external existence flitted across a screen.

The scenery and the figures of actual life were perfectly represented, but with that bewitching, yet

indescribable difference which always makes a picture, an image, or a shadow so much more attractive than

the original. When wearied of this, Aylmer bade her cast her eyes upon a vessel containing a quantity of

earth. She did so, with little interest at first; but was soon startled to perceive the germ of a plant shooting

upward from the soil. Then came the slender stalk; the leaves gradually unfolded themselves; and amid them

"Nay, pluck it," answered Aylmer,"pluck it, and inhale its brief perfume while you may. The flower will

wither in a few moments and leave nothing save its brown seed vessels; but thence may be perpetuated a race

But Georgiana had no sooner touched the flower than the whole plant suffered a blight, its leaves turning

To make up for this abortive experiment, he proposed to take her portrait by a scientific process of his own

invention. It was to be effected by rays of light striking upon a polished plate of metal. Georgiana assented;

but, on looking at the result, was affrighted to find the features of the portrait blurred and indefinable; while

the minute figure of a hand appeared where the cheek should have been. Aylmer snatched the metallic plate

Soon, however, he forgot these mortifying failures. In the intervals of study and chemical experiment he

came to her flushed and exhausted, but seemed invigorated by her presence, and spoke in glowing language

of the resources of his art. He gave a history of the long dynasty of the alchemists, who spent so many ages in

quest of the universal solvent by which the golden principle might be elicited from all things vile and base.

Aylmer appeared to believe that, by the plainest scientific logic, it was altogether within the limits of

possibility to discover this longsought medium; "but," he added, "a philosopher who should go deep enough

to acquire the power would attain too lofty a wisdom to stoop to the exercise of it." Not less singular were his

opinions in regard to the elixir vitae. He more than intimated that it was at his option to concoct a liquid that

should prolong life for years, perhaps interminably; but that it would produce a discord in Nature which all

the world, and chiefly the quaffer of the immortal nostrum, would find cause to curse.

"Aylmer, are you in earnest?" asked Georgiana, looking at him with amazement and fear. "It is terrible to

"Oh, do not tremble, my love," said her husband. "I would not wrong either you or myself by working such

inharmonious effects upon our lives; but I would have you consider how trifling, in comparison, is the skill

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

Again Aylmer applied himself to his labors. She could hear his voice in the distant furnace room giving

directions to Aminadab, whose harsh, uncouth, misshapen tones were audible in response, more like the grunt

or growl of a brute than human speech. After hours of absence, Aylmer reappeared and proposed that she

should now examine his cabinet of chemical products and natural treasures of the earth. Among the former he

showed her a small vial, in which, he remarked, was contained a gentle yet most powerful fragrance, capable

of impregnating all the breezes that blow across a kingdom. They were of inestimable value, the contents of

that little vial; and, as he said so, he threw some of the perfume into the air and filled the room with piercing

"And what is this?" asked Georgiana, pointing to a small crystal globe containing a goldcolored liquid. "It is

"In one sense it is," replied Aylmer; "or, rather, the elixir of immortality. It is the most precious poison that

ever was concocted in this world. By its aid I could apportion the lifetime of any mortal at whom you might

point your finger. The strength of the dose would determine whether he were to linger out years, or drop dead

in the midst of a breath. No king on his guarded throne could keep his life if I, in my private station, should

"Do not mistrust me, dearest," said her husband, smiling; "its virtuous potency is yet greater than its harmful

one. But see! here is a powerful cosmetic. With a few drops of this in a vase of water, freckles may be

washed away as easily as the hands are cleansed. A stronger infusion would take the blood out of the cheek,

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

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

In his interviews with Georgiana, Aylmer generally made minute inquiries as to her sensations and whether

the confinement of the rooms and the temperature of the atmosphere agreed with her. These questions had

such a particular drift that Georgiana began to conjecture that she was already subjected to certain physical

influences, either breathed in with the fragrant air or taken with her food. She fancied likewise, but it might

be altogether fancy, that there was a stirring up of her systema strange, indefinite sensation creeping

through her veins, and tingling, half painfully, half pleasurably, at her heart. Still, whenever she dared to look

into the mirror, there she beheld herself pale as a white rose and with the crimson birthmark stamped upon

To dispel the tedium of the hours which her husband found it necessary to devote to the processes of

combination and analysis, Georgiana turned over the volumes of his scientific library. In many dark old

tomes she met with chapters full of romance and poetry. They were the works of philosophers of the middle

ages, such as Albertus Magnus, Cornelius Agrippa, Paracelsus, and the famous friar who created the

prophetic Brazen Head. All these antique naturalists stood in advance of their centuries, yet were imbued

with some of their credulity, and therefore were believed, and perhaps imagined themselves to have acquired

from the investigation of Nature a power above Nature, and from physics a sway over the spiritual world.

Hardly less curious and imaginative were the early volumes of the Transactions of the Royal Society, in

which the members, knowing little of the limits of natural possibility, were continually recording wonders or

But to Georgiana the most engrossing volume was a large folio from her husband's own hand, in which he

had recorded every experiment of his scientific career, its original aim, the methods adopted for its

development, and its final success or failure, with the circumstances to which either event was attributable.

The book, in truth, was both the history and emblem of his ardent, ambitious, imaginative, yet practical and

laborious life. He handled physical details as if there were nothing beyond them; yet spiritualized them all,

and redeemed himself from materialism by his strong and eager aspiration towards the infinite. In his grasp

the veriest clod of earth assumed a soul. Georgiana, as she read, reverenced Aylmer and loved him more

profoundly than ever, but with a less entire dependence on his judgment than heretofore. Much as he had

accomplished, she could not but observe that his most splendid successes were almost invariably failures, if

compared with the ideal at which he aimed. His brightest diamonds were the merest pebbles, and felt to be so

by himself, in comparison with the inestimable gems which lay hidden beyond his reach. The volume, rich

with achievements that had won renown for its author, was yet as melancholy a record as ever mortal hand

had penned. It was the sad confession and continual exemplification of the shortcomings of the composite

man, the spirit burdened with clay and working in matter, and of the despair that assails the higher nature at

finding itself so miserably thwarted by the earthly part. Perhaps every man of genius in whatever sphere

So deeply did these reflections affect Georgiana that she laid her face upon the open volume and burst into

"It is dangerous to read in a sorcerer's books," said he with a smile, though his countenance was uneasy and

displeased. "Georgiana, there are pages in that volume which I can scarcely glance over and keep my senses.

"Ah, wait for this one success," rejoined he, "then worship me if you will. I shall deem myself hardly

unworthy of it. But come, I have sought you for the luxury of your voice. Sing to me, dearest."

So she poured out the liquid music of her voice to quench the thirst of his spirit. He then took his leave with a

boyish exuberance of gayety, assuring her that her seclusion would endure but a little longer, and that the

result was already certain. Scarcely had he departed when Georgiana felt irresistibly impelled to follow him.

She had forgotten to inform Aylmer of a symptom which for two or three hours past had begun to excite her

attention. It was a sensation in the fatal birthmark, not painful, but which induced a restlessness throughout

her system. Hastening after her husband, she intruded for the first time into the laboratory.

The first thing that struck her eye was the furnace, that hot and feverish worker, with the intense glow of its

fire, which by the quantities of soot clustered above it seemed to have been burning for ages. There was a

distilling apparatus in full operation. Around the room were retorts, tubes, cylinders, crucibles, and other

apparatus of chemical research. An electrical machine stood ready for immediate use. The atmosphere felt

oppressively close, and was tainted with gaseous odors which had been tormented forth by the processes of

science. The severe and homely simplicity of the apartment, with its naked walls and brick pavement, looked

strange, accustomed as Georgiana had become to the fantastic elegance of her boudoir. But what chiefly,

He was pale as death, anxious and absorbed, and hung over the furnace as if it depended upon his utmost

watchfulness whether the liquid which it was distilling should be the draught of immortal happiness or

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

"Carefully now, Aminadab; carefully, thou human machine; carefully, thou man of clay!" muttered Aylmer,

more to himself than his assistant. "Now, if there be a thought too much or too little, it is all over."

Aylmer raised his eyes hastily, and at first reddened, then grew paler than ever, on beholding Georgiana. He

rushed towards her and seized her arm with a gripe that left the print of his fingers upon it.

"Why do you come hither? Have you no trust in your husband?" cried he, impetuously. "Would you throw

the blight of that fatal birthmark over my labors? It is not well done. Go, prying woman, go!"

"Nay, Aylmer," said Georgiana with the firmness of which she possessed no stinted endowment, "it is not

you that have a right to complain. You mistrust your wife; you have concealed the anxiety with which you

watch the development of this experiment. Think not so unworthily of me, my husband. Tell me all the risk

we run, and fear not that I shall shrink; for my share in it is far less than your own."

"I submit," replied she calmly. "And, Aylmer, I shall quaff whatever draught you bring me; but it will be on

the same principle that would induce me to take a dose of poison if offered by your hand."

"My noble wife," said Aylmer, deeply moved, "I knew not the height and depth of your nature until now.

Nothing shall be concealed. Know, then, that this crimson hand, superficial as it seems, has clutched its grasp

into your being with a strength of which I had no previous conception. I have already administered agents

powerful enough to do aught except to change your entire physical system. Only one thing remains to be

"Danger? There is but one dangerthat this horrible stigma shall be left upon my cheek!" cried Georgiana.

"Heaven knows your words are too true," said Aylmer, sadly. "And now, dearest, return to your boudoir. In a

He conducted her back and took leave of her with a solemn tenderness which spoke far more than his words

how much was now at stake. After his departure Georgiana became rapt in musings. She considered the

character of Aylmer, and did it completer justice than at any previous moment. Her heart exulted, while it

trembled, at his honorable loveso pure and lofty that it would accept nothing less than perfection nor

miserably make itself contented with an earthlier nature than he had dreamed of. She felt how much more

precious was such a sentiment than that meaner kind which would have borne with the imperfection for her

sake, and have been guilty of treason to holy love by degrading its perfect idea to the level of the actual; and

with her whole spirit she prayed that, for a single moment, she might satisfy his highest and deepest

conception. Longer than one moment she well knew it could not be; for his spirit was ever on the march, ever

ascending, and each instant required something that was beyond the scope of the instant before.

The sound of her husband's footsteps aroused her. He bore a crystal goblet containing a liquor colorless as

water, but bright enough to be the draught of immortality. Aylmer was pale; but it seemed rather the

consequence of a highlywrought state of mind and tension of spirit than of fear or doubt.

"The concoction of the draught has been perfect," said he, in answer to Georgiana's look. "Unless all my

"Save on your account, my dearest Aylmer," observed his wife, "I might wish to put off this birthmark of

mortality by relinquishing mortality itself in preference to any other mode. Life is but a sad possession to

those who have attained precisely the degree of moral advancement at which I stand. Were I weaker and

blinder it might be happiness. Were I stronger, it might be endured hopefully. But, being what I find myself,

"You are fit for heaven without tasting death!" replied her husband "But why do we speak of dying? The

On the window seat there stood a geranium diseased with yellow blotches, which had overspread all its

leaves. Aylmer poured a small quantity of the liquid upon the soil in which it grew. In a little time, when the

roots of the plant had taken up the moisture, the unsightly blotches began to be extinguished in a living

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

"Drink, then, thou lofty creature!" exclaimed Aylmer, with fervid admiration. "There is no taint of

imperfection on thy spirit. Thy sensible frame, too, shall soon be all perfect."

"It is grateful," said she with a placid smile. "Methinks it is like water from a heavenly fountain; for it

contains I know not what of unobtrusive fragrance and deliciousness. It allays a feverish thirst that had

parched me for many days. Now, dearest, let me sleep. My earthly senses are closing over my spirit like the

She spoke the last words with a gentle reluctance, as if it required almost more energy than she could

command to pronounce the faint and lingering syllables. Scarcely had they loitered through her lips ere she

was lost in slumber. Aylmer sat by her side, watching her aspect with the emotions proper to a man the whole

value of whose existence was involved in the process now to be tested. Mingled with this mood, however,

was the philosophic investigation characteristic of the man of science. Not the minutest symptom escaped

him. A heightened flush of the cheek, a slight irregularity of breath, a quiver of the eyelid, a hardly

perceptible tremor through the frame,such were the details which, as the moments passed, he wrote down

in his folio volume. Intense thought had set its stamp upon every previous page of that volume, but the

While thus employed, he failed not to gaze often at the fatal hand, and not without a shudder. Yet once, by a

strange and unaccountable impulse he pressed it with his lips. His spirit recoiled, however, in the very act,

and Georgiana, out of the midst of her deep sleep, moved uneasily and murmured as if in remonstrance.

Again Aylmer resumed his watch. Nor was it without avail. The crimson hand, which at first had been

strongly visible upon the marble paleness of Georgiana's cheek, now grew more faintly outlined. She

remained not less pale than ever; but the birthmark with every breath that came and went, lost somewhat of

its former distinctness. Its presence had been awful; its departure was more awful still. Watch the stain of the

rainbow fading out the sky, and you will know how that mysterious symbol passed away.

"By Heaven! it is wellnigh gone!" said Aylmer to himself, in almost irrepressible ecstasy. "I can scarcely

trace it now. Success! success! And now it is like the faintest rose color. The lightest flush of blood across her

He drew aside the window curtain and suffered the light of natural day to fall into the room and rest upon her

cheek. At the same time he heard a gross, hoarse chuckle, which he had long known as his servant

"Ah, clod! ah, earthly mass!" cried Aylmer, laughing in a sort of frenzy, "you have served me well! Matter

and spiritearth and heaven have both done their part in this! Laugh, thing of the senses! You have

These exclamations broke Georgiana's sleep. She slowly unclosed her eyes and gazed into the mirror which

her husband had arranged for that purpose. A faint smile flitted over her lips when she recognized how barely

perceptible was now that crimson hand which had once blazed forth with such disastrous brilliancy as to

scare away all their happiness. But then her eyes sought Aylmer's face with a trouble and anxiety that he

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

"My poor Aylmer," she repeated, with a more than human tenderness, "you have aimed loftily; you have

done nobly. Do not repent that with so high and pure a feeling, you have rejected the best the earth could

Alas! it was too true! The fatal hand had grappled with the mystery of life, and was the bond by which an

angelic spirit kept itself in union with a mortal frame. As the last crimson tint of the birthmarkthat sole

token of human imperfectionfaded from her cheek, the parting breath of the now perfect woman passed

into the atmosphere, and her soul, lingering a moment near her husband, took its heavenward flight. Then a

hoarse, chuckling laugh was heard again! Thus ever does the gross fatality of earth exult in its invariable

triumph over the immortal essence which, in this dim sphere of half development, demands the completeness

of a higher state. Yet, had Alymer reached a profounder wisdom, he need not thus have flung away the

happiness which would have woven his mortal life of the selfsame texture with the celestial. The momentary

circumstance was too strong for him; he failed to look beyond the shadowy scope of time, and, living once

Young Goodman Brown came forth at sunset into the street at Salem village; but put his head back, after

crossing the threshold, to exchange a parting kiss with his young wife. And Faith, as the wife was aptly

named, thrust her own pretty head into the street, letting the wind play with the pink ribbons of her cap while

"Dearest heart," whispered she, softly and rather sadly, when her lips were close to his ear, "prithee put off

your journey until sunrise and sleep in your own bed tonight. A lone woman is troubled with such dreams

and such thoughts that she's afeard of herself sometimes. Pray tarry with me this night, dear husband, of all

"My love and my Faith," replied young Goodman Brown, "of all nights in the year, this one night must I tarry

away from thee. My journey, as thou callest it, forth and back again, must needs be done 'twixt now and

sunrise. What, my sweet, pretty wife, dost thou doubt me already, and we but three months married?"

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

"Amen!" cried Goodman Brown. "Say thy prayers, dear Faith, and go to bed at dusk, and no harm will come

So they parted; and the young man pursued his way until, being about to turn the corner by the

meetinghouse, he looked back and saw the head of Faith still peeping after him with a melancholy air, in

"Poor little Faith!" thought he, for his heart smote him. "What a wretch am I to leave her on such an errand!

She talks of dreams, too. Methought as she spoke there was trouble in her face, as if a dream had warned her

what work is to be done tonight. But no, no; 't would kill her to think it. Well, she's a blessed angel on earth;

With this excellent resolve for the future, Goodman Brown felt himself justified in making more haste on his

present evil purpose. He had taken a dreary road, darkened by all the gloomiest trees of the forest, which

barely stood aside to let the narrow path creep through, and closed immediately behind. It was all as lonely as

could be; and there is this peculiarity in such a solitude, that the traveller knows not who may be concealed

by the innumerable trunks and the thick boughs overhead; so that with lonely footsteps he may yet be passing

"There may be a devilish Indian behind every tree," said Goodman Brown to himself; and he glanced

fearfully behind him as he added, "What if the devil himself should be at my very elbow!"

His head being turned back, he passed a crook of the road, and, looking forward again, beheld the figure of a

man, in grave and decent attire, seated at the foot of an old tree. He arose at Goodman Brown's approach and

"You are late, Goodman Brown," said he. "The clock of the Old South was striking as I came through

"Faith kept me back a while," replied the young man, with a tremor in his voice, caused by the sudden

It was now deep dusk in the forest, and deepest in that part of it where these two were journeying. As nearly

as could be discerned, the second traveller was about fifty years old, apparently in the same rank of life as

Goodman Brown, and bearing a considerable resemblance to him, though perhaps more in expression than

features. Still they might have been taken for father and son. And yet, though the elder person was as simply

clad as the younger, and as simple in manner too, he had an indescribable air of one who knew the world, and

who would not have felt abashed at the governor's dinner table or in King William's court, were it possible

that his affairs should call him thither. But the only thing about him that could be fixed upon as remarkable

was his staff, which bore the likeness of a great black snake, so curiously wrought that it might almost be

seen to twist and wriggle itself like a living serpent. This, of course, must have been an ocular deception,

"Come, Goodman Brown," cried his fellowtraveller, "this is a dull pace for the beginning of a journey. Take

"Friend," said the other, exchanging his slow pace for a full stop, "having kept covenant by meeting thee

here, it is my purpose now to return whence I came. I have scruples touching the matter thou wot'st of."

"Sayest thou so?" replied he of the serpent, smiling apart. "Let us walk on, nevertheless, reasoning as we go;

and if I convince thee not thou shalt turn back. We are but a little way in the forest yet."

"Too far! too far!" exclaimed the goodman, unconsciously resuming his walk. "My father never went into the

woods on such an errand, nor his father before him. We have been a race of honest men and good Christians

since the days of the martyrs; and shall I be the first of the name of Brown that ever took this path and kept"

"Such company, thou wouldst say," observed the elder person, interpreting his pause. "Well said, Goodman

Brown! I have been as well acquainted with your family as with ever a one among the Puritans; and that's no

trifle to say. I helped your grandfather, the constable, when he lashed the Quaker woman so smartly through

the streets of Salem; and it was I that brought your father a pitchpine knot, kindled at my own hearth, to set

fire to an Indian village, in King Philip's war. They were my good friends, both; and many a pleasant walk

have we had along this path, and returned merrily after midnight. I would fain be friends with you for their

"If it be as thou sayest," replied Goodman Brown, "I marvel they never spoke of these matters; or, verily, I

marvel not, seeing that the least rumor of the sort would have driven them from New England. We are a

"Wickedness or not," said the traveller with the twisted staff, "I have a very general acquaintance here in New

England. The deacons of many a church have drunk the communion wine with me; the selectmen of divers

towns make me their chairman; and a majority of the Great and General Court are firm supporters of my

"Can this be so?" cried Goodman Brown, with a stare of amazement at his undisturbed companion. "Howbeit,

I have nothing to do with the governor and council; they have their own ways, and are no rule for a simple

husbandman like me. But, were I to go on with thee, how should I meet the eye of that good old man, our

minister, at Salem village? Oh, his voice would make me tremble both Sabbath day and lecture day."

Thus far the elder traveller had listened with due gravity; but now burst into a fit of irrepressible mirth,

shaking himself so violently that his snakelike staff actually seemed to wriggle in sympathy.

"Ha! ha! ha!" shouted he again and again; then composing himself, "Well, go on, Goodman Brown, go on;

"Well, then, to end the matter at once," said Goodman Brown, considerably nettled, "there is my wife, Faith.

"Nay, if that be the case," answered the other, "e'en go thy ways, Goodman Brown. I would not for twenty

As he spoke he pointed his staff at a female figure on the path, in whom Goodman Brown recognized a very

pious and exemplary dame, who had taught him his catechism in youth, and was still his moral and spiritual

"A marvel, truly, that Goody Cloyse should be so far in the wilderness at nightfall," said he. "But with your

leave, friend, I shall take a cut through the woods until we have left this Christian woman behind. Being a

stranger to you, she might ask whom I was consorting with and whither I was going."

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

Accordingly the young man turned aside, but took care to watch his companion, who advanced softly along

the road until he had come within a staff's length of the old dame. She, meanwhile, was making the best of

her way, with singular speed for so aged a woman, and mumbling some indistinct wordsa prayer,

doubtlessas she went. The traveller put forth his staff and touched her withered neck with what seemed the

"Then Goody Cloyse knows her old friend?" observed the traveller, confronting her and leaning on his

"Ah, forsooth, and is it your worship indeed?" cried the good dame. "Yea, truly is it, and in the very image of

my old gossip, Goodman Brown, the grandfather of the silly fellow that now is. Butwould your worship

believe it?my broomstick hath strangely disappeared, stolen, as I suspect, by that unhanged witch, Goody

Cory, and that, too, when I was all anointed with the juice of smallage, and cinquefoil, and wolf's bane"

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

"Ah, your worship knows the recipe," cried the old lady, cackling aloud. "So, as I was saying, being all ready

for the meeting, and no horse to ride on, I made up my mind to foot it; for they tell me there is a nice young

man to be taken into communion tonight. But now your good worship will lend me your arm, and we shall

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

So saying, he threw it down at her feet, where, perhaps, it assumed life, being one of the rods which its owner

had formerly lent to the Egyptian magi. Of this fact, however, Goodman Brown could not take cognizance.

He had cast up his eyes in astonishment, and, looking down again, beheld neither Goody Cloyse nor the

serpentine staff, but his fellowtraveller alone, who waited for him as calmly as if nothing had happened.

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

They continued to walk onward, while the elder traveller exhorted his companion to make good speed and

persevere in the path, discoursing so aptly that his arguments seemed rather to spring up in the bosom of his

auditor than to be suggested by himself. As they went, he plucked a branch of maple to serve for a walking

stick, and began to strip it of the twigs and little boughs, which were wet with evening dew. The moment his

fingers touched them they became strangely withered and dried up as with a week's sunshine. Thus the pair

proceeded, at a good free pace, until suddenly, in a gloomy hollow of the road, Goodman Brown sat himself

"Friend," said he, stubbornly, "my mind is made up. Not another step will I budge on this errand. What if a

wretched old woman do choose to go to the devil when I thought she was going to heaven: is that any reason

"You will think better of this by and by," said his acquaintance, composedly. "Sit here and rest yourself a

while; and when you feel like moving again, there is my staff to help you along."

Without more words, he threw his companion the maple stick, and was as speedily out of sight as if he had

vanished into the deepening gloom. The young man sat a few moments by the roadside, applauding himself

greatly, and thinking with how clear a conscience he should meet the minister in his morning walk, nor shrink

from the eye of good old Deacon Gookin. And what calm sleep would be his that very night, which was to

have been spent so wickedly, but so purely and sweetly now, in the arms of Faith! Amidst these pleasant and

praiseworthy meditations, Goodman Brown heard the tramp of horses along the road, and deemed it

advisable to conceal himself within the verge of the forest, conscious of the guilty purpose that had brought

On came the hoof tramps and the voices of the riders, two grave old voices, conversing soberly as they drew

near. These mingled sounds appeared to pass along the road, within a few yards of the young man's

hidingplace; but, owing doubtless to the depth of the gloom at that particular spot, neither the travellers nor

their steeds were visible. Though their figures brushed the small boughs by the wayside, it could not be seen

that they intercepted, even for a moment, the faint gleam from the strip of bright sky athwart which they must

have passed. Goodman Brown alternately crouched and stood on tiptoe, pulling aside the branches and

thrusting forth his head as far as he durst without discerning so much as a shadow. It vexed him the more,

because he could have sworn, were such a thing possible, that he recognized the voices of the minister and

Deacon Gookin, jogging along quietly, as they were wont to do, when bound to some ordination or

ecclesiastical council. While yet within hearing, one of the riders stopped to pluck a switch.

"Of the two, reverend sir," said the voice like the deacon's, "I had rather miss an ordination dinner than

tonight's meeting. They tell me that some of our community are to be here from Falmouth and beyond, and

others from Connecticut and Rhode Island, besides several of the Indian powwows, who, after their fashion,

know almost as much deviltry as the best of us. Moreover, there is a goodly young woman to be taken into

"Mighty well, Deacon Gookin!" replied the solemn old tones of the minister. "Spur up, or we shall be late.

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

where no church had ever been gathered or solitary Christian prayed. Whither, then, could these holy men be

journeying so deep into the heathen wilderness? Young Goodman Brown caught hold of a tree for support,

being ready to sink down on the ground, faint and overburdened with the heavy sickness of his heart. He

looked up to the sky, doubting whether there really was a heaven above him. Yet there was the blue arch, and

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

While he still gazed upward into the deep arch of the firmament and had lifted his hands to pray, a cloud,

though no wind was stirring, hurried across the zenith and hid the brightening stars. The blue sky was still

visible, except directly overhead, where this black mass of cloud was sweeping swiftly northward. Aloft in

the air, as if from the depths of the cloud, came a confused and doubtful sound of voices. Once the listener

fancied that he could distinguish the accents of townspeople of his own, men and women, both pious and

ungodly, many of whom he had met at the communion table, and had seen others rioting at the tavern. The

next moment, so indistinct were the sounds, he doubted whether he had heard aught but the murmur of the

old forest, whispering without a wind. Then came a stronger swell of those familiar tones, heard daily in the

sunshine at Salem village, but never until now from a cloud of night There was one voice of a young woman,

uttering lamentations, yet with an uncertain sorrow, and entreating for some favor, which, perhaps, it would

grieve her to obtain; and all the unseen multitude, both saints and sinners, seemed to encourage her onward.

"Faith!" shouted Goodman Brown, in a voice of agony and desperation; and the echoes of the forest mocked

him, crying, "Faith! Faith!" as if bewildered wretches were seeking her all through the wilderness.

The cry of grief, rage, and terror was yet piercing the night, when the unhappy husband held his breath for a

response. There was a scream, drowned immediately in a louder murmur of voices, fading into faroff

laughter, as the dark cloud swept away, leaving the clear and silent sky above Goodman Brown. But

something fluttered lightly down through the air and caught on the branch of a tree. The young man seized it,

"My Faith is gone!" cried he, after one stupefied moment. "There is no good on earth; and sin is but a name.

And, maddened with despair, so that he laughed loud and long, did Goodman Brown grasp his staff and set

forth again, at such a rate that he seemed to fly along the forest path rather than to walk or run. The road grew

wilder and drearier and more faintly traced, and vanished at length, leaving him in the heart of the dark

wilderness, still rushing onward with the instinct that guides mortal man to evil. The whole forest was

peopled with frightful soundsthe creaking of the trees, the howling of wild beasts, and the yell of Indians;

while sometimes the wind tolled like a distant church bell, and sometimes gave a broad roar around the

traveller, as if all Nature were laughing him to scorn. But he was himself the chief horror of the scene, and

"Let us hear which will laugh loudest. Think not to frighten me with your deviltry. Come witch, come wizard,

come Indian powwow, come devil himself, and here comes Goodman Brown. You may as well fear him as

In truth, all through the haunted forest there could be nothing more frightful than the figure of Goodman

Brown. On he flew among the black pines, brandishing his staff with frenzied gestures, now giving vent to an

inspiration of horrid blasphemy, and now shouting forth such laughter as set all the echoes of the forest

laughing like demons around him. The fiend in his own shape is less hideous than when he rages in the breast

of man. Thus sped the demoniac on his course, until, quivering among the trees, he saw a red light before

him, as when the felled trunks and branches of a clearing have been set on fire, and throw up their lurid blaze

against the sky, at the hour of midnight. He paused, in a lull of the tempest that had driven him onward, and

heard the swell of what seemed a hymn, rolling solemnly from a distance with the weight of many voices. He

knew the tune; it was a familiar one in the choir of the village meetinghouse. The verse died heavily away,

and was lengthened by a chorus, not of human voices, but of all the sounds of the benighted wilderness

pealing in awful harmony together. Goodman Brown cried out, and his cry was lost to his own ear by its

In the interval of silence he stole forward until the light glared full upon his eyes. At one extremity of an open

space, hemmed in by the dark wall of the forest, arose a rock, bearing some rude, natural resemblance either

to an alter or a pulpit, and surrounded by four blazing pines, their tops aflame, their stems untouched, like

candles at an evening meeting. The mass of foliage that had overgrown the summit of the rock was all on fire,

blazing high into the night and fitfully illuminating the whole field. Each pendent twig and leafy festoon was

in a blaze. As the red light arose and fell, a numerous congregation alternately shone forth, then disappeared

in shadow, and again grew, as it were, out of the darkness, peopling the heart of the solitary woods at once.

In truth they were such. Among them, quivering to and fro between gloom and splendor, appeared faces that

would be seen next day at the council board of the province, and others which, Sabbath after Sabbath, looked

devoutly heavenward, and benignantly over the crowded pews, from the holiest pulpits in the land. Some

affirm that the lady of the governor was there. At least there were high dames well known to her, and wives

of honored husbands, and widows, a great multitude, and ancient maidens, all of excellent repute, and fair

young girls, who trembled lest their mothers should espy them. Either the sudden gleams of light flashing

over the obscure field bedazzled Goodman Brown, or he recognized a score of the church members of Salem

village famous for their especial sanctity. Good old Deacon Gookin had arrived, and waited at the skirts of

that venerable saint, his revered pastor. But, irreverently consorting with these grave, reputable, and pious

people, these elders of the church, these chaste dames and dewy virgins, there were men of dissolute lives and

women of spotted fame, wretches given over to all mean and filthy vice, and suspected even of horrid crimes.

It was strange to see that the good shrank not from the wicked, nor were the sinners abashed by the saints.

Scattered also among their palefaced enemies were the Indian priests, or powwows, who had often scared

their native forest with more hideous incantations than any known to English witchcraft.

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

Another verse of the hymn arose, a slow and mournful strain, such as the pious love, but joined to words

which expressed all that our nature can conceive of sin, and darkly hinted at far more. Unfathomable to mere

mortals is the lore of fiends. Verse after verse was sung; and still the chorus of the desert swelled between

like the deepest tone of a mighty organ; and with the final peal of that dreadful anthem there came a sound, as

if the roaring wind, the rushing streams, the howling beasts, and every other voice of the unconcerted

wilderness were mingling and according with the voice of guilty man in homage to the prince of all. The four

blazing pines threw up a loftier flame, and obscurely discovered shapes and visages of horror on the smoke

wreaths above the impious assembly. At the same moment the fire on the rock shot redly forth and formed a

glowing arch above its base, where now appeared a figure. With reverence be it spoken, the figure bore no

slight similitude, both in garb and manner, to some grave divine of the New England churches.

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

At the word, Goodman Brown stepped forth from the shadow of the trees and approached the congregation,

with whom he felt a loathful brotherhood by the sympathy of all that was wicked in his heart. He could have

wellnigh sworn that the shape of his own dead father beckoned him to advance, looking downward from a

smoke wreath, while a woman, with dim features of despair, threw out her hand to warn him back. Was it his

mother? But he had no power to retreat one step, nor to resist, even in thought, when the minister and good

old Deacon Gookin seized his arms and led him to the blazing rock. Thither came also the slender form of a

veiled female, led between Goody Cloyse, that pious teacher of the catechism, and Martha Carrier, who had

received the devil's promise to be queen of hell. A rampant hag was she. And there stood the proselytes

"Welcome, my children," said the dark figure, "to the communion of your race. Ye have found thus young

They turned; and flashing forth, as it were, in a sheet of flame, the fiend worshippers were seen; the smile of

"There," resumed the sable form, "are all whom ye have reverenced from youth. Ye deemed them holier than

yourselves, and shrank from your own sin, contrasting it with their lives of righteousness and prayerful

aspirations heavenward. Yet here are they all in my worshipping assembly. This night it shall be granted you

to know their secret deeds: how hoarybearded elders of the church have whispered wanton words to the

young maids of their households; how many a woman, eager for widows' weeds, has given her husband a

drink at bedtime and let him sleep his last sleep in her bosom; how beardless youths have made haste to

inherit their fathers' wealth; and how fair damselsblush not, sweet oneshave dug little graves in the

garden, and bidden me, the sole guest to an infant's funeral. By the sympathy of your human hearts for sin ye

shall scent out all the placeswhether in church, bedchamber, street, field, or forestwhere crime has been

committed, and shall exult to behold the whole earth one stain of guilt, one mighty blood spot. Far more than

this. It shall be yours to penetrate, in every bosom, the deep mystery of sin, the fountain of all wicked arts,

and which inexhaustibly supplies more evil impulses than human powerthan my power at its utmostcan

They did so; and, by the blaze of the hellkindled torches, the wretched man beheld his Faith, and the wife

"Lo, there ye stand, my children," said the figure, in a deep and solemn tone, almost sad with its despairing

awfulness, as if his once angelic nature could yet mourn for our miserable race. "Depending upon one

another's hearts, ye had still hoped that virtue were not all a dream. Now are ye undeceived. Evil is the nature

of mankind. Evil must be your only happiness. Welcome again, my children, to the communion of your race."

And there they stood, the only pair, as it seemed, who were yet hesitating on the verge of wickedness in this

dark world. A basin was hollowed, naturally, in the rock. Did it contain water, reddened by the lurid light? or

was it blood? or, perchance, a liquid flame? Herein did the shape of evil dip his hand and prepare to lay the

mark of baptism upon their foreheads, that they might be partakers of the mystery of sin, more conscious of

the secret guilt of others, both in deed and thought, than they could now be of their own. The husband cast

one look at his pale wife, and Faith at him. What polluted wretches would the next glance show them to each

"Faith! Faith!" cried the husband, "look up to heaven, and resist the wicked one."

Whether Faith obeyed he knew not. Hardly had he spoken when he found himself amid calm night and

solitude, listening to a roar of the wind which died heavily away through the forest. He staggered against the

rock, and felt it chill and damp; while a hanging twig, that had been all on fire, besprinkled his cheek with the

The next morning young Goodman Brown came slowly into the street of Salem village, staring around him

like a bewildered man. The good old minister was taking a walk along the graveyard to get an appetite for

breakfast and meditate his sermon, and bestowed a blessing, as he passed, on Goodman Brown. He shrank

from the venerable saint as if to avoid an anathema. Old Deacon Gookin was at domestic worship, and the

holy words of his prayer were heard through the open window. "What God doth the wizard pray to?" quoth

Goodman Brown. Goody Cloyse, that excellent old Christian, stood in the early sunshine at her own lattice,

catechizing a little girl who had brought her a pint of morning's milk. Goodman Brown snatched away the

child as from the grasp of the fiend himself. Turning the corner by the meetinghouse, he spied the head of

Faith, with the pink ribbons, gazing anxiously forth, and bursting into such joy at sight of him that she

skipped along the street and almost kissed her husband before the whole village. But Goodman Brown looked

Had Goodman Brown fallen asleep in the forest and only dreamed a wild dream of a witchmeeting?

Be it so if you will; but, alas! it was a dream of evil omen for young Goodman Brown. A stern, a sad, a

darkly meditative, a distrustful, if not a desperate man did he become from the night of that fearful dream. On

the Sabbath day, when the congregation were singing a holy psalm, he could not listen because an anthem of

sin rushed loudly upon his ear and drowned all the blessed strain. When the minister spoke from the pulpit

with power and fervid eloquence, and, with his hand on the open Bible, of the sacred truths of our religion,

and of saintlike lives and triumphant deaths, and of future bliss or misery unutterable, then did Goodman

Brown turn pale, dreading lest the roof should thunder down upon the gray blasphemer and his hearers.

Often, waking suddenly at midnight, he shrank from the bosom of Faith; and at morning or eventide, when

the family knelt down at prayer, he scowled and muttered to himself, and gazed sternly at his wife, and turned

away. And when he had lived long, and was borne to his grave a hoary corpse, followed by Faith, an aged

woman, and children and grandchildren, a goodly procession, besides neighbors not a few, they carved no

We do not remember to have seen any translated specimens of the productions of M. de l'Aubepinea fact

the less to be wondered at, as his very name is unknown to many of his own countrymen as well as to the

student of foreign literature. As a writer, he seems to occupy an unfortunate position between the

Transcendentalists (who, under one name or another, have their share in all the current literature of the world)

and the great body of penandink men who address the intellect and sympathies of the multitude. If not too

refined, at all events too remote, too shadowy, and unsubstantial in his modes of development to suit the taste

of the latter class, and yet too popular to satisfy the spiritual or metaphysical requisitions of the former, he

must necessarily find himself without an audience, except here and there an individual or possibly an isolated

clique. His writings, to do them justice, are not altogether destitute of fancy and originality; they might have

won him greater reputation but for an inveterate love of allegory, which is apt to invest his plots and

characters with the aspect of scenery and people in the clouds, and to steal away the human warmth out of his

conceptions. His fictions are sometimes historical, sometimes of the present day, and sometimes, so far as can

be discovered, have little or no reference either to time or space. In any case, he generally contents himself

with a very slight embroidery of outward manners,the faintest possible counterfeit of real life,and

endeavors to create an interest by some less obvious peculiarity of the subject. Occasionally a breath of

Nature, a raindrop of pathos and tenderness, or a gleam of humor, will find its way into the midst of his

fantastic imagery, and make us feel as if, after all, we were yet within the limits of our native earth. We will

only add to this very cursory notice that M. de l'Aubepine's productions, if the reader chance to take them in

precisely the proper point of view, may amuse a leisure hour as well as those of a brighter man; if otherwise,

Our author is voluminous; he continues to write and publish with as much praiseworthy and indefatigable

prolixity as if his efforts were crowned with the brilliant success that so justly attends those of Eugene Sue.

