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From THE SNOW IMAGE...............................................................................................................................1

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

One afternoon of a cold winter's day, when the sun shone forth with chilly brightness, after a long storm, two

children asked leave of their mother to run out and play in the newfallen snow. The elder child was a little

girl, whom, because she was of a tender and modest disposition, and was thought to be very beautiful, her

parents, and other people who were familiar with her, used to call Violet. But her brother was known by the

style and title of Peony, on account of the ruddiness of his broad and round little phiz, which made everybody

think of sunshine and great scarlet flowers. The father of these two children, a certain Mr. Lindsey, it is

important to say, was an excellent but exceedingly matteroffact sort of man, a dealer in hardware, and was

sturdily accustomed to take what is called the commonsense view of all matters that came under his

consideration. With a heart about as tender as other people's, he had a head as hard and impenetrable, and

therefore, perhaps, as empty, as one of the iron pots which it was a part of his business to sell. The mother's

character, on the other hand, had a strain of poetry in it, a trait of unworldly beauty,a delicate and dewy

flower, as it were, that had survived out of her imaginative youth, and still kept itself alive amid the dusty

So, Violet and Peony, as I began with saying, besought their mother to let them run out and play in the new

snow; for, though it had looked so dreary and dismal, drifting downward out of the gray sky, it had a very

cheerful aspect, now that the sun was shining on it. The children dwelt in a city, and had no wider playplace

than a little garden before the house, divided by a white fence from the street, and with a peartree and two or

three plumtrees overshadowing it, and some rosebushes just in front of the parlorwindows. The trees and

shrubs, however, were now leafless, and their twigs were enveloped in the light snow, which thus made a

"Yes, Violet,yes, my little Peony," said their kind mother, "you may go out and play in the new snow."

Accordingly, the good lady bundled up her darlings in woollen jackets and wadded sacks, and put comforters

round their necks, and a pair of striped gaiters on each little pair of legs, and worsted mittens on their hands,

and gave them a kiss apiece, by way of a spell to keep away Jack Frost. Forth sallied the two children, with a

hopskipandjump, that carried them at once into the very heart of a huge snowdrift, whence Violet

emerged like a snowbunting, while little Peony floundered out with his round face in full bloom. Then what

a merry time had they! To look at them, frolicking in the wintry garden, you would have thought that the dark

and pitiless storm had been sent for no other purpose but to provide a new plaything for Violet and Peony;

and that they themselves had beer created, as the snowbirds were, to take delight only in the tempest, and in

At last, when they had frosted one another all over with handfuls of snow, Violet, after laughing heartily at

"You look exactly like a snowimage, Peony," said she, "if your cheeks were not so red. And that puts me in

mind! Let us make an image out of snow,an image of a little girl,and it shall be our sister, and shall run

"Oh yes!" cried Peony, as plainly as he could speak, for he was but a little boy. "That will be nice! And

"Yes," answered Violet; "mamma shall see the new little girl. But she must not make her come into the warm

And forthwith the children began this great business of making a snowimage that should run about; while

their mother, who was sitting at the window and overheard some of their talk, could not help smiling at the

gravity with which they set about it. They really seemed to imagine that there would be no difficulty

whatever in creating a live little girl out of the snow. And, to say the truth, if miracles are ever to be wrought,

it will be by putting our hands to the work in precisely such a simple and undoubting frame of mind as that in

which Violet and Peony now undertook to perform one, without so much as knowing that it was a miracle. So

thought the mother; and thought, likewise, that the new snow, just fallen from heaven, would be excellent

material to make new beings of, if it were not so very cold. She gazed at the children a moment longer,

delighting to watch their little figures,the girl, tall for her age, graceful and agile, and so delicately colored

that she looked like a cheerful thought more than a physical reality; while Peony expanded in breadth rather

than height, and rolled along on his short and sturdy legs as substantial as an elephant, though not quite so

big. Then the mother resumed her work. What it was I forget; but she was either trimming a silken bonnet for

Violet, or darning a pair of stockings for little Peony's short legs. Again, however, and again, and yet other

agains, she could not help turning her head to the window to see how the children got on with their

Indeed, it was an exceedingly pleasant sight, those bright little souls at their task! Moreover, it was really

wonderful to observe how knowingly and skilfully they managed the matter. Violet assumed the chief

direction, and told Peony what to do, while, with her own delicate fingers, she shaped out all the nicer parts

of the snowfigure. It seemed, in fact, not so much to be made by the children, as to grow up under their

hands, while they were playing and prattling about it. Their mother was quite surprised at this; and the longer

"What remarkable children mine are!" thought she, smiling with a mother's pride; and, smiling at herself, too,

for being so proud of them. "What other children could have made anything so like a little girl's figure out of

snow at the first trial? Well; but now I must finish Peony's new frock, for his grandfather is coming

So she took up the frock, and was soon as busily at work again with her needle as the two children with their

snowimage. But still, as the needle travelled hither and thither through the seams of the dress, the mother

made her toil light and happy by listening to the airy voices of Violet and Peony. They kept talking to one

another all the time, their tongues being quite as active as their feet and hands. Except at intervals, she could

not distinctly hear what was said, but had merely a sweet impression that they were in a most loving mood,

and were enjoying themselves highly, and that the business of making the snowimage went prosperously on.

Now and then, however, when Violet and Peony happened to raise their voices, the words were as audible as

if they had been spoken in the very parlor where the mother sat. Oh how delightfully those words echoed in

But you must know a mother listens with her heart much more than with her ears; and thus she is often

delighted with the trills of celestial music, when other people can hear nothing of the kind.

"Peony, Peony!" cried Violet to her brother, who had gone to another part of the garden, "bring me some of

that fresh snow, Peony, from the very farthest corner, where we have not been trampling. I want it to shape

our little snowsister's bosom with. You know that part must be quite pure, just as it came out of the sky!"

"Here it is, Violet!" answered Peony, in his bluff tone,but a very sweet tone, too,as he came floundering

through the halftrodden drifts. "Here is the snow for her little bosom. O Violet, how beautiful she begins

"Yes," said Violet, thoughtfully and quietly; "our snowsister does look very lovely. I did not quite know,

The mother, as she listened, thought how fit and delightful an incident it would be, if fairies, or still better, if

angelchildren were to come from paradise, and play invisibly with her own darlings, and help them to make

their snowimage, giving it the features of celestial babyhood! Violet and Peony would not be aware of their

immortal playmates,only they would see that the image grew very beautiful while they worked at it, and

"My little girl and boy deserve such playmates, if mortal children ever did!" said the mother to herself; and

Nevertheless, the idea seized upon her imagination; and, ever and anon, she took a glimpse out of the

window, half dreaming that she might see the goldenhaired children of paradise sporting with her own

Now, for a few moments, there was a busy and earnest, but indistinct hum of the two children's voices, as

Violet and Peony wrought together with one happy consent. Violet still seemed to be the guiding spirit, while

Peony acted rather as a laborer, and brought her the snow from far and near. And yet the little urchin

"Peony, Peony!" cried Violet; for her brother was again at the other side of the garden. "Bring me those light

wreaths of snow that have rested on the lower branches of the peartree. You can clamber on the snowdrift,

Peony, and reach them easily. I must have them to make some ringlets for our snowsister's head!"

"Here they are, Violet!" answered the little boy. "Take care you do not break them. Well done! Well done!

"Does she not look sweetly?" said Violet, with a very satisfied tone; "and now we must have some little

shining bits of ice, to make the brightness of her eyes. She is not finished yet. Mamma will see how very

beautiful she is; but papa will say, 'Tush! nonsense!come in out of the cold!' "

"Let us call mamma to look out," said Peony; and then he shouted lustily, "Mamma! mamma!! mamma!!!