His first appearance was by a collection of stories in a long series of volumes entitled "Contes deux fois

racontees." The titles of some of his more recent works (we quote from memory) are as follows: "Le Voyage

Celeste a Chemin de Fer," 3 tom., 1838; "Le nouveau Pere Adam et la nouvelle Mere Eve," 2 tom., 1839;

"Roderic; ou le Serpent a l'estomac," 2 tom., 1840; "Le Culte du Feu," a folio volume of ponderous research

into the religion and ritual of the old Persian Ghebers, published in 1841; "La Soiree du Chateau en

Espagne," 1 tom., 8vo, 1842; and "L'Artiste du Beau; ou le Papillon Mecanique," 5 tom., 4to, 1843. Our

somewhat wearisome perusal of this startling catalogue of volumes has left behind it a certain personal

affection and sympathy, though by no means admiration, for M. de l'Aubepine; and we would fain do the

little in our power towards introducing him favorably to the American public. The ensuing tale is a translation

of his "Beatrice; ou la Belle Empoisonneuse," recently published in "La Revue AntiAristocratique." This

journal, edited by the Comte de Bearhaven, has for some years past led the defence of liberal principles and

A young man, named Giovanni Guasconti, came, very long ago, from the more southern region of Italy, to

pursue his studies at the University of Padua. Giovanni, who had but a scanty supply of gold ducats in his

pocket, took lodgings in a high and gloomy chamber of an old edifice which looked not unworthy to have

been the palace of a Paduan noble, and which, in fact, exhibited over its entrance the armorial bearings of a

family long since extinct. The young stranger, who was not unstudied in the great poem of his country,

recollected that one of the ancestors of this family, and perhaps an occupant of this very mansion, had been

pictured by Dante as a partaker of the immortal agonies of his Inferno. These reminiscences and associations,

together with the tendency to heartbreak natural to a young man for the first time out of his native sphere,

caused Giovanni to sigh heavily as he looked around the desolate and illfurnished apartment.

"Holy Virgin, signor!" cried old Dame Lisabetta, who, won by the youth's remarkable beauty of person, was

kindly endeavoring to give the chamber a habitable air, "what a sigh was that to come out of a young man's

heart! Do you find this old mansion gloomy? For the love of Heaven, then, put your head out of the window,

Guasconti mechanically did as the old woman advised, but could not quite agree with her that the Paduan

sunshine was as cheerful as that of southern Italy. Such as it was, however, it fell upon a garden beneath the

window and expended its fostering influences on a variety of plants, which seemed to have been cultivated

"Heaven forbid, signor, unless it were fruitful of better pot herbs than any that grow there now," answered old

Lisabetta. "No; that garden is cultivated by the own hands of Signor Giacomo Rappaccini, the famous doctor,

who, I warrant him, has been heard of as far as Naples. It is said that he distils these plants into medicines that

are as potent as a charm. Oftentimes you may see the signor doctor at work, and perchance the signora, his

The old woman had now done what she could for the aspect of the chamber; and, commending the young

Giovanni still found no better occupation than to look down into the garden beneath his window. From its

appearance, he judged it to be one of those botanic gardens which were of earlier date in Padua than

elsewhere in Italy or in the world. Or, not improbably, it might once have been the pleasureplace of an

opulent family; for there was the ruin of a marble fountain in the centre, sculptured with rare art, but so

wofully shattered that it was impossible to trace the original design from the chaos of remaining fragments.

The water, however, continued to gush and sparkle into the sunbeams as cheerfully as ever. A little gurgling

sound ascended to the young man's window, and made him feel as if the fountain were an immortal spirit that

sung its song unceasingly and without heeding the vicissitudes around it, while one century imbodied it in

marble and another scattered the perishable garniture on the soil. All about the pool into which the water

subsided grew various plants, that seemed to require a plentiful supply of moisture for the nourishment of

gigantic leaves, and in some instances, flowers gorgeously magnificent. There was one shrub in particular, set

in a marble vase in the midst of the pool, that bore a profusion of purple blossoms, each of which had the

lustre and richness of a gem; and the whole together made a show so resplendent that it seemed enough to

illuminate the garden, even had there been no sunshine. Every portion of the soil was peopled with plants and

herbs, which, if less beautiful, still bore tokens of assiduous care, as if all had their individual virtues, known

to the scientific mind that fostered them. Some were placed in urns, rich with old carving, and others in

common garden pots; some crept serpentlike along the ground or climbed on high, using whatever means of

ascent was offered them. One plant had wreathed itself round a statue of Vertumnus, which was thus quite

veiled and shrouded in a drapery of hanging foliage, so happily arranged that it might have served a sculptor

While Giovanni stood at the window he heard a rustling behind a screen of leaves, and became aware that a

person was at work in the garden. His figure soon emerged into view, and showed itself to be that of no

common laborer, but a tall, emaciated, sallow, and sicklylooking man, dressed in a scholar's garb of black.

He was beyond the middle term of life, with gray hair, a thin, gray beard, and a face singularly marked with

intellect and cultivation, but which could never, even in his more youthful days, have expressed much

Nothing could exceed the intentness with which this scientific gardener examined every shrub which grew in

his path: it seemed as if he was looking into their inmost nature, making observations in regard to their

creative essence, and discovering why one leaf grew in this shape and another in that, and wherefore such and

such flowers differed among themselves in hue and perfume. Nevertheless, in spite of this deep intelligence

on his part, there was no approach to intimacy between himself and these vegetable existences. On the

contrary, he avoided their actual touch or the direct inhaling of their odors with a caution that impressed

Giovanni most disagreeably; for the man's demeanor was that of one walking among malignant influences,

such as savage beasts, or deadly snakes, or evil spirits, which, should he allow them one moment of license,

would wreak upon him some terrible fatality. It was strangely frightful to the young man's imagination to see

this air of insecurity in a person cultivating a garden, that most simple and innocent of human toils, and

which had been alike the joy and labor of the unfallen parents of the race. Was this garden, then, the Eden of

the present world? And this man, with such a perception of harm in what his own hands caused to

The distrustful gardener, while plucking away the dead leaves or pruning the too luxuriant growth of the

shrubs, defended his hands with a pair of thick gloves. Nor were these his only armor. When, in his walk

through the garden, he came to the magnificent plant that hung its purple gems beside the marble fountain, he

placed a kind of mask over his mouth and nostrils, as if all this beauty did but conceal a deadlier malice; but,

finding his task still too dangerous, he drew back, removed the mask, and called loudly, but in the infirm

"Here am I, my father. What would you?" cried a rich and youthful voice from the window of the opposite

housea voice as rich as a tropical sunset, and which made Giovanni, though he knew not why, think of

deep hues of purple or crimson and of perfumes heavily delectable. "Are you in the garden?"

Soon there emerged from under a sculptured portal the figure of a young girl, arrayed with as much richness

of taste as the most splendid of the flowers, beautiful as the day, and with a bloom so deep and vivid that one

shade more would have been too much. She looked redundant with life, health, and energy; all of which

attributes were bound down and compressed, as it were and girdled tensely, in their luxuriance, by her virgin

zone. Yet Giovanni's fancy must have grown morbid while he looked down into the garden; for the

impression which the fair stranger made upon him was as if here were another flower, the human sister of

those vegetable ones, as beautiful as they, more beautiful than the richest of them, but still to be touched only

with a glove, nor to be approached without a mask. As Beatrice came down the garden path, it was

observable that she handled and inhaled the odor of several of the plants which her father had most

"Here, Beatrice," said the latter, "see how many needful offices require to be done to our chief treasure. Yet,

shattered as I am, my life might pay the penalty of approaching it so closely as circumstances demand.

"And gladly will I undertake it," cried again the rich tones of the young lady, as she bent towards the

magnificent plant and opened her arms as if to embrace it. "Yes, my sister, my splendour, it shall be

Beatrice's task to nurse and serve thee; and thou shalt reward her with thy kisses and perfumed breath, which

Then, with all the tenderness in her manner that was so strikingly expressed in her words, she busied herself

with such attentions as the plant seemed to require; and Giovanni, at his lofty window, rubbed his eyes and

almost doubted whether it were a girl tending her favorite flower, or one sister performing the duties of

affection to another. The scene soon terminated. Whether Dr. Rappaccini had finished his labors in the

garden, or that his watchful eye had caught the stranger's face, he now took his daughter's arm and retired.

Night was already closing in; oppressive exhalations seemed to proceed from the plants and steal upward past

the open window; and Giovanni, closing the lattice, went to his couch and dreamed of a rich flower and

beautiful girl. Flower and maiden were different, and yet the same, and fraught with some strange peril in

But there is an influence in the light of morning that tends to rectify whatever errors of fancy, or even of

judgment, we may have incurred during the sun's decline, or among the shadows of the night, or in the less

wholesome glow of moonshine. Giovanni's first movement, on starting from sleep, was to throw open the

window and gaze down into the garden which his dreams had made so fertile of mysteries. He was surprised

and a little ashamed to find how real and matteroffact an affair it proved to be, in the first rays of the sun

which gilded the dewdrops that hung upon leaf and blossom, and, while giving a brighter beauty to each

rare flower, brought everything within the limits of ordinary experience. The young man rejoiced that, in the

heart of the barren city, he had the privilege of overlooking this spot of lovely and luxuriant vegetation. It

would serve, he said to himself, as a symbolic language to keep him in communion with Nature. Neither the

sickly and thoughtworn Dr. Giacomo Rappaccini, it is true, nor his brilliant daughter, were now visible; so

that Giovanni could not determine how much of the singularity which he attributed to both was due to their

own qualities and how much to his wonderworking fancy; but he was inclined to take a most rational view

In the course of the day he paid his respects to Signor Pietro Baglioni, professor of medicine in the university,

a physician of eminent repute to whom Giovanni had brought a letter of introduction. The professor was an

elderly personage, apparently of genial nature, and habits that might almost be called jovial. He kept the

young man to dinner, and made himself very agreeable by the freedom and liveliness of his conversation,

especially when warmed by a flask or two of Tuscan wine. Giovanni, conceiving that men of science,

inhabitants of the same city, must needs be on familiar terms with one another, took an opportunity to

mention the name of Dr. Rappaccini. But the professor did not respond with so much cordiality as he had

"Ill would it become a teacher of the divine art of medicine," said Professor Pietro Baglioni, in answer to a

question of Giovanni, "to withhold due and wellconsidered praise of a physician so eminently skilled as

Rappaccini; but, on the other hand, I should answer it but scantily to my conscience were I to permit a worthy

youth like yourself, Signor Giovanni, the son of an ancient friend, to imbibe erroneous ideas respecting a man

who might hereafter chance to hold your life and death in his hands. The truth is, our worshipful Dr.

Rappaccini has as much science as any member of the facultywith perhaps one single exceptionin

Padua, or all Italy; but there are certain grave objections to his professional character."

"Has my friend Giovanni any disease of body or heart, that he is so inquisitive about physicians?" said the

professor, with a smile. "But as for Rappaccini, it is said of himand I, who know the man well, can answer

for its truththat he cares infinitely more for science than for mankind. His patients are interesting to him

only as subjects for some new experiment. He would sacrifice human life, his own among the rest, or

whatever else was dearest to him, for the sake of adding so much as a grain of mustard seed to the great heap

"Methinks he is an awful man indeed," remarked Guasconti, mentally recalling the cold and purely

intellectual aspect of Rappaccini. "And yet, worshipful professor, is it not a noble spirit? Are there many men

"God forbid," answered the professor, somewhat testily; "at least, unless they take sounder views of the

healing art than those adopted by Rappaccini. It is his theory that all medicinal virtues are comprised within

those substances which we term vegetable poisons. These he cultivates with his own hands, and is said even

to have produced new varieties of poison, more horribly deleterious than Nature, without the assistance of

this learned person, would ever have plagued the world withal. That the signor doctor does less mischief than

might be expected with such dangerous substances is undeniable. Now and then, it must be owned, he has

effected, or seemed to effect, a marvellous cure; but, to tell you my private mind, Signor Giovanni, he should

receive little credit for such instances of success,they being probably the work of chance, but should be

held strictly accountable for his failures, which may justly be considered his own work."

The youth might have taken Baglioni's opinions with many grains of allowance had he known that there was

a professional warfare of long continuance between him and Dr. Rappaccini, in which the latter was generally

thought to have gained the advantage. If the reader be inclined to judge for himself, we refer him to certain

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

"I know not, most learned professor," returned Giovanni, after musing on what had been said of Rappaccini's

exclusive zeal for science,"I know not how dearly this physician may love his art; but surely there is one

"Aha!" cried the professor, with a laugh. "So now our friend Giovanni's secret is out. You have heard of this

daughter, whom all the young men in Padua are wild about, though not half a dozen have ever had the good

hap to see her face. I know little of the Signora Beatrice save that Rappaccini is said to have instructed her

deeply in his science, and that, young and beautiful as fame reports her, she is already qualified to fill a

professor's chair. Perchance her father destines her for mine! Other absurd rumors there be, not worth talking

about or listening to. So now, Signor Giovanni, drink off your glass of lachryma."

Guasconti returned to his lodgings somewhat heated with the wine he had quaffed, and which caused his

brain to swim with strange fantasies in reference to Dr. Rappaccini and the beautiful Beatrice. On his way,

Ascending to his chamber, he seated himself near the window, but within the shadow thrown by the depth of

the wall, so that he could look down into the garden with little risk of being discovered. All beneath his eye

was a solitude. The strange plants were basking in the sunshine, and now and then nodding gently to one

another, as if in acknowledgment of sympathy and kindred. In the midst, by the shattered fountain, grew the

magnificent shrub, with its purple gems clustering all over it; they glowed in the air, and gleamed back again

out of the depths of the pool, which thus seemed to overflow with colored radiance from the rich reflection

that was steeped in it. At first, as we have said, the garden was a solitude. Soon, however,as Giovanni had

half hoped, half feared, would be the case,a figure appeared beneath the antique sculptured portal, and

came down between the rows of plants, inhaling their various perfumes as if she were one of those beings of

old classic fable that lived upon sweet odors. On again beholding Beatrice, the young man was even startled

to perceive how much her beauty exceeded his recollection of it; so brilliant, so vivid, was its character, that

she glowed amid the sunlight, and, as Giovanni whispered to himself, positively illuminated the more

shadowy intervals of the garden path. Her face being now more revealed than on the former occasion, he was

struck by its expression of simplicity and sweetness,qualities that had not entered into his idea of her

character, and which made him ask anew what manner of mortal she might be. Nor did he fail again to

observe, or imagine, an analogy between the beautiful girl and the gorgeous shrub that hung its gemlike

flowers over the fountain,a resemblance which Beatrice seemed to have indulged a fantastic humor in

heightening, both by the arrangement of her dress and the selection of its hues.

Approaching the shrub, she threw open her arms, as with a passionate ardor, and drew its branches into an

intimate embraceso intimate that her features were hidden in its leafy bosom and her glistening ringlets all

"Give me thy breath, my sister," exclaimed Beatrice; "for I am faint with common air. And give me this

flower of thine, which I separate with gentlest fingers from the stem and place it close beside my heart."

With these words the beautiful daughter of Rappaccini plucked one of the richest blossoms of the shrub, and

was about to fasten it in her bosom. But now, unless Giovanni's draughts of wine had bewildered his senses, a

singular incident occurred. A small orangecolored reptile, of the lizard or chameleon species, chanced to be

creeping along the path, just at the feet of Beatrice. It appeared to Giovanni,but, at the distance from which

he gazed, he could scarcely have seen anything so minute,it appeared to him, however, that a drop or two

of moisture from the broken stem of the flower descended upon the lizard's head. For an instant the reptile

contorted itself violently, and then lay motionless in the sunshine. Beatrice observed this remarkable

phenomenon and crossed herself, sadly, but without surprise; nor did she therefore hesitate to arrange the

fatal flower in her bosom. There it blushed, and almost glimmered with the dazzling effect of a precious

stone, adding to her dress and aspect the one appropriate charm which nothing else in the world could have

supplied. But Giovanni, out of the shadow of his window, bent forward and shrank back, and murmured and

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

Beatrice now strayed carelessly through the garden, approaching closer beneath Giovanni's window, so that

he was compelled to thrust his head quite out of its concealment in order to gratify the intense and painful

curiosity which she excited. At this moment there came a beautiful insect over the garden wall; it had,

perhaps, wandered through the city, and found no flowers or verdure among those antique haunts of men until

the heavy perfumes of Dr. Rappaccini's shrubs had lured it from afar. Without alighting on the flowers, this

winged brightness seemed to be attracted by Beatrice, and lingered in the air and fluttered about her head.

Now, here it could not be but that Giovanni Guasconti's eyes deceived him. Be that as it might, he fancied

that, while Beatrice was gazing at the insect with childish delight, it grew faint and fell at her feet; its bright

wings shivered; it was deadfrom no cause that he could discern, unless it were the atmosphere of her

breath. Again Beatrice crossed herself and sighed heavily as she bent over the dead insect.

An impulsive movement of Giovanni drew her eyes to the window. There she beheld the beautiful head of the

young manrather a Grecian than an Italian head, with fair, regular features, and a glistening of gold among

his ringletsgazing down upon her like a being that hovered in mid air. Scarcely knowing what he did,

"Signora," said he, "there are pure and healthful flowers. Wear them for the sake of Giovanni Guasconti."

"Thanks, signor," replied Beatrice, with her rich voice, that came forth as it were like a gush of music, and

with a mirthful expression half childish and half womanlike. "I accept your gift, and would fain recompense

it with this precious purple flower; but if I toss it into the air it will not reach you. So Signor Guasconti must

She lifted the bouquet from the ground, and then, as if inwardly ashamed at having stepped aside from her

maidenly reserve to respond to a stranger's greeting, passed swiftly homeward through the garden. But few as

the moments were, it seemed to Giovanni, when she was on the point of vanishing beneath the sculptured

portal, that his beautiful bouquet was already beginning to wither in her grasp. It was an idle thought; there

could be no possibility of distinguishing a faded flower from a fresh one at so great a distance.

For many days after this incident the young man avoided the window that looked into Dr. Rappaccini's

garden, as if something ugly and monstrous would have blasted his eyesight had he been betrayed into a

glance. He felt conscious of having put himself, to a certain extent, within the influence of an unintelligible

power by the communication which he had opened with Beatrice. The wisest course would have been, if his

heart were in any real danger, to quit his lodgings and Padua itself at once; the next wiser, to have

accustomed himself, as far as possible, to the familiar and daylight view of Beatricethus bringing her

rigidly and systematically within the limits of ordinary experience. Least of all, while avoiding her sight,

ought Giovanni to have remained so near this extraordinary being that the proximity and possibility even of

intercourse should give a kind of substance and reality to the wild vagaries which his imagination ran riot

continually in producing. Guasconti had not a deep heartor, at all events, its depths were not sounded now;

but he had a quick fancy, and an ardent southern temperament, which rose every instant to a higher fever

pitch. Whether or no Beatrice possessed those terrible attributes, that fatal breath, the affinity with those so

beautiful and deadly flowers which were indicated by what Giovanni had witnessed, she had at least instilled

a fierce and subtle poison into his system. It was not love, although her rich beauty was a madness to him;

nor horror, even while he fancied her spirit to be imbued with the same baneful essence that seemed to

pervade her physical frame; but a wild offspring of both love and horror that had each parent in it, and burned

like one and shivered like the other. Giovanni knew not what to dread; still less did he know what to hope;

yet hope and dread kept a continual warfare in his breast, alternately vanquishing one another and starting up

afresh to renew the contest. Blessed are all simple emotions, be they dark or bright! It is the lurid intermixture

Sometimes he endeavored to assuage the fever of his spirit by a rapid walk through the streets of Padua or

beyond its gates: his footsteps kept time with the throbbings of his brain, so that the walk was apt to

accelerate itself to a race. One day he found himself arrested; his arm was seized by a portly personage, who

had turned back on recognizing the young man and expended much breath in overtaking him.

"Signor Giovanni! Stay, my young friend!" cried he. "Have you forgotten me? That might well be the case if

It was Baglioni, whom Giovanni had avoided ever since their first meeting, from a doubt that the professor's

sagacity would look too deeply into his secrets. Endeavoring to recover himself, he stared forth wildly from

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

"Not yet, not yet, Signor Giovanni Guasconti," said the professor, smiling, but at the same time scrutinizing

the youth with an earnest glance. "What! did I grow up side by side with your father? and shall his son pass

me like a stranger in these old streets of Padua? Stand still, Signor Giovanni; for we must have a word or two

"Speedily, then, most worshipful professor, speedily," said Giovanni, with feverish impatience. "Does not

Now, while he was speaking there came a man in black along the street, stooping and moving feebly like a

person in inferior health. His face was all overspread with a most sickly and sallow hue, but yet so pervaded

with an expression of piercing and active intellect that an observer might easily have overlooked the merely

physical attributes and have seen only this wonderful energy. As he passed, this person exchanged a cold and

distant salutation with Baglioni, but fixed his eyes upon Giovanni with an intentness that seemed to bring out

whatever was within him worthy of notice. Nevertheless, there was a peculiar quietness in the look, as if

"It is Dr. Rappaccini!" whispered the professor when the stranger had passed. "Has he ever seen your face

"He HAS seen you! he must have seen you!" said Baglioni, hastily. "For some purpose or other, this man of

science is making a study of you. I know that look of his! It is the same that coldly illuminates his face as he

bends over a bird, a mouse, or a butterfly, which, in pursuance of some experiment, he has killed by the

perfume of a flower; a look as deep as Nature itself, but without Nature's warmth of love. Signor Giovanni, I

will stake my life upon it, you are the subject of one of Rappaccini's experiments!"

"Will you make a fool of me?" cried Giovanni, passionately. "THAT, signor professor, were an untoward

"Patience! patience!" replied the imperturbable professor. "I tell thee, my poor Giovanni, that Rappaccini has

a scientific interest in thee. Thou hast fallen into fearful hands! And the Signora Beatrice,what part does

But Guasconti, finding Baglioni's pertinacity intolerable, here broke away, and was gone before the professor

could again seize his arm. He looked after the young man intently and shook his head.

"This must not be," said Baglioni to himself. "The youth is the son of my old friend, and shall not come to

any harm from which the arcana of medical science can preserve him. Besides, it is too insufferable an

impertinence in Rappaccini, thus to snatch the lad out of my own hands, as I may say, and make use of him

for his infernal experiments. This daughter of his! It shall be looked to. Perchance, most learned Rappaccini, I

Meanwhile Giovanni had pursued a circuitous route, and at length found himself at the door of his lodgings.

As he crossed the threshold he was met by old Lisabetta, who smirked and smiled, and was evidently

desirous to attract his attention; vainly, however, as the ebullition of his feelings had momentarily subsided

into a cold and dull vacuity. He turned his eyes full upon the withered face that was puckering itself into a

smile, but seemed to behold it not. The old dame, therefore, laid her grasp upon his cloak.

"Signor! signor!" whispered she, still with a smile over the whole breadth of her visage, so that it looked not

unlike a grotesque carving in wood, darkened by centuries. "Listen, signor! There is a private entrance into

"What do you say?" exclaimed Giovanni, turning quickly about, as if an inanimate thing should start into

"Hush! hush! not so loud!" whispered Lisabetta, putting her hand over his mouth. "Yes; into the worshipful

doctor's garden, where you may see all his fine shrubbery. Many a young man in Padua would give gold to be

A surmise, probably excited by his conversation with Baglioni, crossed his mind, that this interposition of old

Lisabetta might perchance be connected with the intrigue, whatever were its nature, in which the professor

seemed to suppose that Dr. Rappaccini was involving him. But such a suspicion, though it disturbed

Giovanni, was inadequate to restrain him. The instant that he was aware of the possibility of approaching

Beatrice, it seemed an absolute necessity of his existence to do so. It mattered not whether she were angel or

demon; he was irrevocably within her sphere, and must obey the law that whirled him onward, in

everlessening circles, towards a result which he did not attempt to foreshadow; and yet, strange to say, there

came across him a sudden doubt whether this intense interest on his part were not delusory; whether it were

really of so deep and positive a nature as to justify him in now thrusting himself into an incalculable position;

whether it were not merely the fantasy of a young man's brain, only slightly or not at all connected with his

He paused, hesitated, turned half about, but again went on. His withered guide led him along several obscure

passages, and finally undid a door, through which, as it was opened, there came the sight and sound of

rustling leaves, with the broken sunshine glimmering among them. Giovanni stepped forth, and, forcing

himself through the entanglement of a shrub that wreathed its tendrils over the hidden entrance, stood beneath

How often is it the case that, when impossibilities have come to pass and dreams have condensed their misty

substance into tangible realities, we find ourselves calm, and even coldly selfpossessed, amid circumstances

which it would have been a delirium of joy or agony to anticipate! Fate delights to thwart us thus. Passion

will choose his own time to rush upon the scene, and lingers sluggishly behind when an appropriate

adjustment of events would seem to summon his appearance. So was it now with Giovanni. Day after day his

pulses had throbbed with feverish blood at the improbable idea of an interview with Beatrice, and of standing

with her, face to face, in this very garden, basking in the Oriental sunshine of her beauty, and snatching from

her full gaze the mystery which he deemed the riddle of his own existence. But now there was a singular and

untimely equanimity within his breast. He threw a glance around the garden to discover if Beatrice or her

father were present, and, perceiving that he was alone, began a critical observation of the plants.

The aspect of one and all of them dissatisfied him; their gorgeousness seemed fierce, passionate, and even

unnatural. There was hardly an individual shrub which a wanderer, straying by himself through a forest,

would not have been startled to find growing wild, as if an unearthly face had glared at him out of the thicket.

Several also would have shocked a delicate instinct by an appearance of artificialness indicating that there

had been such commixture, and, as it were, adultery, of various vegetable species, that the production was no

longer of God's making, but the monstrous offspring of man's depraved fancy, glowing with only an evil

mockery of beauty. They were probably the result of experiment, which in one or two cases had succeeded in

mingling plants individually lovely into a compound possessing the questionable and ominous character that

distinguished the whole growth of the garden. In fine, Giovanni recognized but two or three plants in the

collection, and those of a kind that he well knew to be poisonous. While busy with these contemplations he

heard the rustling of a silken garment, and, turning, beheld Beatrice emerging from beneath the sculptured

Giovanni had not considered with himself what should be his deportment; whether he should apologize for

his intrusion into the garden, or assume that he was there with the privity at least, if not by the desire, of Dr.

Rappaccini or his daughter; but Beatrice's manner placed him at his ease, though leaving him still in doubt by

what agency he had gained admittance. She came lightly along the path and met him near the broken

fountain. There was surprise in her face, but brightened by a simple and kind expression of pleasure.

"You are a connoisseur in flowers, signor," said Beatrice, with a smile, alluding to the bouquet which he had

flung her from the window. "It is no marvel, therefore, if the sight of my father's rare collection has tempted

you to take a nearer view. If he were here, he could tell you many strange and interesting facts as to the

nature and habits of these shrubs; for he has spent a lifetime in such studies, and this garden is his world."

"And yourself, lady," observed Giovanni, "if fame says true,you likewise are deeply skilled in the virtues

indicated by these rich blossoms and these spicy perfumes. Would you deign to be my instructress, I should

"Are there such idle rumors?" asked Beatrice, with the music of a pleasant laugh. "Do people say that I am

skilled in my father's science of plants? What a jest is there! No; though I have grown up among these

flowers, I know no more of them than their hues and perfume; and sometimes methinks I would fain rid

myself of even that small knowledge. There are many flowers here, and those not the least brilliant, that

shock and offend me when they meet my eye. But pray, signor, do not believe these stories about my science.

"And must I believe all that I have seen with my own eyes?" asked Giovanni, pointedly, while the

recollection of former scenes made him shrink. "No, signora; you demand too little of me. Bid me believe

It would appear that Beatrice understood him. There came a deep flush to her cheek; but she looked full into

Giovanni's eyes, and responded to his gaze of uneasy suspicion with a queenlike haughtiness.

"I do so bid you, signor," she replied. "Forget whatever you may have fancied in regard to me. If true to the

outward senses, still it may be false in its essence; but the words of Beatrice Rappaccini's lips are true from

A fervor glowed in her whole aspect and beamed upon Giovanni's consciousness like the light of truth itself;

but while she spoke there was a fragrance in the atmosphere around her, rich and delightful, though

evanescent, yet which the young man, from an indefinable reluctance, scarcely dared to draw into his lungs. It

might be the odor of the flowers. Could it be Beatrice's breath which thus embalmed her words with a strange

richness, as if by steeping them in her heart? A faintness passed like a shadow over Giovanni and flitted

away; he seemed to gaze through the beautiful girl's eyes into her transparent soul, and felt no more doubt or

The tinge of passion that had colored Beatrice's manner vanished; she became gay, and appeared to derive a

pure delight from her communion with the youth not unlike what the maiden of a lonely island might have

felt conversing with a voyager from the civilized world. Evidently her experience of life had been confined

within the limits of that garden. She talked now about matters as simple as the daylight or summer clouds,

and now asked questions in reference to the city, or Giovanni's distant home, his friends, his mother, and his

sistersquestions indicating such seclusion, and such lack of familiarity with modes and forms, that

Giovanni responded as if to an infant. Her spirit gushed out before him like a fresh rill that was just catching

its first glimpse of the sunlight and wondering at the reflections of earth and sky which were flung into its

bosom. There came thoughts, too, from a deep source, and fantasies of a gemlike brilliancy, as if diamonds

and rubies sparkled upward among the bubbles of the fountain. Ever and anon there gleamed across the

young man's mind a sense of wonder that he should be walking side by side with the being who had so

wrought upon his imagination, whom he had idealized in such hues of terror, in whom he had positively

witnessed such manifestations of dreadful attributes,that he should be conversing with Beatrice like a

brother, and should find her so human and so maidenlike. But such reflections were only momentary; the

In this free intercourse they had strayed through the garden, and now, after many turns among its avenues,

were come to the shattered fountain, beside which grew the magnificent shrub, with its treasury of glowing

blossoms. A fragrance was diffused from it which Giovanni recognized as identical with that which he had

attributed to Beatrice's breath, but incomparably more powerful. As her eyes fell upon it, Giovanni beheld her

press her hand to her bosom as if her heart were throbbing suddenly and painfully.

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

"I remember, signora," said Giovanni, "that you once promised to reward me with one of these living gems

for the bouquet which I had the happy boldness to fling to your feet. Permit me now to pluck it as a memorial

He made a step towards the shrub with extended hand; but Beatrice darted forward, uttering a shriek that

went through his heart like a dagger. She caught his hand and drew it back with the whole force of her

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

Then, hiding her face, she fled from him and vanished beneath the sculptured portal. As Giovanni followed

her with his eyes, he beheld the emaciated figure and pale intelligence of Dr. Rappaccini, who had been

No sooner was Guasconti alone in his chamber than the image of Beatrice came back to his passionate

musings, invested with all the witchery that had been gathering around it ever since his first glimpse of her,

and now likewise imbued with a tender warmth of girlish womanhood. She was human; her nature was

endowed with all gentle and feminine qualities; she was worthiest to be worshipped; she was capable, surely,

on her part, of the height and heroism of love. Those tokens which he had hitherto considered as proofs of a

frightful peculiarity in her physical and moral system were now either forgotten, or, by the subtle sophistry of

passion transmitted into a golden crown of enchantment, rendering Beatrice the more admirable by so much

as she was the more unique. Whatever had looked ugly was now beautiful; or, if incapable of such a change,

it stole away and hid itself among those shapeless half ideas which throng the dim region beyond the daylight

of our perfect consciousness. Thus did he spend the night, nor fell asleep until the dawn had begun to awake

the slumbering flowers in Dr. Rappaccini's garden, whither Giovanni's dreams doubtless led him. Up rose the

sun in his due season, and, flinging his beams upon the young man's eyelids, awoke him to a sense of pain.

When thoroughly aroused, he became sensible of a burning and tingling agony in his handin his right

handthe very hand which Beatrice had grasped in her own when he was on the point of plucking one of the

gemlike flowers. On the back of that hand there was now a purple print like that of four small fingers, and the

Oh, how stubbornly does love,or even that cunning semblance of love which flourishes in the imagination,

but strikes no depth of root into the heart,how stubbornly does it hold its faith until the moment comes

when it is doomed to vanish into thin mist! Giovanni wrapped a handkerchief about his hand and wondered

what evil thing had stung him, and soon forgot his pain in a reverie of Beatrice.

After the first interview, a second was in the inevitable course of what we call fate. A third; a fourth; and a

meeting with Beatrice in the garden was no longer an incident in Giovanni's daily life, but the whole space in

which he might be said to live; for the anticipation and memory of that ecstatic hour made up the remainder.

Nor was it otherwise with the daughter of Rappaccini. She watched for the youth's appearance, and flew to

his side with confidence as unreserved as if they had been playmates from early infancyas if they were

such playmates still. If, by any unwonted chance, he failed to come at the appointed moment, she stood

beneath the window and sent up the rich sweetness of her tones to float around him in his chamber and echo

and reverberate throughout his heart: "Giovanni! Giovanni! Why tarriest thou? Come down!" And down he

But, with all this intimate familiarity, there was still a reserve in Beatrice's demeanor, so rigidly and

invariably sustained that the idea of infringing it scarcely occurred to his imagination. By all appreciable

signs, they loved; they had looked love with eyes that conveyed the holy secret from the depths of one soul

into the depths of the other, as if it were too sacred to be whispered by the way; they had even spoken love in

those gushes of passion when their spirits darted forth in articulated breath like tongues of longhidden

flame; and yet there had been no seal of lips, no clasp of hands, nor any slightest caress such as love claims

and hallows. He had never touched one of the gleaming ringlets of her hair; her garmentso marked was the

physical barrier between themhad never been waved against him by a breeze. On the few occasions when

Giovanni had seemed tempted to overstep the limit, Beatrice grew so sad, so stern, and withal wore such a

look of desolate separation, shuddering at itself, that not a spoken word was requisite to repel him. At such

times he was startled at the horrible suspicions that rose, monsterlike, out of the caverns of his heart and

stared him in the face; his love grew thin and faint as the morning mist, his doubts alone had substance. But,

when Beatrice's face brightened again after the momentary shadow, she was transformed at once from the

mysterious, questionable being whom he had watched with so much awe and horror; she was now the

beautiful and unsophisticated girl whom he felt that his spirit knew with a certainty beyond all other

A considerable time had now passed since Giovanni's last meeting with Baglioni. One morning, however, he

was disagreeably surprised by a visit from the professor, whom he had scarcely thought of for whole weeks,

and would willingly have forgotten still longer. Given up as he had long been to a pervading excitement, he

could tolerate no companions except upon condition of their perfect sympathy with his present state of

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

"I have been reading an old classic author lately," said he, "and met with a story that strangely interested me.

Possibly you may remember it. It is of an Indian prince, who sent a beautiful woman as a present to

Alexander the Great. She was as lovely as the dawn and gorgeous as the sunset; but what especially

distinguished her was a certain rich perfume in her breathricher than a garden of Persian roses. Alexander,

as was natural to a youthful conqueror, fell in love at first sight with this magnificent stranger; but a certain

sage physician, happening to be present, discovered a terrible secret in regard to her."

"And what was that?" asked Giovanni, turning his eyes downward to avoid those of the professor

"That this lovely woman," continued Baglioni, with emphasis, "had been nourished with poisons from her

birth upward, until her whole nature was so imbued with them that she herself had become the deadliest

poison in existence. Poison was her element of life. With that rich perfume of her breath she blasted the very

air. Her love would have been poisonher embrace death. Is not this a marvellous tale?"

"A childish fable," answered Giovanni, nervously starting from his chair. "I marvel how your worship finds

"By the by," said the professor, looking uneasily about him, "what singular fragrance is this in your

apartment? Is it the perfume of your gloves? It is faint, but delicious; and yet, after all, by no means

agreeable. Were I to breathe it long, methinks it would make me ill. It is like the breath of a flower; but I see

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

fragrance except in your worship's imagination. Odors, being a sort of element combined of the sensual and

the spiritual, are apt to deceive us in this manner. The recollection of a perfume, the bare idea of it, may

"Ay; but my sober imagination does not often play such tricks," said Baglioni; "and, were I to fancy any kind

of odor, it would be that of some vile apothecary drug, wherewith my fingers are likely enough to be imbued.

Our worshipful friend Rappaccini, as I have heard, tinctures his medicaments with odors richer than those of

Araby. Doubtless, likewise, the fair and learned Signora Beatrice would minister to her patients with draughts

Giovanni's face evinced many contending emotions. The tone in which the professor alluded to the pure and

lovely daughter of Rappaccini was a torture to his soul; and yet the intimation of a view of her character

opposite to his own, gave instantaneous distinctness to a thousand dim suspicions, which now grinned at him

like so many demons. But he strove hard to quell them and to respond to Baglioni with a true lover's perfect

"Signor professor," said he, "you were my father's friend; perchance, too, it is your purpose to act a friendly

part towards his son. I would fain feel nothing towards you save respect and deference; but I pray you to

observe, signor, that there is one subject on which we must not speak. You know not the Signora Beatrice.

You cannot, therefore, estimate the wrongthe blasphemy, I may even saythat is offered to her character

"Giovanni! my poor Giovanni!" answered the professor, with a calm expression of pity, "I know this

wretched girl far better than yourself. You shall hear the truth in respect to the poisoner Rappaccini and his

poisonous daughter; yes, poisonous as she is beautiful. Listen; for, even should you do violence to my gray

hairs, it shall not silence me. That old fable of the Indian woman has become a truth by the deep and deadly

"Her father," continued Baglioni, "was not restrained by natural affection from offering up his child in this

horrible manner as the victim of his insane zeal for science; for, let us do him justice, he is as true a man of

science as ever distilled his own heart in an alembic. What, then, will be your fate? Beyond a doubt you are

selected as the material of some new experiment. Perhaps the result is to be death; perhaps a fate more awful

still. Rappaccini, with what he calls the interest of science before his eyes, will hesitate at nothing."

"But," resumed the professor, "be of good cheer, son of my friend. It is not yet too late for the rescue.

Possibly we may even succeed in bringing back this miserable child within the limits of ordinary nature, from

which her father's madness has estranged her. Behold this little silver vase! It was wrought by the hands of

the renowned Benvenuto Cellini, and is well worthy to be a love gift to the fairest dame in Italy. But its

contents are invaluable. One little sip of this antidote would have rendered the most virulent poisons of the

Borgias innocuous. Doubt not that it will be as efficacious against those of Rappaccini. Bestow the vase, and

the precious liquid within it, on your Beatrice, and hopefully await the result."

Baglioni laid a small, exquisitely wrought silver vial on the table and withdrew, leaving what he had said to

"We will thwart Rappaccini yet," thought he, chuckling to himself, as he descended the stairs; "but, let us

confess the truth of him, he is a wonderful mana wonderful man indeed; a vile empiric, however, in his

practice, and therefore not to be tolerated by those who respect the good old rules of the medical profession."

Throughout Giovanni's whole acquaintance with Beatrice, he had occasionally, as we have said, been haunted

by dark surmises as to her character; yet so thoroughly had she made herself felt by him as a simple, natural,

most affectionate, and guileless creature, that the image now held up by Professor Baglioni looked as strange

and incredible as if it were not in accordance with his own original conception. True, there were ugly

recollections connected with his first glimpses of the beautiful girl; he could not quite forget the bouquet that

withered in her grasp, and the insect that perished amid the sunny air, by no ostensible agency save the

fragrance of her breath. These incidents, however, dissolving in the pure light of her character, had no longer

the efficacy of facts, but were acknowledged as mistaken fantasies, by whatever testimony of the senses they

might appear to be substantiated. There is something truer and more real than what we can see with the eyes

and touch with the finger. On such better evidence had Giovanni founded his confidence in Beatrice, though

rather by the necessary force of her high attributes than by any deep and generous faith on his part. But now

his spirit was incapable of sustaining itself at the height to which the early enthusiasm of passion had exalted

it; he fell down, grovelling among earthly doubts, and defiled therewith the pure whiteness of Beatrice's

image. Not that he gave her up; he did but distrust. He resolved to institute some decisive test that should

satisfy him, once for all, whether there were those dreadful peculiarities in her physical nature which could

not be supposed to exist without some corresponding monstrosity of soul. His eyes, gazing down afar, might

have deceived him as to the lizard, the insect, and the flowers; but if he could witness, at the distance of a few

paces, the sudden blight of one fresh and healthful flower in Beatrice's hand, there would be room for no

further question. With this idea he hastened to the florist's and purchased a bouquet that was still gemmed

It was now the customary hour of his daily interview with Beatrice. Before descending into the garden,

Giovanni failed not to look at his figure in the mirror,a vanity to be expected in a beautiful young man, yet,

as displaying itself at that troubled and feverish moment, the token of a certain shallowness of feeling and

insincerity of character. He did gaze, however, and said to himself that his features had never before

possessed so rich a grace, nor his eyes such vivacity, nor his cheeks so warm a hue of superabundant life.

"At least," thought he, "her poison has not yet insinuated itself into my system. I am no flower to perish in her

With that thought he turned his eyes on the bouquet, which he had never once laid aside from his hand. A

thrill of indefinable horror shot through his frame on perceiving that those dewy flowers were already

beginning to droop; they wore the aspect of things that had been fresh and lovely yesterday. Giovanni grew

white as marble, and stood motionless before the mirror, staring at his own reflection there as at the likeness

of something frightful. He remembered Baglioni's remark about the fragrance that seemed to pervade the

chamber. It must have been the poison in his breath! Then he shudderedshuddered at himself. Recovering

from his stupor, he began to watch with curious eye a spider that was busily at work hanging its web from the

antique cornice of the apartment, crossing and recrossing the artful system of interwoven linesas vigorous

and active a spider as ever dangled from an old ceiling. Giovanni bent towards the insect, and emitted a deep,

long breath. The spider suddenly ceased its toil; the web vibrated with a tremor originating in the body of the

small artisan. Again Giovanni sent forth a breath, deeper, longer, and imbued with a venomous feeling out of

his heart: he knew not whether he were wicked, or only desperate. The spider made a convulsive gripe with

"Accursed! accursed!" muttered Giovanni, addressing himself. "Hast thou grown so poisonous that this

"Yes," muttered Giovanni again. "She is the only being whom my breath may not slay! Would that it might!"

He rushed down, and in an instant was standing before the bright and loving eyes of Beatrice. A moment ago

his wrath and despair had been so fierce that he could have desired nothing so much as to wither her by a

glance; but with her actual presence there came influences which had too real an existence to be at once

shaken off: recollections of the delicate and benign power of her feminine nature, which had so often

enveloped him in a religious calm; recollections of many a holy and passionate outgush of her heart, when the

pure fountain had been unsealed from its depths and made visible in its transparency to his mental eye;

recollections which, had Giovanni known how to estimate them, would have assured him that all this ugly

mystery was but an earthly illusion, and that, whatever mist of evil might seem to have gathered over her, the

real Beatrice was a heavenly angel. Incapable as he was of such high faith, still her presence had not utterly

lost its magic. Giovanni's rage was quelled into an aspect of sullen insensibility. Beatrice, with a quick

spiritual sense, immediately felt that there was a gulf of blackness between them which neither he nor she

could pass. They walked on together, sad and silent, and came thus to the marble fountain and to its pool of

water on the ground, in the midst of which grew the shrub that bore gemlike blossoms. Giovanni was

affrighted at the eager enjoymentthe appetite, as it werewith which he found himself inhaling the

"He is a man fearfully acquainted with the secrets of Nature," replied Beatrice; "and, at the hour when I first

drew breath, this plant sprang from the soil, the offspring of his science, of his intellect, while I was but his

earthly child. Approach it not!" continued she, observing with terror that Giovanni was drawing nearer to the

shrub. "It has qualities that you little dream of. But I, dearest Giovanni,I grew up and blossomed with the

plant and was nourished with its breath. It was my sister, and I loved it with a human affection; for,

Here Giovanni frowned so darkly upon her that Beatrice paused and trembled. But her faith in his tenderness

"There was an awful doom," she continued, "the effect of my father's fatal love of science, which estranged

me from all society of my kind. Until Heaven sent thee, dearest Giovanni, oh, how lonely was thy poor

"Only of late have I known how hard it was," answered she, tenderly. "Oh, yes; but my heart was torpid, and

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

"Accursed one!" cried he, with venomous scorn and anger. "And, finding thy solitude wearisome, thou hast

severed me likewise from all the warmth of life and enticed me into thy region of unspeakable horror!"

"Giovanni!" exclaimed Beatrice, turning her large bright eyes upon his face. The force of his words had not

"Yes, poisonous thing!" repeated Giovanni, beside himself with passion. "Thou hast done it! Thou hast

blasted me! Thou hast filled my veins with poison! Thou hast made me as hateful, as ugly, as loathsome and

deadly a creature as thyselfa world's wonder of hideous monstrosity! Now, if our breath be happily as fatal

to ourselves as to all others, let us join our lips in one kiss of unutterable hatred, and so die!"

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

"Thou,dost thou pray?" cried Giovanni, still with the same fiendish scorn. "Thy very prayers, as they come

from thy lips, taint the atmosphere with death. Yes, yes; let us pray! Let us to church and dip our fingers in

the holy water at the portal! They that come after us will perish as by a pestilence! Let us sign crosses in the

"Giovanni," said Beatrice, calmly, for her grief was beyond passion, "why dost thou join thyself with me thus

in those terrible words? I, it is true, am the horrible thing thou namest me. But thou,what hast thou to do,

save with one other shudder at my hideous misery to go forth out of the garden and mingle with thy race, and

"Dost thou pretend ignorance?" asked Giovanni, scowling upon her. "Behold! this power have I gained from

There was a swarm of summer insects flitting through the air in search of the food promised by the flower

odors of the fatal garden. They circled round Giovanni's head, and were evidently attracted towards him by

the same influence which had drawn them for an instant within the sphere of several of the shrubs. He sent

forth a breath among them, and smiled bitterly at Beatrice as at least a score of the insects fell dead upon the

"I see it! I see it!" shrieked Beatrice. "It is my father's fatal science! No, no, Giovanni; it was not I! Never!

never! I dreamed only to love thee and be with thee a little time, and so to let thee pass away, leaving but

thine image in mine heart; for, Giovanni, believe it, though my body be nourished with poison, my spirit is

God's creature, and craves love as its daily food. But my father,he has united us in this fearful sympathy.

Yes; spurn me, tread upon me, kill me! Oh, what is death after such words as thine? But it was not I. Not for

Giovanni's passion had exhausted itself in its outburst from his lips. There now came across him a sense,

mournful, and not without tenderness, of the intimate and peculiar relationship between Beatrice and himself.

They stood, as it were, in an utter solitude, which would be made none the less solitary by the densest throng

of human life. Ought not, then, the desert of humanity around them to press this insulated pair closer

together? If they should be cruel to one another, who was there to be kind to them? Besides, thought

Giovanni, might there not still be a hope of his returning within the limits of ordinary nature, and leading

Beatrice, the redeemed Beatrice, by the hand? O, weak, and selfish, and unworthy spirit, that could dream of

an earthly union and earthly happiness as possible, after such deep love had been so bitterly wronged as was

Beatrice's love by Giovanni's blighting words! No, no; there could be no such hope. She must pass heavily,

with that broken heart, across the borders of Timeshe must bathe her hurts in some fount of paradise, and

"Dear Beatrice," said he, approaching her, while she shrank away as always at his approach, but now with a

different impulse, "dearest Beatrice, our fate is not yet so desperate. Behold! there is a medicine, potent, as a

wise physician has assured me, and almost divine in its efficacy. It is composed of ingredients the most

opposite to those by which thy awful father has brought this calamity upon thee and me. It is distilled of

"Give it me!" said Beatrice, extending her hand to receive the little silver vial which Giovanni took from his

bosom. She added, with a peculiar emphasis, "I will drink; but do thou await the result."

She put Baglioni's antidote to her lips; and, at the same moment, the figure of Rappaccini emerged from the

portal and came slowly towards the marble fountain. As he drew near, the pale man of science seemed to

gaze with a triumphant expression at the beautiful youth and maiden, as might an artist who should spend his

life in achieving a picture or a group of statuary and finally be satisfied with his success. He paused; his bent

form grew erect with conscious power; he spread out his hands over them in the attitude of a father imploring

a blessing upon his children; but those were the same hands that had thrown poison into the stream of their

lives. Giovanni trembled. Beatrice shuddered nervously, and pressed her hand upon her heart.

"My daughter," said Rappaccini, "thou art no longer lonely in the world. Pluck one of those precious gems

from thy sister shrub and bid thy bridegroom wear it in his bosom. It will not harm him now. My science and

the sympathy between thee and him have so wrought within his system that he now stands apart from

common men, as thou dost, daughter of my pride and triumph, from ordinary women. Pass on, then, through

"My father," said Beatrice, feebly,and still as she spoke she kept her hand upon her heart,"wherefore

"Miserable!" exclaimed Rappaccini. "What mean you, foolish girl? Dost thou deem it misery to be endowed

with marvellous gifts against which no power nor strength could avail an enemymisery, to be able to quell

the mightiest with a breathmisery, to be as terrible as thou art beautiful? Wouldst thou, then, have

preferred the condition of a weak woman, exposed to all evil and capable of none?"

"I would fain have been loved, not feared," murmured Beatrice, sinking down upon the ground. "But now it

matters not. I am going, father, where the evil which thou hast striven to mingle with my being will pass

away like a dreamlike the fragrance of these poisonous flowers, which will no longer taint my breath among

the flowers of Eden. Farewell, Giovanni! Thy words of hatred are like lead within my heart; but they, too,

will fall away as I ascend. Oh, was there not, from the first, more poison in thy nature than in mine?"

To Beatrice,so radically had her earthly part been wrought upon by Rappaccini's skill,as poison had

been life, so the powerful antidote was death; and thus the poor victim of man's ingenuity and of thwarted

nature, and of the fatality that attends all such efforts of perverted wisdom, perished there, at the feet of her

father and Giovanni. Just at that moment Professor Pietro Baglioni looked forth from the window, and called

loudly, in a tone of triumph mixed with horror, to the thunderstricken man of science,"Rappaccini!

It makes me melancholy to see how like fools some very sensible people act in the matter of choosing wives.

They perplex their judgments by a most undue attention to little niceties of personal appearance, habits,

disposition, and other trifles which concern nobody but the lady herself. An unhappy gentleman, resolving to

wed nothing short of perfection, keeps his heart and hand till both get so old and withered that no tolerable

woman will accept them. Now this is the very height of absurdity. A kind Providence has so skilfully adapted

sex to sex and the mass of individuals to each other, that, with certain obvious exceptions, any male and

female may be moderately happy in the married state. The true rule is to ascertain that the match is

fundamentally a good one, and then to take it for granted that all minor objections, should there be such, will

vanish, if you let them alone. Only put yourself beyond hazard as to the real basis of matrimonial bliss, and it

is scarcely to be imagined what miracles, in the way of recognizing smaller incongruities, connubial love will

For my own part I freely confess that, in my bachelorship, I was precisely such an overcurious simpleton as

I now advise the reader not to be. My early habits had gifted me with a feminine sensibility and too exquisite

refinement. I was the accomplished graduate of a dry goods store, where, by dint of ministering to the whims

of fine ladies, and suiting silken hose to delicate limbs, and handling satins, ribbons, chintzes calicoes, tapes,

gauze, and cambric needles, I grew up a very ladylike sort of a gentleman. It is not assuming too much to

affirm that the ladies themselves were hardly so ladylike as Thomas Bullfrog. So painfully acute was my

sense of female imperfection, and such varied excellence did I require in the woman whom I could love, that

there was an awful risk of my getting no wife at all, or of being driven to perpetrate matrimony with my own

image in the lookingglass. Besides the fundamental principle already hinted at, I demanded the fresh bloom

of youth, pearly teeth, glossy ringlets, and the whole list of lovely items, with the utmost delicacy of habits

and sentiments, a silken texture of mind, and, above all, a virgin heart. In a word, if a young angel just from

paradise, yet dressed in earthly fashion, had come and offered me her hand, it is by no means certain that I

should have taken it. There was every chance of my becoming a most miserable old bachelor, when, by the

best luck in the world, I made a journey into another state, and was smitten by, and smote again, and wooed,

won, and married, the present Mrs. Bullfrog, all in the space of a fortnight. Owing to these extempore

measures, I not only gave my bride credit for certain perfections which have not as yet come to light, but also

overlooked a few trifling defects, which, however, glimmered on my perception long before the close of the

honeymoon. Yet, as there was no mistake about the fundamental principle aforesaid, I soon learned, as will

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

The same morning that Mrs. Bullfrog and I came together as a unit, we took two seats in the stagecoach and

began our journey towards my place of business. There being no other passengers, we were as much alone

and as free to give vent to our raptures as if I had hired a hack for the matrimonial jaunt. My bride looked

charmingly in a green silk calash and riding habit of pelisse cloth; and whenever her red lips parted with a

smile, each tooth appeared like an inestimable pearl. Such was my passionate warmth thatwe had rattled

out of the village, gentle reader, and were lonely as Adam and Eve in paradiseI plead guilty to no less

freedom than a kiss. The gentle eye of Mrs. Bullfrog scarcely rebuked me for the profanation. Emboldened

by her indulgence, I threw back the calash from her polished brow, and suffered my fingers, white and

delicate as her own, to stray among those dark and glossy curls which realized my daydreams of rich hair.

"Oh, no, my sweet Laura!" replied I, still playing with the glossy ringlet. "Even your fair hand could not

manage a curl more delicately than mine. I propose myself the pleasure of doing up your hair in papers every

This was spoken in a more decided tone than I had happened to hear, until then, from my gentlest of all gentle

brides. At the same time she put up her hand and took mine prisoner; but merely drew it away from the

forbidden ringlet, and then immediately released it. Now, I am a fidgety little man, and always love to have

something in my fingers; so that, being debarred from my wife's curls, I looked about me for any other

plaything. On the front seat of the coach there was one of those small baskets in which travelling ladies who

are too delicate to appear at a public table generally carry a supply of gingerbread, biscuits and cheese, cold

ham, and other light refreshments, merely to sustain nature to the journey's end. Such airy diet will sometimes

keep them in pretty good flesh for a week together. Laying hold of this same little basket, I thrust my hand

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

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

There was no possibility of doubting my wife's word; but I never knew genuine Kalydor, such as I use for my

own complexion, to smell so much like cherry brandy. I was about to express my fears that the lotion would

injure her skin, when an accident occurred which threatened more than a skindeep injury. Our Jehu had

carelessly driven over a heap of gravel and fairly capsized the coach, with the wheels in the air and our heels

where our heads should have been. What became of my wits I cannot imagine; they have always had a

perverse trick of deserting me just when they were most needed; but so it chanced, that in the confusion of

our overthrow I quite forgot that there was a Mrs. Bullfrog in the world. Like many men's wives, the good

lady served her husband as a steppingstone. I had scrambled out of the coach and was instinctively settling

my cravat, when somebody brushed roughly by me, and I heard a smart thwack upon the coachman's ear.

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

And then came a second thwack, aimed at the driver's other ear; but which missed it, and hit him on the nose,

causing a terrible effusion of blood. Now, who or what fearful apparition was inflicting this punishment on

the poor fellow remained an impenetrable mystery to me. The blows were given by a person of grisly aspect,

with a head almost bald, and sunken cheeks, apparently of the feminine gender, though hardly to be classed in

the gentler sex. There being no teeth to modulate the voice, it had a mumbled fierceness, not passionate, but

stern, which absolutely made me quiver like calf'sfoot jelly. Who could the phantom be? The most awful

circumstance of the affair is yet to be told: for this ogre, or whatever it was, had a riding habit like Mrs.

Bullfrog's, and also a green silk calash dangling down her back by the strings. In my terror and turmoil of

mind I could imagine nothing less than that the Old Nick, at the moment of our overturn, had annihilated my

wife and jumped into her petticoats. This idea seemed the most probable, since I could nowhere perceive

Mrs. Bullfrog alive, nor, though I looked very sharply about the coach, could I detect any traces of that

beloved woman's dead body. There would have been a comfort in giving her Christian burial.

"Come, sir, bestir yourself! Help this rascal to set up the coach," sai the hobgoblin to me; then, with a terrific

screech at three countrymen at a distance, "Here, you fellows, ain't you ashamed to stand off when a poor

The countrymen, instead of fleeing for their lives, came running at full speed, and laid hold of the

topsyturvy coach. I, also, though a smallsized man, went to work like a son of Anak. The coachman, too,

with the blood still streaming from his nose, tugged and toiled most manfully, dreading, doubtless, that the

next blow might break his head. And yet, bemauled as the poor fellow had been, he seemed to glance at me

with an eye of pity, as if my case were more deplorable than his. But I cherished a hope that all would turn

out a dream, and seized the opportunity, as we raised the coach, to jam two of my fingers under the wheel,

"Why, here we are, all to rights again!" exclaimed a sweet voice behind. "Thank you for your assistance,

gentlemen. My dear Mr. Bullfrog, how you perspire! Do let me wipe your face. Don't take this little accident

too much to heart, good driver. We ought to be thankful that none of our necks are broken."

"We might have spared one neck out of the three," muttered the driver, rubbing his ear and pulling his nose,

I fear that the reader will not believe, yet it is positively a fact, that there stood Mrs. Bullfrog, with her glossy

ringlets curling on her brow, and two rows of orient pearls gleaming between her parted lips, which wore a

most angelic smile. She had regained her riding habit and calash from the grisly phantom, and was, in all

respects, the lovely woman who had been sitting by my side at the instant of our overturn. How she had

happened to disappear, and who had supplied her place, and whence she did now return, were problems too

knotty for me to solve. There stood my wife. That was the one thing certain among a heap of mysteries.

Nothing remained but to help her into the coach, and plod on, through the journey of the day and the journey

of life, as comfortably as we could. As the driver closed the door upon us, I heard him whisper to the three

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

Of course this query could have no reference to my situation. Yet, unreasonable as it may appear, I confess

that my feelings were not altogether so ecstatic as when I first called Mrs. Bullfrog mine. True, she was a

sweet woman and an angel of a wife; but what if a Gorgon should return, amid the transports of our connubial

bliss, and take the angel's place. I recollected the tale of a fairy, who half the time was a beautiful woman and

half the time a hideous monster. Had I taken that very fairy to be the wife of my bosom? While such whims

and chimeras were flitting across my fancy I began to look askance at Mrs. Bullfrog, almost expecting that

To divert my mind, I took up the newspaper which had covered the little basket of refreshments, and which

now lay at the bottom of the coach, blushing with a deepred stain and emitting a potent spirituous fume

from the contents of the broken bottle of Kalydor. The paper was two or three years old, but contained an

article of several columns, in which I soon grew wonderfully interested. It was the report of a trial for breach

of promise of marriage, giving the testimony in full, with fervid extracts from both the gentleman's and lady's

amatory correspondence. The deserted damsel had personally appeared in court, and had borne energetic

evidence to her lover's perfidy and the strength of her blighted affections. On the defendant's part there had

been an attempt, though insufficiently sustained, to blast the plaintiff's character, and a plea, in mitigation of

damages, on account of her unamiable temper. A horrible idea was suggested by the lady's name.

"Madam," said I, holding the newspaper before Mrs. Bullfrog's eyes,and, though a small, delicate, and

thinvisaged man, I feel assured that I looked very terrific,"madam," repeated I, through my shut teeth,

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

Covering my face with both hands, I emitted a deep and deathlike groan, as if my tormented soul were

rending me asunderI, the most exquisitely fastidious of men, and whose wife was to have been the most

delicate and refined of women, with all the fresh dewdrops glittering on her virgin rosebud of a heart!

I thought of the glossy ringlets and pearly teeth; I thought of the Kalydor; I thought of the coachman's bruised

ear and bloody nose; I thought of the tender love secrets which she had whispered to the judge and jury and a

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

"Mr. Bullfrog," said she, not unkindly, yet with all the decision of her strong character, "let me advise you to

overcome this foolish weakness, and prove yourself, to the best of your ability, as good a husband as I will be

a wife. You have discovered, perhaps, some little imperfections in your bride. Well, what did you expect?

Women are not angels. If they were, they would go to heaven for husbands; or, at least, be more difficult in

"Now, my love, are not you a most unreasonable little man?" said Mrs. Bullfrog, patting me on the cheek.

"Ought a woman to disclose her frailties earlier than the wedding day? Few husbands, I assure you, make the

discovery in such good season, and still fewer complain that these trifles are concealed too long. Well, what a

"Ah, and is that the rub?" exclaimed my wife. "Is it possible that you view that affair in an objectionable

light? Mr. Bullfrog, I never could have dreamed it! Is it an objection that I have triumphantly defended

myself against slander and vindicated my purity in a court of justice? Or do you complain because your wife

has shown the proper spirit of a woman, and punished the villain who trifled with her affections?"

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

contradiction the proper spirit of a woman would endure,"but, my love, would it not have been more

"That is all very well, Mr. Bullfrog," said my wife, slyly; "but, in that case, where would have been the five

"Mrs. Bullfrog, upon your honor," demanded I, as if my life hung upon her words, "is there no mistake about

"Upon my word and honor there is none," replied she. "The jury gave me every cent the rascal had; and I

"Then, thou dear woman," cried I, with an overwhelming gush of tenderness, "let me fold thee to my heart.

The basis of matrimonial bliss is secure, and all thy little defects and frailties are forgiven. Nay, since the

result has been so fortunate, I rejoice at the wrongs which drove thee to this blessed lawsuit. Happy Bullfrog

Not a great while ago, passing through the gate of dreams, I visited that region of the earth in which lies the

famous City of Destruction. It interested me much to learn that by the public spirit of some of the inhabitants

a railroad has recently been established between this populous and flourishing town and the Celestial City.

Having a little time upon my hands, I resolved to gratify a liberal curiosity by making a trip thither.

Accordingly, one fine morning after paying my bill at the hotel, and directing the porter to stow my luggage

behind a coach, I took my seat in the vehicle and set out for the stationhouse. It was my good fortune to

enjoy the company of a gentlemanone Mr. Smoothitawaywho, though he had never actually visited

the Celestial City, yet seemed as well acquainted with its laws, customs, policy, and statistics, as with those

of the City of Destruction, of which he was a native townsman. Being, moreover, a director of the railroad

corporation and one of its largest stockholders, he had it in his power to give me all desirable information

Our coach rattled out of the city, and at a short distance from its outskirts passed over a bridge of elegant

construction, but somewhat too slight, as I imagined, to sustain any considerable weight. On both sides lay an

extensive quagmire, which could not have been more disagreeable either to sight or smell, had all the kennels

"This," remarked Mr. Smoothitaway, "is the famous Slough of Desponda disgrace to all the

neighborhood; and the greater that it might so easily be converted into firm ground."

"I have understood," said I, "that efforts have been made for that purpose from time immemorial. Bunyan

mentions that above twenty thousand cartloads of wholesome instructions had been thrown in here without

"Very probably! And what effect could be anticipated from such unsubstantial stuff?" cried Mr.

Smoothitaway. "You observe this convenient bridge. We obtained a sufficient foundation for it by

throwing into the slough some editions of books of morality, volumes of French philosophy and German

rationalism; tracts, sermons, and essays of modern clergymen; extracts from Plato, Confucius, and various

Hindoo sages together with a few ingenious commentaries upon texts of Scripture,all of which by some

scientific process, have been converted into a mass like granite. The whole bog might be filled up with

It really seemed to me, however, that the bridge vibrated and heaved up and down in a very formidable

manner; and, in spite of Mr. Smoothitaway's testimony to the solidity of its foundation, I should be loath to

cross it in a crowded omnibus, especially if each passenger were encumbered with as heavy luggage as that

gentleman and myself. Nevertheless we got over without accident, and soon found ourselves at the

stationhouse. This very neat and spacious edifice is erected on the site of the little wicket gate, which

formerly, as all old pilgrims will recollect, stood directly across the highway, and, by its inconvenient

narrowness, was a great obstruction to the traveller of liberal mind and expansive stomach The reader of John

Bunyan will be glad to know that Christian's old friend Evangelist, who was accustomed to supply each

pilgrim with a mystic roll, now presides at the ticket office. Some malicious persons it is true deny the

identity of this reputable character with the Evangelist of old times, and even pretend to bring competent

evidence of an imposture. Without involving myself in a dispute I shall merely observe that, so far as my

experience goes, the square pieces of pasteboard now delivered to passengers are much more convenient and

useful along the road than the antique roll of parchment. Whether they will be as readily received at the gate

A large number of passengers were already at the stationhouse awaiting the departure of the cars. By the

aspect and demeanor of these persons it was easy to judge that the feelings of the community had undergone

a very favorable change in reference to the celestial pilgrimage. It would have done Bunyan's heart good to

see it. Instead of a lonely and ragged man with a huge burden on his back, plodding along sorrowfully on foot

while the whole city hooted after him, here were parties of the first gentry and most respectable people in the

neighborhood setting forth towards the Celestial City as cheerfully as if the pilgrimage were merely a

summer tour. Among the gentlemen were characters of deserved eminencemagistrates, politicians, and

men of wealth, by whose example religion could not but be greatly recommended to their meaner brethren. In

the ladies' apartment, too, I rejoiced to distinguish some of those flowers of fashionable society who are so

well fitted to adorn the most elevated circles of the Celestial City. There was much pleasant conversation

about the news of the day, topics of business and politics, or the lighter matters of amusement; while religion,

though indubitably the main thing at heart, was thrown tastefully into the background. Even an infidel would

One great convenience of the new method of going on pilgrimage I must not forget to mention. Our

enormous burdens, instead of being carried on our shoulders as had been the custom of old, were all snugly

deposited in the baggage car, and, as I was assured, would be delivered to their respective owners at the

journey's end. Another thing, likewise, the benevolent reader will be delighted to understand. It may be

remembered that there was an ancient feud between Prince Beelzebub and the keeper of the wicket gate, and

that the adherents of the former distinguished personage were accustomed to shoot deadly arrows at honest

pilgrims while knocking at the door. This dispute, much to the credit as well of the illustrious potentate above

mentioned as of the worthy and enlightened directors of the railroad, has been pacifically arranged on the

principle of mutual compromise. The prince's subjects are now pretty numerously employed about the

stationhouse, some in taking care of the baggage, others in collecting fuel, feeding the engines, and such

congenial occupations; and I can conscientiously affirm that persons more attentive to their business, more

willing to accommodate, or more generally agreeable to the passengers, are not to be found on any railroad.

Every good heart must surely exult at so satisfactory an arrangement of an immemorial difficulty.

"Where is Mr. Greatheart?" inquired I. "Beyond a doubt the directors have engaged that famous old

"Why, no," said Mr. Smoothitaway, with a dry cough. "He was offered the situation of brakeman; but, to

tell you the truth, our friend Greatheart has grown preposterously stiff and narrow in his old age. He has so

often guided pilgrims over the road on foot that he considers it a sin to travel in any other fashion. Besides,

the old fellow had entered so heartily into the ancient feud with Prince Beelzebub that he would have been

perpetually at blows or ill language with some of the prince's subjects, and thus have embroiled us anew. So,

on the whole, we were not sorry when honest Greatheart went off to the Celestial City in a huff and left us at

liberty to choose a more suitable and accommodating man. Yonder comes the engineer of the train. You will

The engine at this moment took its station in advance of the cars, looking, I must confess, much more like a

sort of mechanical demon that would hurry us to the infernal regions than a laudable contrivance for

smoothing our way to the Celestial City. On its top sat a personage almost enveloped in smoke and flame,

which, not to startle the reader, appeared to gush from his own mouth and stomach as well as from the

"Do my eyes deceive me?" cried I. "What on earth is this! A living creature? If so, he is own brother to the

"Poh, poh, you are obtuse!" said Mr. Smoothitaway, with a hearty laugh. "Don't you know Apollyon,

Christian's old enemy, with whom he fought so fierce a battle in the Valley of Humiliation? He was the very

fellow to manage the engine; and so we have reconciled him to the custom of going on pilgrimage, and

"Bravo, bravo!" exclaimed I, with irrepressible enthusiasm; "this shows the liberality of the age; this proves,

if anything can, that all musty prejudices are in a fair way to be obliterated. And how will Christian rejoice to

hear of this happy transformation of his old antagonist! I promise myself great pleasure in informing him of it

The passengers being all comfortably seated, we now rattled away merrily, accomplishing a greater distance

in ten minutes than Christian probably trudged over in a day. It was laughable, while we glanced along, as it

were, at the tail of a thunderbolt, to observe two dusty foot travellers in the old pilgrim guise, with cockle

shell and staff, their mystic rolls of parchment in their hands and their intolerable burdens on their backs. The

preposterous obstinacy of these honest people in persisting to groan and stumble along the difficult pathway

rather than take advantage of modern improvements, excited great mirth among our wiser brotherhood. We

greeted the two pilgrims with many pleasant gibes and a roar of laughter; whereupon they gazed at us with

such woful and absurdly compassionate visages that our merriment grew tenfold more obstreperous.

Apollyon also entered heartily into the fun, and contrived to flirt the smoke and flame of the engine, or of his

own breath, into their faces, and envelop them in an atmosphere of scalding steam. These little practical jokes

amused us mightily, and doubtless afforded the pilgrims the gratification of considering themselves martyrs.

At some distance from the railroad Mr. Smoothitaway pointed to a large, antique edifice, which, he

observed, was a tavern of long standing, and had formerly been a noted stoppingplace for pilgrims. In

"It is not one of our stations, as you perceive," said my companion "The keeper was violently opposed to the

railroad; and well he might be, as the track left his house of entertainment on one side, and thus was pretty

certain to deprive him of all his reputable customers. But the footpath still passes his door, and the old

gentleman now and then receives a call from some simple traveller, and entertains him with fare as

Before our talk on this subject came to a conclusion we were rushing by the place where Christian's burden

fell from his shoulders at the sight of the Cross. This served as a theme for Mr. Smoothitaway, Mr.

Livefortheworld, Mr. Hidesinintheheart, Mr. Scalyconscience, and a knot of gentlemen from the

town of Shunrepentance, to descant upon the inestimable advantages resulting from the safety of our

baggage. Myself, and all the passengers indeed, joined with great unanimity in this view of the matter; for our

burdens were rich in many things esteemed precious throughout the world; and, especially, we each of us

possessed a great variety of favorite Habits, which we trusted would not be out of fashion even in the polite

circles of the Celestial City. It would have been a sad spectacle to see such an assortment of valuable articles

tumbling into the sepulchre. Thus pleasantly conversing on the favorable circumstances of our position as

compared with those of past pilgrims and of narrowminded ones at the present day, we soon found

ourselves at the foot of the Hill Difficulty. Through the very heart of this rocky mountain a tunnel has been

constructed of most admirable architecture, with a lofty arch and a spacious double track; so that, unless the

earth and rocks should chance to crumble down, it will remain an eternal monument of the builder's skill and

enterprise. It is a great though incidental advantage that the materials from the heart of the Hill Difficulty

have been employed in filling up the Valley of Humiliation, thus obviating the necessity of descending into

"This is a wonderful improvement, indeed," said I. "Yet I should have been glad of an opportunity to visit the

Palace Beautiful and be introduced to the charming young ladiesMiss Prudence, Miss Piety, Miss Charity,

"Young ladies!" cried Mr. Smoothitaway, as soon as he could speak for laughing. "And charming young

ladies! Why, my dear fellow, they are old maids, every soul of themprim, starched, dry, and angular; and

not one of them, I will venture to say, has altered so much as the fashion of her gown since the days of

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

The respectable Apollyon was now putting on the steam at a prodigious rate, anxious, perhaps, to get rid of

the unpleasant reminiscences connected with the spot where he had so disastrously encountered Christian.

Consulting Mr. Bunyan's roadbook, I perceived that we must now be within a few miles of the Valley of the

Shadow of Death, into which doleful region, at our present speed, we should plunge much sooner than

seemed at all desirable. In truth, I expected nothing better than to find myself in the ditch on one side or the

Quag on the other; but on communicating my apprehensions to Mr. Smoothitaway, he assured me that the

difficulties of this passage, even in its worst condition, had been vastly exaggerated, and that, in its present

state of improvement, I might consider myself as safe as on any railroad in Christendom.

Even while we were speaking the train shot into the entrance of this dreaded Valley. Though I plead guilty to

some foolish palpitations of the heart during our headlong rush over the causeway here constructed, yet it

were unjust to withhold the highest encomiums on the boldness of its original conception and the ingenuity of

those who executed it. It was gratifying, likewise, to observe how much care had been taken to dispel the

everlasting gloom and supply the defect of cheerful sunshine, not a ray of which has ever penetrated among

these awful shadows. For this purpose, the inflammable gas which exudes plentifully from the soil is

collected by means of pipes, and thence communicated to a quadruple row of lamps along the whole extent of

the passage. Thus a radiance has been created even out of the fiery and sulphurous curse that rests forever

upon the valleya radiance hurtful, however, to the eyes, and somewhat bewildering, as I discovered by the

changes which it wrought in the visages of my companions. In this respect, as compared with natural

daylight, there is the same difference as between truth and falsehood, but if the reader have ever travelled

through the dark Valley, he will have learned to be thankful for any light that he could getif not from the

sky above, then from the blasted soil beneath. Such was the red brilliancy of these lamps that they appeared

to build walls of fire on both sides of the track, between which we held our course at lightning speed, while a

reverberating thunder filled the Valley with its echoes. Had the engine run off the track,a catastrophe, it is

whispered, by no means unprecedented,the bottomless pit, if there be any such place, would undoubtedly

have received us. Just as some dismal fooleries of this nature had made my heart quake there came a

tremendous shriek, careering along the valley as if a thousand devils had burst their lungs to utter it, but

which proved to be merely the whistle of the engine on arriving at a stoppingplace.

The spot where we had now paused is the same that our friend Bunyana truthful man, but infected with

many fantastic notionshas designated, in terms plainer than I like to repeat, as the mouth of the infernal

region. This, however, must be a mistake, inasmuch as Mr. Smoothitaway, while we remained in the

smoky and lurid cavern, took occasion to prove that Tophet has not even a metaphorical existence. The place,

he assured us, is no other than the crater of a halfextinct volcano, in which the directors had caused forges to

be set up for the manufacture of railroad iron. Hence, also, is obtained a plentiful supply of fuel for the use of

the engines. Whoever had gazed into the dismal obscurity of the broad cavern mouth, whence ever and anon

darted huge tongues of dusky flame, and had seen the strange, halfshaped monsters, and visions of faces

horribly grotesque, into which the smoke seemed to wreathe itself, and had heard the awful murmurs, and

shrieks, and deep, shuddering whispers of the blast, sometimes forming themselves into words almost

articulate, would have seized upon Mr. Smoothitaway's comfortable explanation as greedily as we did. The

inhabitants of the cavern, moreover, were unlovely personages, dark, smokebegrimed, generally deformed,

with misshapen feet, and a glow of dusky redness in their eyes as if their hearts had caught fire and were

blazing out of the upper windows. It struck me as a peculiarity that the laborers at the forge and those who

brought fuel to the engine, when they began to draw short breath, positively emitted smoke from their mouth

Among the idlers about the train, most of whom were puffing cigars which they had lighted at the flame of

the crater, I was perplexed to notice several who, to my certain knowledge, had heretofore set forth by

railroad for the Celestial City. They looked dark, wild, and smoky, with a singular resemblance, indeed, to the

native inhabitants, like whom, also, they had a disagreeable propensity to illnatured gibes and sneers, the

habit of which had wrought a settled contortion of their visages. Having been on speaking terms with one of

these persons,an indolent, goodfornothing fellow, who went by the name of Takeiteasy,I called

"That's a fact," said Mr. Takeiteasy, carelessly puffing some smoke into my eyes. "But I heard such bad

accounts that I never took pains to climb the hill on which the city stands. No business doing, no fun going

on, nothing to drink, and no smoking allowed, and a thrumming of church music from morning till night. I

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

"Oh," said the loafer, with a grin, "it is very warm hereabouts, and I meet with plenty of old acquaintances,

and altogether the place suits me. I hope to see you back again some day soon. A pleasant journey to you."