The mother put down her work for an instant, and looked out of the window. But it so happened that the

sunfor this was one of the shortest days of the whole yearhad sunken so nearly to the edge of the world

that his setting shine came obliquely into the lady's eyes. So she was dazzled, you must understand, and could

not very distinctly observe what was in the garden. Still, however, through all that bright, blinding dazzle of

the sun and the new snow, she beheld a small white figure in the garden, that seemed to have a wonderful

deal of human likeness about it. And she saw Violet and Peony,indeed, she looked more at them than at

the image,she saw the two children still at work; Peony bringing fresh snow, and Violet applying it to the

figure as scientifically as a sculptor adds clay to his model. Indistinctly as she discerned the snowchild, the

mother thought to herself that never before was there a snowfigure so cunningly made, nor ever such a dear

"They do everything better than other children," said she, very complacently. "No wonder they make better

She sat down again to her work, and made as much haste with it as possible; because twilight would soon

come, and Peony's frock was not yet finished, and grandfather was expected, by railroad, pretty early in the

morning. Faster and faster, therefore, went her flying fingers. The children, likewise, kept busily at work in

the garden, and still the mother listened, whenever she could catch a word. She was amused to observe how

their little imaginations had got mixed up with what they were doing, and carried away by it. They seemed

"What a nice playmate she will be for us, all winter long!" said Violet. "I hope papa will not be afraid of her

"Oh yes!" cried Peony. "And I will hug her, and she shall sit down close by me and drink some of my warm

"Oh no, Peony!" answered Violet, with grave wisdom. "That will not do at all. Warm milk will not be

wholesome for our little snowsister. Little snow people, like her, eat nothing but icicles. No, no, Peony; we

There was a minute or two of silence; for Peony, whose short legs were never weary, had gone on a

pilgrimage again to the other side of the garden. All of a sudden, Violet cried out, loudly and

joyfully,"Look here, Peony! Come quickly! A light has been shining on her cheek out of that rosecolored

"Yes; it is beautiful," answered Peony, pronouncing the three syllables with deliberate accuracy. "O Violet,

"Oh certainly," said Violet, with tranquillity, as if it were very much a matter of course. "That color, you

know, comes from the golden clouds, that we see up there in the sky. She is almost finished now. But her lips

must be made very red,redder than her cheeks. Perhaps, Peony, it will make them red if we both kiss

Accordingly, the mother heard two smart little smacks, as if both her children were kissing the snowimage

on its frozen mouth. But, as this did not seem to make the lips quite red enough, Violet next proposed that the

"There! she has kissed you," added Violet, "and now her lips are very red. And she blushed a little, too!"

Just then, there came a breeze of the pure westwind, sweeping through the garden and rattling the

parlorwindows. It sounded so wintry cold, that the mother was about to tap on the windowpane with her

thimbled finger, to summon the two children in, when they both cried out to her with one voice. The tone was

not a tone of surprise, although they were evidently a good deal excited; it appeared rather as if they were

very much rejoiced at some event that had now happened, but which they had been looking for, and had

"Mamma! mamma! We have finished our little snowsister, and she is running about the garden with us!"

"What imaginative little beings my children are!" thought the mother, putting the last few stitches into

Peony's frock. "And it is strange, too that they make me almost as much a child as they themselves are! I can

"Dear mamma!" cried Violet, "pray look out and see what a sweet playmate we have!"

The mother, being thus entreated, could no longer delay to look forth from the window. The sun was now

gone out of the sky, leaving, however, a rich inheritance of his brightness among those purple and golden

clouds which make the sunsets of winter so magnificent. But there was not the slightest gleam or dazzle,

either on the window or on the snow; so that the good lady could look all over the garden, and see everything

and everybody in it. And what do you think she saw there? Violet and Peony, of course, her own two darling

children. Ah, but whom or what did she see besides? Why, if you will believe me, there was a small figure of

a girl, dressed all in white, with rosetinged cheeks and ringlets of golden hue, playing about the garden with

the two children! A stranger though she was, the child seemed to be on as familiar terms with Violet and

Peony, and they with her, as if all the three had been playmates during the whole of their little lives. The

mother thought to herself that it must certainly be the daughter of one of the neighbors, and that, seeing

Violet and Peony in the garden, the child had run across the street to play with them. So this kind lady went

to the door, intending to invite the little runaway into her comfortable parlor; for, now that the sunshine was

But, after opening the housedoor, she stood an instant on the threshold, hesitating whether she ought to ask

the child to come in, or whether she should even speak to her. Indeed, she almost doubted whether it were a

real child after all, or only a light wreath of the newfallen snow, blown hither and thither about the garden

by the intensely cold westwind. There was certainly something very singular in the aspect of the little

stranger. Among all the children of the neighborhood, the lady could remember no such face, with its pure

white, and delicate rosecolor, and the golden ringlets tossing about the forehead and cheeks. And as for her

dress, which was entirely of white, and fluttering in the breeze, it was such as no reasonable woman would

put upon a little girl, when sending her out to play, in the depth of winter. It made this kind and careful

mother shiver only to look at those small feet, with nothing in the world on them, except a very thin pair of

white slippers. Nevertheless, airily as she was clad, the child seemed to feel not the slightest inconvenience

from the cold, but danced so lightly over the snow that the tips of her toes left hardly a print in its surface;

while Violet could but just keep pace with her, and Peony's short legs compelled him to lag behind.

Once, in the course of their play, the strange child placed herself between Violet and Peony, and taking a

hand of each, skipped merrily forward, and they along with her. Almost immediately, however, Peony pulled

away his little fist, and began to rub it as if the fingers were tingling with cold; while Violet also released

herself, though with less abruptness, gravely remarking that it was better not to take hold of hands. The

whiterobed damsel said not a word, but danced about, just as merrily as before. If Violet and Peony did not

choose to play with her, she could make just as good a playmate of the brisk and cold westwind, which kept

blowing her all about the garden, and took such liberties with her, that they seemed to have been friends for a

long time. All this while, the mother stood on the threshold, wondering how a little girl could look so much

like a flying snowdrift, or how a snowdrift could look so very like a little girl.

"Violet my darling, what is this child's name?" asked she. "Does she live near us?"

"Why, dearest mamma," answered Violet, laughing to think that her mother did not comprehend so very plain

"Yes, dear mamma," cried Peony, running to his mother, and looking up simply into her face. "This is our

At this instant a flock of snowbirds came flitting through the air. As was very natural, they avoided Violet

and Peony. Butand this looked strangethey flew at once to the whiterobed child, fluttered eagerly

about her head, alighted on her shoulders, and seemed to claim her as an old acquaintance. She, on her part,

was evidently as glad to see these little birds, old Winter's grandchildren, as they were to see her, and

welcomed them by holding out both her hands. Hereupon, they each and all tried to alight on her two palms

and ten small fingers and thumbs, crowding one another off, with an immense fluttering of their tiny wings.

One dear little bird nestled tenderly in her bosom; another put its bill to her lips. They were as joyous, all the

while, and seemed as much in their element, as you may have seen them when sporting with a snowstorm.

Violet and Peony stood laughing at this pretty sight; for they enjoyed the merry time which their new

playmate was having with these smallwinged visitants, almost as much as if they themselves took part in it.

"Violet," said her mother, greatly perplexed, "tell me the truth, without any jest. Who is this little girl?"

"My darling mamma," answered Violet, looking seriously into her mother's face, and apparently surprised

that she should need any further explanation, "I have told you truly who she is. It is our little snowimage,

"Yes, mamma," asseverated Peony, with much gravity in his crimson little phiz; "this is 'ittle snowchild. Is

While mamma still hesitated what to think and what to do, the streetgate was thrown open, and the father of

Violet and Peony appeared, wrapped in a pilotcloth sack, with a fur cap drawn down over his ears, and the

thickest of gloves upon his hands. Mr. Lindsey was a middleaged man, with a weary and yet a happy look in

his windflushed and frostpinched face, as if he had been busy all the day long, and was glad to get back to

his quiet home. His eyes brightened at the sight of his wife and children, although he could not help uttering a

word or two of surprise, at finding the whole family in the open air, on so bleak a day, and after sunset too.

He soon perceived the little white stranger sporting to and fro in the garden, like a dancing snowwreath, and

"Pray, what little girl may that be?" inquired this very sensible man. "Surely her mother must be crazy to let

her go out in such bitter weather as it has been today, with only that flimsy white gown and those thin

"My dear husband," said his wife, "I know no more about the little thing than you do. Some neighbor's child,

I suppose. Our Violet and Peony," she added, laughing at herself for repeating so absurd a story, "insist that

she is nothing but a snowimage, which they have been busy about in the garden, almost all the afternoon."

As she said this, the mother glanced her eyes toward the spot where the children's snowimage had been

made. What was her surprise, on perceiving that there was not the slightest trace of so much labor!no

image at all!no piled up heap of snow!nothing whatever, save the prints of little footsteps around a

"What is strange, dear mother?" asked Violet. "Dear father, do not you see how it is? This is our

snowimage, which Peony and I have made, because we wanted another playmate. Did not we, Peony?"