While he was speaking the bell of the engine rang, and we dashed away after dropping a few passengers, but

receiving no new ones. Rattling onward through the Valley, we were dazzled with the fiercely gleaming gas

lamps, as before. But sometimes, in the dark of intense brightness, grim faces, that bore the aspect and

expression of individual sins, or evil passions, seemed to thrust themselves through the veil of light, glaring

upon us, and stretching forth a great, dusky hand, as if to impede our progress. I almost thought that they

were my own sins that appalled me there. These were freaks of imaginationnothing more, certainlymere

delusions, which I ought to be heartily ashamed of; but all through the Dark Valley I was tormented, and

pestered, and dolefully bewildered with the same kind of waking dreams. The mephitic gases of that region

intoxicate the brain. As the light of natural day, however, began to struggle with the glow of the lanterns,

these vain imaginations lost their vividness, and finally vanished from the first ray of sunshine that greeted

our escape from the Valley of the Shadow of Death. Ere we had gone a mile beyond it I could wellnigh have

At the end of the valley, as John Bunyan mentions, is a cavern, where, in his days, dwelt two cruel giants,

Pope and Pagan, who had strown the ground about their residence with the bones of slaughtered pilgrims.

These vile old troglodytes are no longer there; but into their deserted cave another terrible giant has thrust

himself, and makes it his business to seize upon honest travellers and fatten them for his table with plentiful

meals of smoke, mist, moonshine, raw potatoes, and sawdust. He is a German by birth, and is called Giant

Transcendentalist; but as to his form, his features, his substance, and his nature generally, it is the chief

peculiarity of this huge miscreant that neither he for himself, nor anybody for him, has ever been able to

describe them. As we rushed by the cavern's mouth we caught a hasty glimpse of him, looking somewhat like

an illproportioned figure, but considerably more like a heap of fog and duskiness. He shouted after us, but in

so strange a phraseology that we knew not what he meant, nor whether to be encouraged or affrighted.

It was late in the day when the train thundered into the ancient city of Vanity, where Vanity Fair is still at the

height of prosperity, and exhibits an epitome of whatever is brilliant, gay, and fascinating beneath the sun. As

I purposed to make a considerable stay here, it gratified me to learn that there is no longer the want of

harmony between the town'speople and pilgrims, which impelled the former to such lamentably mistaken

measures as the persecution of Christian and the fiery martyrdom of Faithful. On the contrary, as the new

railroad brings with it great trade and a constant influx of strangers, the lord of Vanity Fair is its chief patron,

and the capitalists of the city are among the largest stockholders. Many passengers stop to take their pleasure

or make their profit in the Fair, instead of going onward to the Celestial City. Indeed, such are the charms of

the place that people often affirm it to be the true and only heaven; stoutly contending that there is no other,

that those who seek further are mere dreamers, and that, if the fabled brightness of the Celestial City lay but a

bare mile beyond the gates of Vanity, they would not be fools enough to go thither. Without subscribing to

these perhaps exaggerated encomiums, I can truly say that my abode in the city was mainly agreeable, and

my intercourse with the inhabitants productive of much amusement and instruction.

Being naturally of a serious turn, my attention was directed to the solid advantages derivable from a residence

here, rather than to the effervescent pleasures which are the grand object with too many visitants. The

Christian reader, if he have had no accounts of the city later than Bunyan's time, will be surprised to hear that

almost every street has its church, and that the reverend clergy are nowhere held in higher respect than at

Vanity Fair. And well do they deserve such honorable estimation; for the maxims of wisdom and virtue

which fall from their lips come from as deep a spiritual source, and tend to as lofty a religious aim, as those

of the sagest philosophers of old. In justification of this high praise I need only mention the names of the Rev.

Mr. Shallowdeep, the Rev. Mr. Stumbleattruth, that fine old clerical character the Rev. Mr. Thistoday,

who expects shortly to resign his pulpit to the Rev. Mr. Thattomorrow; together with the Rev. Mr.

Bewilderment, the Rev. Mr. Clogthespirit, and, last and greatest, the Rev. Dr. Windofdoctrine. The

labors of these eminent divines are aided by those of innumerable lecturers, who diffuse such a various

profundity, in all subjects of human or celestial science, that any man may acquire an omnigenous erudition

without the trouble of even learning to read. Thus literature is etherealized by assuming for its medium the

human voice; and knowledge, depositing all its heavier particles, except, doubtless, its gold becomes exhaled

into a sound, which forthwith steals into the everopen ear of the community. These ingenious methods

constitute a sort of machinery, by which thought and study are done to every person's hand without his

putting himself to the slightest inconvenience in the matter. There is another species of machine for the

wholesale manufacture of individual morality. This excellent result is effected by societies for all manner of

virtuous purposes, with which a man has merely to connect himself, throwing, as it were, his quota of virtue

into the common stock, and the president and directors will take care that the aggregate amount be well

applied. All these, and other wonderful improvements in ethics, religion, and literature, being made plain to

my comprehension by the ingenious Mr. Smoothitaway, inspired me with a vast admiration of Vanity Fair.

It would fill a volume, in an age of pamphlets, were I to record all my observations in this great capital of

human business and pleasure. There was an unlimited range of societythe powerful, the wise, the witty,

and the famous in every walk of life; princes, presidents, poets, generals, artists, actors, and

philanthropists,all making their own market at the fair, and deeming no price too exorbitant for such

commodities as hit their fancy. It was well worth one's while, even if he had no idea of buying or selling, to

loiter through the bazaars and observe the various sorts of traffic that were going forward.

Some of the purchasers, I thought, made very foolish bargains. For instance, a young man having inherited a

splendid fortune, laid out a considerable portion of it in the purchase of diseases, and finally spent all the rest

for a heavy lot of repentance and a suit of rags. A very pretty girl bartered a heart as clear as crystal, and

which seemed her most valuable possession, for another jewel of the same kind, but so worn and defaced as

to be utterly worthless. In one shop there were a great many crowns of laurel and myrtle, which soldiers,

authors, statesmen, and various other people pressed eagerly to buy; some purchased these paltry wreaths

with their lives, others by a toilsome servitude of years, and many sacrificed whatever was most valuable, yet

finally slunk away without the crown. There was a sort of stock or scrip, called Conscience, which seemed to

be in great demand, and would purchase almost anything. Indeed, few rich commodities were to be obtained

without paying a heavy sum in this particular stock, and a man's business was seldom very lucrative unless he

knew precisely when and how to throw his hoard of conscience into the market. Yet as this stock was the

only thing of permanent value, whoever parted with it was sure to find himself a loser in the long run. Several

of the speculations were of a questionable character. Occasionally a member of Congress recruited his pocket

by the sale of his constituents; and I was assured that public officers have often sold their country at very

moderate prices. Thousands sold their happiness for a whim. Gilded chains were in great demand, and

purchased with almost any sacrifice. In truth, those who desired, according to the old adage, to sell anything

valuable for a song, might find customers all over the Fair; and there were innumerable messes of pottage,

piping hot, for such as chose to buy them with their birthrights. A few articles, however, could not be found

genuine at Vanity Fair. If a customer wished to renew his stock of youth the dealers offered him a set of false

teeth and an auburn wig; if he demanded peace of mind, they recommended opium or a brandy bottle.

Tracts of land and golden mansions, situate in the Celestial City, were often exchanged, at very

disadvantageous rates, for a few years' lease of small, dismal, inconvenient tenements in Vanity Fair. Prince

Beelzebub himself took great interest in this sort of traffic, and sometimes condescended to meddle with

smaller matters. I once had the pleasure to see him bargaining with a miser for his soul, which, after much

ingenious skirmishing on both sides, his highness succeeded in obtaining at about the value of sixpence. The

Day after day, as I walked the streets of Vanity, my manners and deportment became more and more like

those of the inhabitants. The place began to seem like home; the idea of pursuing my travels to the Celestial

City was almost obliterated from my mind. I was reminded of it, however, by the sight of the same pair of

simple pilgrims at whom we had laughed so heartily when Apollyon puffed smoke and steam into their faces

at the commencement of our journey. There they stood amidst the densest bustle of Vanity; the dealers

offering them their purple and fine linen and jewels, the men of wit and humor gibing at them, a pair of

buxom ladies ogling them askance, while the benevolent Mr. Smoothitaway whispered some of his

wisdom at their elbows, and pointed to a newlyerected temple; but there were these worthy simpletons,

making the scene look wild and monstrous, merely by their sturdy repudiation of all part in its business or

One of themhis name was Sticktotherightperceived in my face, I suppose, a species of sympathy

and almost admiration, which, to my own great surprise, I could not help feeling for this pragmatic couple. It

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

"Yes," I replied, "my right to that appellation is indubitable. I am merely a sojourner here in Vanity Fair,

"Alas, friend," rejoined Mr. Sticktothetruth, "I do assure you, and beseech you to receive the truth of my

words, that that whole concern is a bubble. You may travel on it all your lifetime, were you to live thousands

of years, and yet never get beyond the limits of Vanity Fair. Yea, though you should deem yourself entering

"The Lord of the Celestial City," began the other pilgrim, whose name was Mr. Footittoheaven, "has

refused, and will ever refuse, to grant an act of incorporation for this railroad; and unless that be obtained, no

passenger can ever hope to enter his dominions. Wherefore every man who buys a ticket must lay his account

"Poh, nonsense!" said Mr. Smoothitaway, taking my arm and leading me off, "these fellows ought to be

indicted for a libel. If the law stood as it once did in Vanity Fair we should see them grinning through the iron

This incident made a considerable impression on my mind, and contributed with other circumstances to

indispose me to a permanent residence in the city of Vanity; although, of course, I was not simple enough to

give up my original plan of gliding along easily and commodiously by railroad. Still, I grew anxious to be

gone. There was one strange thing that troubled me. Amid the occupations or amusements of the Fair,

nothing was more common than for a personwhether at feast, theatre, or church, or trafficking for wealth

and honors, or whatever he might be doing, to vanish like a soap bubble, and be never more seen of his

fellows; and so accustomed were the latter to such little accidents that they went on with their business as

Finally, after a pretty long residence at the Fair, I resumed my journey towards the Celestial City, still with

Mr. Smoothitaway at my side. At a short distance beyond the suburbs of Vanity we passed the ancient

silver mine, of which Demas was the first discoverer, and which is now wrought to great advantage,

supplying nearly all the coined currency of the world. A little further onward was the spot where Lot's wife

had stood forever under the semblance of a pillar of salt. Curious travellers have long since carried it away

piecemeal. Had all regrets been punished as rigorously as this poor dame's were, my yearning for the

relinquished delights of Vanity Fair might have produced a similar change in my own corporeal substance,

The next remarkable object was a large edifice, constructed of mossgrown stone, but in a modern and airy

style of architecture. The engine came to a pause in its vicinity, with the usual tremendous shriek.

"This was formerly the castle of the redoubted giant Despair," observed Mr. Smoothitaway; "but since his

death Mr. Flimsyfaith has repaired it, and keeps an excellent house of entertainment here. It is one of our

"It seems but slightly put together," remarked I, looking at the frail yet ponderous walls. "I do not envy Mr.

Flimsyfaith his habitation. Some day it will thunder down upon the heads of the occupants."

"We shall escape at all events," said Mr. Smoothitaway, "for Apollyon is putting on the steam again."

The road now plunged into a gorge of the Delectable Mountains, and traversed the field where in former ages

the blind men wandered and stumbled among the tombs. One of these ancient tombstones had been thrust

across the track by some malicious person, and gave the train of cars a terrible jolt. Far up the rugged side of

a mountain I perceived a rusty iron door, half overgrown with bushes and creeping plants, but with smoke

"Is that," inquired I, "the very door in the hillside which the shepherds assured Christian was a byway to

"That was a joke on the part of the shepherds," said Mr. Smoothitaway, with a smile. "It is neither more nor

less than the door of a cavern which they use as a smokehouse for the preparation of mutton hams."

My recollections of the journey are now, for a little space, dim and confused, inasmuch as a singular

drowsiness here overcame me, owing to the fact that we were passing over the enchanted ground, the air of

which encourages a disposition to sleep. I awoke, however, as soon as we crossed the borders of the pleasant

land of Beulah. All the passengers were rubbing their eyes, comparing watches, and congratulating one

another on the prospect of arriving so seasonably at the journey's end. The sweet breezes of this happy clime

came refreshingly to our nostrils; we beheld the glimmering gush of silver fountains, overhung by trees of

beautiful foliage and delicious fruit, which were propagated by grafts from the celestial gardens. Once, as we

dashed onward like a hurricane, there was a flutter of wings and the bright appearance of an angel in the air,

speeding forth on some heavenly mission. The engine now announced the close vicinity of the final

stationhouse by one last and horrible scream, in which there seemed to be distinguishable every kind of

wailing and woe, and bitter fierceness of wrath, all mixed up with the wild laughter of a devil or a madman.

Throughout our journey, at every stoppingplace, Apollyon had exercised his ingenuity in screwing the most

abominable sounds out of the whistle of the steamengine; but in this closing effort he outdid himself and

created an infernal uproar, which, besides disturbing the peaceful inhabitants of Beulah, must have sent its

While the horrid clamor was still ringing in our ears we heard an exulting strain, as if a thousand instruments

of music, with height and depth and sweetness in their tones, at once tender and triumphant, were struck in

unison, to greet the approach of some illustrious hero, who had fought the good fight and won a glorious

victory, and was come to lay aside his battered arms forever. Looking to ascertain what might be the occasion

of this glad harmony, I perceived, on alighting from the cars, that a multitude of shining ones had assembled

on the other side of the river, to welcome two poor pilgrims, who were just emerging from its depths. They

were the same whom Apollyon and ourselves had persecuted with taunts, and gibes, and scalding steam, at

the commencement of our journeythe same whose unworldly aspect and impressive words had stirred my

"How amazingly well those men have got on," cried I to Mr. Smoothitaway. "I wish we were secure of as

"Never fear, never fear!" answered my friend. "Come, make haste; the ferry boat will be off directly, and in

three minutes you will be on the other side of the river. No doubt you will find coaches to carry you up to the

A steam ferry boat, the last improvement on this important route, lay at the river side, puffing, snorting, and

emitting all those other disagreeable utterances which betoken the departure to be immediate. I hurried on

board with the rest of the passengers, most of whom were in great perturbation: some bawling out for their

baggage; some tearing their hair and exclaiming that the boat would explode or sink; some already pale with

the heaving of the stream; some gazing affrighted at the ugly aspect of the steersman; and some still dizzy

with the slumberous influences of the Enchanted Ground. Looking back to the shore, I was amazed to discern

"Oh, no!" answered he with a queer smile, and that same disagreeable contortion of visage which I had

remarked in the inhabitants of the Dark Valley. "Oh, no! I have come thus far only for the sake of your

And then did my excellent friend Mr. Smoothitaway laugh outright, in the midst of which cachinnation a

smokewreath issued from his mouth and nostrils, while a twinkle of lurid flame darted out of either eye,

proving indubitably that his heart was all of a red blaze. The impudent fiend! To deny the existence of

Tophet, when he felt its fiery tortures raging within his breast. I rushed to the side of the boat, intending to

fling myself on shore; but the wheels, as they began their revolutions, threw a dash of spray over me so

coldso deadly cold, with the chill that will never leave those waters until Death be drowned in his own

Life figures itself to me as a festal or funereal procession. All of us have our places, and are to move onward

under the direction of the Chief Marshal. The grand difficulty results from the invariably mistaken principles

on which the deputy marshals seek to arrange this immense concourse of people, so much more numerous

than those that train their interminable length through streets and highways in times of political excitement.

Their scheme is ancient, far beyond the memory of man or even the record of history, and has hitherto been

very little modified by the innate sense of something wrong, and the dim perception of better methods, that

have disquieted all the ages through which the procession has taken its march. Its members are classified by

the merest external circumstances, and thus are more certain to be thrown out of their true positions than if no

principle of arrangement were attempted. In one part of the procession we see men of landed estate or

moneyed capital gravely keeping each other company, for the preposterous reason that they chance to have a

similar standing in the taxgatherer's book. Trades and professions march together with scarcely a more real

bond of union. In this manner, it cannot be denied, people are disentangled from the mass and separated into

various classes according to certain apparent relations; all have some artificial badge which the world, and

themselves among the first, learn to consider as a genuine characteristic. Fixing our attention on such outside

shows of similarity or difference, we lose sight of those realities by which nature, fortune, fate, or Providence

has constituted for every man a brotherhood, wherein it is one great office of human wisdom to classify him.

When the mind has once accustomed itself to a proper arrangement of the Procession of Life, or a true

classification of society, even though merely speculative, there is thenceforth a satisfaction which pretty well

suffices for itself without the aid of any actual reformation in the order of march.

For instance, assuming to myself the power of marshalling the aforesaid procession, I direct a trumpeter to

send forth a blast loud enough to be heard from hence to China; and a herald, with worldpervading voice, to

make proclamation for a certain class of mortals to take their places. What shall be their principle of union?

After all, an external one, in comparison with many that might be found, yet far more real than those which

the world has selected for a similar purpose. Let all who are afflicted with like physical diseases form

Our first attempt at classification is not very successful. It may gratify the pride of aristocracy to reflect that

disease, more than any other circumstance of human life, pays due observance to the distinctions which rank

and wealth, and poverty and lowliness, have established among mankind. Some maladies are rich and

precious, and only to be acquired by the right of inheritance or purchased with gold. Of this kind is the gout,

which serves as a bond of brotherhood to the purplevisaged gentry, who obey the herald's voice, and

painfully hobble from all civilized regions of the globe to take their post in the grand procession. In mercy to

their toes, let us hope that the march may not be long. The Dyspeptics, too, are people of good standing in the

world. For them the earliest salmon is caught in our eastern rivers, and the shy W. stains the dry leaves

with his blood in his remotest haunts, and the turtle comes from the far Pacific Islands to be gobbled up in

soup. They can afford to flavor all their dishes with indolence, which, in spite of the general opinion, is a

sauce more exquisitely piquant than appetite won by exercise. Apoplexy is another highly respectable

disease. We will rank together all who have the symptom of dizziness in the brain, and as fast as any drop by

On the other hand, here come whole tribes of people whose physical lives are but a deteriorated variety of

life, and themselves a meaner species of mankind; so sad an effect has been wrought by the tainted breath of

cities, scanty and unwholesome food, destructive modes of labor, and the lack of those moral supports that

might partially have counteracted such bad influences. Behold here a train of house painters, all afflicted with

a peculiar sort of colic. Next in place we will marshal those workmen in cutlery, who have breathed a fatal

disorder into their lungs with the impalpable dust of steel. Tailors and shoemakers, being sedentary men, will

chiefly congregate into one part of the procession and march under similar banners of disease; but among

them we may observe here and there a sickly student, who has left his health between the leaves of classic

volumes; and clerks, likewise, who have caught their deaths on high official stools; and men of genius too,

who have written sheet after sheet with pens dipped in their heart's blood. These are a wretched quaking,

shortbreathed set. But what is this cloud of palecheeked, slender girls, who disturb the ear with the

multiplicity of their short, dry coughs? They are seamstresses, who have plied the daily and nightly needle in

the service of master tailors and closefisted contractors, until now it is almost time for each to hem the

borders of her own shroud. Consumption points their place in the procession. With their sad sisterhood are

intermingled many youthful maidens who have sickened in aristocratic mansions, and for whose aid science

has unavailingly searched its volumes, and whom breathless love has watched. In our ranks the rich maiden

and the poor seamstress may walk arm in arm. We might find innumerable other instances, where the bond of

mutual diseasenot to speak of nationsweeping pestilenceembraces high and low, and makes the king a

brother of the clown. But it is not hard to own that disease is the natural aristocrat. Let him keep his state, and

have his established orders of rank, and wear his royal mantle of the color of a fever flush and let the noble

and wealthy boast their own physical infirmities, and display their symptoms as the badges of high station.

All things considered, these are as proper subjects of human pride as any relations of human rank that men

Sound again, thou deepbreathed trumpeter! and herald, with thy voice of might, shout forth another

summons that shall reach the old baronial castles of Europe, and the rudest cabin of our western wilderness!

What class is next to take its place in the procession of mortal life? Let it be those whom the gifts of intellect

Ay, this is a reality, before which the conventional distinctions of society melt away like a vapor when we

would grasp it with the hand. Were Byron now alive, and Burns, the first would come from his ancestral

abbey, flinging aside, although unwillingly, the inherited honors of a thousand years, to take the arm of the

mighty peasant who grew immortal while he stooped behind his plough. These are gone; but the hall, the

farmer's fireside, the hut, perhaps the palace, the countingroom, the workshop, the village, the city, life's

high places and low ones, may all produce their poets, whom a common temperament pervades like an

electric sympathy. Peer or ploughman, we will muster them pair by pair and shoulder to shoulder. Even

society, in its most artificial state, consents to this arrangement. These factory girls from Lowell shall mate

themselves with the pride of drawingrooms and literary circles, the bluebells in fashion's nosegay, the

Sapphos, and Montagues, and Nortons of the age. Other modes of intellect bring together as strange

companies. Silkgowned professor of languages, give your arm to this sturdy blacksmith, and deem yourself

honored by the conjunction, though you behold him grimy from the anvil. All varieties of human speech are

like his mother tongue to this rare man. Indiscriminately let those take their places, of whatever rank they

come, who possess the kingly gifts to lead armies or to sway a peopleNature's generals, her lawgivers, her

kings, and with them also the deep philosophers who think the thought in one generation that is to

revolutionize society in the next. With the hereditary legislator in whom eloquence is a fardescended

attainmenta rich echo repeated by powerful voices from Cicero downwardwe will match some

wondrous backwoodsman, who has caught a wild power of language from the breeze among his native forest

boughs. But we may safely leave these brethren and sisterhood to settle their own congenialities. Our

ordinary distinctions become so trifling, so impalpable, so ridiculously visionary, in comparison with a

classification founded on truth, that all talk about the matter is immediately a common place.

Yet the longer I reflect the less am I satisfied with the idea of forming a separate class of mankind on the

basis of high intellectual power. At best it is but a higher development of innate gifts common to all. Perhaps,

moreover, he whose genius appears deepest and truest excels his fellows in nothing save the knack of

expression; he throws out occasionally a lucky hint at truths of which every human soul is profoundly, though

unutterably, conscious. Therefore, though we suffer the brotherhood of intellect to march onward together, it

may be doubted whether their peculiar relation will not begin to vanish as soon as the procession shall have

passed beyond the circle of this present world. But we do not classify for eternity.

And next, let the trumpet pour forth a funereal wail, and the herald's voice give breath in one vast cry to all

the groans and grievous utterances that are audible throughout the earth. We appeal now to the sacred bond of

sorrow, and summon the great multitude who labor under similar afflictions to take their places in the march.

How many a heart that would have been insensible to any other call has responded to the doleful accents of

that voice! It has gone far and wide, and high and low, and left scarcely a mortal roof unvisited. Indeed, the

principle is only too universal for our purpose, and, unless we limit it, will quite break up our classification of

mankind, and convert the whole procession into a funeral train. We will therefore be at some pains to

discriminate. Here comes a lonely rich man: he has built a noble fabric for his dwellinghouse, with a front

of stately architecture and marble floors and doors of precious woods; the whole structure is as beautiful as a

dream and as substantial as the native rock. But the visionary shapes of a long posterity, for whose home this

mansion was intended, have faded into nothingness since the death of the founder's only son. The rich man

gives a glance at his sable garb in one of the splendid mirrors of his drawingroom, and descending a flight

of lofty steps instinctively offers his arm to yonder poverty stricken widow in the rusty black bonnet, and

with a check apron over her patched gown. The sailor boy, who was her sole earthly stay, was washed

overboard in a late tempest. This couple from the palace and the almshouse are but the types of thousands

more who represent the dark tragedy of life and seldom quarrel for the upper parts. Grief is such a leveller,

with its own dignity and its own humility, that the noble and the peasant, the beggar and the monarch, will

waive their pretensions to external rank without the officiousness of interference on our part. If pridethe

influence of the world's false distinctionsremain in the heart, then sorrow lacks the earnestness which

makes it holy and reverend. It loses its reality and becomes a miserable shadow. On this ground we have an

opportunity to assign over multitudes who would willingly claim places here to other parts of the procession.

If the mourner have anything dearer than his grief he must seek his true position elsewhere. There are so

many unsubstantial sorrows which the necessity of our mortal state begets on idleness, that an observer,

casting aside sentiment, is sometimes led to question whether there be any real woe, except absolute physical

suffering and the loss of closest friends. A crowd who exhibit what they deem to be broken heartsand

among them many lovelorn maids and bachelors, and men of disappointed ambition in arts or politics, and

the poor who were once rich, or who have sought to be rich in vainthe great majority of these may ask

admittance into some other fraternity. There is no room here. Perhaps we may institute a separate class where

such unfortunates will naturally fall into the procession. Meanwhile let them stand aside and patiently await

If our trumpeter can borrow a note from the doomsday trumpet blast, let him sound it now. The dread alarum

should make the earth quake to its centre, for the herald is about to address mankind with a summons to

which even the purest mortal may be sensible of some faint responding echo in his breast. In many bosoms it

will awaken a still small voice more terrible than its own reverberating uproar.

The hideous appeal has swept around the globe. Come, all ye guilty ones, and rank yourselves in accordance

with the brotherhood of crime. This, indeed, is an awful summons. I almost tremble to look at the strange

partnerships that begin to be formed, reluctantly, but by the in vincible necessity of like to like in this part of

the procession. A forger from the state prison seizes the arm of a distinguished financier. How indignantly

does the latter plead his fair reputation upon 'Change, and insist that his operations, by their magnificence of

scope, were removed into quite another sphere of morality than those of his pitiful companion! But let him

cut the connection if he can. Here comes a murderer with his clanking chains, and pairs himselfhorrible to

tellwith as pure and upright a man, in all observable respects, as ever partook of the consecrated bread and

wine. He is one of those, perchance the most hopeless of all sinners, who practise such an exemplary system

of outward duties, that even a deadly crime may be hidden from their own sight and remembrance, under this

unreal frostwork. Yet he now finds his place. Why do that pair of flaunting girls, with the pert, affected laugh

and the sly leer at the bystanders, intrude themselves into the same rank with yonder decorous matron, and

that somewhat prudish maiden? Surely these poor creatures, born to vice as their sole and natural inheritance,

can be no fit associates for women who have been guarded round about by all the proprieties of domestic life,

and who could not err unless they first created the opportunity. Oh no; it must be merely the impertinence of

those unblushing hussies; and we can only wonder how such respectable ladies should have responded to a

We shall make short work of this miserable class, each member of which is entitled to grasp any other

member's hand, by that vile degradation wherein guilty error has buried all alike. The foul fiend to whom it

properly belongs must relieve us of our loathsome task. Let the bond servants of sin pass on. But neither man

nor woman, in whom good predominates, will smile or sneer, nor bid the Rogues' March be played, in

derision of their array. Feeling within their breasts a shuddering sympathy, which at least gives token of the

sin that might have been, they will thank God for any place in the grand procession of human existence, save

among those most wretched ones. Many, however, will be astonished at the fatal impulse that drags them

thitherward. Nothing is more remarkable than the various deceptions by which guilt conceals itself from the

perpetrator's conscience, and oftenest, perhaps, by the splendor of its garments. Statesmen, rulers, generals,

and all men who act over an extensive sphere, are most liable to be deluded in this way; they commit wrong,

devastation, and murder, on so grand a scale, that it impresses them as speculative rather than actual; but in

our procession we find them linked in detestable conjunction with the meanest criminals whose deeds have

the vulgarity of petty details. Here the effect of circumstance and accident is done away, and a man finds his

rank according to the spirit of his crime, in whatever shape it may have been developed.

We have called the Evil; now let us call the Good. The trumpet's brazen throat should pour heavenly music

over the earth, and the herald's voice go forth with the sweetness of an angel's accents, as if to summon each

upright man to his reward. But how is this? Does none answer to the call? Not one: for the just, the pure, the

true, and an who might most worthily obey it, shrink sadly back, as most conscious of error and imperfection.

Then let the summons be to those whose pervading principle is Love. This classification will embrace all the

truly good, and none in whose souls there exists not something that may expand itself into a heaven, both of

The first that presents himself is a man of wealth, who has bequeathed the bulk of his property to a hospital;

his ghost, methinks, would have a better right here than his living body. But here they come, the genuine

benefactors of their race. Some have wandered about the earth with pictures of bliss in their imagination, and

with hearts that shrank sensitively from the idea of pain and woe, yet have studied all varieties of misery that

human nature can endure. The prison, the insane asylum, the squalid chamber of the almshouse, the

manufactory where the demon of machinery annihilates the human soul, and the cotton field where God's

image becomes a beast of burden; to these and every other scene where man wrongs or neglects his brother,

the apostles of humanity have penetrated. This missionary, black with India's burning sunshine, shall give his

arm to a palefaced brother who has made himself familiar with the infected alleys and loathsome haunts of

vice in one of our own cities. The generous founder of a college shall be the partner of a maiden lady of

narrow substance, one of whose good deeds it has been to gather a little school of orphan children. If the

mighty merchant whose benefactions are reckoned by thousands of dollars deem himself worthy, let him join

the procession with her whose love has proved itself by watchings at the sickbed, and all those lowly offices

which bring her into actual contact with disease and wretchedness. And with those whose impulses have

guided them to benevolent actions, we will rank others to whom Providence has assigned a different tendency

and different powers. Men who have spent their lives in generous and holy contemplation for the human race;

those who, by a certain heavenliness of spirit, have purified the atmosphere around them, and thus supplied a

medium in which good and high things may be projected and performedgive to these a lofty place among

the benefactors of mankind, although no deed, such as the world calls deeds, may be recorded of them. There

are some individuals of whom we cannot conceive it proper that they should apply their hands to any earthly

instrument, or work out any definite act; and others, perhaps not less high, to whom it is an essential attribute

to labor in body as well as spirit for the welfare of their brethren. Thus, if we find a spiritual sage whose

unseen, inestimable influence has exalted the moral standard of mankind, we will choose for his companion

some poor laborer who has wrought for love in the potato field of a neighbor poorer than himself.

We have summoned this various multitudeand, to the credit of our nature, it is a large oneon the

principle of Love. It is singular, nevertheless, to remark the shyness that exists among many members of the

present class, all of whom we might expect to recognize one another by the freemasonry of mutual goodness,

and to embrace like brethren, giving God thanks for such various specimens of human excellence. But it is far

otherwise. Each sect surrounds its own righteousness with a hedge of thorns. It is difficult for the good

Christian to acknowledge the good Pagan; almost impossible for the good Orthodox to grasp the hand of the

good Unitarian, leaving to their Creator to settle the matters in dispute, and giving their mutual efforts

strongly and trustingly to whatever right thing is too evident to be mistaken. Then again, though the heart be

large, yet the mind is often of such moderate dimensions as to be exclusively filled up with one idea. When a

good man has long devoted himself to a particular kind of beneficenceto one species of reformhe is apt

to become narrowed into the limits of the path wherein he treads, and to fancy that there is no other good to

be done on earth but that selfsame good to which he has put his hand, and in the very mode that best suits

his own conceptions. All else is worthless. His scheme must be wrought out by the united strength of the

whole world's stock of love, or the world is no longer worthy of a position in the universe. Moreover,

powerful Truth, being the rich grape juice expressed from the vineyard of the ages, has an intoxicating

quality, when imbibed by any save a powerful intellect, and often, as it were, impels the quaffer to quarrel in

his cups. For such reasons, strange to say, it is harder to contrive a friendly arrangement of these brethren of

love and righteousness, in the procession of life. than to unite even the wicked, who, indeed, are chained

together by their crimes. The fact is too preposterous for tears, too lugubrious for laughter.

But, let good men push and elbow one another as they may during their earthly march, all will be peace

among them when the honorable array or their procession shall tread on heavenly ground. There they will

doubtless find that they have been working each for the other's cause, and that every welldelivered stroke,

which, with an honest purpose any mortal struck, even for a narrow object, was indeed stricken for the

universal cause of good. Their own view may be bounded by country, creed, profession, the diversities of

individual characterbut above them all is the breadth of Providence. How many who have deemed

themselves antagonists will smile hereafter, when they look back upon the world's wide harvest field, and

perceive that, in unconscious brotherhood, they were helping to bind the selfsame sheaf!

But, come! The sun is hastening westward, while the march of human life, that never paused before, is

delayed by our attempt to rearrange its order. It is desirable to find some comprehensive principle, that shall

render our task easier by bringing thousands into the ranks where hitherto we have brought one. Therefore let

the trumpet, if possible, split its brazen throat with a louder note than ever, and the herald summon all

mortals, who, from whatever cause, have lost, or never found, their proper places in the wold.

Obedient to this call, a great multitude come together, most of them with a listless gait, betokening weariness

of soul, yet with a gleam of satisfaction in their faces, at a prospect of at length reaching those positions

which, hitherto, they have vainly sought. But here will be another disappointment; for we can attempt no

more than merely to associate in one fraternity all who are afflicted with the same vague trouble. Some great

mistake in life is the chief condition of admittance into this class. Here are members of the learned

professions, whom Providence endowed with special gifts for the plough, the forge, and the wheelbarrow, or

for the routine of unintellectual business. We will assign to them, as partners in the march, those lowly

laborers and handicraftsmen, who have pined, as with a dying thirst, after the unattainable fountains of

knowledge. The latter have lost less than their companions; yet more, because they deem it infinite.

Perchance the two species of unfortunates may comfort one another. Here are Quakers with the instinct of

battle in them; and men of war who should have worn the broad brim. Authors shall be ranked here whom

some freak of Nature, making game of her poor children, had imbued with the confidence of genius and

strong desire of fame, but has favored with no corresponding power; and others, whose lofty gifts were

unaccompanied with the faculty of expression, or any of that earthly machinery by which ethereal

endowments must be manifested to mankind. All these, therefore, are melancholy laughingstocks. Next,

here are honest and well intentioned persons, who by a want of tactby inaccurate perceptionsby a

distorting imaginationhave been kept continually at cross purposes with the world and bewildered upon the

path of life. Let us see if they can confine themselves within the line of our procession. In this class, likewise,

we must assign places to those who have encountered that worst of ill success, a higher fortune than their

abilities could vindicate; writers, actors, painters, the pets of a day, but whose laurels wither unrenewed amid

their hoary hair; politicians, whom some malicious contingency of affairs has thrust into conspicuous station,

where, while the world stands gazing at them, the dreary consciousness of imbecility makes them curse their

birth hour. To such men, we give for a companion him whose rare talents, which perhaps require a

Revolution for their exercise, are buried in the tomb of sluggish circumstances.

Not far from these, we must find room for one whose success has been of the wrong kind; the man who

should have lingered in the cloisters of a university, digging new treasures out of the Herculaneum of antique

lore, diffusing depth and accuracy of literature throughout his country, and thus making for himself a great

and quiet fame. But the outward tendencies around him have proved too powerful for his inward nature, and

have drawn him into the arena of political tumult, there to contend at disadvantage, whether front to front, or

side by side, with the brawny giants of actual life. He becomes, it may be, a name for brawling parties to

bandy to and fro, a legislator of the Union; a governor of his native state; an ambassador to the courts of

kings or queens; and the world may deem him a man of happy stars. But not so the wise; and not so himself,

when he looks through his experience, and sighs to miss that fitness, the one invaluable touch which makes

all things true and real. So much achieved, yet how abortive is his life! Whom shall we choose for his

companion? Some weak framed blacksmith, perhaps, whose delicacy of muscle might have suited a tailor's

Shall we bid the trumpet sound again? It is hardly worth the while. There remain a few idle men of fortune,

tavern and grogshop loungers, lazzaroni, old bachelors, decaying maidens, and people of crooked intellect

or temper, all of whom may find their like, or some tolerable approach to it, in the plentiful diversity of our

latter class. There too, as his ultimate destiny, must we rank the dreamer, who, all his life long, has cherished

the idea that he was peculiarly apt for something, but never could determine what it was; and there the most

unfortunate of men, whose purpose it has been to enjoy life's pleasures, but to avoid a manful struggle with

its toil and sorrow. The remainder, if any, may connect themselves with whatever rank of the procession they

shall find best adapted to their tastes and consciences. The worst possible fate would be to remain behind,

shivering in the solitude of time, while all the world is on the move towards eternity. Our attempt to classify

society is now complete. The result may be anything but perfect; yet betterto give it the very lowest

praisethan the antique rule of the herald's office, or the modern one of the taxgatherer, whereby the

accidents and superficial attributes with which the real nature of individuals has least to do, are acted upon as

the deepest characteristics of mankind. Our task is done! Now let the grand procession move!

Hark! That worldwide swell of solemn music, with the clang of a mighty bell breaking forth through its

regulated uproar, announces his approach. He comes; a severe, sedate, immovable, dark rider, waving his

truncheon of universal sway, as he passes along the lengthened line, on the pale horse of the Revelation. It is

Death! Who else could assume the guidance of a procession that comprehends all humanity? And if some,

among these many millions, should deem themselves classed amiss, yet let them take to their hearts the

comfortable truth that Death levels us all into one great brotherhood, and that another state of being will

surely rectify the wrong of this. Then breathe thy wail upon the earth's wailing wind, thou band of

melancholy music, made up of every sigh that the human heart, unsatisfied, has uttered! There is yet triumph

in thy tones. And now we move! Beggars in their rags, and Kings trailing the regal purple in the dust; the

Warrior's gleaming helmet; the Priest in his sable robe; the hoary Grandsire, who has run life's circle and

come back to childhood; the ruddy Schoolboy with his golden curls, frisking along the march; the Artisan's

stuff jacket; the Noble's stardecorated coat;the whole presenting a motley spectacle, yet with a dusky

grandeur brooding over it. Onward, onward, into that dimness where the lights of Time which have blazed

along the procession, are flickering in their sockets! And whither! We know not; and Death, hitherto our

leader, deserts us by the wayside, as the tramp of our innumerable footsteps echoes beyond his sphere. He

knows not, more than we, our destined goal. But God, who made us, knows, and will not leave us on our

toilsome and doubtful march, either to wander in infinite uncertainty, or perish by the way!

The pipe was in the old dame's mouth when she said these words. She had thrust it there after filling it with

tobacco, but without stooping to light it at the hearth, where indeed there was no appearance of a fire having

been kindled that morning. Forthwith, however, as soon as the order was given, there was an intense red glow

out of the bowl of the pipe, and a whiff of smoke came from Mother Rigby's lips. Whence the coal came, and

"Good!" quoth Mother Rigby, with a nod of her head. "Thank ye, Dickon! And now for making this

The good woman had risen thus early (for as yet it was scarcely sunrise) in order to set about making a

scarecrow, which she intended to put in the middle of her cornpatch. It was now the latter week of May, and

the crows and blackbirds had already discovered the little, green, rolledup leaf of the Indian corn just peeping

out of the soil. She was determined, therefore, to contrive as lifelike a scarecrow as ever was seen, and to

finish it immediately, from top to toe, so that it should begin its sentinel's duty that very morning. Now

Mother Rigby (as everybody must have heard) was one of the most cunning and potent witches in New

England, and might, with very little trouble, have made a scarecrow ugly enough to frighten the minister

himself. But on this occasion, as she had awakened in an uncommonly pleasant humor, and was further

dulcified by her pipe tobacco, she resolved to produce something fine, beautiful, and splendid, rather than

"I don't want to set up a hobgoblin in my own cornpatch, and almost at my own doorstep," said Mother

Rigby to herself, puffing out a whiff of smoke; "I could do it if I pleased, but I'm tired of doing marvellous

things, and so I'll keep within the bounds of everyday business just for variety's sake. Besides, there is no

use in scaring the little children for a mile roundabout, though 't is true I'm a witch."

It was settled, therefore, in her own mind, that the scarecrow should represent a fine gentleman of the period,

so far as the materials at hand would allow. Perhaps it may be as well to enumerate the chief of the articles

The most important item of all, probably, although it made so little show, was a certain broomstick, on which

Mother Rigby had taken many an airy gallop at midnight, and which now served the scarecrow by way of a

spinal column, or, as the unlearned phrase it, a backbone. One of its arms was a disabled flail which used to

be wielded by Goodman Rigby, before his spouse worried him out of this troublesome world; the other, if I

mistake not, was composed of the pudding stick and a broken rung of a chair, tied loosely together at the

elbow. As for its legs, the right was a hoe handle, and the left an undistinguished and miscellaneous stick

from the woodpile. Its lungs, stomach, and other affairs of that kind were nothing better than a meal bag

stuffed with straw. Thus we have made out the skeleton and entire corporosity of the scarecrow, with the

exception of its head; and this was admirably supplied by a somewhat withered and shrivelled pumpkin, in

which Mother Rigby cut two holes for the eyes and a slit for the mouth, leaving a bluishcolored knob in the

"I've seen worse ones on human shoulders, at any rate," said Mother Rigby. "And many a fine gentleman has

But the clothes, in this case, were to be the making of the man. So the good old woman took down from a peg

an ancient plumcolored coat of London make, and with relics of embroidery on its seams, cuffs,

pocketflaps, and buttonholes, but lamentably worn and faded, patched at the elbows, tattered at the skirts,

and threadbare all over. On the left breast was a round hole, whence either a star of nobility had been rent

away, or else the hot heart of some former wearer had scorched it through and through. The neighbors said

that this rich garment belonged to the Black Man's wardrobe, and that he kept it at Mother Rigby's cottage for

the convenience of slipping it on whenever he wished to make a grand appearance at the governor's table. To

match the coat there was a velvet waistcoat of very ample size, and formerly embroidered with foliage that

had been as brightly golden as the maple leaves in October, but which had now quite vanished out of the

substance of the velvet. Next came a pair of scarlet breeches, once worn by the French governor of

Louisbourg, and the knees of which had touched the lower step of the throne of Louis le Grand. The

Frenchman had given these smallclothes to an Indian powwow, who parted with them to the old witch for a

gill of strong waters, at one of their dances in the forest. Furthermore, Mother Rigby produced a pair of silk

stockings and put them on the figure's legs, where they showed as unsubstantial as a dream, with the wooden

reality of the two sticks making itself miserably apparent through the holes. Lastly, she put her dead

husband's wig on the bare scalp of the pumpkin, and surmounted the whole with a dusty threecornered hat,

Then the old dame stood the figure up in a corner of her cottage and chuckled to behold its yellow semblance

of a visage, with its nobby little nose thrust into the air. It had a strangely selfsatisfied aspect, and seemed to

"And you are well worth looking at, that's a fact!" quoth Mother Rigby, in admiration at her own handiwork.

"I've made many a puppet since I've been a witch, but methinks this is the finest of them all. 'Tis almost too

good for a scarecrow. And, by the by, I'll just fill a fresh pipe of tobacco and then take him out to the

While filling her pipe the old woman continued to gaze with almost motherly affection at the figure in the

corner. To say the truth, whether it were chance, or skill, or downright witchcraft, there was something

wonderfully human in this ridiculous shape, bedizened with its tattered finery; and as for the countenance, it

appeared to shrivel its yellow surface into a grina funny kind of expression betwixt scorn and merriment,

as if it understood itself to be a jest at mankind. The more Mother Rigby looked the better she was pleased.

Hardly had she spoken, than, just as before, there was a redglowing coal on the top of the tobacco. She drew

in a long whiff and puffed it forth again into the bar of morning sunshine which struggled through the one

dusty pane of her cottage window. Mother Rigby always liked to flavor her pipe with a coal of fire from the

particular chimney corner whence this had been brought. But where that chimney corner might be, or who

brought the coal from it,further than that the invisible messenger seemed to respond to the name of

"That puppet yonder," thought Mother Rigby, still with her eyes fixed on the scarecrow, "is too good a piece

of work to stand all summer in a cornpatch, frightening away the crows and blackbirds. He's capable of

better things. Why, I've danced with a worse one, when partners happened to be scarce, at our witch meetings

in the forest! What if I should let him take his chance among the other men of straw and empty fellows who

"He'll meet plenty of his brethren at every street corner!" continued she. "Well; I didn't mean to dabble in

witchcraft today, further than the lighting of my pipe, but a witch I am, and a witch I'm likely to be, and

there's no use trying to shirk it. I'll make a man of my scarecrow, were it only for the joke's sake!"

While muttering these words, Mother Rigby took the pipe from her own mouth and thrust it into the crevice

"Puff, darling, puff!" said she. "Puff away, my fine fellow! your life depends on it!"

This was a strange exhortation, undoubtedly, to be addressed to a mere thing of sticks, straw, and old clothes,

with nothing better than a shrivelled pumpkin for a head,as we know to have been the scarecrow's case.

Nevertheless, as we must carefully hold in remembrance, Mother Rigby was a witch of singular power and

dexterity; and, keeping this fact duly before our minds, we shall see nothing beyond credibility in the

remarkable incidents of our story. Indeed, the great difficulty will be at once got over, if we can only bring

ourselves to believe that, as soon as the old dame bade him puff, there came a whiff of smoke from the

scarecrow's mouth. It was the very feeblest of whiffs, to be sure; but it was followed by another and another,

"Puff away, my pet! puff away, my pretty one!" Mother Rigby kept repeating, with her pleasantest smile. "It

Beyond all question the pipe was bewitched. There must have been a spell either in the tobacco or in the

fiercelyglowing coal that so mysteriously burned on top of it, or in the pungentlyaromatic smoke which

exhaled from the kindled weed. The figure, after a few doubtful attempts at length blew forth a volley of

smoke extending all the way from the obscure corner into the bar of sunshine. There it eddied and melted

away among the motes of dust. It seemed a convulsive effort; for the two or three next whiffs were fainter,

although the coal still glowed and threw a gleam over the scarecrow's visage. The old witch clapped her

skinny hands together, and smiled encouragingly upon her handiwork. She saw that the charm worked well.

The shrivelled, yellow face, which heretofore had been no face at all, had already a thin, fantastic haze, as it

were of human likeness, shifting to and fro across it; sometimes vanishing entirely, but growing more

perceptible than ever with the next whiff from the pipe. The whole figure, in like manner, assumed a show of

life, such as we impart to illdefined shapes among the clouds, and half deceive ourselves with the pastime of

If we must needs pry closely into the matter, it may be doubted whether there was any real change, after all,

in the sordid, wornout worthless, and illjointed substance of the scarecrow; but merely a spectral illusion,

and a cunning effect of light and shade so colored and contrived as to delude the eyes of most men. The

miracles of witchcraft seem always to have had a very shallow subtlety; and, at least, if the above explanation

"Well puffed, my pretty lad!" still cried old Mother Rigby. "Come, another good stout whiff, and let it be

with might and main. Puff for thy life, I tell thee! Puff out of the very bottom of thy heart, if any heart thou

hast, or any bottom to it! Well done, again! Thou didst suck in that mouthful as if for the pure love of it."

And then the witch beckoned to the scarecrow, throwing so much magnetic potency into her gesture that it

seemed as if it must inevitably be obeyed, like the mystic call of the loadstone when it summons the iron.

"Why lurkest thou in the corner, lazy one?" said she. "Step forth! Thou hast the world before thee!"

Upon my word, if the legend were not one which I heard on my grandmother's knee, and which had

established its place among things credible before my childish judgment could analyze its probability, I

In obedience to Mother Rigby's word, and extending its arm as if to reach her outstretched hand, the figure

made a step forwarda kind of hitch and jerk, however, rather than a stepthen tottered and almost lost its

balance. What could the witch expect? It was nothing, after all, but a scarecrow stuck upon two sticks. But

the strongwilled old beldam scowled, and beckoned, and flung the energy of her purpose so forcibly at this

poor combination of rotten wood, and musty straw, and ragged garments, that it was compelled to show itself

a man, in spite of the reality of things. So it stepped into the bar of sunshine. There it stood, poor devil of a

contrivance that it was!with only the thinnest vesture of human similitude about it, through which was

evident the stiff, rickety, incongruous, faded, tattered, goodfornothing patchwork of its substance, ready to

sink in a heap upon the floor, as conscious of its own unworthiness to be erect. Shall I confess the truth? At

its present point of vivification, the scarecrow reminds me of some of the lukewarm and abortive characters,

composed of heterogeneous materials, used for the thousandth time, and never worth using, with which

romance writers (and myself, no doubt, among the rest) have so overpeopled the world of fiction.

But the fierce old hag began to get angry and show a glimpse of her diabolic nature (like a snake's head,

peeping with a hiss out of her bosom), at this pusillanimous behavior of the thing which she had taken the

"Puff away, wretch!" cried she, wrathfully. "Puff, puff, puff, thou thing of straw and emptiness! thou rag or

two! thou meal bag! thou pumpkin head! thou nothing! Where shall I find a name vile enough to call thee by?

Puff, I say, and suck in thy fantastic life with the smoke! else I snatch the pipe from thy mouth and hurl thee

Thus threatened, the unhappy scarecrow had nothing for it but to puff away for dear life. As need was,

therefore, it applied itself lustily to the pipe, and sent forth such abundant volleys of tobacco smoke that the

small cottage kitchen became all vaporous. The one sunbeam struggled mistily through, and could but

imperfectly define the image of the cracked and dusty window pane on the opposite wall. Mother Rigby,

meanwhile, with one brown arm akimbo and the other stretched towards the figure, loomed grimly amid the

obscurity with such port and expression as when she was wont to heave a ponderous nightmare on her

victims and stand at the bedside to enjoy their agony. In fear and trembling did this poor scarecrow puff. But

its efforts, it must be acknowledged, served an excellent purpose; for, with each successive whiff, the figure

lost more and more of its dizzy and perplexing tenuity and seemed to take denser substance. Its very

garments, moreover, partook of the magical change, and shone with the gloss of novelty and glistened with

the skilfully embroidered gold that had long ago been rent away. And, half revealed among the smoke, a

At last the old witch clinched her fist and shook it at the figure. Not that she was positively angry, but merely

acting on the principleperhaps untrue, or not the only truth, though as high a one as Mother Rigby could be

expected to attainthat feeble and torpid natures, being incapable of better inspiration, must be stirred up by

fear. But here was the crisis. Should she fail in what she now sought to effect, it was her ruthless purpose to

"Thou hast a man's aspect," said she, sternly. "Have also the echo and mockery of a voice! I bid thee speak!"

The scarecrow gasped, struggled, and at length emitted a murmur, which was so incorporated with its smoky

breath that you could scarcely tell whether it were indeed a voice or only a whiff of tobacco. Some narrators

of this legend hold the opinion that Mother Rigby's conjurations and the fierceness of her will had compelled

"Mother," mumbled the poor stifled voice, "be not so awful with me! I would fain speak; but being without

"Thou canst speak, darling, canst thou?" cried Mother Rigby, relaxing her grim countenance into a smile.

"And what shalt thou say, quotha! Say, indeed! Art thou of the brotherhood of the empty skull, and

demandest of me what thou shalt say? Thou shalt say a thousand things, and saying them a thousand times

over, thou shalt still have said nothing! Be not afraid, I tell thee! When thou comest into the world (whither I

purpose sending thee forthwith) thou shalt not lack the wherewithal to talk. Talk! Why, thou shall babble like

"And that was well said, my pretty one," answered Mother Rigby. "Then thou speakest like thyself, and

meant nothing. Thou shalt have a hundred such set phrases, and five hundred to the boot of them. And now,

darling, I have taken so much pains with thee and thou art so beautiful, that, by my troth, I love thee better

than any witch's puppet in the world; and I've made them of all sortsclay, wax, straw, sticks, night fog,

morning mist, sea foam, and chimney smoke. But thou art the very best. So give heed to what I say."

"With all thy heart!" cried the old witch, setting her hands to her sides and laughing loudly. "Thou hast such a

pretty way of speaking. With all thy heart! And thou didst put thy hand to the left side of thy waistcoat as if

So now, in high good humor with this fantastic contrivance of hers, Mother Rigby told the scarecrow that it

must go and play its part in the great world, where not one man in a hundred, she affirmed, was gifted with

more real substance than itself. And, that he might hold up his head with the best of them, she endowed him,

on the spot, with an unreckonable amount of wealth. It consisted partly of a gold mine in Eldorado, and of ten

thousand shares in a broken bubble, and of half a million acres of vineyard at the North Pole, and of a castle

in the air, and a chateau in Spain, together with all the rents and income therefrom accruing. She further made

over to him the cargo of a certain ship, laden with salt of Cadiz, which she herself, by her necromantic arts,

had caused to founder, ten years before, in the deepest part of midocean. If the salt were not dissolved, and

could be brought to market, it would fetch a pretty penny among the fishermen. That he might not lack ready

money, she gave him a copper farthing of Birmingham manufacture, being all the coin she had about her, and

likewise a great deal of brass, which she applied to his forehead, thus making it yellower than ever.

"With that brass alone," quoth Mother Rigby, "thou canst pay thy way all over the earth. Kiss me, pretty

Furthermore, that the adventurer might lack no possible advantage towards a fair start in life, this excellent

old dame gave him a token by which he was to introduce himself to a certain magistrate, member of the

council, merchant, and elder of the church (the four capacities constituting but one man), who stood at the

head of society in the neighboring metropolis. The token was neither more nor less than a single word, which

Mother Rigby whispered to the scarecrow, and which the scarecrow was to whisper to the merchant.

"Gouty as the old fellow is, he'll run thy errands for thee, when once thou hast given him that word in his

ear," said the old witch. "Mother Rigby knows the worshipful Justice Gookin, and the worshipful Justice

Here the witch thrust her wrinkled face close to the puppet's, chuckling irrepressibly, and fidgeting all

"The worshipful Master Gookin," whispered she, "hath a comely maiden to his daughter. And hark ye, my

pet! Thou hast a fair outside, and a pretty wit enough of thine own. Yea, a pretty wit enough! Thou wilt think

better of it when thou hast seen more of other people's wits. Now, with thy outside and thy inside, thou art the

very man to win a young girl's heart. Never doubt it! I tell thee it shall be so. Put but a bold face on the

matter, sigh, smile, flourish thy hat, thrust forth thy leg like a dancingmaster, put thy right hand to the left

All this while the new creature had been sucking in and exhaling the vapory fragrance of his pipe, and

seemed now to continue this occupation as much for the enjoyment it afforded as because it was an essential

condition of his existence. It was wonderful to see how exceedingly like a human being it behaved. Its eyes

(for it appeared to possess a pair) were bent on Mother Rigby, and at suitable junctures it nodded or shook its

head. Neither did it lack words proper for the occasion: "Really! Indeed! Pray tell me! Is it possible! Upon

my word! By no means! Oh! Ah! Hem!" and other such weighty utterances as imply attention, inquiry,

acquiescence, or dissent on the part of the auditor. Even had you stood by and seen the scarecrow made, you

could scarcely have resisted the conviction that it perfectly understood the cunning counsels which the old

witch poured into its counterfeit of an ear. The more earnestly it applied its lips to the pipe, the more

distinctly was its human likeness stamped among visible realities, the more sagacious grew its expression, the

more lifelike its gestures and movements, and the more intelligibly audible its voice. Its garments, too,

glistened so much the brighter with an illusory magnificence. The very pipe, in which burned the spell of all

this wonderwork, ceased to appear as a smokeblackened earthen stump, and became a meerschaum, with

It might be apprehended, however, that as the life of the illusion seemed identical with the vapor of the pipe,

it would terminate simultaneously with the reduction of the tobacco to ashes. But the beldam foresaw the

"Hold thou the pipe, my precious one," said she, "while I fill it for thee again.

It was sorrowful to behold how the fine gentleman began to fade back into a scarecrow while Mother Rigby

shook the ashes out of the pipe and proceeded to replenish it from her tobaccobox.

No sooner said than the intensely red speck of fire was glowing within the pipebowl; and the scarecrow,

without waiting for the witch's bidding, applied the tube to his lips and drew in a few short, convulsive

"Now, mine own heart's darling," quoth Mother Rigby, "whatever may happen to thee, thou must stick to thy

pipe. Thy life is in it; and that, at least, thou knowest well, if thou knowest nought besides. Stick to thy pipe, I

say! Smoke, puff, blow thy cloud; and tell the people, if any question be made, that it is for thy health, and

that so the physician orders thee to do. And, sweet one, when thou shalt find thy pipe getting low, go apart

into some corner, and (first filling thyself with smoke) cry sharply, 'Dickon, a fresh pipe of tobacco!' and,

'Dickon, another coal for my pipe!' and have it into thy pretty mouth as speedily as may be. Else, instead of a

gallant gentleman in a goldlaced coat, thou wilt be but a jumble of sticks and tattered clothes, and a bag of

straw, and a withered pumpkin! Now depart, my treasure, and good luck go with thee!"

"Never fear, mother!" said the figure, in a stout voice, and sending forth a courageous whiff of smoke, "I will

"Oh, thou wilt be the death of me!" cried the old witch, convulsed with laughter. "That was well said. If an

honest man and a gentleman may! Thou playest thy part to perfection. Get along with thee for a smart fellow;

and I will wager on thy head, as a man of pith and substance, with a brain and what they call a heart, and all

else that a man should have, against any other thing on two legs. I hold myself a better witch than yesterday,

for thy sake. Did not I make thee? And I defy any witch in New England to make such another! Here; take

The staff, though it was but a plain oaken stick, immediately took the aspect of a goldheaded cane.

"That gold head has as much sense in it as thine own," said Mother Rigby, "and it will guide thee straight to

worshipful Master Gookin's door. Get thee gone, my pretty pet, my darling, my precious one, my treasure;

and if any ask thy name, it is Feathertop. For thou hast a feather in thy hat, and I have thrust a handful of

feathers into the hollow of thy head, and thy wig, too, is of the fashion they call Feathertop,so be

And, issuing from the cottage, Feathertop strode manfully towards town. Mother Rigby stood at the

threshold, well pleased to see how the sunbeams glistened on him, as if all his magnificence were real, and

how diligently and lovingly he smoked his pipe, and how handsomely he walked, in spite of a little stiffness

of his legs. She watched him until out of sight, and threw a witch benediction after her darling, when a turn of

Betimes in the forenoon, when the principal street of the neighboring town was just at its acme of life and

bustle, a stranger of very distinguished figure was seen on the sidewalk. His port as well as his garments

betokened nothing short of nobility. He wore a richlyembroidered plumcolored coat, a waistcoat of costly

velvet, magnificently adorned with golden foliage, a pair of splendid scarlet breeches, and the finest and

glossiest of white silk stockings. His head was covered with a peruke, so daintily powdered and adjusted that

it would have been sacrilege to disorder it with a hat; which, therefore (and it was a goldlaced hat, set off

with a snowy feather), he carried beneath his arm. On the breast of his coat glistened a star. He managed his

goldheaded cane with an airy grace, peculiar to the fine gentlemen of the period; and, to give the highest

possible finish to his equipment, he had lace ruffles at his wrist, of a most ethereal delicacy, sufficiently

avouching how idle and aristocratic must be the hands which they half concealed.

It was a remarkable point in the accoutrement of this brilliant personage that he held in his left hand a

fantastic kind of a pipe, with an exquisitely painted bowl and an amber mouthpiece. This he applied to his

lips as often as every five or six paces, and inhaled a deep whiff of smoke, which, after being retained a

moment in his lungs, might be seen to eddy gracefully from his mouth and nostrils.

As may well be supposed, the street was all astir to find out the stranger's name.

"It is some great nobleman, beyond question," said one of the townspeople. "Do you see the star at his

"Nay; it is too bright to be seen," said another. "Yes; he must needs be a nobleman, as you say. But by what

conveyance, think you, can his lordship have voyaged or travelled hither? There has been no vessel from the

old country for a month past; and if he have arrived overland from the southward, pray where are his

"He needs no equipage to set off his rank," remarked a third. "If he came among us in rags, nobility would

shine through a hole in his elbow. I never saw such dignity of aspect. He has the old Norman blood in his

"I rather take him to be a Dutchman, or one of your high Germans," said another citizen. "The men of those

"And so has a Turk," answered his companion. "But, in my judgment, this stranger hath been bred at the

French court, and hath there learned politeness and grace of manner, which none understand so well as the

nobility of France. That gait, now! A vulgar spectator might deem it stiffhe might call it a hitch and

jerkbut, to my eye, it hath an unspeakable majesty, and must have been acquired by constant observation

of the deportment of the Grand Monarque. The stranger's character and office are evident enough. He is a

"More probably a Spaniard," said another, "and hence his yellow complexion; or, most likely, he is from the

Havana, or from some port on the Spanish main, and comes to make investigation about the piracies which

our government is thought to connive at. Those settlers in Peru and Mexico have skins as yellow as the gold

"Yellow or not," cried a lady, "he is a beautiful man!so tall, so slender! such a fine, noble face, with so

wellshaped a nose, and all that delicacy of expression about the mouth! And, bless me, how bright his star

"So do your eyes, fair lady," said the stranger, with a bow and a flourish of his pipe; for he was just passing at

"Was ever so original and exquisite a compliment?" murmured the lady, in an ecstasy of delight.

Amid the general admiration excited by the stranger's appearance, there were only two dissenting voices. One

was that of an impertinent cur, which, after snuffing at the heels of the glistening figure, put its tail between

its legs and skulked into its master's back yard, vociferating an execrable howl. The other dissentient was a

young child, who squalled at the fullest stretch of his lungs, and babbled some unintelligible nonsense about a

Feathertop meanwhile pursued his way along the street. Except for the few complimentary words to the lady,

and now and then a slight inclination of the head in requital of the profound reverences of the bystanders, he

seemed wholly absorbed in his pipe. There needed no other proof of his rank and consequence than the

perfect equanimity with which he comported himself, while the curiosity and admiration of the town swelled

almost into clamor around him. With a crowd gathering behind his footsteps, he finally reached the

mansionhouse of the worshipful Justice Gookin, entered the gate, ascended the steps of the front door, and

knocked. In the interim, before his summons was answered, the stranger was observed to shake the ashes out

"Nay, I know not," answered his friend. "But the sun dazzles my eyes strangely. How dim and faded his

"The wonder is," said the other, "that his pipe, which was out only an instant ago, should be all alight again,

and with the reddest coal I ever saw. There is something mysterious about this stranger. What a whiff of

smoke was that! Dim and faded did you call him? Why, as he turns about the star on his breast is all ablaze."

"It is, indeed," said his companion; "and it will go near to dazzle pretty Polly Gookin, whom I see peeping at

The door being now opened, Feathertop turned to the crowd, made a stately bend of his body like a great man

acknowledging the reverence of the meaner sort, and vanished into the house. There was a mysterious kind of

a smile, if it might not better be called a grin or grimace, upon his visage; but, of all the throng that beheld

him, not an individual appears to have possessed insight enough to detect the illusive character of the stranger

Our legend here loses somewhat of its continuity, and, passing over the preliminary explanation between

Feathertop and the merchant, goes in quest of the pretty Polly Gookin. She was a damsel of a soft, round

figure, with light hair and blue eyes, and a fair, rosy face, which seemed neither very shrewd nor very simple.

This young lady had caught a glimpse of the glistening stranger while standing on the threshold, and had

forthwith put on a laced cap, a string of beads, her finest kerchief, and her stiffest damask petticoat in

preparation for the interview. Hurrying from her chamber to the parlor, she had ever since been viewing

herself in the large lookingglass and practising pretty airsnow a smile, now a ceremonious dignity of

aspect, and now a softer smile than the former, kissing her hand likewise, tossing her head, and managing her

fan; while within the mirror an unsubstantial little maid repeated every gesture and did all the foolish things

that Polly did, but without making her ashamed of them. In short, it was the fault of pretty Polly's ability

rather than her will if she failed to be as complete an artifice as the illustrious Feathertop himself; and, when

she thus tampered with her own simplicity, the witch's phantom might well hope to win her.

No sooner did Polly hear her father's gouty footsteps approaching the parlor door, accompanied with the stiff

clatter of Feathertop's highheeled shoes, than she seated herself bolt upright and innocently began warbling

"This gentleman," continued he, presenting the stranger, "is the Chevalier Feathertop,nay, I beg his pardon,

my Lord Feathertop, who hath brought me a token of remembrance from an ancient friend of mine. Pay

After these few words of introduction, the worshipful magistrate immediately quitted the room. But, even in

that brief moment, had the fair Polly glanced aside at her father instead of devoting herself wholly to the

brilliant guest, she might have taken warning of some mischief nigh at hand. The old man was nervous,

fidgety, and very pale. Purposing a smile of courtesy, he had deformed his face with a sort of galvanic grin,

which, when Feathertop's back was turned, he exchanged for a scowl, at the same time shaking his fist and

stamping his gouty footan incivility which brought its retribution along with it. The truth appears to have

been that Mother Rigby's word of introduction, whatever it might be, had operated far more on the rich

merchant's fears than on his good will. Moreover, being a man of wonderfully acute observation, he had

noticed that these painted figures on the bowl of Feathertop's pipe were in motion. Looking more closely he

became convinced that these figures were a party of little demons, each duly provided with horns and a tail,

and dancing hand in hand, with gestures of diabolical merriment, round the circumference of the pipe bowl.

As if to confirm his suspicions, while Master Gookin ushered his guest along a dusky passage from his

private room to the parlor, the star on Feathertop's breast had scintillated actual flames, and threw a flickering

With such sinister prognostics manifesting themselves on all hands, it is not to be marvelled at that the

merchant should have felt that he was committing his daughter to a very questionable acquaintance. He

cursed, in his secret soul, the insinuating elegance of Feathertop's manners, as this brilliant personage bowed,

smiled, put his hand on his heart, inhaled a long whiff from his pipe, and enriched the atmosphere with the

smoky vapor of a fragrant and visible sigh. Gladly would poor Master Gookin have thrust his dangerous

guest into the street; but there was a constraint and terror within him. This respectable old gentleman, we fear,

at an earlier period of life, had given some pledge or other to the evil principle, and perhaps was now to

It so happened that the parlor door was partly of glass, shaded by a silken curtain, the folds of which hung a

little awry. So strong was the merchant's interest in witnessing what was to ensue between the fair Polly and

the gallant Feathertop that, after quitting the room, he could by no means refrain from peeping through the

But there was nothing very miraculous to be seen; nothingexcept the trifles previously noticedto

confirm the idea of a supernatural peril environing the pretty Polly. The stranger it is true was evidently a

thorough and practised man of the world, systematic and selfpossessed, and therefore the sort of a person to

whom a parent ought not to confide a simple, young girl without due watchfulness for the result. The worthy

magistrate who had been conversant with all degrees and qualities of mankind, could not but perceive every

motion and gesture of the distinguished Feathertop came in its proper place; nothing had been left rude or

native in him; a welldigested conventionalism had incorporated itself thoroughly with his substance and

transformed him into a work of art. Perhaps it was this peculiarity that invested him with a species of

ghastliness and awe. It is the effect of anything completely and consummately artificial, in human shape, that

the person impresses us as an unreality and as having hardly pith enough to cast a shadow upon the floor. As

regarded Feathertop, all this resulted in a wild, extravagant, and fantastical impression, as if his life and being

But pretty Polly Gookin felt not thus. The pair were now promenading the room: Feathertop with his dainty

stride and no less dainty grimace, the girl with a native maidenly grace, just touched, not spoiled, by a

slightly affected manner, which seemed caught from the perfect artifice of her companion. The longer the

interview continued, the more charmed was pretty Polly, until, within the first quarter of an hour (as the old

magistrate noted by his watch), she was evidently beginning to be in love. Nor need it have been witchcraft

that subdued her in such a hurry; the poor child's heart, it may be, was so very fervent that it melted her with

its own warmth as reflected from the hollow semblance of a lover. No matter what Feathertop said, his words

found depth and reverberation in her ear; no matter what he did, his action was heroic to her eye. And by this

time it is to be supposed there was a blush on Polly's cheek, a tender smile about her mouth and a liquid

softness in her glance; while the star kept coruscating on Feathertop's breast, and the little demons careered

with more frantic merriment than ever about the circumference of his pipe bowl. O pretty Polly Gookin, why

should these imps rejoice so madly that a silly maiden's heart was about to be given to a shadow! Is it so

By and by Feathertop paused, and throwing himself into an imposing attitude, seemed to summon the fair girl

to survey his figure and resist him longer if she could. His star, his embroidery, his buckles glowed at that

instant with unutterable splendor; the picturesque hues of his attire took a richer depth of coloring; there was

a gleam and polish over his whole presence betokening the perfect witchery of wellordered manners. The

maiden raised her eyes and suffered them to linger upon her companion with a bashful and admiring gaze.

Then, as if desirous of judging what value her own simple comeliness might have side by side with so much

brilliancy, she cast a glance towards the fulllength lookingglass in front of which they happened to be

standing. It was one of the truest plates in the world and incapable of flattery. No sooner did the images

therein reflected meet Polly's eye than she shrieked, shrank from the stranger's side, gazed at him for a

moment in the wildest dismay, and sank insensible upon the floor. Feathertop likewise had looked towards

the mirror, and there beheld, not the glittering mockery of his outside show, but a picture of the sordid

The wretched simulacrum! We almost pity him. He threw up his arms with an expression of despair that went

further than any of his previous manifestations towards vindicating his claims to be reckoned human, for

perchance the only time since this so often empty and deceptive life of mortals began its course, an illusion

Mother Rigby was seated by her kitchen hearth in the twilight of this eventful day, and had just shaken the

ashes out of a new pipe, when she heard a hurried tramp along the road. Yet it did not seem so much the

"Ha!" thought the old witch, "what step is that? Whose skeleton is out of its grave now, I wonder?"

A figure burst headlong into the cottage door. It was Feathertop! His pipe was still alight; the star still flamed

upon his breast; the embroidery still glowed upon his garments; nor had he lost, in any degree or manner that

could be estimated, the aspect that assimilated him with our mortal brotherhood. But yet, in some

indescribable way (as is the case with all that has deluded us when once found out), the poor reality was felt

"What has gone wrong?" demanded the witch. "Did yonder sniffling hypocrite thrust my darling from his

door? The villain! I'll set twenty fiends to torment him till he offer thee his daughter on his bended knees!"

"Did the girl scorn my precious one?" asked Mother Rigby, her fierce eyes glowing like two coals of Tophet.

"I'll cover her face with pimples! Her nose shall be as red as the coal in thy pipe! Her front teeth shall drop

"Let her alone, mother," answered poor Feathertop; "the girl was half won; and methinks a kiss from her

sweet lips might have made me altogether human. But," he added, after a brief pause and then a howl of

selfcontempt, "I've seen myself, mother! I've seen myself for the wretched, ragged, empty thing I am! I'll

Snatching the pipe from his mouth, he flung it with all his might against the chimney, and at the same instant

sank upon the floor, a medley of straw and tattered garments, with some sticks protruding from the heap, and

a shrivelled pumpkin in the midst. The eyeholes were now lustreless; but the rudelycarved gap, that just

before had been a mouth still seemed to twist itself into a despairing grin, and was so far human.

"Poor fellow!" quoth Mother Rigby, with a rueful glance at the relics of her illfated contrivance. "My poor,

dear, pretty Feathertop! There are thousands upon thousands of coxcombs and charlatans in the world, made

up of just such a jumble of wornout, forgotten, and goodfornothing trash as he was! Yet they live in fair

repute, and never see themselves for what they are. And why should my poor puppet be the only one to know

While thus muttering, the witch had filled a fresh pipe of tobacco, and held the stem between her fingers, as

"Poor Feathertop!" she continued. "I could easily give him another chance and send him forth again

tomorrow. But no; his feelings are too tender, his sensibilities too deep. He seems to have too much heart to

bustle for his own advantage in such an empty and heartless world. Well! well! I'll make a scarecrow of him

after all. 'Tis an innocent and useful vocation, and will suit my darling well; and, if each of his human

brethren had as fit a one, 't would be the better for mankind; and as for this pipe of tobacco, I need it more

So saying Mother Rigby put the stem between her lips. "Dickon!" cried she, in her high, sharp tone, "another

[1] The physical fact, to which it is here attempted to give a moral signification, has been known to occur in

"Here he comes!" shouted the boys along the street. "Here comes the man with a snake in his bosom!"

This outcry, saluting Herkimer's ears as he was about to enter the iron gate of the Elliston mansion, made him

pause. It was not without a shudder that he found himself on the point of meeting his former acquaintance,

whom he had known in the glory of youth, and whom now after an interval of five years, he was to find the

"A snake in his bosom!" repeated the young sculptor to himself. "It must be he. No second man on earth has

such a bosom friend. And now, my poor Rosina, Heaven grant me wisdom to discharge my errand aright!

Thus musing, he took his stand at the entrance of the gate and waited until the personage so singularly

announced should make his appearance. After an instant or two he beheld the figure of a lean man, of

unwholesome look, with glittering eyes and long black hair, who seemed to imitate the motion of a snake;

for, instead of walking straight forward with open front, he undulated along the pavement in a curved line. It

may be too fanciful to say that something, either in his moral or material aspect, suggested the idea that a

miracle had been wrought by transforming a serpent into a man, but so imperfectly that the snaky nature was

yet hidden, and scarcely hidden, under the mere outward guise of humanity. Herkimer remarked that his

complexion had a greenish tinge over its sickly white, reminding him of a species of marble out of which he

The wretched being approached the gate, but, instead of entering, stopped short and fixed the glitter of his eye

And then there was an audible hiss, but whether it came from the apparent lunatic's own lips, or was the real

hiss of a serpent, might admit of a discussion. At all events, it made Herkimer shudder to his heart's core.

Herkimer did know him; but it demanded all the intimate and practical acquaintance with the human face,

acquired by modelling actual likenesses in clay, to recognize the features of Roderick Elliston in the visage

that now met the sculptor's gaze. Yet it was he. It added nothing to the wonder to reflect that the once brilliant

young man had undergone this odious and fearful change during the no more than five brief years of

Herkimer's abode at Florence. The possibility of such a transformation being granted, it was as easy to

conceive it effected in a moment as in an age. Inexpressibly shocked and startled, it was still the keenest pang

when Herkimer remembered that the fate of his cousin Rosina, the ideal of gentle womanhood, was

indissolubly interwoven with that of a being whom Providence seemed to have unhumanized.

"Elliston! Roderick!" cried he, "I had heard of this; but my conception came far short of the truth. What has

"Oh, 'tis a mere nothing! A snake! A snake! The commonest thing in the world. A snake in the bosomthat's

all," answered Roderick Elliston. "But how is your own breast?" continued he, looking the sculptor in the eye

with the most acute and penetrating glance that it had ever been his fortune to encounter. "All pure and

wholesome? No reptile there? By my faith and conscience, and by the devil within me, here is a wonder! A

"Be calm, Elliston," whispered George Herkimer, laying his hand upon the shoulder of the snakepossessed.