"Yes, papa," said crimson Peony. "This be our 'ittle snowsister. Is she not beautiful? But she gave me

"Poh, nonsense, children!" cried their good, honest father, who, as we have already intimated, had an

exceedingly commonsensible way of looking at matters. "Do not tell me of making live figures out of snow.

Come, wife; this little stranger must not stay out in the bleak air a moment longer. We will bring her into the

parlor; and you shall give her a supper of warm bread and milk, and make her as comfortable as you can.

Meanwhile, I will inquire among the neighbors; or, if necessary, send the citycrier about the streets, to give

So saying, this honest and very kindhearted man was going toward the little white damsel, with the best

intentions in the world. But Violet and Peony, each seizing their father by the hand, earnestly besought him

"Dear father," cried Violet, putting herself before him, "it is true what I have been telling you! This is our

little snowgirl, and she cannot live any longer than while she breathes the cold westwind. Do not make her

"Yes, father," shouted Peony, stamping his little foot, so mightily was he in earnest, "this be nothing but our

"Nonsense, children, nonsense, nonsense!" cried the father, half vexed, half laughing at what he considered

their foolish obstinacy. "Run into the house, this moment! It is too late to play any longer, now. I must take

"Husband! dear husband!" said his wife, in a low voice,for she had been looking narrowly at the

snowchild, and was more perplexed than ever,"there is something very singular in all this. You will think

me foolish,butbutmay it not be that some invisible angel has been attracted by the simplicity and

good faith with which our children set about their undertaking? May he not have spent an hour of his

immorttality in playing with those dear little souls? and so the result is what we call a miracle. No, no! Do not

"My dear wife," replied the husband, laughing heartily, "you are as much a child as Violet and Peony."

And in one sense so she was, for all through life she had kept her heart full of childlike simplicity and faith,

which was as pure and clear as crystal; and, looking at all matters through this transparent medium, she

sometimes saw truths so profound that other people laughed at them as nonsense and absurdity.

But now kind Mr. Lindsey had entered the garden, breaking away from his two children, who still sent their

shrill voices after him, beseeching him to let the snowchild stay and enjoy herself in the cold westwind. As

he approached, the snowbirds took to flight. The little white damsel, also, fled backward, shaking her head,

as if to say, "Pray, do not touch me!" and roguishly, as it appeared, leading him through the deepest of the

snow. Once, the good man stumbled, and floundered down upon his face, so that, gathering himself up again,

with the snow sticking to his rough pilotcloth sack, he looked as white and wintry as a snowimage of the

largest size. Some of the neighbors, meanwhile, seeing him from their windows, wondered what could

possess poor Mr. Lindsey to be running about his garden in pursuit of a snowdrift, which the westwind

was driving hither and thither! At length, after a vast deal of trouble, he chased the little stranger into a

corner, where she could not possibly escape him. His wife had been looking on, and, it being nearly twilight,

was wonderstruck to observe how the snowchild gleamed and sparkled, and how she seemed to shed a

glow all round about her; and when driven into the corner, she positively glistened like a star! It was a frosty

kind of brightness, too, like that of an icicle in the moonlight. The wife thought it strange that good Mr.

"Come, you odd little thing!" cried the honest man, seizing her by the hand, "I have caught you at last, and

will make you comfortable in spite of yourself. We will put a nice warm pair of worsted stockings on your

frozen little feet, and you shall have a good thick shawl to wrap yourself in. Your poor white nose, I am

And so, with a most benevolent smile on his sagacious visage, all purple as it was with the cold, this very

wellmeaning gentleman took the snowchild by the hand and led her towards the house. She followed him,

droopingly and reluctant; for all the glow and sparkle was gone out of her figure; and whereas just before she

had resembled a bright, frosty, stargemmed evening, with a crimson gleam on the cold horizon, she now

looked as dull and languid as a thaw. As kind Mr. Lindsey led her up the steps of the door, Violet and Peony

looked into his face,their eyes full of tears, which froze before they could run down their cheeks,and

"Not bring her in!" exclaimed the kindhearted man. "Why, you are crazy, my little Violet!quite crazy, my

small Peony! She is so cold, already, that her hand has almost frozen mine, in spite of my thick gloves.

His wife, as he came up the steps, had been taking another long, earnest, almost awestricken gaze at the

little white stranger. She hardly knew whether it was a dream or no; but she could not help fancying that she

saw the delicate print of Violet's fingers on the child's neck. It looked just as if, while Violet was shaping out

the image, she had given it a gentle pat with her hand, and had neglected to smooth the impression quite

"After all, husband," said the mother, recurring to her idea that the angels would be as much delighted to play

with Violet and Peony as she herself was,"after all, she does look strangely like a snowimage! I do

A puff of the westwind blew against the snowchild, and again she sparkled like a star.

"Snow!" repeated good Mr. Lindsey, drawing the reluctant guest over his hospitable threshold. "No wonder

she looks like snow. She is half frozen, poor little thing! But a good fire will put everything to rights!"

Without further talk, and always with the same best intentions, this highly benevolent and commonsensible

individual led the little white damseldrooping, drooping, drooping, more and more out of the frosty air,

and into his comfortable parlor. A Heidenberg stove, filled to the brim with intensely burning anthracite, was

sending a bright gleam through the isinglass of its iron door, and causing the vase of water on its top to fume

and bubble with excitement. A warm, sultry smell was diffused throughout the room. A thermometer on the

wall farthest from the stove stood at eighty degrees. The parlor was hung with red curtains, and covered with

a red carpet, and looked just as warm as it felt. The difference betwixt the atmosphere here and the cold,

wintry twilight out of doors, was like stepping at once from Nova Zembla to the hottest part of India, or from

the North Pole into an oven. Oh, this was a fine place for the little white stranger!

The commonsensible man placed the snowchild on the hearthrug, right in front of the hissing and fuming

"Now she will be comfortable!" cried Mr. Lindsey, rubbing his hands and looking about him, with the

Sad, sad and drooping, looked the little white maiden, as she stood on the hearthrug, with the hot blast of the

stove striking through her like a pestilence. Once, she threw a glance wistfully toward the windows, and

caught a glimpse, through its red curtains, of the snowcovered roofs, and the stars glimmering frostily, and

all the delicious intensity of the cold night. The bleak wind rattled the windowpanes, as if it were

summoning her to come forth. But there stood the snowchild, drooping, before the hot stove!

"Come wife," said he, "let her have a pair of thick stockings and a woollen shawl or blanket directly; and tell

Dora to give her some warm supper as soon as the milk boils. You, Violet and Peony, amuse your little

friend. She is out of spirits, you see, at finding herself in a strange place. For my part, I will go around among

The mother, meanwhile, had gone in search of the shawl and stockings; for her own view of the matter,

however subtle and delicate, had given way, as it always did, to the stubborn materialism of her husband.

Without heeding the remonstrances of his two children, who still kept murmuring that their little snowsister

did not love the warmth, good Mr. Lindsey took his departure, shutting the parlordoor carefully behind him.

Turning up the collar of his sack over his ears, he emerged from the house, and had barely reached the

streetgate, when he was recalled by the screams of Violet and Peony, and the rapping of a thimbled finger

"Husband! husband!" cried his wife, showing her horrorstricken face through the windowpanes. "There is

"We told you so, father!" screamed Violet and Peony, as he reentered the parlor. "You would bring her in;

And their own sweet little faces were already dissolved in tears; so that their father, seeing what strange

things occasionally happen in this everyday world, felt not a little anxious lest his children might be going

to thaw too! In the utmost perplexity, he demanded an explanation of his wife. She could only reply, that,

being summoned to the parlor by the cries of Violet and Peony, she found no trace of the little white maiden,

unless it were the remains of a heap of snow, which, while she was gazing at it, melted quite away upon the

"And there you see all that is left of it!" added she, pointing to a pool of water in front of the stove.

"Yes, father," said Violet looking reproachfully at him, through her tears, "there is all that is left of our dear

"Naughty father!" cried Peony, stamping his foot, andI shudder to sayshaking his little fist at the

commonsensible man. "We told you how it would be! What for did you bring her in?"