"I have crossed the ocean to meet you. Listen! Let us be private. I bring a message from Rosinafrom your

With this exclamation, the most frequent in his mouth, the unfortunate man clutched both hands upon his

breast as if an intolerable sting or torture impelled him to rend it open and let out the living mischief, even

should it be intertwined with his own life. He then freed himself from Herkimer's grasp by a subtle motion,

and, gliding through the gate, took refuge in his antiquated family residence. The sculptor did not pursue him.

He saw that no available intercourse could be expected at such a moment, and was desirous, before another

meeting, to inquire closely into the nature of Roderick's disease and the circumstances that had reduced him

to so lamentable a condition. He succeeded in obtaining the necessary information from an eminent medical

Shortly after Elliston's separation from his wifenow nearly four years agohis associates had observed a

singular gloom spreading over his daily life, like those chill, gray mists that sometimes steal away the

sunshine from a summer's morning. The symptoms caused them endless perplexity. They knew not whether

ill health were robbing his spirits of elasticity, or whether a canker of the mind was gradually eating, as such

cankers do, from his moral system into the physical frame, which is but the shadow of the former. They

looked for the root of this trouble in his shattered schemes of domestic bliss,wilfully shattered by

himself,but could not be satisfied of its existence there. Some thought that their once brilliant friend was in

an incipient stage of insanity, of which his passionate impulses had perhaps been the forerunners; others

prognosticated a general blight and gradual decline. From Roderick's own lips they could learn nothing. More

than once, it is true, he had been heard to say, clutching his hands convulsively upon his breast,"It gnaws

me! It gnaws me!"but, by different auditors, a great diversity of explanation was assigned to this ominous

expression. What could it be that gnawed the breast of Roderick Elliston? Was it sorrow? Was it merely the

tooth of physical disease? Or, in his reckless course, often verging upon profligacy, if not plunging into its

depths, had he been guilty of some deed which made his bosom a prey to the deadlier fangs of remorse?

There was plausible ground for each of these conjectures; but it must not be concealed that more than one

elderly gentleman, the victim of good cheer and slothful habits, magisterially pronounced the secret of the

Meanwhile, Roderick seemed aware how generally he had become the subject of curiosity and conjecture,

and, with a morbid repugnance to such notice, or to any notice whatsoever, estranged himself from all

companionship. Not merely the eye of man was a horror to him; not merely the light of a friend's

countenance; but even the blessed sunshine, likewise, which in its universal beneficence typifies the radiance

of the Creator's face, expressing his love for all the creatures of his hand. The dusky twilight was now too

transparent for Roderick Elliston; the blackest midnight was his chosen hour to steal abroad; and if ever he

were seen, it was when the watchman's lantern gleamed upon his figure, gliding along the street, with his

hands clutched upon his bosom, still muttering, "It gnaws me! It gnaws me!" What could it be that gnawed

After a time, it became known that Elliston was in the habit of resorting to all the noted quacks that infested

the city, or whom money would tempt to journey thither from a distance. By one of these persons, in the

exultation of a supposed cure, it was proclaimed far and wide, by dint of handbills and little pamphlets on

dingy paper, that a distinguished gentleman, Roderick Elliston, Esq., had been relieved of a SNAKE in his

stomach! So here was the monstrous secret, ejected from its lurking place into public view, in all its horrible

deformity. The mystery was out; but not so the bosom serpent. He, if it were anything but a delusion, still lay

coiled in his living den. The empiric's cure had been a sham, the effect, it was supposed, of some stupefying

drug which more nearly caused the death of the patient than of the odious reptile that possessed him. When

Roderick Elliston regained entire sensibility, it was to find his misfortune the town talkthe more than nine

days' wonder and horrorwhile, at his bosom, he felt the sickening motion of a thing alive, and the gnawing

of that restless fang which seemed to gratify at once a physical appetite and a fiendish spite.

He summoned the old black servant, who had been bred up in his father's house, and was a middleaged man

"Scipio!" he began; and then paused, with his arms folded over his heart. "What do people say of me, Scipio."

"Sir! my poor master! that you had a serpent in your bosom," answered the servant with hesitation.

"Nothing else, dear master," replied Scipio, "only that the doctor gave you a powder, and that the snake

"No, no!" muttered Roderick to himself, as he shook his head, and pressed his hands with a more convulsive

From this time the miserable sufferer ceased to shun the world, but rather solicited and forced himself upon

the notice of acquaintances and strangers. It was partly the result of desperation on finding that the cavern of

his own bosom had not proved deep and dark enough to hide the secret, even while it was so secure a fortress

for the loathsome fiend that had crept into it. But still more, this craving for notoriety was a symptom of the

intense morbidness which now pervaded his nature. All persons chronically diseased are egotists, whether the

disease be of the mind or body; whether it be sin, sorrow, or merely the more tolerable calamity of some

endless pain, or mischief among the cords of mortal life. Such individuals are made acutely conscious of a

self, by the torture in which it dwells. Self, therefore, grows to be so prominent an object with them that they

cannot but present it to the face of every casual passerby. There is a pleasureperhaps the greatest of

which the sufferer is susceptiblein displaying the wasted or ulcerated limb, or the cancer in the breast; and

the fouler the crime, with so much the more difficulty does the perpetrator prevent it from thrusting up its

snakelike head to frighten the world; for it is that cancer, or that crime, which constitutes their respective

individuality. Roderick Elliston, who, a little while before, had held himself so scornfully above the common

lot of men, now paid full allegiance to this humiliating law. The snake in his bosom seemed the symbol of a

monstrous egotism to which everything was referred, and which he pampered, night and day, with a continual

He soon exhibited what most people considered indubitable tokens of insanity. In some of his moods, strange

to say, he prided and gloried himself on being marked out from the ordinary experience of mankind, by the

possession of a double nature, and a life within a life. He appeared to imagine that the snake was a

divinity,not celestial, it is true, but darkly infernal,and that he thence derived an eminence and a

sanctity, horrid, indeed, yet more desirable than whatever ambition aims at. Thus he drew his misery around

him like a regal mantle, and looked down triumphantly upon those whose vitals nourished no deadly monster.

Oftener, however, his human nature asserted its empire over him in the shape of a yearning for fellowship. It

grew to be his custom to spend the whole day in wandering about the streets, aimlessly, unless it might be

called an aim to establish a species of brotherhood between himself and the world. With cankered ingenuity,

he sought out his own disease in every breast. Whether insane or not, he showed so keen a perception of

frailty, error, and vice, that many persons gave him credit for being possessed not merely with a serpent, but

with an actual fiend, who imparted this evil faculty of recognizing whatever was ugliest in man's heart.

For instance, he met an individual, who, for thirty years, had cherished a hatred against his own brother.

Roderick, amidst the throng of the street, laid his hand on this man's chest, and looking full into his

forbidding face,"How is the snake today?" he inquired, with a mock expression of sympathy.

"The snake! The snake! Does it gnaw you?" persisted Roderick. "Did you take counsel with him this morning

when you should have been saying your prayers? Did he sting, when you thought of your brother's health,

wealth, and good repute? Did he caper for joy, when you remembered the profligacy of his only son? And

whether he stung, or whether he frolicked, did you feel his poison throughout your body and soul, converting

everything to sourness and bitterness? That is the way of such serpents. I have learned the whole nature of

"Where is the police?" roared the object of Roderick's persecution, at the same time giving an instinctive

"Ha, ha!" chuckled Roderick, releasing his grasp of the man. "His bosom serpent has stung him then!"

Often it pleased the unfortunate young man to vex people with a lighter satire, yet still characterized by

somewhat of snakelike virulence. One day he encountered an ambitious statesman, and gravely inquired

after the welfare of his boa constrictor; for of that species, Roderick affirmed, this gentleman's serpent must

needs be, since its appetite was enormous enough to devour the whole country and constitution. At another

time, he stopped a closefisted old fellow, of great wealth, but who skulked about the city in the guise of a

scarecrow, with a patched blue surtout, brown hat, and mouldy boots, scraping pence together, and picking up

rusty nails. Pretending to look earnestly at this respectable person's stomach, Roderick assured him that his

snake was a copperhead and had been generated by the immense quantities of that base metal with which he

daily defiled his fingers. Again, he assaulted a man of rubicund visage, and told him that few bosom serpents

had more of the devil in them than those that breed in the vats of a distillery. The next whom Roderick

honored with his attention was a distinguished clergyman, who happened just then to be engaged in a

theological controversy, where human wrath was more perceptible than divine inspiration.

"Profane wretch!" exclaimed the divine; but, nevertheless, his hand stole to his breast.

He met a person of sickly sensibility, who, on some early disappointment, had retired from the world, and

thereafter held no intercourse with his fellowmen, but brooded sullenly or passionately over the irrevocable

past. This man's very heart, if Roderick might be believed, had been changed into a serpent, which would

finally torment both him and itself to death. Observing a married couple, whose domestic troubles were

matter of notoriety, he condoled with both on having mutually taken a house adder to their bosoms. To an

envious author, who depreciated works which he could never equal, he said that his snake was the slimiest

and filthiest of all the reptile tribe, but was fortunately without a sting. A man of impure life, and a brazen

face, asking Roderick if there were any serpent in his breast, he told him that there was, and of the same

species that once tortured Don Rodrigo, the Goth. He took a fair young girl by the hand, and gazing sadly into

her eyes, warned her that she cherished a serpent of the deadliest kind within her gentle breast; and the world

found the truth of those ominous words, when, a few months afterwards, the poor girl died of love and shame.

Two ladies, rivals in fashionable life who tormented one another with a thousand little stings of womanish

spite, were given to understand that each of their hearts was a nest of diminutive snakes, which did quite as

But nothing seemed to please Roderick better than to lay hold of a person infected with jealousy, which he

represented as an enormous green reptile, with an icecold length of body, and the sharpest sting of any

It was a darkbrowed man who put the question; he had an evasive eye, which in the course of a dozen years

had looked no mortal directly in the face. There was an ambiguity about this person's character,a stain

upon his reputation,yet none could tell precisely of what nature, although the city gossips, male and

female, whispered the most atrocious surmises. Until a recent period he had followed the sea, and was, in

fact, the very shipmaster whom George Herkimer had encountered, under such singular circumstances, in the

"What bosom serpent has the sharpest sting?" repeated this man; but he put the question as if by a reluctant

"Why need you ask?" replied Roderick, with a look of dark intelligence. "Look into your own breast. Hark!

And then, as the bystanders afterwards affirmed, a hissing sound was heard, apparently in Roderick

Elliston's breast. It was said, too, that an answering hiss came from the vitals of the shipmaster, as if a snake

were actually lurking there and had been aroused by the call of its brother reptile. If there were in fact any

such sound, it might have been caused by a malicious exercise of ventriloquism on the part of Roderick.

Thus making his own actual serpentif a serpent there actually was in his bosomthe type of each man's

fatal error, or hoarded sin, or unquiet conscience, and striking his sting so unremorsefully into the sorest spot,

we may well imagine that Roderick became the pest of the city. Nobody could elude himnone could

withstand him. He grappled with the ugliest truth that he could lay his hand on, and compelled his adversary

to do the same. Strange spectacle in human life where it is the instinctive effort of one and all to hide those

sad realities, and leave them undisturbed beneath a heap of superficial topics which constitute the materials of

intercourse between man and man! It was not to be tolerated that Roderick Elliston should break through the

tacit compact by which the world has done its best to secure repose without relinquishing evil. The victims of

his malicious remarks, it is true, had brothers enough to keep them in countenance; for, by Roderick's theory,

every mortal bosom harbored either a brood of small serpents or one overgrown monster that had devoured

all the rest. Still the city could not bear this new apostle. It was demanded by nearly all, and particularly by

the most respectable inhabitants, that Roderick should no longer be permitted to violate the received rules of

decorum by obtruding his own bosom serpent to the public gaze, and dragging those of decent people from

Accordingly, his relatives interfered and placed him in a private asylum for the insane. When the news was

noised abroad, it was observed that many persons walked the streets with freer countenances and covered

His confinement, however, although it contributed not a little to the peace of the town, operated unfavorably

upon Roderick himself. In solitude his melancholy grew more black and sullen. He spent whole

daysindeed, it was his sole occupationin communing with the serpent. A conversation was sustained, in

which, as it seemed, the hidden monster bore a part, though unintelligibly to the listeners, and inaudible

except in a hiss. Singular as it may appear, the sufferer had now contracted a sort of affection for his

tormentor, mingled, however, with the intensest loathing and horror. Nor were such discordant emotions

incompatible. Each, on the contrary, imparted strength and poignancy to its opposite. Horrible lovehorrible

antipathyembracing one another in his bosom, and both concentrating themselves upon a being that had

crept into his vitals or been engendered there, and which was nourished with his food, and lived upon his life,

and was as intimate with him as his own heart, and yet was the foulest of all created things! But not the less

Sometimes, in his moments of rage and bitter hatred against the snake and himself, Roderick determined to

be the death of him, even at the expense of his own life. Once he attempted it by starvation; but, while the

wretched man was on the point of famishing, the monster seemed to feed upon his heart, and to thrive and

wax gamesome, as if it were his sweetest and most congenial diet. Then he privily took a dose of active

poison, imagining that it would not fail to kill either himself or the devil that possessed him, or both together.

Another mistake; for if Roderick had not yet been destroyed by his own poisoned heart nor the snake by

gnawing it, they had little to fear from arsenic or corrosive sublimate. Indeed, the venomous pest appeared to

operate as an antidote against all other poisons. The physicians tried to suffocate the fiend with tobacco

smoke. He breathed it as freely as if it were his native atmosphere. Again, they drugged their patient with

opium and drenched him with intoxicating liquors, hoping that the snake might thus be reduced to stupor and

perhaps be ejected from the stomach. They succeeded in rendering Roderick insensible; but, placing their

hands upon his breast, they were inexpressibly horror stricken to feel the monster wriggling, twining, and

darting to and fro within his narrow limits, evidently enlivened by the opium or alcohol, and incited to

unusual feats of activity. Thenceforth they gave up all attempts at cure or palliation. The doomed sufferer

submitted to his fate, resumed his former loathsome affection for the bosom fiend, and spent whole miserable

days before a lookingglass, with his mouth wide open, watching, in hope and horror, to catch a glimpse of

the snake's head far down within his throat. It is supposed that he succeeded; for the attendants once heard a

frenzied shout, and, rushing into the room, found Roderick lifeless upon the floor.

He was kept but little longer under restraint. After minute investigation, the medical directors of the asylum

decided that his mental disease did not amount to insanity, nor would warrant his confinement, especially as

its influence upon his spirits was unfavorable, and might produce the evil which it was meant to remedy. His

eccentricities were doubtless great; he had habitually violated many of the customs and prejudices of society;

but the world was not, without surer ground, entitled to treat him as a madman. On this decision of such

competent authority Roderick was released, and had returned to his native city the very day before his

As soon as possible after learning these particulars the sculptor, together with a sad and tremulous

companion, sought Elliston at his own house. It was a large, sombre edifice of wood, with pilasters and a

balcony, and was divided from one of the principal streets by a terrace of three elevations, which was

ascended by successive flights of stone steps. Some immense old elms almost concealed the front of the

mansion. This spacious and once magnificent family residence was built by a grandee of the race early in the

past century, at which epoch, land being of small comparative value, the garden and other grounds had

formed quite an extensive domain. Although a portion of the ancestral heritage had been alienated, there was

still a shadowy enclosure in the rear of the mansion where a student, or a dreamer, or a man of stricken heart

might lie all day upon the grass, amid the solitude of murmuring boughs, and forget that a city had grown up

Into this retirement the sculptor and his companion were ushered by Scipio, the old black servant, whose

wrinkled visage grew almost sunny with intelligence and joy as he paid his humble greetings to one of the

"Remain in the arbor," whispered the sculptor to the figure that leaned upon his arm. "You will know

Roderick was reclining on the margin of a fountain which gushed into the fleckered sunshine with the same

clear sparkle and the same voice of airy quietude as when trees of primeval growth flung their shadows cross

its bosom. How strange is the life of a fountain!born at every moment, yet of an age coeval with the rocks,

"You are come! I have expected you," said Elliston, when he became aware of the sculptor's presence.

His manner was very different from that of the preceding dayquiet, courteous, and, as Herkimer thought,

watchful both over his guest and himself. This unnatural restraint was almost the only trait that betokened

anything amiss. He had just thrown a book upon the grass, where it lay half opened, thus disclosing itself to

be a natural history of the serpent tribe, illustrated by lifelike plates. Near it lay that bulky volume, the Ductor

Dubitantium of Jeremy Taylor, full of cases of conscience, and in which most men, possessed of a

"You see," observed Elliston, pointing to the book of serpents, while a smile gleamed upon his lips, "I am

making an effort to become better acquainted with my bosom friend; but I find nothing satisfactory in this

volume. If I mistake not, he will prove to be sui generis, and akin to no other reptile in creation."

"My sable friend Scipio has a story," replied Roderick, "of a snake that had lurked in this fountainpure and

innocent as it looksever since it was known to the first settlers. This insinuating personage once crept into

the vitals of my great grandfather and dwelt there many years, tormenting the old gentleman beyond mortal

endurance. In short it is a family peculiarity. But, to tell you the truth, I have no faith in this idea of the

"Oh, there is poisonous stuff in any man's heart sufficient to generate a brood of serpents," said Elliston with

a hollow laugh. "You should have heard my homilies to the good town'speople. Positively, I deem myself

fortunate in having bred but a single serpent. You, however, have none in your bosom, and therefore cannot

With this exclamation Roderick lost his selfcontrol and threw himself upon the grass, testifying his agony

by intricate writhings, in which Herkimer could not but fancy a resemblance to the motions of a snake. Then,

likewise, was heard that frightful hiss, which often ran through the sufferer's speech, and crept between the

"This is awful indeed!" exclaimed the sculptor"an awful infliction, whether it be actual or imaginary. Tell

"Yes, but an impossible one," muttered Roderick, as he lay wallowing with his face in the grass. "Could I for

one moment forget myself, the serpent might not abide within me. It is my diseased selfcontemplation that

"Then forget yourself, my husband," said a gentle voice above him; "forget yourself in the idea of another!"

Rosina had emerged from the arbor, and was bending over him with the shadow of his anguish reflected in

her countenance, yet so mingled with hope and unselfish love that all anguish seemed but an earthly shadow

and a dream. She touched Roderick with her hand. A tremor shivered through his frame. At that moment, if

report be trustworthy, the sculptor beheld a waving motion through the grass, and heard a tinkling sound, as if

something had plunged into the fountain. Be the truth as it might, it is certain that Roderick Elliston sat up

like a man renewed, restored to his right mind, and rescued from the fiend which had so miserably overcome

"Rosina!" cried he, in broken and passionate tones, but with nothing of the wild wail that had haunted his

"The punishment has been severe," observed the sculptor. "Even Justice might now forgive; how much more

a woman's tenderness! Roderick Elliston, whether the serpent was a physical reptile, or whether the

morbidness of your nature suggested that symbol to your fancy, the moral of the story is not the less true and

strong. A tremendous Egotism, manifesting itself in your case in the form of jealousy, is as fearful a fiend as

ever stole into the human heart. Can a breast, where it has dwelt so long, be purified?"

"Oh yes," said Rosina with a heavenly smile. "The serpent was but a dark fantasy, and what it typified was as

shadowy as itself. The past, dismal as it seems, shall fling no gloom upon the future. To give it its due

One sunshiny morning, in the good old times of the town of Boston, a young carver in wood, well known by

the name of Drowne, stood contemplating a large oaken log, which it was his purpose to convert into the

figurehead of a vessel. And while he discussed within his own mind what sort of shape or similitude it were

well to bestow upon this excellent piece of timber, there came into Drowne's workshop a certain Captain

Hunnewell, owner and commander of the good brig called the Cynosure, which had just returned from her

"Ah! that will do, Drowne, that will do!" cried the jolly captain, tapping the log with his rattan. "I bespeak

this very piece of oak for the figurehead of the Cynosure. She has shown herself the sweetest craft that ever

floated, and I mean to decorate her prow with the handsomest image that the skill of man can cut out of

"You give me more credit than I deserve, Captain Hunnewell," said the carver, modestly, yet as one

conscious of eminence in his art. "But, for the sake of the good brig, I stand ready to do my best. And which

of these designs do you prefer? Here,"pointing to a staring, halflength figure, in a white wig and scarlet

coat,"here is an excellent model, the likeness of our gracious king. Here is the valiant Admiral Vernon. Or,

"All very fine, Drowne; all very fine," answered the mariner. "But as nothing like the brig ever swam the

ocean, so I am determined she shall have such a figurehead as old Neptune never saw in his life. And what

is more, as there is a secret in the matter, you must pledge your credit not to betray it."

"Certainly," said Drowne, marvelling, however, what possible mystery there could be in reference to an affair

so open, of necessity, to the inspection of all the world as the figurehead of a vessel. "You may depend,

Captain Hunnewell then took Drowne by the button, and communicated his wishes in so low a tone that it

would be unmannerly to repeat what was evidently intended for the carver's private ear. We shall, therefore,

take the opportunity to give the reader a few desirable particulars about Drowne himself.

He was the first American who is known to have attemptedin a very humble line, it is truethat art in

which we can now reckon so many names already distinguished, or rising to distinction. From his earliest

boyhood he had exhibited a knackfor it would be too proud a word to call it geniusa knack, therefore,

for the imitation of the human figure in whatever material came most readily to hand. The snows of a New

England winter had often supplied him with a species of marble as dazzingly white, at least, as the Parian or

the Carrara, and if less durable, yet sufficiently so to correspond with any claims to permanent existence

possessed by the boy's frozen statues. Yet they won admiration from maturer judges than his schoolfellows,

and were indeed, remarkably clever, though destitute of the native warmth that might have made the snow

melt beneath his hand. As he advanced in life, the young man adopted pine and oak as eligible materials for

the display of his skill, which now began to bring him a return of solid silver as well as the empty praise that

had been an apt reward enough for his productions of evanescent snow. He became noted for carving

ornamental pump heads, and wooden urns for gate posts, and decorations, more grotesque than fanciful, for

mantelpieces. No apothecary would have deemed himself in the way of obtaining custom without setting up a

gilded mortar, if not a head of Galen or Hippocrates, from the skilful hand of Drowne.

But the great scope of his business lay in the manufacture of figureheads for vessels. Whether it were the

monarch himself, or some famous British admiral or general, or the governor of the province, or perchance

the favorite daughter of the shipowner, there the image stood above the prow, decked out in gorgeous

colors, magnificently gilded, and staring the whole world out of countenance, as if from an innate

consciousness of its own superiority. These specimens of native sculpture had crossed the sea in all

directions, and been not ignobly noticed among the crowded shipping of the Thames and wherever else the

hardy mariners of New England had pushed their adventures. It must be confessed that a family likeness

pervaded these respectable progeny of Drowne's skill; that the benign countenance of the king resembled

those of his subjects, and that Miss Peggy Hobart, the merchant's daughter, bore a remarkable similitude to

Britannia, Victory, and other ladies of the allegoric sisterhood; and, finally, that they all had a kind of wooden

aspect which proved an intimate relationship with the unshaped blocks of timber in the carver's workshop.

But at least there was no inconsiderable skill of hand, nor a deficiency of any attribute to render them really

works of art, except that deep quality, be it of soul or intellect, which bestows life upon the lifeless and

warmth upon the cold, and which, had it been present, would have made Drowne's wooden image instinct

"And Drowne," said he, impressively, "you must lay aside all other business and set about this forthwith. And

as to the price, only do the job in firstrate style, and you shall settle that point yourself."

"Very well, captain," answered the carver, who looked grave and somewhat perplexed, yet had a sort of smile

From that moment the men of taste about Long Wharf and the Town Dock who were wont to show their love

for the arts by frequent visits to Drowne's workshop, and admiration of his wooden images, began to be

sensible of a mystery in the carver's conduct. Often he was absent in the daytime. Sometimes, as might be

judged by gleams of light from the shop windows, he was at work until a late hour of the evening; although

neither knock nor voice, on such occasions, could gain admittance for a visitor, or elicit any word of

response. Nothing remarkable, however, was observed in the shop at those late hours when it was thrown

open. A fine piece of timber, indeed, which Drowne was known to have reserved for some work of especial

dignity, was seen to be gradually assuming shape. What shape it was destined ultimately to take was a

problem to his friends and a point on which the carver himself preserved a rigid silence. But day after day,

though Drowne was seldom noticed in the act of working upon it, this rude form began to be developed until

it became evident to all observers that a female figure was growing into mimic life. At each new visit they

beheld a larger pile of wooden chips and a nearer approximation to something beautiful. It seemed as if the

hamadryad of the oak had sheltered herself from the unimaginative world within the heart of her native tree,

and that it was only necessary to remove the strange shapelessness that had incrusted her, and reveal the grace

and loveliness of a divinity. Imperfect as the design, the attitude, the costume, and especially the face of the

image still remained, there was already an effect that drew the eye from the wooden cleverness of Drowne's

earlier productions and fixed it upon the tantalizing mystery of this new project.

Copley, the celebrated painter, then a young man and a resident of Boston, came one day to visit Drowne; for

he had recognized so much of moderate ability in the carver as to induce him, in the dearth of professional

sympathy, to cultivate his acquaintance. On entering the shop, the artist glanced at the inflexible image of

king, commander, dame, and allegory, that stood around, on the best of which might have been bestowed the

questionable praise that it looked as if a living man had here been changed to wood, and that not only the

physical, but the intellectual and spiritual part, partook of the stolid transformation. But in not a single

instance did it seem as if the wood were imbibing the ethereal essence of humanity. What a wide distinction

is here! and how far the slightest portion of the latter merit have outvalued the utmost degree of the former!

"My friend Drowne;" said Copley, smiling to himself, but alluding to the mechanical and wooden cleverness

that so invariably distinguished the images, "you are really a remarkable person! I have seldom met with a

man in your line of business that could do so much; for one other touch might make this figure of General

"You would have me think that you are praising me highly, Mr. Copley," answered Drowne, turning his back

upon Wolfe's image in apparent disgust. "But there has come a light into my mind. I know what you know as

well, that the one touch which you speak of as deficient is the only one that would be truly valuable, and that

without it these works of mine are no better than worthless abortions. There is the same difference between

them and the works of an inspired artist as between a signpost daub and one of your best pictures."

"This is strange," cried Copley, looking him in the face, which now, as the painter fancied, had a singular

depth of intelligence, though hitherto it had not given him greatly the advantage over his own family of

wooden images. "What has come over you? How is it that, possessing the idea which you have now uttered,

The carver smiled, but made no reply. Copley turned again to the images, conceiving that the sense of

deficiency which Drowne had just expressed, and which is so rare in a merely mechanical character, must

surely imply a genius, the tokens of which had heretofore been overlooked. But no; there was not a trace of it.

He was about to withdraw when his eyes chanced to fall upon a halfdeveloped figure which lay in a corner

"What is here? Who has done this?" he broke out, after contemplating it in speechless astonishment for an

instant. "Here is the divine, the lifegiving touch. What inspired hand is beckoning this wood to arise and live?

"No man's work," replied Drowne. "The figure lies within that block of oak, and it is my business to find it."

"Drowne," said the true artist, grasping the carver fervently by the hand, "you are a man of genius!"

As Copley departed, happening to glance backward from the threshold, he beheld Drowne bending over the

halfcreated shape, and stretching forth his arms as if he would have embraced and drawn it to his heart;

while, had such a miracle been possible, his countenance expressed passion enough to communicate warmth

"Strange enough!" said the artist to himself. "Who would have looked for a modern Pygmalion in the person

As yet, the image was but vague in its outward presentment; so that, as in the cloud shapes around the

western sun, the observer rather felt, or was led to imagine, than really saw what was intended by it. Day by

day, however, the work assumed greater precision, and settled its irregular and misty outline into distincter

grace and beauty. The general design was now obvious to the common eye. It was a female figure, in what

appeared to be a foreign dress; the gown being laced over the bosom, and opening in front so as to disclose a

skirt or petticoat, the folds and inequalities of which were admirably represented in the oaken substance. She

wore a hat of singular gracefulness, and abundantly laden with flowers, such as never grew in the rude soil of

New England, but which, with all their fanciful luxuriance, had a natural truth that it seemed impossible for

the most fertile imagination to have attained without copying from real prototypes. There were several little

appendages to this dress, such as a fan, a pair of earrings, a chain about the neck, a watch in the bosom, and a

ring upon the finger, all of which would have been deemed beneath the dignity of sculpture. They were put

on, however, with as much taste as a lovely woman might have shown in her attire, and could therefore have

The face was still imperfect; but gradually, by a magic touch, intelligence and sensibility brightened through

the features, with all the effect of light gleaming forth from within the solid oak. The face became alive. It

was a beautiful, though not precisely regular and somewhat haughty aspect, but with a certain piquancy about

the eyes and mouth, which, of all expressions, would have seemed the most impossible to throw over a

wooden countenance. And now, so far as carving went, this wonderful production was complete.

"Drowne," said Copley, who had hardly missed a single day in his visits to the carver's workshop, "if this

work were in marble it would make you famous at once; nay, I would almost affirm that it would make an era

in the art. It is as ideal as an antique statue, and yet as real as any lovely woman whom one meets at a fireside

or in the street. But I trust you do not mean to desecrate this exquisite creature with paint, like those staring

"Not paint her!" exclaimed Captain Hunnewell, who stood by; "not paint the figurehead of the Cynosure!

And what sort of a figure should I cut in a foreign port with such an unpainted oaken stick as this over my

prow! She must, and she shall, be painted to the life, from the topmost flower in her hat down to the silver

"Mr. Copley," said Drowne, quietly, "I know nothing of marble statuary, and nothing of the sculptor's rules of

art; but of this wooden image, this work of my hands, this creature of my heart,"and here his voice faltered

and choked in a very singular manner,"of thisof her I may say that I know something. A wellspring

of inward wisdom gushed within me as I wrought upon the oak with my whole strength, and soul, and faith.

Let others do what they may with marble, and adopt what rules they choose. If I can produce my desired

effect by painted wood, those rules are not for me, and I have a right to disregard them."

"The very spirit of genius," muttered Copley to himself. "How otherwise should this carver feel himself

He looked earnestly at Drowne, and again saw that expression of human love which, in a spiritual sense, as

the artist could not help imagining, was the secret of the life that had been breathed into this block of wood.

The carver, still in the same secrecy that marked all his operations upon this mysterious image, proceeded to

paint the habiliments in their proper colors, and the countenance with Nature's red and white. When all was

finished he threw open his workshop, and admitted the towns people to behold what he had done. Most

persons, at their first entrance, felt impelled to remove their hats, and pay such reverence as was due to the

richlydressed and beautiful young lady who seemed to stand in a corner of the room, with oaken chips and

shavings scattered at her feet. Then came a sensation of fear; as if, not being actually human, yet so like

humanity, she must therefore be something preternatural. There was, in truth, an indefinable air and

expression that might reasonably induce the query, Who and from what sphere this daughter of the oak

should be? The strange, rich flowers of Eden on her head; the complexion, so much deeper and more brilliant

than those of our native beauties; the foreign, as it seemed, and fantastic garb, yet not too fantastic to be worn

decorously in the street; the delicatelywrought embroidery of the skirt; the broad gold chain about her neck;

the curious ring upon her finger; the fan, so exquisitely sculptured in open work, and painted to resemble

pearl and ebony;where could Drowne, in his sober walk of life, have beheld the vision here so matchlessly

embodied! And then her face! In the dark eyes, and around the voluptuous mouth, there played a look made

up of pride, coquetry, and a gleam of mirthfulness, which impressed Copley with the idea that the image was

"And will you," said he to the carver, "permit this masterpiece to become the figurehead of a vessel? Give

the honest captain yonder figure of Britanniait will answer his purpose far betterand send this fairy

"What sort of a fellow is this!" thought Copley. "A Yankee, and throw away the chance of making his

There was still further proof of Drowne's lunacy, if credit were due to the rumor that he had been seen

kneeling at the feet of the oaken lady, and gazing with a lover's passionate ardor into the face that his own

hands had created. The bigots of the day hinted that it would be no matter of surprise if an evil spirit were

The fame of the image spread far and wide. The inhabitants visited it so universally, that after a few days of

exhibition there was hardly an old man or a child who had not become minutely familiar with its aspect. Even

had the story of Drowne's wooden image ended here, its celebrity might have been prolonged for many years

by the reminiscences of those who looked upon it in their childhood, and saw nothing else so beautiful in

after life. But the town was now astounded by an event, the narrative of which has formed itself into one of

the most singular legends that are yet to be met with in the traditionary chimney corners of the New England

metropolis, where old men and women sit dreaming of the past, and wag their heads at the dreamers of the

One fine morning, just before the departure of the Cynosure on her second voyage to Fayal, the commander

of that gallant vessel was seen to issue from his residence in Hanover Street. He was stylishly dressed in a

blue broadcloth coat, with gold lace at the seams and buttonholes, an embroidered scarlet waistcoat, a

triangular hat, with a loop and broad binding of gold, and wore a silverhilted hanger at his side. But the

good captain might have been arrayed in the robes of a prince or the rags of a beggar, without in either case

attracting notice, while obscured by such a companion as now leaned on his arm. The people in the street

started, rubbed their eyes, and either leaped aside from their path, or stood as if transfixed to wood or marble

"Do you see it?do you see it?" cried one, with tremulous eagerness. "It is the very same!"

"The same?" answered another, who had arrived in town only the night before. "Who do you mean? I see

only a seacaptain in his shoregoing clothes, and a young lady in a foreign habit, with a bunch of beautiful

flowers in her hat. On my word, she is as fair and bright a damsel as my eyes have looked on this many a

"Yes; the same!the very same!" repeated the other. "Drowne's wooden image has come to life!"

Here was a miracle indeed! Yet, illuminated by the sunshine, or darkened by the alternate shade of the

houses, and with its garments fluttering lightly in the morning breeze, there passed the image along the street.

It was exactly and minutely the shape, the garb, and the face which the townspeople had so recently

thronged to see and admire. Not a rich flower upon her head, not a single leaf, but had had its prototype in

Drowne's wooden workmanship, although now their fragile grace had become flexible, and was shaken by

every footstep that the wearer made. The broad gold chain upon the neck was identical with the one

represented on the image, and glistened with the motion imparted by the rise and fall of the bosom which it

decorated. A real diamond sparkled on her finger. In her right hand she bore a pearl and ebony fan, which she

flourished with a fantastic and bewitching coquetry, that was likewise expressed in all her movements as well

as in the style of her beauty and the attire that so well harmonized with it. The face with its brilliant depth of

complexion had the same piquancy of mirthful mischief that was fixed upon the countenance of the image,

but which was here varied and continually shifting, yet always essentially the same, like the sunny gleam

upon a bubbling fountain. On the whole, there was something so airy and yet so real in the figure, and withal

so perfectly did it represent Drowne's image, that people knew not whether to suppose the magic wood

"One thing is certain," muttered a Puritan of the old stamp, "Drowne has sold himself to the devil; and

"And I," said a young man who overheard him, "would almost consent to be the third victim, for the liberty

"And so would I," said Copley, the painter, "for the privilege of taking her picture."

The image, or the apparition, whichever it might be, still escorted by the bold captain, proceeded from

Hanover Street through some of the cross lanes that make this portion of the town so intricate, to Ann Street,

thence into Dock Square, and so downward to Drowne's shop, which stood just on the water's edge. The

crowd still followed, gathering volume as it rolled along. Never had a modern miracle occurred in such broad

daylight, nor in the presence of such a multitude of witnesses. The airy image, as if conscious that she was the

object of the murmurs and disturbance that swelled behind her, appeared slightly vexed and flustered, yet still

in a manner consistent with the light vivacity and sportive mischief that were written in her countenance. She

was observed to flutter her fan with such vehement rapidity that the elaborate delicacy of its workmanship

Arriving at Drowne's door, while the captain threw it open, the marvellous apparition paused an instant on the

threshold, assuming the very attitude of the image, and casting over the crowd that glance of sunny coquetry

which all remembered on the face of the oaken lady. She and her cavalier then disappeared.

"Ah!" murmured the crowd, drawing a deep breath, as with one vast pair of lungs.

But the aged, whose recollections dated as far back as witch times, shook their heads, and hinted that our

forefathers would have thought it a pious deed to burn the daughter of the oak with fire.

"If she be other than a bubble of the elements," exclaimed Copley, "I must look upon her face again."

He accordingly entered the shop; and there, in her usual corner, stood the image, gazing at him, as it might

seem, with the very same expression of mirthful mischief that had been the farewell look of the apparition

when, but a moment before, she turned her face towards the crowd. The carver stood beside his creation

mending the beautiful fan, which by some accident was broken in her hand. But there was no longer any

motion in the lifelike image, nor any real woman in the workshop, nor even the witchcraft of a sunny shadow,

that might have deluded people's eyes as it flitted along the street. Captain Hunnewell, too, had vanished. His

hoarse seabreezy tones, however, were audible on the other side of a door that opened upon the water.

"Sit down in the stern sheets, my lady," said the gallant captain. "Come, bear a hand, you lubbers, and set us

"Drowne," said Copley with a smile of intelligence, "you have been a truly fortunate man. What painter or

statuary ever had such a subject! No wonder that she inspired a genius into you, and first created the artist

Drowne looked at him with a visage that bore the traces of tears, but from which the light of imagination and

sensibility, so recently illuminating it, had departed. He was again the mechanical carver that he had been

"I hardly understand what you mean, Mr. Copley," said he, putting his hand to his brow. "This image! Can it

have been my work? Well, I have wrought it in a kind of dream; and now that I am broad awake I must set

And forthwith he employed himself on the stolid countenance of one of his wooden progeny, and completed

it in his own mechanical style, from which he was never known afterwards to deviate. He followed his

business industriously for many years, acquired a competence, and in the latter part of his life attained to a

dignified station in the church, being remembered in records and traditions as Deacon Drowne, the carver.

One of his productions, an Indian chief, gilded all over, stood during the better part of a century on the cupola

of the Province House, bedazzling the eyes of those who looked upward, like an angel of the sun. Another

work of the good deacon's handa reduced likeness of his friend Captain Hunnewell, holding a telescope

and quadrantmay be seen to this day, at the corner of Broad and State streets, serving in the useful capacity

of sign to the shop of a nautical instrument maker. We know not how to account for the inferiority of this

quaint old figure, as compared with the recorded excellence of the Oaken Lady, unless on the supposition that

in every human spirit there is imagination, sensibility, creative power, genius, which, according to

circumstances, may either be developed in this world, or shrouded in a mask of dulness until another state of

being. To our friend Drowne there came a brief season of excitement, kindled by love. It rendered him a

genius for that one occasion, but, quenched in disappointment, left him again the mechanical carver in wood,

without the power even of appreciating the work that his own hands had wrought. Yet who can doubt that the

very highest state to which a human spirit can attain, in its loftiest aspirations, is its truest and most natural

state, and that Drowne was more consistent with himself when he wrought the admirable figure of the

There was a rumor in Boston, about this period, that a young Portuguese lady of rank, on some occasion of

political or domestic disquietude, had fled from her home in Fayal and put herself under the protection of

Captain Hunnewell, on board of whose vessel, and at whose residence, she was sheltered until a change of

affairs. This fair stranger must have been the original of Drowne's Wooden Image.

One of the few incidents of Indian warfare naturally susceptible of the moonlight of romance was that

expedition undertaken for the defence of the frontiers in the year 1725, which resulted in the

wellremembered "Lovell's Fight." Imagination, by casting certain circumstances judicially into the shade,

may see much to admire in the heroism of a little band who gave battle to twice their number in the heart of

the enemy's country. The open bravery displayed by both parties was in accordance with civilized ideas of

valor; and chivalry itself might not blush to record the deeds of one or two individuals. The battle, though so

fatal to those who fought, was not unfortunate in its consequences to the country; for it broke the strength of a

tribe and conduced to the peace which subsisted during several ensuing years. History and tradition are

unusually minute in their memorials of their affair; and the captain of a scouting party of frontier men has

acquired as actual a military renown as many a victorious leader of thousands. Some of the incidents

contained in the following pages will be recognized, notwithstanding the substitution of fictitious names, by

such as have heard, from old men's lips, the fate of the few combatants who were in a condition to retreat

The early sunbeams hovered cheerfully upon the treetops, beneath which two weary and wounded men had

stretched their limbs the night before. Their bed of withered oak leaves was strewn upon the small level

space, at the foot of a rock, situated near the summit of one of the gentle swells by which the face of the

country is there diversified. The mass of granite, rearing its smooth, flat surface fifteen or twenty feet above

their heads, was not unlike a gigantic gravestone, upon which the veins seemed to form an inscription in

forgotten characters. On a tract of several acres around this rock, oaks and other hardwood trees had

supplied the place of the pines, which were the usual growth of the land; and a young and vigorous sapling

The severe wound of the elder man had probably deprived him of sleep; for, so soon as the first ray of

sunshine rested on the top of the highest tree, he reared himself painfully from his recumbent posture and sat

erect. The deep lines of his countenance and the scattered gray of his hair marked him as past the middle age;

but his muscular frame would, but for the effect of his wound, have been as capable of sustaining fatigue as

in the early vigor of life. Languor and exhaustion now sat upon his haggard features; and the despairing

glance which he sent forward through the depths of the forest proved his own conviction that his pilgrimage

was at an end. He next turned his eyes to the companion who reclined by his side. The youthfor he had

scarcely attained the years of manhoodlay, with his head upon his arm, in the embrace of an unquiet sleep,

which a thrill of pain from his wounds seemed each moment on the point of breaking. His right hand grasped

a musket; and, to judge from the violent action of his features, his slumbers were bringing back a vision of

the conflict of which he was one of the few survivors. A shout deep and loud in his dreaming fancyfound

its way in an imperfect murmur to his lips; and, starting even at the slight sound of his own voice, he

suddenly awoke. The first act of reviving recollection was to make anxious inquiries respecting the condition

"Reuben, my boy," said he, "this rock beneath which we sit will serve for an old hunter's gravestone. There is

many and many a long mile of howling wilderness before us yet; nor would it avail me anything if the smoke

of my own chimney were but on the other side of that swell of land. The Indian bullet was deadlier than I

"You are weary with our three days' travel," replied the youth, "and a little longer rest will recruit you. Sit

you here while I search the woods for the herbs and roots that must be our sustenance; and, having eaten, you

shall lean on me, and we will turn our faces homeward. I doubt not that, with my help, you can attain to some

"There is not two days' life in me, Reuben," said the other, calmly, "and I will no longer burden you with my

useless body, when you can scarcely support your own. Your wounds are deep and your strength is failing

fast; yet, if you hasten onward alone, you may be preserved. For me there is no hope, and I will await death

"No, my son, no," rejoined his companion. "Let the wish of a dying man have weight with you; give me one

grasp of your hand, and get you hence. Think you that my last moments will be eased by the thought that I

leave you to die a more lingering death? I have loved you like a father, Reuben; and at a time like this I

should have something of a father's authority. I charge you to be gone that I may die in peace."

"And because you have been a father to me, should I therefore leave you to perish and to lie unburied in the

wilderness?" exclaimed the youth. "No; if your end be in truth approaching, I will watch by you and receive

your parting words. I will dig a grave here by the rock, in which, if my weakness overcome me, we will rest

"In the cities and wherever men dwell," replied the other, "they bury their dead in the earth; they hide them

from the sight of the living; but here, where no step may pass perhaps for a hundred years, wherefore should I

not rest beneath the open sky, covered only by the oak leaves when the autumn winds shall strew them? And

for a monument, here is this gray rock, on which my dying hand shall carve the name of Roger Malvin, and

the traveller in days to come will know that here sleeps a hunter and a warrior. Tarry not, then, for a folly like

this, but hasten away, if not for your own sake, for hers who will else be desolate.'

Malvin spoke the last few words in a faltering voice, and their effect upon his companion was strongly

visible. They reminded him that there were other and less questionable duties than that of sharing the fate of a

man whom his death could not benefit. Nor can it be affirmed that no selfish feeling strove to enter Reuben's

heart, though the consciousness made him more earnestly resist his companion's entreaties.

"How terrible to wait the slow approach of death in this solitude!" exclaimed he. "A brave man does not

shrink in the battle; and, when friends stand round the bed, even women may die composedly; but here"

"I shall not shrink even here, Reuben Bourne," interrupted Malvin. "I am a man of no weak heart, and, if I

were, there is a surer support than that of earthly friends. You are young, and life is dear to you. Your last

moments will need comfort far more than mine; and when you have laid me in the earth, and are alone, and

night is settling on the forest, you will feel all the bitterness of the death that may now be escaped. But I will

urge no selfish motive to your generous nature. Leave me for my sake, that, having said a prayer for your

"And your daughter,how shall I dare to meet her eye?" exclaimed Reuben. "She will ask the fate of her

father, whose life I vowed to defend with my own. Must I tell her that he travelled three days' march with me

from the field of battle and that then I left him to perish in the wilderness? Were it not better to lie down and

"Tell my daughter," said Roger Malvin, "that, though yourself sore wounded, and weak, and weary, you led

my tottering footsteps many a mile, and left me only at my earnest entreaty, because I would not have your

blood upon my soul. Tell her that through pain and danger you were faithful, and that, if your lifeblood could

have saved me, it would have flowed to its last drop; and tell her that you will be something dearer than a

father, and that my blessing is with you both, and that my dying eyes can see a long and pleasant path in

As Malvin spoke he almost raised himself from the ground, and the energy of his concluding words seemed

to fill the wild and lonely forest with a vision of happiness; but, when he sank exhausted upon his bed of oak

leaves, the light which had kindled in Reuben's eye was quenched. He felt as if it were both sin and folly to

think of happiness at such a moment. His companion watched his changing countenance, and sought with

"Perhaps I deceive myself in regard to the time I have to live," he resumed. "It may be that, with speedy

assistance, I might recover of my wound. The foremost fugitives must, ere this, have carried tidings of our

fatal battle to the frontiers, and parties will be out to succor those in like condition with ourselves. Should you

meet one of these and guide them hither, who can tell but that I may sit by my own fireside again?"

A mournful smile strayed across the features of the dying man as he insinuated that unfounded

hope,which, however, was not without its effect on Reuben. No merely selfish motive, nor even the

desolate condition of Dorcas, could have induced him to desert his companion at such a momentbut his

wishes seized on the thought that Malvin's life might be preserved, and his sanguine nature heightened almost

"Surely there is reason, weighty reason, to hope that friends are not far distant," he said, half aloud. "There

fled one coward, unwounded, in the beginning of the fight, and most probably he made good speed. Every

true man on the frontier would shoulder his musket at the news; and, though no party may range so far into

the woods as this, I shall perhaps encounter them in one day's march. Counsel me faithfully," he added,

turning to Malvin, in distrust of his own motives. "Were your situation mine, would you desert me while life

"It is now twenty years," replied Roger Malvin,sighing, however, as he secretly acknowledged the wide

dissimilarity between the two cases,"it is now twenty years since I escaped with one dear friend from Indian

captivity near Montreal. We journeyed many days through the woods, till at length overcome with hunger

and weariness, my friend lay down and besought me to leave him; for he knew that, if I remained, we both

must perish; and, with but little hope of obtaining succor, I heaped a pillow of dry leaves beneath his head

"And did you return in time to save him?" asked Reuben, hanging on Malvin's words as if they were to be

"I did," answered the other. "I came upon the camp of a hunting party before sunset of the same day. I guided

them to the spot where my comrade was expecting death; and he is now a hale and hearty man upon his own

farm, far within the frontiers, while I lie wounded here in the depths of the wilderness."

This example, powerful in affecting Reuben's decision, was aided, unconsciously to himself, by the hidden

strength of many another motive. Roger Malvin perceived that the victory was nearly won.

"Now, go, my son, and Heaven prosper you!" he said. "Turn not back with your friends when you meet them,

lest your wounds and weariness overcome you; but send hitherward two or three, that may be spared, to

search for me; and believe me, Reuben, my heart will be lighter with every step you take towards home." Yet

there was, perhaps, a change both in his countenance and voice as he spoke thus; for, after all, it was a ghastly

Reuben Bourne, but half convinced that he was acting rightly, at length raised himself from the ground and

prepared himself for his departure. And first, though contrary to Malvin's wishes, he collected a stock of roots

and herbs, which had been their only food during the last two days. This useless supply he placed within

reach of the dying man, for whom, also, he swept together a bed of dry oak leaves. Then climbing to the

summit of the rock, which on one side was rough and broken, he bent the oak sapling downward, and bound

his handkerchief to the topmost branch. This precaution was not unnecessary to direct any who might come

in search of Malvin; for every part of the rock, except its broad, smooth front, was concealed at a little

distance by the dense undergrowth of the forest. The handkerchief had been the bandage of a wound upon

Reuben's arm; and, as he bound it to the tree, he vowed by the blood that stained it that he would return,

either to save his companion's life or to lay his body in the grave. He then descended, and stood, with

The experience of the latter suggested much and minute advice respecting the youth's journey through the

trackless forest. Upon this subject he spoke with calm earnestness, as if he were sending Reuben to the battle

or the chase while he himself remained secure at home, and not as if the human countenance that was about

to leave him were the last he would ever behold. But his firmness was shaken before he concluded.

"Carry my blessing to Dorcas, and say that my last prayer shall be for her and you. Bid her to have no hard

thoughts because you left me here," Reuben's heart smote him,"for that your life would not have

weighed with you if its sacrifice could have done me good. She will marry you after she has mourned a little

while for her father; and Heaven grant you long and happy days, and may your children's children stand

round your death bed! And, Reuben," added he, as the weakness of mortality made its way at last, "return,

when your wounds are healed and your weariness refreshed,return to this wild rock, and lay my bones in

An almost superstitious regard, arising perhaps from the customs of the Indians, whose war was with the dead

as well as the living, was paid by the frontier inhabitants to the rites of sepulture; and there are many

instances of the sacrifice of life in the attempt to bury those who had fallen by the "sword of the wilderness."

Reuben, therefore, felt the full importance of the promise which he most solemnly made to return and

perform Roger Malvin's obsequies. It was remarkable that the latter, speaking his whole heart in his parting

words, no longer endeavored to persuade the youth that even the speediest succor might avail to the

preservation of his life. Reuben was internally convinced that he should see Malvin's living face no more. His

generous nature would fain have delayed him, at whatever risk, till the dying scene were past; but the desire

of existence and the hope of happiness had strengthened in his heart, and he was unable to resist them.

"It is enough," said Roger Malvin, having listened to Reuben's promise. "Go, and God speed you!"

The youth pressed his hand in silence, turned, and was departing. His slow and faltering steps, however, had

"Reuben, Reuben," said he, faintly; and Reuben returned and knelt down by the dying man.

"Raise me, and let me lean against the rock," was his last request. "My face will be turned towards home, and

Reuben, having made the desired alteration in his companion's posture, again began his solitary pilgrimage.

He walked more hastily at first than was consistent with his strength; for a sort of guilty feeling, which

sometimes torments men in their most justifiable acts, caused him to seek concealment from Malvin's eyes;

but after he had trodden far upon the rustling forest leaves he crept back, impelled by a wild and painful

curiosity, and, sheltered by the earthy roots of an uptorn tree, gazed earnestly at the desolate man. The

morning sun was unclouded, and the trees and shrubs imbibed the sweet air of the month of May; yet there

seemed a gloom on Nature's face, as if she sympathized with mortal pain and sorrow Roger Malvin's hands

were uplifted in a fervent prayer, some of the words of which stole through the stillness of the woods and

entered Reuben's heart, torturing it with an unutterable pang. They were the broken accents of a petition for

his own happiness and that of Dorcas; and, as the youth listened, conscience, or something in its similitude,

pleaded strongly with him to return and lie down again by the rock. He felt how hard was the doom of the

kind and generous being whom he had deserted in his extremity. Death would come like the slow approach of

a corpse, stealing gradually towards him through the forest, and showing its ghastly and motionless features

from behind a nearer and yet a nearer tree. But such must have been Reuben's own fate had he tarried another

sunset; and who shall impute blame to him if he shrink from so useless a sacrifice? As he gave a parting look,

a breeze waved the little banner upon the sapling oak and reminded Reuben of his vow.

Many circumstances combined to retard the wounded traveller in his way to the frontiers. On the second day

the clouds, gathering densely over the sky, precluded the possibility of regulating his course by the position

of the sun; and he knew not but that every effort of his almost exhausted strength was removing him farther

from the home he sought. His scanty sustenance was supplied by the berries and other spontaneous products

of the forest. Herds of deer, it is true, sometimes bounded past him, and partridges frequently whirred up

before his footsteps; but his ammunition had been expended in the fight, and he had no means of slaying

them. His wounds, irritated by the constant exertion in which lay the only hope of life, wore away his

strength and at intervals confused his reason. But, even in the wanderings of intellect, Reuben's young heart

clung strongly to existence; and it was only through absolute incapacity of motion that he at last sank down

In this situation he was discovered by a party who, upon the first intelligence of the fight, had been

despatched to the relief of the survivors. They conveyed him to the nearest settlement, which chanced to be

Dorcas, in the simplicity of the olden time, watched by the bedside of her wounded lover, and administered

all those comforts that are in the sole gift of woman's heart and hand. During several days Reuben's

recollection strayed drowsily among the perils and hardships through which he had passed, and he was

incapable of returning definite answers to the inquiries with which many were eager to harass him. No

authentic particulars of the battle had yet been circulated; nor could mothers, wives, and children tell whether

their loved ones were detained by captivity or by the stronger chain of death. Dorcas nourished her

apprehensions in silence till one afternoon when Reuben awoke from an unquiet sleep, and seemed to

recognize her more perfectly than at any previous time. She saw that his intellect had become composed, and

"My father, Reuben?" she began; but the change in her lover's countenance made her pause.

The youth shrank as if with a bitter pain, and the blood gushed vividly into his wan and hollow cheeks. His

first impulse was to cover his face; but, apparently with a desperate effort, he half raised himself and spoke

"Your father was sore wounded in the battle, Dorcas; and he bade me not burden myself with him, but only to

lead him to the lakeside, that he might quench his thirst and die. But I would not desert the old man in his

extremity, and, though bleeding myself, I supported him; I gave him half my strength, and led him away with

me. For three days we journeyed on together, and your father was sustained beyond my hopes, but, awaking

at sunrise on the fourth day, I found him faint and exhausted; he was unable to proceed; his life had ebbed

Reuben felt it impossible to acknowledge that his selfish love of life had hurried him away before her father's

fate was decided. He spoke not; he only bowed his head; and, between shame and exhaustion, sank back and

hid his face in the pillow. Dorcas wept when her fears were thus confirmed; but the shock, as it had been long

"You dug a grave for my poor father in the wilderness, Reuben?" was the question by which her filial piety

"My hands were weak; but I did what I could," replied the youth in a smothered tone. "There stands a noble

Dorcas, perceiving the wildness of his latter words, inquired no further at the time; but her heart found ease in

the thought that Roger Malvin had not lacked such funeral rites as it was possible to bestow. The tale of

Reuben's courage and fidelity lost nothing when she communicated it to her friends; and the poor youth,

tottering from his sick chamber to breathe the sunny air, experienced from every tongue the miserable and

humiliating torture of unmerited praise. All acknowledged that he might worthily demand the hand of the fair

maiden to whose father he had been "faithful unto death;" and, as my tale is not of love, it shall suffice to say

that in the space of a few months Reuben became the husband of Dorcas Malvin. During the marriage

ceremony the bride was covered with blushes, but the bridegroom's face was pale.

There was now in the breast of Reuben Bourne an incommunicable thoughtsomething which he was to

conceal most heedfully from her whom he most loved and trusted. He regretted, deeply and bitterly, the

moral cowardice that had restrained his words when he was about to disclose the truth to Dorcas; but pride,

the fear of losing her affection, the dread of universal scorn, forbade him to rectify this falsehood. He felt that

for leaving Roger Malvin he deserved no censure. His presence, the gratuitous sacrifice of his own life,

would have added only another and a needless agony to the last moments of the dying man; but concealment

had imparted to a justifiable act much of the secret effect of guilt; and Reuben, while reason told him that he

had done right, experienced in no small degree the mental horrors which punish the perpetrator of

undiscovered crime. By a certain association of ideas, he at times almost imagined himself a murderer. For

years, also, a thought would occasionally recur, which, though he perceived all its folly and extravagance, he

had not power to banish from his mind. It was a haunting and torturing fancy that his fatherinlaw was yet

sitting at the foot of the rock, on the withered forest leaves, alive, and awaiting his pledged assistance. These

mental deceptions, however, came and went, nor did he ever mistake them for realities: but in the calmest and

clearest moods of his mind he was conscious that he had a deep vow unredeemed, and that an unburied

corpse was calling to him out of the wilderness. Yet such was the consequence of his prevarication that he

could not obey the call. It was now too late to require the assistance of Roger Malvin's friends in performing

his longdeferred sepulture; and superstitious fears, of which none were more susceptible than the people of

the outward settlements, forbade Reuben to go alone. Neither did he know where in the pathless and

illimitable forest to seek that smooth and lettered rock at the base of which the body lay: his remembrance of

every portion of his travel thence was indistinct, and the latter part had left no impression upon his mind.

There was, however, a continual impulse, a voice audible only to himself, commanding him to go forth and

redeem his vow; and he had a strange impression that, were he to make the trial, he would be led straight to

Malvin's bones. But year after year that summons, unheard but felt, was disobeyed. His one secret thought

became like a chain binding down his spirit and like a serpent gnawing into his heart; and he was transformed

In the course of a few years after their marriage changes began to be visible in the external prosperity of

Reuben and Dorcas. The only riches of the former had been his stout heart and strong arm; but the latter, her

father's sole heiress, had made her husband master of a farm, under older cultivation, larger, and better

stocked than most of the frontier establishments. Reuben Bourne, however, was a neglectful husbandman;

and, while the lands of the other settlers became annually more fruitful, his deteriorated in the same

proportion. The discouragements to agriculture were greatly lessened by the cessation of Indian war, during

which men held the plough in one hand and the musket in the other, and were fortunate if the products of

their dangerous labor were not destroyed, either in the field or in the barn, by the savage enemy. But Reuben

did not profit by the altered condition of the country; nor can it be denied that his intervals of industrious

attention to his affairs were but scantily rewarded with success. The irritability by which he had recently

become distinguished was another cause of his declining prosperity, as it occasioned frequent quarrels in his

unavoidable intercourse with the neighboring settlers. The results of these were innumerable lawsuits; for the

people of New England, in the earliest stages and wildest circumstances of the country, adopted, whenever

attainable, the legal mode of deciding their differences. To be brief, the world did not go well with Reuben

Bourne; and, though not till many years after his marriage, he was finally a ruined man, with but one

remaining expedient against the evil fate that had pursued him. He was to throw sunlight into some deep

recess of the forest, and seek subsistence from the virgin bosom of the wilderness.

The only child of Reuben and Dorcas was a son, now arrived at the age of fifteen years, beautiful in youth,

and giving promise of a glorious manhood. He was peculiarly qualified for, and already began to excel in, the

wild accomplishments of frontier life. His foot was fleet, his aim true, his apprehension quick, his heart glad

and high; and all who anticipated the return of Indian war spoke of Cyrus Bourne as a future leader in the

land. The boy was loved by his father with a deep and silent strength, as if whatever was good and happy in

his own nature had been transferred to his child, carrying his affections with it. Even Dorcas, though loving

and beloved, was far less dear to him; for Reuben's secret thoughts and insulated emotions had gradually

made him a selfish man, and he could no longer love deeply except where he saw or imagined some

reflection or likeness of his own mind. In Cyrus he recognized what he had himself been in other days; and at

intervals he seemed to partake of the boy's spirit, and to be revived with a fresh and happy life. Reuben was

accompanied by his son in the expedition, for the purpose of selecting a tract of land and felling and burning

the timber, which necessarily preceded the removal of the household gods. Two months of autumn were thus

occupied, after which Reuben Bourne and his young hunter returned to spend their last winter in the

It was early in the month of May that the little family snapped asunder whatever tendrils of affections had

clung to inanimate objects, and bade farewell to the few who, in the blight of fortune, called themselves their

friends. The sadness of the parting moment had, to each of the pilgrims, its peculiar alleviations. Reuben, a

moody man, and misanthropic because unhappy, strode onward with his usual stern brow and downcast eye,

feeling few regrets and disdaining to acknowledge any. Dorcas, while she wept abundantly over the broken

ties by which her simple and affectionate nature had bound itself to everything, felt that the inhabitants of her

inmost heart moved on with her, and that all else would be supplied wherever she might go. And the boy

dashed one teardrop from his eye, and thought of the adventurous pleasures of the untrodden forest.

Oh, who, in the enthusiasm of a daydream, has not wished that he were a wanderer in a world of summer

wilderness, with one fair and gentle being hanging lightly on his arm? In youth his free and exulting step

would know no barrier but the rolling ocean or the snowtopped mountains; calmer manhood would choose a

home where Nature had strewn a double wealth in the vale of some transparent stream; and when hoary age,

after long, long years of that pure life, stole on and found him there, it would find him the father of a race, the

patriarch of a people, the founder of a mighty nation yet to be. When death, like the sweet sleep which we

welcome after a day of happiness, came over him, his far descendants would mourn over the venerated dust.

Enveloped by tradition in mysterious attributes, the men of future generations would call him godlike; and

remote posterity would see him standing, dimly glorious, far up the valley of a hundred centuries.

The tangled and gloomy forest through which the personages of my tale were wandering differed widely

from the dreamer's land of fantasy; yet there was something in their way of life that Nature asserted as her

own, and the gnawing cares which went with them from the world were all that now obstructed their

happiness. One stout and shaggy steed, the bearer of all their wealth, did not shrink from the added weight of

Dorcas; although her hardy breeding sustained her, during the latter part of each day's journey, by her

husband's side. Reuben and his son, their muskets on their shoulders and their axes slung behind them, kept

an unwearied pace, each watching with a hunter's eye for the game that supplied their food. When hunger

bade, they halted and prepared their meal on the bank of some unpolluted forest brook, which, as they knelt

down with thirsty lips to drink, murmured a sweet unwillingness, like a maiden at love's first kiss. They slept

beneath a hut of branches, and awoke at peep of light refreshed for the toils of another day. Dorcas and the

boy went on joyously, and even Reuben's spirit shone at intervals with an outward gladness; but inwardly

there was a cold cold sorrow, which he compared to the snowdrifts lying deep in the glens and hollows of the

Cyrus Bourne was sufficiently skilled in the travel of the woods to observe that his father did not adhere to

the course they had pursued in their expedition of the preceding autumn. They were now keeping farther to

the north, striking out more directly from the settlements, and into a region of which savage beasts and

savage men were as yet the sole possessors. The boy sometimes hinted his opinions upon the subject, and

Reuben listened attentively, and once or twice altered the direction of their march in accordance with his

son's counsel; but, having so done, he seemed ill at ease. His quick and wandering glances were sent forward

apparently in search of enemies lurking behind the tree trunks, and, seeing nothing there, he would cast his

eyes backwards as if in fear of some pursuer. Cyrus, perceiving that his father gradually resumed the old

direction, forbore to interfere; nor, though something began to weigh upon his heart, did his adventurous

On the afternoon of the fifth day they halted, and made their simple encampment nearly an hour before

sunset. The face of the country, for the last few miles, had been diversified by swells of land resembling huge

waves of a petrified sea; and in one of the corresponding hollows, a wild and romantic spot, had the family

reared their hut and kindled their fire. There is something chilling, and yet heartwarming, in the thought of

these three, united by strong bands of love and insulated from all that breathe beside. The dark and gloomy

pines looked down upon them, and, as the wind swept through their tops, a pitying sound was heard in the

forest; or did those old trees groan in fear that men were come to lay the axe to their roots at last? Reuben and

his son, while Dorcas made ready their meal, proposed to wander out in search of game, of which that day's

march had afforded no supply. The boy, promising not to quit the vicinity of the encampment, bounded off

with a step as light and elastic as that of the deer he hoped to slay; while his father, feeling a transient

happiness as he gazed after him, was about to pursue an opposite direction. Dorcas in the meanwhile, had

seated herself near their fire of fallen branches upon the mossgrown and mouldering trunk of a tree uprooted

years before. Her employment, diversified by an occasional glance at the pot, now beginning to simmer over

the blaze, was the perusal of the current year's Massachusetts Almanac, which, with the exception of an old

blackletter Bible, comprised all the literary wealth of the family. None pay a greater regard to arbitrary

divisions of time than those who are excluded from society; and Dorcas mentioned, as if the information were

"The twelfth of May! I should remember it well," muttered he, while many thoughts occasioned a momentary

confusion in his mind. "Where am I? Whither am I wandering? Where did I leave him?"

Dorcas, too well accustomed to her husband's wayward moods to note any peculiarity of demeanor, now laid

aside the almanac and addressed him in that mournful tone which the tender hearted appropriate to griefs long

"It was near this time of the month, eighteen years ago, that my poor father left this world for a better. He had

a kind arm to hold his head and a kind voice to cheer him, Reuben, in his last moments; and the thought of

the faithful care you took of him has comforted me many a time since. Oh, death would have been awful to a

"Pray Heaven, Dorcas," said Reuben, in a broken voice,"pray Heaven that neither of us three dies solitary

and lies unburied in this howling wilderness!" And he hastened away, leaving her to watch the fire beneath

Reuben Bourne's rapid pace gradually slackened as the pang, unintentionally inflicted by the words of

Dorcas, became less acute. Many strange reflections, however, thronged upon him; and, straying onward

rather like a sleep walker than a hunter, it was attributable to no care of his own that his devious course kept

him in the vicinity of the encampment. His steps were imperceptibly led almost in a circle; nor did he observe

that he was on the verge of a tract of land heavily timbered, but not with pinetrees. The place of the latter

was here supplied by oaks and other of the harder woods; and around their roots clustered a dense and bushy

undergrowth, leaving, however, barren spaces between the trees, thick strewn with withered leaves.

Whenever the rustling of the branches or the creaking of the trunks made a sound, as if the forest were

waking from slumber, Reuben instinctively raised the musket that rested on his arm, and cast a quick, sharp

glance on every side; but, convinced by a partial observation that no animal was near, he would again give

himself up to his thoughts. He was musing on the strange influence that had led him away from his

premeditated course, and so far into the depths of the wilderness. Unable to penetrate to the secret place of his

soul where his motives lay hidden, he believed that a supernatural voice had called him onward, and that a

supernatural power had obstructed his retreat. He trusted that it was Heaven's intent to afford him an

opportunity of expiating his sin; he hoped that he might find the bones so long unburied; and that, having laid

the earth over them, peace would throw its sunlight into the sepulchre of his heart. From these thoughts he

was aroused by a rustling in the forest at some distance from the spot to which he had wandered. Perceiving

the motion of some object behind a thick veil of undergrowth, he fired, with the instinct of a hunter and the

aim of a practised marksman. A low moan, which told his success, and by which even animals cars express

their dying agony, was unheeded by Reuben Bourne. What were the recollections now breaking upon him?

The thicket into which Reuben had fired was near the summit of a swell of land, and was clustered around the

base of a rock, which, in the shape and smoothness of one of its surfaces, was not unlike a gigantic

gravestone. As if reflected in a mirror, its likeness was in Reuben's memory. He even recognized the veins

which seemed to form an inscription in forgotten characters: everything remained the same, except that a

thick covert of bushes shrouded the lowerpart of the rock, and would have hidden Roger Malvin had he still

been sitting there. Yet in the next moment Reuben's eye was caught by another change that time had effected

since he last stood where he was now standing again behind the earthy roots of the uptorn tree. The sapling to

which he had bound the bloodstained symbol of his vow had increased and strengthened into an oak, far

indeed from its maturity, but with no mean spread of shadowy branches. There was one singularity

observable in this tree which made Reuben tremble. The middle and lower branches were in luxuriant life,

and an excess of vegetation had fringed the trunk almost to the ground; but a blight had apparently stricken

the upper part of the oak, and the very topmost bough was withered, sapless, and utterly dead. Reuben

remembered how the little banner had fluttered on that topmost bough, when it was green and lovely,

Dorcas, after the departure of the two hunters, continued her preparations for their evening repast. Her sylvan

table was the mosscovered trunk of a large fallen tree, on the broadest part of which she had spread a

snowwhite cloth and arranged what were left of the bright pewter vessels that had been her pride in the

settlements. It had a strange aspect that one little spot of homely comfort in the desolate heart of Nature. The

sunshine yet lingered upon the higher branches of the trees that grew on rising ground; but the shadows of

evening had deepened into the hollow where the encampment was made, and the firelight began to redden as

it gleamed up the tall trunks of the pines or hovered on the dense and obscure mass of foliage that circled

round the spot. The heart of Dorcas was not sad; for she felt that it was better to journey in the wilderness

with two whom she loved than to be a lonely woman in a crowd that cared not for her. As she busied herself

in arranging seats of mouldering wood, covered with leaves, for Reuben and her son, her voice danced

through the gloomy forest in the measure of a song that she had learned in youth. The rude melody, the

production of a bard who won no name, was descriptive of a winter evening in a frontier cottage, when,

secured from savage inroad by the highpiled snowdrifts, the family rejoiced by their own fireside. The

whole song possessed the nameless charm peculiar to unborrowed thought, but four continuallyrecurring

lines shone out from the rest like the blaze of the hearth whose joys they celebrated. Into them, working

magic with a few simple words, the poet had instilled the very essence of domestic love and household

happiness, and they were poetry and picture joined in one. As Dorcas sang, the walls of her forsaken home

seemed to encircle her; she no longer saw the gloomy pines, nor heard the wind which still, as she began each

verse, sent a heavy breath through the branches, and died away in a hollow moan from the burden of the

song. She was aroused by the report of a gun in the vicinity of the encampment; and either the sudden sound,

or her loneliness by the glowing fire, caused her to tremble violently. The next moment she laughed in the

"My beautiful young hunter! My boy has slain a deer!" she exclaimed, recollecting that in the direction

She waited a reasonable time to hear her son's light step bounding over the rustling leaves to tell of his

success. But he did not immediately appear; and she sent her cheerful voice among the trees in search of him.

His coming was still delayed; and she determined, as the report had apparently been very near, to seek for

him in person. Her assistance, also, might be necessary in bringing home the venison which she flattered

herself he had obtained. She therefore set forward, directing her steps by the longpast sound, and singing as

she went, in order that the boy might be aware of her approach and run to meet her. From behind the trunk of

every tree, and from every hidingplace in the thick foliage of the undergrowth, she hoped to discover the

countenance of her son, laughing with the sportive mischief that is born of affection. The sun was now

beneath the horizon, and the light that came down among the leaves was sufficiently dim to create many

illusions in her expecting fancy. Several times she seemed indistinctly to see his face gazing out from among

the leaves; and once she imagined that he stood beckoning to her at the base of a craggy rock. Keeping her

eyes on this object, however, it proved to be no more than the trunk of an oak fringed to the very ground with

little branches, one of which, thrust out farther than the rest, was shaken by the breeze. Making her way round

the foot of the rock, she suddenly found herself close to her husband, who had approached in another

direction. Leaning upon the butt of his gun, the muzzle of which rested upon the withered leaves, he was

"How is this, Reuben? Have you slain the deer and fallen asleep over him?" exclaimed Dorcas, laughing

He stirred not, neither did he turn his eyes towards her; and a cold, shuddering fear, indefinite in its source

and object, began to creep into her blood. She now perceived that her husband's face was ghastly pale, and his

features were rigid, as if incapable of assuming any other expression than the strong despair which had

hardened upon them. He gave not the slightest evidence that he was aware of her approach.

"For the love of Heaven, Reuben, speak to me!" cried Dorcas; and the strange sound of her own voice

Her husband started, stared into her face, drew her to the front of the rock, and pointed with his finger.

Oh, there lay the boy, asleep, but dreamless, upon the fallen forest leaves! His cheek rested upon his

armhis curled locks were thrown back from his browhis limbs were slightly relaxed. Had a sudden

weariness overcome the youthful hunter? Would his mother's voice arouse him? She knew that it was death.

"This broad rock is the gravestone of your near kindred, Dorcas," said her husband. "Your tears will fall at

She heard him not. With one wild shriek, that seemed to force its way from the sufferer's inmost soul, she

sank insensible by the side of her dead boy. At that moment the withered topmost bough of the oak loosened

itself in the stilly air, and fell in soft, light fragments upon the rock, upon the leaves, upon Reuben, upon his

wife and child, and upon Roger Malvin's bones. Then Reuben's heart was stricken, and the tears gushed out

like water from a rock. The vow that the wounded youth had made the blighted man had come to redeem. His

sin was expiated,the curse was gone from him; and in the hour when he had shed blood dearer to him than

his own, a prayer, the first for years, went up to Heaven from the lips of Reuben Bourne.

An elderly man, with his pretty daughter on his arm, was passing along the street, and emerged from the

gloom of the cloudy evening into the light that fell across the pavement from the window of a small shop. It

was a projecting window; and on the inside were suspended a variety of watches, pinchbeck, silver, and one

or two of gold, all with their faces turned from the streets, as if churlishly disinclined to inform the wayfarers

what o'clock it was. Seated within the shop, sidelong to the window with his pale face bent earnestly over

some delicate piece of mechanism on which was thrown the concentrated lustre of a shade lamp, appeared a

"What can Owen Warland be about?" muttered old Peter Hovenden, himself a retired watchmaker, and the

former master of this same young man whose occupation he was now wondering at. "What can the fellow be

about? These six months past I have never come by his shop without seeing him just as steadily at work as

now. It would be a flight beyond his usual foolery to seek for the perpetual motion; and yet I know enough of

my old business to be certain that what he is now so busy with is no part of the machinery of a watch."

"Perhaps, father," said Annie, without showing much interest in the question, "Owen is inventing a new kind

"Poh, child! He has not the sort of ingenuity to invent anything better than a Dutch toy," answered her father,

who had formerly been put to much vexation by Owen Warland's irregular genius. "A plague on such

ingenuity! All the effect that ever I knew of it was to spoil the accuracy of some of the best watches in my

shop. He would turn the sun out of its orbit and derange the whole course of time, if, as I said before, his

"Hush, father! He hears you!" whispered Annie, pressing the old man's arm. "His ears are as delicate as his

So Peter Hovenden and his daughter Annie plodded on without further conversation, until in a bystreet of

the town they found themselves passing the open door of a blacksmith's shop. Within was seen the forge, now

blazing up and illuminating the high and dusky roof, and now confining its lustre to a narrow precinct of the

coalstrewn floor, according as the breath of the bellows was puffed forth or again inhaled into its vast

leathern lungs. In the intervals of brightness it was easy to distinguish objects in remote corners of the shop

and the horseshoes that hung upon the wall; in the momentary gloom the fire seemed to be glimmering

amidst the vagueness of unenclosed space. Moving about in this red glare and alternate dusk was the figure of

the blacksmith, well worthy to be viewed in so picturesque an aspect of light and shade, where the bright

blaze struggled with the black night, as if each would have snatched his comely strength from the other. Anon

he drew a whitehot bar of iron from the coals, laid it on the anvil, uplifted his arm of might, and was soon

enveloped in the myriads of sparks which the strokes of his hammer scattered into the surrounding gloom.

"Now, that is a pleasant sight," said the old watchmaker. "I know what it is to work in gold; but give me the

worker in iron after all is said and done. He spends his labor upon a reality. What say you, daughter Annie?"

"Pray don't speak so loud, father," whispered Annie, "Robert Danforth will hear you."