And the Heidenberg stove, through the isinglass of its door, seemed to glare at good Mr. Lindsey, like a

This, you will observe, was one of those rare cases, which yet will occasionally happen, where

commonsense finds itself at fault. The remarkable story of the snowimage, though to that sagacious class

of people to whom good Mr. Lindsey belongs it may seem but a childish affair, is, nevertheless, capable of

being moralized in various methods, greatly for their edification. One of its lessons, for instance, might be,

that it behooves men, and especially men of benevolence, to consider well what they are about, and, before

acting on their philanthropic purposes, to be quite sure that they comprehend the nature and all the relations

of the business in hand. What has been established as an element of good to one being may prove absolute

mischief to another; even as the warmth of the parlor was proper enough for children of flesh and blood, like

Violet and Peony,though by no means very wholesome, even for them,but involved nothing short of

But, after all, there is no teaching anything to wise men of good Mr. Lindsey's stamp. They know

everything,oh, to be sure!everything that has been, and everything that is, and everything that, by any

future possibility, can be. And, should some phenomenon of nature or providence transcend their system,

"Wife," said Mr. Lindsey, after a fit of silence, "see what a quantity of snow the children have brought in on

their feet! It has made quite a puddle here before the stove. Pray tell Dora to bring some towels and mop it

One afternoon, when the sun was going down, a mother and her little boy sat at the door of their cottage,

talking about the Great Stone Face. They had but to lift their eyes, and there it was plainly to be seen, though

Embosomed amongst a family of lofty mountains, there was a valley so spacious that it contained many

thousand inhabitants. Some of these good people dwelt in loghuts, with the black forest all around them, on

the steep and difficult hillsides. Others had their homes in comfortable farmhouses, and cultivated the rich

soil on the gentle slopes or level surfaces of the valley. Others, again, were congregated into populous

villages, where some wild, highland rivulet, tumbling down from its birthplace in the upper mountain region,

had been caught and tamed by human cunning, and compelled to turn the machinery of cottonfactories. The

inhabitants of this valley, in short, were numerous, and of many modes of life. But all of them, grown people

and children, had a kind of familiarity with the Great Stone Face, although some possessed the gift of

distinguishing this grand natural phenomenon more perfectly than many of their neighbors.

The Great Stone Face, then, was a work of Nature in her mood of majestic playfulness, formed on the

perpendicular side of a mountain by some immense rocks, which had been thrown together in such a position

as, when viewed at a proper distance, precisely to resemble the features of the human countenance. It seemed

as if an enormous giant, or a Titan, had sculptured his own likeness on the precipice. There was the broad

arch of the forehead, a hundred feet in height; the nose, with its long bridge; and the vast lips, which, if they

could have spoken, would have rolled their thunder accents from one end of the valley to the other. True it is,

that if the spectator approached too near, he lost the outline of the gigantic visage, and could discern only a

heap of ponderous and gigantic rocks, piled in chaotic ruin one upon another. Retracing his steps, however,

the wondrous features would again be seen; and the farther he withdrew from them, the more like a human

face, with all its original divinity intact, did they appear; until, as it grew dim in the distance, with the clouds

and glorified vapor of the mountains clustering about it, the Great Stone Face seemed positively to be alive.

It was a happy lot for children to grow up to manhood or womanhood with the Great Stone Face before their

eyes, for all the features were noble, and the expression was at once grand and sweet, as if it were the glow of

a vast, warm heart, that embraced all mankind in its affections, and had room for more. It was an education

only to look at it. According to the belief of many people, the valley owed much of its fertility to this benign

aspect that was continually beaming over it, illuminating the clouds, and infusing its tenderness into the

As we began with saying, a mother and her little boy sat at their cottagedoor, gazing at the Great Stone

"Mother," said he, while the Titanic visage smiled on him, "I wish that it could speak, for it looks so very

kindly that its voice must needs be pleasant. If I were to see a man with such a face, I should love him

"If an old prophecy should come to pass," answered his mother, "we may see a man, some time or other, with

"What prophecy do you mean, dear mother?" eagerly inquired Ernest. "Pray tell me about it!"

So his mother told him a story that her own mother had told to her, when she herself was younger than little

Ernest; a story, not of things that were past, but of what was yet to come; a story, nevertheless, so very old,

that even the Indians, who formerly inhabited this valley, had heard it from their forefathers, to whom, as

they affirmed, it had been murmured by the mountain streams, and whispered by the wind among the

treetops. The purport was, that, at some future day, a child should be born hereabouts, who was destined to

become the greatest and noblest personage of his time, and whose countenance, in manhood, should bear an

exact resemblance to the Great Stone Face. Not a few oldfashioned people, and young ones likewise, in the

ardor of their hopes, still cherished an enduring faith in this old prophecy. But others, who had seen more of

the world, had watched and waited till they were weary, and had beheld no man with such a face, nor any

man that proved to be much greater or nobler than his neighbors, concluded it to be nothing but an idle tale.

"O mother, dear mother!" cried Ernest, clapping his hands above his head, "I do hope that I shall live to see

His mother was an affectionate and thoughtful woman, and felt that it was wisest not to discourage the

And Ernest never forgot the story that his mother told him. It was always in his mind, whenever he looked

upon the Great Stone Face. He spent his childhood in the logcottage where he was born, and was dutiful to

his mother, and helpful to her in many things, assisting her much with his little hands, and more with his

loving heart. In this manner, from a happy yet often pensive child, he grew up to be a mild, quiet, unobtrusive

boy, and sunbrowned with labor in the fields, but with more intelligence brightening his aspect than is seen

in many lads who have been taught at famous schools. Yet Ernest had had no teacher, save only that the

Great Stone Face became one to him. When the toil of the day was over, he would gaze at it for hours, until

he began to imagine that those vast features recognized him, and gave him a smile of kindness and

encouragement, responsive to his own look of veneration. We must not take upon us to affirm that this was a

mistake, although the Face may have looked no more kindly at Ernest than at all the world besides. But the

secret was that the boy's tender and confiding simplicity discerned what other people could not see; and thus

About this time there went a rumor throughout the valley, that the great man, foretold from ages long ago,

who was to bear a resemblance to the Great Stone Face, had appeared at last. It seems that, many years

before, a young man had migrated from the valley and settled at a distant seaport, where, after getting

together a little money, he had set up as a shopkeeper. His namebut I could never learn whether it was his

real one, or a nickname that had grown out of his habits and success in lifewas Gathergold. Being shrewd

and active, and endowed by Providence with that inscrutable faculty which develops itself in what the world

calls luck, he became an exceedingly rich merchant, and owner of a whole fleet of bulkybottomed ships. All

the countries of the globe appeared to join hands for the mere purpose of adding heap after heap to the

mountainous accumulation of this one man's wealth. The cold regions of the north, almost within the gloom

and shadow of the Arctic Circle, sent him their tribute in the shape of furs; hot Africa sifted for him the

golden sands of her rivers, and gathered up the ivory tusks of her great elephants out of the forests; the East

came bringing him the rich shawls, and spices, and teas, and the effulgence of diamonds, and the gleaming

purity of large pearls. The ocean, not to be behindhand with the earth, yielded up her mighty whales, that Mr.

Gathergold might sell their oil, and make a profit of it. Be the original commodity what it might, it was gold

within his grasp. It might be said of him, as of Midas in the fable, that whatever he touched with his finger

immediately glistened, and grew yellow, and was changed at once into sterling metal, or, which suited him

still better, into piles of coin. And, when Mr. Gathergold had become so very rich that it would have taken

him a hundred years only to count his wealth, he bethought himself of his native valley, and resolved to go

back thither, and end his days where he was born. With this purpose in view, he sent a skilful architect to

build him such a palace as should be fit for a man of his vast wealth to live in.

As I have said above, it had already been rumored in the valley that Mr. Gathergold had turned out to be the

prophetic personage so long and vainly looked for, and that his visage was the perfect and undeniable

similitude of the Great Stone Face. People were the more ready to believe that this must needs be the fact,

when they beheld the splendid edifice that rose, as if by enchantment, on the site of his father's old

weatherbeaten farmhouse. The exterior was of marble, so dazzlingly white that it seemed as though the

whole structure might melt away in the sunshine, like those humbler ones which Mr. Gathergold, in his

young playdays, before his fingers were gifted with the touch of transmutation, had been accustomed to

build of snow. It had a richly ornamented portico, supported by tall pillars, beneath which was a lofty door,

studded with silver knobs, and made of a kind of variegated wood that had been brought from beyond the sea.