"And what if he should hear me?" said Peter Hovenden. "I say again, it is a good and a wholesome thing to

depend upon main strength and reality, and to earn one's bread with the bare and brawny arm of a blacksmith.

A watchmaker gets his brain puzzled by his wheels within a wheel, or loses his health or the nicety of his

eyesight, as was my case, and finds himself at middle age, or a little after, past labor at his own trade and fit

for nothing else, yet too poor to live at his ease. So I say once again, give me main strength for my money.

And then, how it takes the nonsense out of a man! Did you ever hear of a blacksmith being such a fool as

"Well said, uncle Hovenden!" shouted Robert Danforth from the forge, in a full, deep, merry voice, that made

the roof reecho. "And what says Miss Annie to that doctrine? She, I suppose, will think it a genteeler

business to tinker up a lady's watch than to forge a horseshoe or make a gridiron."

But we must return to Owen Warland's shop, and spend more meditation upon his history and character than

either Peter Hovenden, or probably his daughter Annie, or Owen's old schoolfellow, Robert Danforth,

would have thought due to so slight a subject. From the time that his little fingers could grasp a penknife,

Owen had been remarkable for a delicate ingenuity, which sometimes produced pretty shapes in wood,

principally figures of flowers and birds, and sometimes seemed to aim at the hidden mysteries of mechanism.

But it was always for purposes of grace, and never with any mockery of the useful. He did not, like the crowd

of schoolboy artisans, construct little windmills on the angle of a barn or watermills across the neighboring

brook. Those who discovered such peculiarity in the boy as to think it worth their while to observe him

closely, sometimes saw reason to suppose that he was attempting to imitate the beautiful movements of

Nature as exemplified in the flight of birds or the activity of little animals. It seemed, in fact, a new

development of the love of the beautiful, such as might have made him a poet, a painter, or a sculptor, and

which was as completely refined from all utilitarian coarseness as it could have been in either of the fine arts.

He looked with singular distaste at the stiff and regular processes of ordinary machinery. Being once carried

to see a steamengine, in the expectation that his intuitive comprehension of mechanical principles would be

gratified, he turned pale and grew sick, as if something monstrous and unnatural had been presented to him.

This horror was partly owing to the size and terrible energy of the iron laborer; for the character of Owen's

mind was microscopic, and tended naturally to the minute, in accordance with his diminutive frame and the

marvellous smallness and delicate power of his fingers. Not that his sense of beauty was thereby diminished

into a sense of prettiness. The beautiful idea has no relation to size, and may be as perfectly developed in a

space too minute for any but microscopic investigation as within the ample verge that is measured by the arc

of the rainbow. But, at all events, this characteristic minuteness in his objects and accomplishments made the

world even more incapable than it might otherwise have been of appreciating Owen Warland's genius. The

boy's relatives saw nothing better to be doneas perhaps there was notthan to bind him apprentice to a

watchmaker, hoping that his strange ingenuity might thus be regulated and put to utilitarian purposes.

Peter Hovenden's opinion of his apprentice has already been expressed. He could make nothing of the lad.

Owen's apprehension of the professional mysteries, it is true, was inconceivably quick; but he altogether

forgot or despised the grand object of a watchmaker's business, and cared no more for the measurement of

time than if it had been merged into eternity. So long, however, as he remained under his old master's care,

Owen's lack of sturdiness made it possible, by strict injunctions and sharp oversight, to restrain his creative

eccentricity within bounds; but when his apprenticeship was served out, and he had taken the little shop

which Peter Hovenden's failing eyesight compelled him to relinquish, then did people recognize how unfit a

person was Owen Warland to lead old blind Father Time along his daily course. One of his most rational

projects was to connect a musical operation with the machinery of his watches, so that all the harsh

dissonances of life might be rendered tuneful, and each flitting moment fall into the abyss of the past in

golden drops of harmony. If a family clock was intrusted to him for repair,one of those tall, ancient clocks

that have grown nearly allied to human nature by measuring out the lifetime of many generations,he would

take upon himself to arrange a dance or funeral procession of figures across its venerable face, representing

twelve mirthful or melancholy hours. Several freaks of this kind quite destroyed the young watchmaker's

credit with that steady and matteroffact class of people who hold the opinion that time is not to be trifled

with, whether considered as the medium of advancement and prosperity in this world or preparation for the

next. His custom rapidly diminisheda misfortune, however, that was probably reckoned among his better

accidents by Owen Warland, who was becoming more and more absorbed in a secret occupation which drew

all his science and manual dexterity into itself, and likewise gave full employment to the characteristic

After the old watchmaker and his pretty daughter had gazed at him out of the obscurity of the street, Owen

Warland was seized with a fluttering of the nerves, which made his hand tremble too violently to proceed

"It was Annie herself!" murmured he. "I should have known it, by this throbbing of my heart, before I heard

her father's voice. Ah, how it throbs! I shall scarcely be able to work again on this exquisite mechanism

tonight. Annie! dearest Annie! thou shouldst give firmness to my heart and hand, and not shake them thus;

for if I strive to put the very spirit of beauty into form and give it motion, it is for thy sake alone. O throbbing

heart, be quiet! If my labor be thus thwarted, there will come vague and unsatisfied dreams which will leave

As he was endeavoring to settle himself again to his task, the shop door opened and gave admittance to no

other than the stalwart figure which Peter Hovenden had paused to admire, as seen amid the light and shadow

of the blacksmith's shop. Robert Danforth had brought a little anvil of his own manufacture, and peculiarly

constructed, which the young artist had recently bespoken. Owen examined the article and pronounced it

"Why, yes," said Robert Danforth, his strong voice filling the shop as with the sound of a bass viol, "I

consider myself equal to anything in the way of my own trade; though I should have made but a poor figure

at yours with such a fist as this," added he, laughing, as he laid his vast hand beside the delicate one of Owen.

"But what then? I put more main strength into one blow of my sledge hammer than all that you have

"Very probably," answered the low and slender voice of Owen. "Strength is an earthly monster. I make no

pretensions to it. My force, whatever there may be of it, is altogether spiritual."

"Well, but, Owen, what are you about?" asked his old schoolfellow, still in such a hearty volume of tone

that it made the artist shrink, especially as the question related to a subject so sacred as the absorbing dream

of his imagination. "Folks do say that you are trying to discover the perpetual motion."

"The perpetual motion? Nonsense!" replied Owen Warland, with a movement of disgust; for he was full of

little petulances. "It can never be discovered. It is a dream that may delude men whose brains are mystified

with matter, but not me. Besides, if such a discovery were possible, it would not be worth my while to make

it only to have the secret turned to such purposes as are now effected by steam and water power. I am not

"That would be droll enough!" cried the blacksmith, breaking out into such an uproar of laughter that Owen

himself and the bell glasses on his workboard quivered in unison. "No, no, Owen! No child of yours will

have iron joints and sinews. Well, I won't hinder you any more. Good night, Owen, and success, and if you

need any assistance, so far as a downright blow of hammer upon anvil will answer the purpose, I'm your

"How strange it is," whispered Owen Warland to himself, leaning his head upon his hand, "that all my

musings, my purposes, my passion for the beautiful, my consciousness of power to create it,a finer, more

ethereal power, of which this earthly giant can have no conception,all, all, look so vain and idle whenever

my path is crossed by Robert Danforth! He would drive me mad were I to meet him often. His hard, brute

force darkens and confuses the spiritual element within me; but I, too, will be strong in my own way. I will

He took from beneath a glass a piece of minute machinery, which he set in the condensed light of his lamp,

and, looking intently at it through a magnifying glass, proceeded to operate with a delicate instrument of

steel. In an instant, however, he fell back in his chair and clasped his hands, with a look of horror on his face

"Heaven! What have I done?" exclaimed he. "The vapor, the influence of that brute force,it has bewildered

me and obscured my perception. I have made the very strokethe fatal strokethat I have dreaded from the

And there he sat, in strange despair, until his lamp flickered in the socket and left the Artist of the Beautiful in

Thus it is that ideas, which grow up within the imagination and appear so lovely to it and of a value beyond

whatever men call valuable, are exposed to be shattered and annihilated by contact with the practical. It is

requisite for the ideal artist to possess a force of character that seems hardly compatible with its delicacy; he

must keep his faith in himself while the incredulous world assails him with its utter disbelief; he must stand

up against mankind and be his own sole disciple, both as respects his genius and the objects to which it is

For a time Owen Warland succumbed to this severe but inevitable test. He spent a few sluggish weeks with

his head so continually resting in his hands that the townspeople had scarcely an opportunity to see his

countenance. When at last it was again uplifted to the light of day, a cold, dull, nameless change was

perceptible upon it. In the opinion of Peter Hovenden, however, and that order of sagacious understandings

who think that life should be regulated, like clockwork, with leaden weights, the alteration was entirely for

the better. Owen now, indeed, applied himself to business with dogged industry. It was marvellous to witness

the obtuse gravity with which he would inspect the wheels of a great old silver watch thereby delighting the

owner, in whose fob it had been worn till he deemed it a portion of his own life, and was accordingly jealous

of its treatment. In consequence of the good report thus acquired, Owen Warland was invited by the proper

authorities to regulate the clock in the church steeple. He succeeded so admirably in this matter of public

interest that the merchants gruffly acknowledged his merits on 'Change; the nurse whispered his praises as

she gave the potion in the sickchamber; the lover blessed him at the hour of appointed interview; and the

town in general thanked Owen for the punctuality of dinner time. In a word, the heavy weight upon his spirits

kept everything in order, not merely within his own system, but wheresoever the iron accents of the church

clock were audible. It was a circumstance, though minute, yet characteristic of his present state, that, when

employed to engrave names or initials on silver spoons, he now wrote the requisite letters in the plainest

possible style, omitting a variety of fanciful flourishes that had heretofore distinguished his work in this kind.

One day, during the era of this happy transformation, old Peter Hovenden came to visit his former apprentice.

"Well, Owen," said he, "I am glad to hear such good accounts of you from all quarters, and especially from

the town clock yonder, which speaks in your commendation every hour of the twentyfour. Only get rid

altogether of your nonsensical trash about the beautiful, which I nor nobody else, nor yourself to boot, could

ever understand,only free yourself of that, and your success in life is as sure as daylight. Why, if you go on

in this way, I should even venture to let you doctor this precious old watch of mine; though, except my

"I should hardly dare touch it, sir," replied Owen, in a depressed tone; for he was weighed down by his old

The old watchmaker, with the freedom naturally consequent on his former authority, went on inspecting the

work which Owen had in hand at the moment, together with other matters that were in progress. The artist,

meanwhile, could scarcely lift his head. There was nothing so antipodal to his nature as this man's cold,

unimaginative sagacity, by contact with which everything was converted into a dream except the densest

matter of the physical world. Owen groaned in spirit and prayed fervently to be delivered from him.

"But what is this?" cried Peter Hovenden abruptly, taking up a dusty bell glass, beneath which appeared a

mechanical something, as delicate and minute as the system of a butterfly's anatomy. "What have we here?

Owen! Owen! there is witchcraft in these little chains, and wheels, and paddles. See! with one pinch of my

"For Heaven's sake," screamed Owen Warland, springing up with wonderful energy, "as you would not drive

me mad, do not touch it! The slightest pressure of your finger would ruin me forever."

"Aha, young man! And is it so?" said the old watchmaker, looking at him with just enough penetration to

torture Owen's soul with the bitterness of worldly criticism. "Well, take your own course; but I warn you

again that in this small piece of mechanism lives your evil spirit. Shall I exorcise him?"

"You are my evil spirit," answered Owen, much excited,"you and the hard, coarse world! The leaden

thoughts and the despondency that you fling upon me are my clogs, else I should long ago have achieved the

Peter Hovenden shook his head, with the mixture of contempt and indignation which mankind, of whom he

was partly a representative, deem themselves entitled to feel towards all simpletons who seek other prizes

than the dusty one along the highway. He then took his leave, with an uplifted finger and a sneer upon his

face that haunted the artist's dreams for many a night afterwards. At the time of his old master's visit, Owen

was probably on the point of taking up the relinquished task; but, by this sinister event, he was thrown back

But the innate tendency of his soul had only been accumulating fresh vigor during its apparent sluggishness.

As the summer advanced he almost totally relinquished his business, and permitted Father Time, so far as the

old gentleman was represented by the clocks and watches under his control, to stray at random through

human life, making infinite confusion among the train of bewildered hours. He wasted the sunshine, as

people said, in wandering through the woods and fields and along the banks of streams. There, like a child, he

found amusement in chasing butterflies or watching the motions of water insects. There was something truly

mysterious in the intentness with which he contemplated these living playthings as they sported on the breeze

or examined the structure of an imperial insect whom he had imprisoned. The chase of butterflies was an apt

emblem of the ideal pursuit in which he had spent so many golden hours; but would the beautiful idea ever be

yielded to his hand like the butterfly that symbolized it? Sweet, doubtless, were these days, and congenial to

the artist's soul. They were full of bright conceptions, which gleamed through his intellectual world as the

butterflies gleamed through the outward atmosphere, and were real to him, for the instant, without the toil,

and perplexity, and many disappointments of attempting to make them visible to the sensual eye. Alas that

the artist, whether in poetry, or whatever other material, may not content himself with the inward enjoyment

of the beautiful, but must chase the flitting mystery beyond the verge of his ethereal domain, and crush its

frail being in seizing it with a material grasp. Owen Warland felt the impulse to give external reality to his

ideas as irresistibly as any of the poets or painters who have arrayed the world in a dimmer and fainter

The night was now his time for the slow progress of recreating the one idea to which all his intellectual

activity referred itself. Always at the approach of dusk he stole into the town, locked himself within his shop,

and wrought with patient delicacy of touch for many hours. Sometimes he was startled by the rap of the

watchman, who, when all the world should be asleep, had caught the gleam of lamplight through the crevices

of Owen Warland's shutters. Daylight, to the morbid sensibility of his mind, seemed to have an intrusiveness

that interfered with his pursuits. On cloudy and inclement days, therefore, he sat with his head upon his

hands, muffling, as it were, his sensitive brain in a mist of indefinite musings, for it was a relief to escape

from the sharp distinctness with which he was compelled to shape out his thoughts during his nightly toil.

From one of these fits of torpor he was aroused by the entrance of Annie Hovenden, who came into the shop

with the freedom of a customer, and also with something of the familiarity of a childish friend. She had worn

"But I don't know whether you will condescend to such a task," said she, laughing, "now that you are so taken

"Oh, out of my own head," answered she, "and from something that I heard you say, long ago, when you

were but a boy and I a little child. But come, will you mend this poor thimble of mine?"

"Anything for your sake, Annie," said Owen Warland,"anything, even were it to work at Robert Danforth's

"And that would be a pretty sight!" retorted Annie, glancing with imperceptible slightness at the artist's small

"But that is a strange idea of yours," said Owen, "about the spiritualization of matter."

And then the thought stole into his mind that this young girl possessed the gift to comprehend him better than

all the world besides. And what a help and strength would it be to him in his lonely toil if he could gain the

sympathy of the only being whom he loved! To persons whose pursuits are insulated from the common

business of lifewho are either in advance of mankind or apart from itthere often comes a sensation of

moral cold that makes the spirit shiver as if it had reached the frozen solitudes around the pole. What the

prophet, the poet, the reformer, the criminal, or any other man with human yearnings, but separated from the

"Annie," cried he, growing pale as death at the thought, "how gladly would I tell you the secret of my pursuit!

You, methinks, would estimate it rightly. You, I know, would hear it with a reverence that I must not expect

"Would I not? to be sure I would!" replied Annie Hovenden, lightly laughing. "Come; explain to me quickly

what is the meaning of this little whirligig, so delicately wrought that it might be a plaything for Queen Mab.

Annie had but given the slightest possible touch, with the point of a needle, to the same minute portion of

complicated machinery which has been more than once mentioned, when the artist seized her by the wrist

with a force that made her scream aloud. She was affrighted at the convulsion of intense rage and anguish

that writhed across his features. The next instant he let his head sink upon his hands.

"Go, Annie," murmured he; "I have deceived myself, and must suffer for it. I yearned for sympathy, and

thought, and fancied, and dreamed that you might give it me; but you lack the talisman, Annie, that should

admit you into my secrets. That touch has undone the toil of months and the thought of a lifetime! It was not

Poor Owen Warland! He had indeed erred, yet pardonably; for if any human spirit could have sufficiently

reverenced the processes so sacred in his eyes, it must have been a woman's. Even Annie Hovenden, possibly

might not have disappointed him had she been enlightened by the deep intelligence of love.

The artist spent the ensuing winter in a way that satisfied any persons who had hitherto retained a hopeful

opinion of him that he was, in truth, irrevocably doomed to unutility as regarded the world, and to an evil

destiny on his own part. The decease of a relative had put him in possession of a small inheritance. Thus

freed from the necessity of toil, and having lost the steadfast influence of a great purpose,great, at least, to

him,he abandoned himself to habits from which it might have been supposed the mere delicacy of his

organization would have availed to secure him. But when the ethereal portion of a man of genius is obscured

the earthly part assumes an influence the more uncontrollable, because the character is now thrown off the

balance to which Providence had so nicely adjusted it, and which, in coarser natures, is adjusted by some

other method. Owen Warland made proof of whatever show of bliss may be found in riot. He looked at the

world through the golden medium of wine, and contemplated the visions that bubble up so gayly around the

brim of the glass, and that people the air with shapes of pleasant madness, which so soon grow ghostly and

forlorn. Even when this dismal and inevitable change had taken place, the young man might still have

continued to quaff the cup of enchantments, though its vapor did but shroud life in gloom and fill the gloom

with spectres that mocked at him. There was a certain irksomeness of spirit, which, being real, and the

deepest sensation of which the artist was now conscious, was more intolerable than any fantastic miseries and

horrors that the abuse of wine could summon up. In the latter case he could remember, even out of the midst

of his trouble, that all was but a delusion; in the former, the heavy anguish was his actual life.

From this perilous state he was redeemed by an incident which more than one person witnessed, but of which

the shrewdest could not explain or conjecture the operation on Owen Warland's mind. It was very simple. On

a warm afternoon of spring, as the artist sat among his riotous companions with a glass of wine before him, a

"Ah," exclaimed Owen, who had drank freely, "are you alive again, child of the sun and playmate of the

summer breeze, after your dismal winter's nap? Then it is time for me to be at work!"

And, leaving his unemptied glass upon the table, he departed and was never known to sip another drop of

And now, again, he resumed his wanderings in the woods and fields. It might be fancied that the bright

butterfly, which had come so spiritlike into the window as Owen sat with the rude revellers, was indeed a

spirit commissioned to recall him to the pure, ideal life that had so etheralized him among men. It might be

fancied that he went forth to seek this spirit in its sunny haunts; for still, as in the summer time gone by, he

was seen to steal gently up wherever a butterfly had alighted, and lose himself in contemplation of it. When it

took flight his eyes followed the winged vision, as if its airy track would show the path to heaven. But what

could be the purpose of the unseasonable toil, which was again resumed, as the watchman knew by the lines

of lamplight through the crevices of Owen Warland's shutters? The townspeople had one comprehensive

explanation of all these singularities. Owen Warland had gone mad! How universally efficacioushow

satisfactory, too, and soothing to the injured sensibility of narrowness and dulnessis this easy method of

accounting for whatever lies beyond the world's most ordinary scope! From St. Paul's days down to our poor

little Artist of the Beautiful, the same talisman had been applied to the elucidation of all mysteries in the

words or deeds of men who spoke or acted too wisely or too well. In Owen Warland's case the judgment of

his townspeople may have been correct. Perhaps he was mad. The lack of sympathythat contrast between

himself and his neighbors which took away the restraint of examplewas enough to make him so. Or

possibly he had caught just so much of ethereal radiance as served to bewilder him, in an earthly sense, by its

One evening, when the artist had returned from a customary ramble and had just thrown the lustre of his lamp

on the delicate piece of work so often interrupted, but still taken up again, as if his fate were embodied in its

mechanism, he was surprised by the entrance of old Peter Hovenden. Owen never met this man without a

shrinking of the heart. Of all the world he was most terrible, by reason of a keen understanding which saw so

distinctly what it did see, and disbelieved so uncompromisingly in what it could not see. On this occasion the

"Oh, but it must be so," quoth Peter Hovenden, "for the sake of the days when you were one of the

household. What, my boy! don't you know that my daughter Annie is engaged to Robert Danforth? We are

That little monosyllable was all he uttered; its tone seemed cold and unconcerned to an ear like Peter

Hovenden's; and yet there was in it the stifled outcry of the poor artist's heart, which he compressed within

him like a man holding down an evil spirit. One slight outbreak. however, imperceptible to the old

watchmaker, he allowed himself. Raising the instrument with which he was about to begin his work, he let it

fall upon the little system of machinery that had, anew, cost him months of thought and toil. It was shattered

Owen Warland's story would have been no tolerable representation of the troubled life of those who strive to

create the beautiful, if, amid all other thwarting influences, love had not interposed to steal the cunning from

his hand. Outwardly he had been no ardent or enterprising lover; the career of his passion had confined its

tumults and vicissitudes so entirely within the artist's imagination that Annie herself had scarcely more than a

woman's intuitive perception of it; but, in Owen's view, it covered the whole field of his life. Forgetful of the

time when she had shown herself incapable of any deep response, he had persisted in connecting all his

dreams of artistical success with Annie's image; she was the visible shape in which the spiritual power that he

worshipped, and on whose altar he hoped to lay a not unworthy offering, was made manifest to him. Of

course he had deceived himself; there were no such attributes in Annie Hovenden as his imagination had

endowed her with. She, in the aspect which she wore to his inward vision, was as much a creature of his own

as the mysterious piece of mechanism would be were it ever realized. Had he become convinced of his

mistake through the medium of successful love,had he won Annie to his bosom, and there beheld her fade

from angel into ordinary woman,the disappointment might have driven him back, with concentrated

energy, upon his sole remaining object. On the other hand, had he found Annie what he fancied, his lot would

have been so rich in beauty that out of its mere redundancy he might have wrought the beautiful into many a

worthier type than he had toiled for; but the guise in which his sorrow came to him, the sense that the angel of

his life had been snatched away and given to a rude man of earth and iron, who could neither need nor

appreciate her ministrations,this was the very perversity of fate that makes human existence appear too

absurd and contradictory to be the scene of one other hope or one other fear. There was nothing left for Owen

He went through a fit of illness. After his recovery his small and slender frame assumed an obtuser garniture

of flesh than it had ever before worn. His thin cheeks became round; his delicate little hand, so spiritually

fashioned to achieve fairy taskwork, grew plumper than the hand of a thriving infant. His aspect had a

childishness such as might have induced a stranger to pat him on the headpausing, however, in the act, to

wonder what manner of child was here. It was as if the spirit had gone out of him, leaving the body to

flourish in a sort of vegetable existence. Not that Owen Warland was idiotic. He could talk, and not

irrationally. Somewhat of a babbler, indeed, did people begin to think him; for he was apt to discourse at

wearisome length of marvels of mechanism that he had read about in books, but which he had learned to

consider as absolutely fabulous. Among them he enumerated the Man of Brass, constructed by Albertus

Magnus, and the Brazen Head of Friar Bacon; and, coming down to later times, the automata of a little coach

and horses, which it was pretended had been manufactured for the Dauphin of France; together with an insect

that buzzed about the ear like a living fly, and yet was but a contrivance of minute steel springs. There was a

story, too, of a duck that waddled, and quacked, and ate; though, had any honest citizen purchased it for

dinner, he would have found himself cheated with the mere mechanical apparition of a duck.

"But all these accounts," said Owen Warland, "I am now satisfied are mere impositions."

Then, in a mysterious way, he would confess that he once thought differently. In his idle and dreamy days he

had considered it possible, in a certain sense, to spiritualize machinery, and to combine with the new species

of life and motion thus produced a beauty that should attain to the ideal which Nature has proposed to herself

in all her creatures, but has never taken pains to realize. He seemed, however, to retain no very distinct

perception either of the process of achieving this object or of the design itself.

"I have thrown it all aside now," he would say. "It was a dream such as young men are always mystifying

themselves with. Now that I have acquired a little common sense, it makes me laugh to think of it."

Poor, poor and fallen Owen Warland! These were the symptoms that he had ceased to be an inhabitant of the

better sphere that lies unseen around us. He had lost his faith in the invisible, and now prided himself, as such

unfortunates invariably do, in the wisdom which rejected much that even his eye could see, and trusted

confidently in nothing but what his hand could touch. This is the calamity of men whose spiritual part dies

out of them and leaves the grosser understanding to assimilate them more and more to the things of which

alone it can take cognizance; but in Owen Warland the spirit was not dead nor passed away; it only slept.

How it awoke again is not recorded. Perhaps the torpid slumber was broken by a convulsive pain. Perhaps, as

in a former instance, the butterfly came and hovered about his head and reinspired him,as indeed this

creature of the sunshine had always a mysterious mission for the artist,reinspired him with the former

purpose of his life. Whether it were pain or happiness that thrilled through his veins, his first impulse was to

thank Heaven for rendering him again the being of thought, imagination, and keenest sensibility that he had

Yet, strong as he felt himself, he was incited to toil the more diligently by an anxiety lest death should

surprise him in the midst of his labors. This anxiety, perhaps, is common to all men who set their hearts upon

anything so high, in their own view of it, that life becomes of importance only as conditional to its

accomplishment. So long as we love life for itself, we seldom dread the losing it. When we desire life for the

attainment of an object, we recognize the frailty of its texture. But, side by side with this sense of insecurity,

there is a vital faith in our invulnerability to the shaft of death while engaged in any task that seems assigned

by Providence as our proper thing to do, and which the world would have cause to mourn for should we leave

it unaccomplished. Can the philosopher, big with the inspiration of an idea that is to reform mankind, believe

that he is to be beckoned from this sensible existence at the very instant when he is mustering his breath to

speak the word of light? Should he perish so, the weary ages may pass awaythe world's, whose life sand

may fall, drop by dropbefore another intellect is prepared to develop the truth that might have been uttered

then. But history affords many an example where the most precious spirit, at any particular epoch manifested

in human shape, has gone hence untimely, without space allowed him, so far as mortal judgment could

discern, to perform his mission on the earth. The prophet dies, and the man of torpid heart and sluggish brain

lives on. The poet leaves his song half sung, or finishes it, beyond the scope of mortal ears, in a celestial

choir. The painteras Allston didleaves half his conception on the canvas to sadden us with its imperfect

beauty, and goes to picture forth the whole, if it be no irreverence to say so, in the hues of heaven. But rather

such incomplete designs of this life will be perfected nowhere. This so frequent abortion of man's dearest

projects must be taken as a proof that the deeds of earth, however etherealized by piety or genius, are without

value, except as exercises and manifestations of the spirit. In heaven, all ordinary thought is higher and more

melodious than Milton's song. Then, would he add another verse to any strain that he had left unfinished

But to return to Owen Warland. It was his fortune, good or ill, to achieve the purpose of his life. Pass we over

a long space of intense thought, yearning effort, minute toil, and wasting anxiety, succeeded by an instant of

solitary triumph: let all this be imagined; and then behold the artist, on a winter evening, seeking admittance

to Robert Danforth's fireside circle. There he found the man of iron, with his massive substance thoroughly

warmed and attempered by domestic influences. And there was Annie, too, now transformed into a matron,

with much of her husband's plain and sturdy nature, but imbued, as Owen Warland still believed, with a finer

grace, that might enable her to be the interpreter between strength and beauty. It happened, likewise, that old

Peter Hovenden was a guest this evening at his daughter's fireside, and it was his wellremembered

"My old friend Owen!" cried Robert Danforth, starting up, and compressing the artist's delicate fingers within

a hand that was accustomed to gripe bars of iron. "This is kind and neighborly to come to us at last. I was

afraid your perpetual motion had bewitched you out of the remembrance of old times."

"We are glad to see you," said Annie, while a blush reddened her matronly cheek. "It was not like a friend to

"Well, Owen," inquired the old watchmaker, as his first greeting, "how comes on the beautiful? Have you

The artist did not immediately reply, being startled by the apparition of a young child of strength that was

tumbling about on the carpet,a little personage who had come mysteriously out of the infinite, but with

something so sturdy and real in his composition that he seemed moulded out of the densest substance which

earth could supply. This hopeful infant crawled towards the newcomer, and setting himself on end, as

Robert Danforth expressed the posture, stared at Owen with a look of such sagacious observation that the

mother could not help exchanging a proud glance with her husband. But the artist was disturbed by the child's

look, as imagining a resemblance between it and Peter Hovenden's habitual expression. He could have

fancied that the old watchmaker was compressed into this baby shape, and looking out of those baby eyes,

and repeating, as he now did, the malicious question: "The beautiful, Owen! How comes on the beautiful?

"I have succeeded," replied the artist, with a momentary light of triumph in his eyes and a smile of sunshine,

yet steeped in such depth of thought that it was almost sadness. "Yes, my friends, it is the truth. I have

"Indeed!" cried Annie, a look of maiden mirthfulness peeping out of her face again. "And is it lawful, now, to

"Surely; it is to disclose it that I have come," answered Owen Warland. "You shall know, and see, and touch,

and possess the secret! For, Annie,if by that name I may still address the friend of my boyish

years,Annie, it is for your bridal gift that I have wrought this spiritualized mechanism, this harmony of

motion, this mystery of beauty. It comes late, indeed; but it is as we go onward in life, when objects begin to

lose their freshness of hue and our souls their delicacy of perception, that the spirit of beauty is most needed.

If,forgive me, Annie,if you know howto value this gift, it can never come too late."

He produced, as he spoke, what seemed a jewel box. It was carved richly out of ebony by his own hand, and

inlaid with a fanciful tracery of pearl, representing a boy in pursuit of a butterfly, which, elsewhere, had

become a winged spirit, and was flying heavenward; while the boy, or youth, had found such efficacy in his

strong desire that he ascended from earth to cloud, and from cloud to celestial atmosphere, to win the

beautiful. This case of ebony the artist opened, and bade Annie place her fingers on its edge. She did so, but

almost screamed as a butterfly fluttered forth, and, alighting on her finger's tip, sat waving the ample

magnificence of its purple and goldspeckled wings, as if in prelude to a flight. It is impossible to express by

words the glory, the splendor, the delicate gorgeousness which were softened into the beauty of this object.

Nature's ideal butterfly was here realized in all its perfection; not in the pattern of such faded insects as flit

among earthly flowers, but of those which hover across the meads of paradise for childangels and the spirits

of departed infants to disport themselves with. The rich down was visible upon its wings; the lustre of its eyes

seemed instinct with spirit. The firelight glimmered around this wonderthe candles gleamed upon it; but it

glistened apparently by its own radiance, and illuminated the finger and outstretched hand on which it rested

with a white gleam like that of precious stones. In its perfect beauty, the consideration of size was entirely

lost. Had its wings overreached the firmament, the mind could not have been more filled or satisfied.

"Alive? To be sure it is," answered her husband. "Do you suppose any mortal has skill enough to make a

butterfly, or would put himself to the trouble of making one, when any child may catch a score of them in a

summer's afternoon? Alive? Certainly! But this pretty box is undoubtedly of our friend Owen's manufacture;

At this moment the butterfly waved its wings anew, with a motion so absolutely lifelike that Annie was

startled, and even awestricken; for, in spite of her husband's opinion, she could not satisfy herself whether it

"Judge for yourself," said Owen Warland, who stood gazing in her face with fixed attention.

The butterfly now flung itself upon the air, fluttered round Annie's head, and soared into a distant region of

the parlor, still making itself perceptible to sight by the starry gleam in which the motion of its wings

enveloped it. The infant on the floor followed its course with his sagacious little eyes. After flying about the

"But is it alive?" exclaimed she again; and the finger on which the gorgeous mystery had alighted was so

tremulous that the butterfly was forced to balance himself with his wings. "Tell me if it be alive, or whether

"Wherefore ask who created it, so it be beautiful?" replied Owen Warland. "Alive? Yes, Annie; it may well

be said to possess life, for it has absorbed my own being into itself; and in the secret of that butterfly, and in

its beauty,which is not merely outward, but deep as its whole system,is represented the intellect, the

imagination, the sensibility, the soul of an Artist of the Beautiful! Yes; I created it. But"and here his

countenance somewhat changed"this butterfly is not now to me what it was when I beheld it afar off in the

"Be it what it may, it is a pretty plaything," said the blacksmith, grinning with childlike delight. "I wonder

whether it would condescend to alight on such a great clumsy finger as mine? Hold it hither, Annie."

By the artist's direction, Annie touched her finger's tip to that of her husband; and, after a momentary delay,

the butterfly fluttered from one to the other. It preluded a second flight by a similar, yet not precisely the

same, waving of wings as in the first experiment; then, ascending from the blacksmith's stalwart finger, it

rose in a gradually enlarging curve to the ceiling, made one wide sweep around the room, and returned with

"Well, that does beat all nature!" cried Robert Danforth, bestowing the heartiest praise that he could find

expression for; and, indeed, had he paused there, a man of finer words and nicer perception could not easily

have said more. "That goes beyond me, I confess. But what then? There is more real use in one downright

blow of my sledge hammer than in the whole five years' labor that our friend Owen has wasted on this

Here the child clapped his hands and made a great babble of indistinct utterance, apparently demanding that

Owen Warland, meanwhile, glanced sidelong at Annie, to discover whether she sympathized in her husband's

estimate of the comparative value of the beautiful and the practical. There was, amid all her kindness towards

himself, amid all the wonder and admiration with which she contemplated the marvellous work of his hands

and incarnation of his idea, a secret scorntoo secret, perhaps, for her own consciousness, and perceptible

only to such intuitive discernment as that of the artist. But Owen, in the latter stages of his pursuit, had risen

out of the region in which such a discovery might have been torture. He knew that the world, and Annie as

the representative of the world, whatever praise might be bestowed, could never say the fitting word nor feel

the fitting sentiment which should be the perfect recompense of an artist who, symbolizing a lofty moral by a

material trifle,converting what was earthly to spiritual gold,had won the beautiful into his handiwork.

Not at this latest moment was he to learn that the reward of all high performance must be sought within itself,

or sought in vain. There was, however, a view of the matter which Annie and her husband, and even Peter

Hovenden, might fully have understood, and which would have satisfied them that the toil of years had here

been worthily bestowed. Owen Warland might have told them that this butterfly, this plaything, this bridal

gift of a poor watchmaker to a blacksmith's wife, was, in truth, a gem of art that a monarch would have

purchased with honors and abundant wealth, and have treasured it among the jewels of his kingdom as the

most unique and wondrous of them all. But the artist smiled and kept the secret to himself .

"Father," said Annie, thinking that a word of praise from the old watchmaker might gratify his former

"Let us see," said Peter Hovenden, rising from his chair, with a sneer upon his face that always made people

doubt, as he himself did, in everything but a material existence. "Here is my finger for it to alight upon. I

But, to the increased astonishment of Annie, when the tip of her father's finger was pressed against that of her

husband, on which the butterfly still rested, the insect drooped its wings and seemed on the point of falling to

the floor. Even the bright spots of gold upon its wings and body, unless her eyes deceived her, grew dim, and

the glowing purple took a dusky hue, and the starry lustre that gleamed around the blacksmith's hand became

"It has been delicately wrought," said the artist, calmly. "As I told you, it has imbibed a spiritual

essencecall it magnetism, or what you will. In an atmosphere of doubt and mockery its exquisite

susceptibility suffers torture, as does the soul of him who instilled his own life into it. It has already lost its

"Take away your hand, father!" entreated Annie, turning pale. "Here is my child; let it rest on his innocent

hand. There, perhaps, its life will revive and its colors grow brighter than ever."

Her father, with an acrid smile, withdrew his finger. The butterfly then appeared to recover the power of

voluntary motion, while its hues assumed much of their original lustre, and the gleam of starlight, which was

its most ethereal attribute, again formed a halo round about it. At first, when transferred from Robert

Danforth's hand to the small finger of the child, this radiance grew so powerful that it positively threw the

little fellow's shadow back against the wall. He, meanwhile, extended his plump hand as he had seen his

father and mother do, and watched the waving of the insect's wings with infantine delight. Nevertheless, there

was a certain odd expression of sagacity that made Owen Warland feel as if here were old Pete Hovenden,

partially, and but partially, redeemed from his hard scepticism into childish faith.

"I never saw such a look on a child's face," answered Annie, admiring her own infant, and with good reason,

far more than the artistic butterfly. "The darling knows more of the mystery than we do."

As if the butterfly, like the artist, were conscious of something not entirely congenial in the child's nature, it

alternately sparkled and grew dim. At length it arose from the small hand of the infant with an airy motion

that seemed to bear it upward without an effort, as if the ethereal instincts with which its master's spirit had

endowed it impelled this fair vision involuntarily to a higher sphere. Had there been no obstruction, it might

have soared into the sky and grown immortal. But its lustre gleamed upon the ceiling; the exquisite texture of

its wings brushed against that earthly medium; and a sparkle or two, as of stardust, floated downward and lay

glimmering on the carpet. Then the butterfly came fluttering down, and, instead of returning to the infant, was

"Not so! not so!" murmured Owen Warland, as if his handiwork could have understood him. "Thou has gone

With a wavering movement, and emitting a tremulous radiance, the butterfly struggled, as it were, towards

the infant, and was about to alight upon his finger; but while it still hovered in the air, the little child of

strength, with his grandsire's sharp and shrewd expression in his face, made a snatch at the marvellous insect

and compressed it in his hand. Annie screamed. Old Peter Hovenden burst into a cold and scornful laugh. The

blacksmith, by main force, unclosed the infant's hand, and found within the palm a small heap of glittering

fragments, whence the mystery of beauty had fled forever. And as for Owen Warland, he looked placidly at

what seemed the ruin of his life's labor, and which was yet no ruin. He had caught a far other butterfly than

this. When the artist rose high enough to achieve the beautiful, the symbol by which he made it perceptible to

mortal senses became of little value in his eyes while his spirit possessed itself in the enjoyment of the reality.