The windows, from the floor to the ceiling of each stately apartment, were composed, respectively, of but one

enormous pane of glass, so transparently pure that it was said to be a finer medium than even the vacant

atmosphere. Hardly anybody had been permitted to see the interior of this palace; but it was reported, and

with good semblance of truth, to be far more gorgeous than the outside, insomuch that whatever was iron or

brass in other houses was silver or gold in this; and Mr. Gathergold's bedchamber, especially, made such a

glittering appearance that no ordinary man would have been able to close his eyes there. But, on the other

hand, Mr. Gathergold was now so inured to wealth, that perhaps he could not have closed his eyes unless

In due time, the mansion was finished; next came the upholsterers, with magnificent furniture; then, a whole

troop of black and white servants, the harbingers of Mr. Gathergold, who, in his own majestic person, was

expected to arrive at sunset. Our friend Ernest, meanwhile, had been deeply stirred by the idea that the great

man, the noble man, the man of prophecy, after so many ages of delay, was at length to be made manifest to

his native valley. He knew, boy as he was, that there were a thousand ways in which Mr. Gathergold, with his

vast wealth, might transform himself into an angel of beneficence, and assume a control over human affairs

as wide and benignant as the smile of the Great Stone Face. Full of faith and hope, Ernest doubted not that

what the people said was true, and that now he was to behold the living likeness of those wondrous features

on the mountainside. While the boy was still gazing up the valley, and fancying, as he always did, that the

Great Stone Face returned his gaze and looked kindly at him, the rumbling of wheels was heard, approaching

"Here he comes!" cried a group of people who were assembled to witness the arrival. "Here comes the great

A carriage, drawn by four horses, dashed round the turn of the road. Within it, thrust partly out of the

window, appeared the physiognomy of the old man, with a skin as yellow as if his own Midashand had

transmuted it. He had a low forehead, small, sharp eyes, puckered about with innumerable wrinkles, and very

"The very image of the Great Stone Face!" shouted the people. "Sure enough, the old prophecy is true; and

And, what greatly perplexed Ernest, they seemed actually to believe that here was the likeness which they

spoke of. By the roadside there chanced to be an old beggarwoman and two little beggarchildren,

stragglers from some faroff region, who, as the carriage rolled onward, held out their hands and lifted up

their doleful voices, most piteously beseeching charity. A yellow clawthe very same that had clawed

together so much wealthpoked itself out of the coachwindow, and dropt some copper coins upon the

ground; so that, though the great man's name seems to have been Gathergold, he might just as suitably have

been nicknamed Scattercopper. Still, nevertheless, with an earnest shout, and evidently with as much good

faith as ever, the people bellowed, "He is the very image of the Great Stone Face!"

But Ernest turned sadly from the wrinkled shrewdness of that sordid visage, and gazed up the valley, where,

amid a gathering mist, gilded by the last sunbeams, he could still distinguish those glorious features which

had impressed themselves into his soul. Their aspect cheered him. What did the benign lips seem to say?

The years went on, and Ernest ceased to be a boy. He had grown to be a young man now. He attracted little

notice from the other inhabitants of the valley; for they saw nothing remarkable in his way of life save that,

when the labor of the day was over, he still loved to go apart and gaze and meditate upon the Great Stone

Face. According to their idea of the matter, it was a folly, indeed, but pardonable, inasmuch as Ernest was

industrious, kind, and neighborly, and neglected no duty for the sake of indulging this idle habit. They knew

not that the Great Stone Face had become a teacher to him, and that the sentiment which was expressed in it

would enlarge the young man's heart, and fill it with wider and deeper sympathies than other hearts. They

knew not that thence would come a better wisdom than could be learned from books, and a better life than

could be moulded on the defaced example of other human lives. Neither did Ernest know that the thoughts

and affections which came to him so naturally, in the fields and at the fireside, and wherever he communed

with himself, were of a higher tone than those which all men shared with him. A simple soul,simple as

when his mother first taught him the old prophecy,he beheld the marvellous features beaming adown the

valley, and still wondered that their human counterpart was so long in making his appearance.

By this time poor Mr. Gathergold was dead and buried; and the oddest part of the matter was, that his wealth,

which was the body and spirit of his existence, had disappeared before his death, leaving nothing of him but a

living skeleton, covered over with a wrinkled yellow skin. Since the melting away of his gold, it had been

very generally conceded that there was no such striking resemblance, after all, betwixt the ignoble features of

the ruined merchant and that majestic face upon the mountainside. So the people ceased to honor him during

his lifetime, and quietly consigned him to forgetfulness after his decease. Once in a while, it is true, his

memory was brought up in connection with the magnificent palace which he had built, and which had long

ago been turned into a hotel for the accommodation of strangers, multitudes of whom came, every summer, to

visit that famous natural curiosity, the Great Stone Face. Thus, Mr. Gathergold being discredited and thrown

It so happened that a nativeborn son of the valley, many years before, had enlisted as a soldier, and, after a

great deal of hard fighting, had now become an illustrious commander. Whatever he may be called in history,

he was known in camps and on the battlefield under the nickname of Old BloodandThunder. This

warworn veteran being now infirm with age and wounds, and weary of the turmoil of a military life, and of

the roll of the drum and the clangor of the trumpet, that had so long been ringing in his ears, had lately

signified a purpose of returning to his native valley, hoping to find repose where he remembered to have left

it. The inhabitants, his old neighbors and their grownup children, were resolved to welcome the renowned

warrior with a salute of cannon and a public dinner; and all the more enthusiastically, it being affirmed that

now, at last, the likeness of the Great Stone Face had actually appeared. An aiddecamp of Old

BloodandThunder, travelling through the valley, was said to have been struck with the resemblance.

Moreover the schoolmates and early acquaintances of the general were ready to testify, on oath, that, to the

best of their recollection, the aforesaid general had been exceedingly like the majestic image, even when a

boy, only the idea had never occurred to them at that period. Great, therefore, was the excitement throughout

the valley; and many people, who had never once thought of glancing at the Great Stone Face for years

before, now spent their time in gazing at it, for the sake of knowing exactly how General

On the day of the great festival, Ernest, with all the other people of the valley, left their work, and proceeded

to the spot where the sylvan banquet was prepared. As he approached, the loud voice of the Rev. Dr.

Battleblast was heard, beseeching a blessing on the good things set before them, and on the distinguished

friend of peace in whose honor they were assembled. The tables were arranged in a cleared space of the

woods, shut in by the surrounding trees, except where a vista opened eastward, and afforded a distant view of

the Great Stone Face. Over the general's chair, which was a relic from the home of Washington, there was an

arch of verdant boughs, with the laurel profusely intermixed, and surmounted by his country's banner,

beneath which he had won his victories. Our friend Ernest raised himself on his tiptoes, in hopes to get a

glimpse of the celebrated guest; but there was a mighty crowd about the tables anxious to hear the toasts and

speeches, and to catch any word that might fall from the general in reply; and a volunteer company, doing

duty as a guard, pricked ruthlessly with their bayonets at any particularly quiet person among the throng. So

Ernest, being of an unobtrusive character, was thrust quite into the background, where he could see no more

of Old BloodandThunder's physiognomy than if it had been still blazing on the battlefield. To console

himself, he turned towards the Great Stone Face, which, like a faithful and long remembered friend, looked

back and smiled upon him through the vista of the forest. Meantime, however, he could overhear the remarks

of various individuals, who were comparing the features of the hero with the face on the distant

"Like! why, I call it Old BloodandThunder himself, in a monstrous lookingglass!" cried a third. "And

And then all three of the speakers gave a great shout, which communicated electricity to the crowd, and

called forth a roar from a thousand voices, that went reverberating for miles among the mountains, until you

might have supposed that the Great Stone Face had poured its thunderbreath into the cry. All these comments,

and this vast enthusiasm, served the more to interest our friend; nor did he think of questioning that now, at

length, the mountainvisage had found its human counterpart. It is true, Ernest had imagined that this

longlookedfor personage would appear in the character of a man of peace, uttering wisdom, and doing

good, and making people happy. But, taking an habitual breadth of view, with all his simplicity, he contended

that Providence should choose its own method of blessing mankind, and could conceive that this great end

might be effected even by a warrior and a bloody sword, should inscrutable wisdom see fit to order matters

"The general! the general!" was now the cry. "Hush! silence! Old BloodandThunder's going to make a

Even so; for, the cloth being removed, the general's health had been drunk, amid shouts of applause, and he

now stood upon his feet to thank the company. Ernest saw him. There he was, over the shoulders of the

crowd, from the two glittering epaulets and embroidered collar upward, beneath the arch of green boughs

with intertwined laurel, and the banner drooping as if to shade his brow! And there, too, visible in the same

glance, through the vista of the forest, appeared the Great Stone Face! And was there, indeed, such a

resemblance as the crowd had testified? Alas, Ernest could not recognize it! He beheld a warworn and

weatherbeaten countenance, full of energy, and expressive of an iron will; but the gentle wisdom, the deep,

broad, tender sympathies, were altogether wanting in Old BloodandThunder's visage; and even if the Great

Stone Face had assumed his look of stern command, the milder traits would still have tempered it.

"This is not the man of prophecy," sighed Ernest to himself, as he made his way out of the throng. "And must

The mists had congregated about the distant mountainside, and there were seen the grand and awful features

of the Great Stone Face, awful but benignant, as if a mighty angel were sitting among the hills, and enrobing

himself in a cloudvesture of gold and purple. As he looked, Ernest could hardly believe but that a smile

beamed over the whole visage, with a radiance still brightening, although without motion of the lips. It was

probably the effect of the western sunshine, melting through the thinly diffused vapors that had swept

between him and the object that he gazed at. Butas it always didthe aspect of his marvellous friend

"Fear not, Ernest," said his heart, even as if the Great Face were whispering him,fear not, Ernest; he will

More years sped swiftly and tranquilly away. Ernest still dwelt in his native valley, and was now a man of

middle age. By imperceptible degrees, he had become known among the people. Now, as heretofore, he

labored for his bread, and was the same simplehearted man that he had always been. But he had thought and

felt so much, he had given so many of the best hours of his life to unworldly hopes for some great good to

mankind, that it seemed as though he had been talking with the angels, and had imbibed a portion of their

wisdom unawares. It was visible in the calm and wellconsidered beneficence of his daily life, the quiet

stream of which had made a wide green margin all along its course. Not a day passed by, that the world was

not the better because this man, humble as he was, had lived. He never stepped aside from his own path, yet

would always reach a blessing to his neighbor. Almost involuntarily too, he had become a preacher. The pure

and high simplicity of his thought, which, as one of its manifestations, took shape in the good deeds that

dropped silently from his hand, flowed also forth in speech. He uttered truths that wrought upon and moulded

the lives of those who heard him. His auditors, it may be, never suspected that Ernest, their own neighbor and

familiar friend, was more than an ordinary man; least of all did Ernest himself suspect it; but, inevitably as

the murmur of a rivulet, came thoughts out of his mouth that no other human lips had spoken.

When the people's minds had had a little time to cool, they were ready enough to acknowledge their mistake

in imagining a similarity between General BloodandThunder's truculent physiognomy and the benign

visage on the mountainside. But now, again, there were reports and many paragraphs in the newspapers,

affirming that the likeness of the Great Stone Face had appeared upon the broad shoulders of a certain

eminent statesman. He, like Mr. Gathergold and Old BloodandThunder, was a native of the valley, but had

left it in his early days, and taken up the trades of law and politics. Instead of the rich man's wealth and the

warrior's sword, he had but a tongue, and it was mightier than both together. So wonderfully eloquent was he,

that whatever he might choose to say, his auditors had no choice but to believe him; wrong looked like right,

and right like wrong; for when it pleased him, he could make a kind of illuminated fog with his mere breath,

and obscure the natural daylight with it. His tongue, indeed, was a magic instrument: sometimes it rumbled

like the thunder; sometimes it warbled like the sweetest music. It was the blast of war, the song of peace; and

it seemed to have a heart in it, when there was no such matter. In good truth, he was a wondrous man; and

when his tongue had acquired him all other imaginable success,when it had been heard in halls of state,

and in the courts of princes and potentates,after it had made him known all over the world, even as a voice

crying from shore to shore,it finally persuaded his countrymen to select him for the Presidency. Before this

time,indeed, as soon as he began to grow celebrated,his admirers had found out the resemblance

between him and the Great Stone Face; and so much were they struck by it, that throughout the country this

distinguished gentleman was known by the name of Old Stony Phiz. The phrase was considered as giving a

highly favorable aspect to his political prospects; for, as is likewise the case with the Popedom, nobody ever

While his friends were doing their best to make him President, Old Stony Phiz, as he was called, set out on a

visit to the valley where he was born. Of course, he had no other object than to shake hands with his

fellowcitizens and neither thought nor cared about any effect which his progress through the country might

have upon the election. Magnificent preparations were made to receive the illustrious statesman; a cavalcade

of horsemen set forth to meet him at the boundary line of the State, and all the people left their business and

gathered along the wayside to see him pass. Among these was Ernest. Though more than once disappointed,

as we have seen, he had such a hopeful and confiding nature, that he was always ready to believe in whatever

seemed beautiful and good. He kept his heart continually open, and thus was sure to catch the blessing from

on high when it should come. So now again, as buoyantly as ever, he went forth to behold the likeness of the

The cavalcade came prancing along the road, with a great clattering of hoofs and a mighty cloud of dust,

which rose up so dense and high that the visage of the mountainside was completely hidden from Ernest's

eyes. All the great men of the neighborhood were there on horseback; militia officers, in uniform; the

member of Congress; the sheriff of the county; the editors of newspapers; and many a farmer, too, had

mounted his patient steed, with his Sunday coat upon his back. It really was a very brilliant spectacle,

especially as there were numerous banners flaunting over the cavalcade, on some of which were gorgeous

portraits of the illustrious statesman and the Great Stone Face, smiling familiarly at one another, like two

brothers. If the pictures were to be trusted, the mutual resemblance, it must be confessed, was marvellous. We

must not forget to mention that there was a band of music, which made the echoes of the mountains ring and

reverberate with the loud triumph of its strains; so that airy and soulthrilling melodies broke out among all

the heights and hollows, as if every nook of his native valley had found a voice, to welcome the distinguished

guest. But the grandest effect was when the faroff mountain precipice flung back the music; for then the

Great Stone Face itself seemed to be swelling the triumphant chorus, in acknowledgment that, at length, the

All this while the people were throwing up their hats and shouting with enthusiasm so contagious that the

heart of Ernest kindled up, and he likewise threw up his hat, and shouted, as loudly as the loudest, "Huzza for

"Here he is, now!" cried those who stood near Ernest. "There! There! Look at Old Stony Phiz and then at the

In the midst of all this gallant array came an open barouche, drawn by four white horses; and in the barouche,

with his massive head uncovered, sat the illustrious statesman, Old Stony Phiz himself.

"Confess it," said one of Ernest's neighbors to him, "the Great Stone Face has met its match at last!"

Now, it must be owned that, at his first glimpse of the countenance which was bowing and smiling from the

barouche, Ernest did fancy that there was a resemblance between it and the old familiar face upon the

mountainside. The brow, with its massive depth and loftiness, and all the other features, indeed, were boldly

and strongly hewn, as if in emulation of a more than heroic, of a Titanic model. But the sublimity and

stateliness, the grand expression of a divine sympathy, that illuminated the mountain visage and etherealized

its ponderous granite substance into spirit, might here be sought in vain. Something had been originally left

out, or had departed. And therefore the marvellously gifted statesman had always a weary gloom in the deep

caverns of his eyes, as of a child that has outgrown its playthings or a man of mighty faculties and little aims,

whose life, with all its high performances, was vague and empty, because no high purpose had endowed it

Still, Ernest's neighbor was thrusting his elbow into his side, and pressing him for an answer.

"Then so much the worse for the Great Stone Face!" answered his neighbor; and again he set up a shout for

But Ernest turned away, melancholy, and almost despondent: for this was the saddest of his disappointments,

to behold a man who might have fulfilled the prophecy, and had not willed to do so. Meantime, the

cavalcade, the banners, the music, and the barouches swept past him, with the vociferous crowd in the rear,

leaving the dust to settle down, and the Great Stone Face to be revealed again, with the grandeur that it had

"Lo, here I am, Ernest!" the benign lips seemed to say. "I have waited longer than thou, and am not yet

The years hurried onward, treading in their haste on one another's heels. And now they began to bring white

hairs, and scatter them over the head of Ernest; they made reverend wrinkles across his forehead, and furrows

in his cheeks. He was an aged man. But not in vain had he grown old: more than the white hairs on his head

were the sage thoughts in his mind; his wrinkles and furrows were inscriptions that Time had graved, and in

which he had written legends of wisdom that had been tested by the tenor of a life. And Ernest had ceased to

be obscure. Unsought for, undesired, had come the fame which so many seek, and made him known in the

great world, beyond the limits of the valley in which he had dwelt so quietly. College professors, and even

the active men of cities, came from far to see and converse with Ernest; for the report had gone abroad that

this simple husbandman had ideas unlike those of other men, not gained from books, but of a higher tone,a

tranquil and familiar majesty, as if he had been talking with the angels as his daily friends. Whether it were

sage, statesman, or philanthropist, Ernest received these visitors with the gentle sincerity that had

characterized him from boyhood, and spoke freely with them of whatever came uppermost, or lay deepest in

his heart or their own. While they talked together, his face would kindle, unawares, and shine upon them, as

with a mild evening light. Pensive with the fulness of such discourse, his guests took leave and went their

way; and passing up the valley, paused to look at the Great Stone Face, imagining that they had seen its

While Ernest had been growing up and growing old, a bountiful Providence had granted a new poet to this

earth. He likewise, was a native of the valley, but had spent the greater part of his life at a distance from that

romantic region, pouring out his sweet music amid the bustle and din of cities. Often, however, did the

mountains which had been familiar to him in his childhood lift their snowy peaks into the clear atmosphere of

his poetry. Neither was the Great Stone Face forgotten, for the poet had celebrated it in an ode, which was

grand enough to have been uttered by its own majestic lips. This man of genius, we may say, had come down

from heaven with wonderful endowments. If he sang of a mountain, the eyes of all mankind beheld a

mightier grandeur reposing on its breast, or soaring to its summit, than had before been seen there. If his

theme were a lovely lake, a celestial smile had now been thrown over it, to gleam forever on its surface. If it

were the vast old sea, even the deep immensity of its dread bosom seemed to swell the higher, as if moved by

the emotions of the song. Thus the world assumed another and a better aspect from the hour that the poet

blessed it with his happy eyes. The Creator had bestowed him, as the last best touch to his own handiwork.

The effect was no less high and beautiful, when his human brethren were the subject of his verse. The man or

woman, sordid with the common dust of life, who crossed his daily path, and the little child who played in it,

were glorified if he beheld them in his mood of poetic faith. He showed the golden links of the great chain

that intertwined them with an angelic kindred; he brought out the hidden traits of a celestial birth that made

them worthy of such kin. Some, indeed, there were, who thought to show the soundness of their judgment by

affirming that all the beauty and dignity of the natural world existed only in the poet's fancy. Let such men

speak for themselves, who undoubtedly appear to have been spawned forth by Nature with a contemptuous

bitterness; she having plastered them up out of her refuse stuff, after all the swine were made. As respects all

The songs of this poet found their way to Ernest. He read them after his customary toil, seated on the bench

before his cottagedoor, where for such a length of time he had filled his repose with thought, by gazing at

the Great Stone Face. And now as he read stanzas that caused the soul to thrill within him, he lifted his eyes

"O majestic friend," he murmured, addressing the Great Stone Face, "is not this man worthy to resemble

Now it happened that the poet, though he dwelt so far away, had not only heard of Ernest, but had meditated

much upon his character, until he deemed nothing so desirable as to meet this man, whose untaught wisdom

walked hand in hand with the noble simplicity of his life. One summer morning, therefore, he took passage

by the railroad, and, in the decline of the afternoon, alighted from the cars at no great distance from Ernest's

cottage. The great hotel, which had formerly been the palace of Mr. Gathergold, was close at hand, but the

poet, with his carpetbag on his arm, inquired at once where Ernest dwelt, and was resolved to be accepted as

Approaching the door, he there found the good old man, holding a volume in his hand, which alternately he

read, and then, with a finger between the leaves, looked lovingly at the Great Stone Face.

"Willingly," answered Ernest; and then he added, smiling, "Methinks I never saw the Great Stone Face look

The poet sat down on the bench beside him, and he and Ernest talked together. Often had the poet held

intercourse with the wittiest and the wisest, but never before with a man like Ernest, whose thoughts and

feelings gushed up with such a natural freedom, and who made great truths so familiar by his simple

utterance of them. Angels, as had been so often said, seemed to have wrought with him at his labor in the

fields; angels seemed to have sat with him by the fireside; and, dwelling with angels as friend with friends, he

had imbibed the sublimity of their ideas, and imbued it with the sweet and lowly charm of household words.

So thought the poet. And Ernest, on the other hand, was moved and agitated by the living images which the

poet flung out of his mind, and which peopled all the air about the cottagedoor with shapes of beauty, both

gay and pensive. The sympathies of these two men instructed them with a profounder sense than either could

have attained alone. Their minds accorded into one strain, and made delightful music which neither of them

could have claimed as all his own, nor distinguished his own share from the other's. They led one another, as

it were, into a high pavilion of their thoughts, so remote, and hitherto so dim, that they had never entered it

As Ernest listened to the poet, he imagined that the Great Stone Face was bending forward to listen too. He

Again, and still more earnestly than before, Ernest examined the poet's features; then turned towards the

Great Stone Face; then back, with an uncertain aspect, to his guest. But his countenance fell; he shook his

"Because," replied Ernest, "all through life I have awaited the fulfilment of a prophecy; and, when I read

"You hoped," answered the poet, faintly smiling, "to find in me the likeness of the Great Stone Face. And you

are disappointed, as formerly with Mr. Gathergold, and Old BloodandThunder, and Old Stony Phiz. Yes,

Ernest, it is my doom. You must add my name to the illustrious three, and record another failure of your

hopes. Forin shame and sadness do I speak it, ErnestI am not worthy to be typified by yonder benign

"And why?" asked Ernest. He pointed to the volume. "Are not those thoughts divine?"

"They have a strain of the Divinity," replied the poet. "You can hear in them the faroff echo of a heavenly

song. But my life, dear Ernest, has not corresponded with my thought. I have had grand dreams, but they

have been only dreams, because I have livedand that, too, by my own choiceamong poor and mean

realities. Sometimes evenshall I dare to say it?I lack faith in the grandeur, the beauty, and the goodness,

which my own words are said to have made more evident in nature and in human life. Why, then, pure seeker

of the good and true, shouldst thou hope to find me, in yonder image of the divine?"

The poet spoke sadly, and his eyes were dim with tears. So, likewise, were those of Ernest.

At the hour of sunset, as had long been his frequent custom, Ernest was to discourse to an assemblage of the

neighboring inhabitants in the open air. He and the poet, arm in arm, still talking together as they went along,

proceeded to the spot. It was a small nook among the hills, with a gray precipice behind, the stern front of

which was relieved by the pleasant foliage of many creeping plants that made a tapestry for the naked rock,

by hanging their festoons from all its rugged angles. At a small elevation above the ground, set in a rich

framework of verdure, there appeared a niche, spacious enough to admit a human figure, with freedom for

such gestures as spontaneously accompany earnest thought and genuine emotion. Into this natural pulpit

Ernest ascended, and threw a look of familiar kindness around upon his audience. They stood, or sat, or

reclined upon the grass, as seemed good to each, with the departing sunshine falling obliquely over them, and

mingling its subdued cheerfulness with the solemnity of a grove of ancient trees, beneath and amid the

boughs of which the golden rays were constrained to pass. In another direction was seen the Great Stone

Face, with the same cheer, combined with the same solemnity, in its benignant aspect.

Ernest began to speak, giving to the people of what was in his heart and mind. His words had power, because

they accorded with his thoughts; and his thoughts had reality and depth, because they harmonized with the

life which he had always lived. It was not mere breath that this preacher uttered; they were the words of life,

because a life of good deeds and holy love was melted into them. Pearls, pure and rich, had been dissolved

into this precious draught. The poet, as he listened, felt that the being and character of Ernest were a nobler

strain of poetry than he had ever written. His eyes glistening with tears, he gazed reverentially at the

venerable man, and said within himself that never was there an aspect so worthy of a prophet and a sage as

that mild, sweet, thoughtful countenance, with the glory of white hair diffused about it. At a distance, but

distinctly to be seen, high up in the golden light of the setting sun, appeared the Great Stone Face, with hoary

mists around it, like the white hairs around the brow of Ernest. Its look of grand beneficence seemed to

At that moment, in sympathy with a thought which he was about to utter, the face of Ernest assumed a

grandeur of expression, so imbued with benevolence, that the poet, by an irresistible impulse, threw his arms

aloft and shouted,"Behold! Behold! Ernest is himself the likeness of the Great Stone Face!"

Then all the people looked, and saw that what the deepsighted poet said was true. The prophecy was

fulfilled. But Ernest, having finished what he had to say, took the poet's arm, and walked slowly homeward,

still hoping that some wiser and better man than himself would by and by appear, bearing a resemblance to

Bartram the limeburner, a rough, heavylooking man, begrimed with charcoal, sat watching his kiln at

nightfall, while his little son played at building houses with the scattered fragments of marble, when, on the

hillside below them, they heard a roar of laughter, not mirthful, but slow, and even solemn, like a wind

"Father, what is that?" asked the little boy, leaving his play, and pressing betwixt his father's knees.

"Oh, some drunken man, I suppose," answered the limeburner; "some merry fellow from the barroom in

the village, who dared not laugh loud enough within doors lest he should blow the roof of the house off. So

"But, father," said the child, more sensitive than the obtuse, middleaged clown, "he does not laugh like a

"Don't be a fool, child!" cried his father, gruffly. "You will never make a man, I do believe; there is too much

of your mother in you. I have known the rustling of a leaf startle you. Hark! Here comes the merry fellow

Bartram and his little son, while they were talking thus, sat watching the same limekiln that had been the

scene of Ethan Brand's solitary and meditative life, before he began his search for the Unpardonable Sin.

Many years, as we have seen, had now elapsed, since that portentous night when the IDEA was first

developed. The kiln, however, on the mountainside, stood unimpaired, and was in nothing changed since he

had thrown his dark thoughts into the intense glow of its furnace, and melted them, as it were, into the one

thought that took possession of his life. It was a rude, round, towerlike structure about twenty feet high,

heavily built of rough stones, and with a hillock of earth heaped about the larger part of its circumference; so

that the blocks and fragments of marble might be drawn by cartloads, and thrown in at the top. There was an

opening at the bottom of the tower, like an overmouth, but large enough to admit a man in a stooping

posture, and provided with a massive iron door. With the smoke and jets of flame issuing from the chinks and

crevices of this door, which seemed to give admittance into the hillside, it resembled nothing so much as the

private entrance to the infernal regions, which the shepherds of the Delectable Mountains were accustomed to

There are many such limekilns in that tract of country, for the purpose of burning the white marble which

composes a large part of the substance of the hills. Some of them, built years ago, and long deserted, with

weeds growing in the vacant round of the interior, which is open to the sky, and grass and wildflowers

rooting themselves into the chinks of the stones, look already like relics of antiquity, and may yet be

overspread with the lichens of centuries to come. Others, where the limeburner still feeds his daily and

nightlong fire, afford points of interest to the wanderer among the hills, who seats himself on a log of wood

or a fragment of marble, to hold a chat with the solitary man. It is a lonesome, and, when the character is

inclined to thought, may be an intensely thoughtful occupation; as it proved in the case of Ethan Brand, who

had mused to such strange purpose, in days gone by, while the fire in this very kiln was burning.

The man who now watched the fire was of a different order, and troubled himself with no thoughts save the

very few that were requisite to his business. At frequent intervals, he flung back the clashing weight of the

iron door, and, turning his face from the insufferable glare, thrust in huge logs of oak, or stirred the immense

brands with a long pole. Within the furnace were seen the curling and riotous flames, and the burning marble,

almost molten with the intensity of heat; while without, the reflection of the fire quivered on the dark

intricacy of the surrounding forest, and showed in the foreground a bright and ruddy little picture of the hut,

the spring beside its door, the athletic and coalbegrimed figure of the limeburner, and the halffrightened

child, shrinking into the protection of his father's shadow. And when, again, the iron door was closed, then

reappeared the tender light of the halffull moon, which vainly strove to trace out the indistinct shapes of the

neighboring mountains; and, in the upper sky, there was a flitting congregation of clouds, still faintly tinged

with the rosy sunset, though thus far down into the valley the sunshine had vanished long and long ago

The little boy now crept still closer to his father, as footsteps were heard ascending the hillside, and a human

"Halloo! who is it?" cried the limeburner, vexed at his son's timidity, yet half infected by it. "Come forward,

and show yourself, like a man, or I'll fling this chunk of marble at your head!"

"You offer me a rough welcome," said a gloomy voice, as the unknown man drew nigh. "Yet I neither claim

To obtain a distincter view, Bartram threw open the iron door of the kiln, whence immediately issued a gush

of fierce light, that smote full upon the stranger's face and figure. To a careless eye there appeared nothing

very remarkable in his aspect, which was that of a man in a coarse brown, countrymade suit of clothes, tall

and thin, with the staff and heavy shoes of a wayfarer. As he advanced, he fixed his eyeswhich were very

brightintently upon the brightness of the furnace, as if he beheld, or expected to behold, some object

"Good evening, stranger," said the limeburner; "whence come you, so late in the day?"

"Drunk!or crazy!" muttered Bartram to himself. "I shall have trouble with the fellow. The sooner I drive

The little boy, all in a tremble, whispered to his father, and begged him to shut the door of the kiln, so that

there might not be so much light; for that there was something in the man's face which he was afraid to look

at, yet could not look away from. And, indeed, even the limeburner's dull and torpid sense began to be

impressed by an indescribable something in that thin, rugged, thoughtful visage, with the grizzled hair

hanging wildly about it, and those deeply sunken eyes, which gleamed like fires within the entrance of a

mysterious cavern. But, as he closed the door, the stranger turned towards him, and spoke in a quiet, familiar

"Your task draws to an end, I see," said he. "This marble has already been burning three days. A few hours

"Why, who are you?" exclaimed the limeburner. "You seem as well acquainted with my business as I am

"And well I may be," said the stranger; "for I followed the same craft many a long year, and here, too, on this

very spot. But you are a newcomer in these parts. Did you never hear of Ethan Brand?"

"The man that went in search of the Unpardonable Sin?" asked Bartram, with a laugh.

"The same," answered the stranger. "He has found what he sought, and therefore he comes back again."

"What! then you are Ethan Brand himself?" cried the limeburner, in amazement. "I am a newcomer here,

as you say, and they call it eighteen years since you left the foot of Graylock. But, I can tell you, the good

folks still talk about Ethan Brand, in the village yonder, and what a strange errand took him away from his

And then, without mirth in his countenance, but as if moved by an involuntary recognition of the infinite

absurdity of seeking throughout the world for what was the closest of all things to himself, and looking into

every heart, save his own, for what was hidden in no other breast, he broke into a laugh of scorn. It was the

same slow, heavy laugh, that had almost appalled the limeburner when it heralded the wayfarer's approach.

The solitary mountainside was made dismal by it. Laughter, when out of place, mistimed, or bursting forth

from a disordered state of feeling, may be the most terrible modulation of the human voice. The laughter of

one asleep, even if it be a little child,the madman's laugh,the wild, screaming laugh of a born

idiot,are sounds that we sometimes tremble to hear, and would always willingly forget. Poets have

imagined no utterance of fiends or hobgoblins so fearfully appropriate as a laugh. And even the obtuse

limeburner felt his nerves shaken, as this strange man looked inward at his own heart, and burst into

laughter that rolled away into the night, and was indistinctly reverberated among the hills.

"Joe," said he to his little son, "scamper down to the tavern in the village, and tell the jolly fellows there that

The boy darted away on his errand, to which Ethan Brand made no objection, nor seemed hardly to notice it.

He sat on a log of wood, looking steadfastly at the iron door of the kiln. When the child was out of sight, and

his swift and light footsteps ceased to be heard treading first on the fallen leaves and then on the rocky

mountainpath, the limeburner began to regret his departure. He felt that the little fellow's presence had

been a barrier between his guest and himself, and that he must now deal, heart to heart, with a man who, on

his own confession, had committed the one only crime for which Heaven could afford no mercy. That crime,

in its indistinct blackness, seemed to overshadow him, and made his memory riotous with a throng of evil

shapes that asserted their kindred with the Master Sin, whatever it might be, which it was within the scope of

man's corrupted nature to conceive and cherish. They were all of one family; they went to and fro between his

Then Bartram remembered the stories which had grown traditionary in reference to this strange man, who had

come upon him like a shadow of the night, and was making himself at home in his old place, after so long

absence, that the dead people, dead and buried for years, would have had more right to be at home, in any

familiar spot, than he. Ethan Brand, it was said, had conversed with Satan himself in the lurid blaze of this

very kiln. The legend had been matter of mirth heretofore, but looked grisly now. According to this tale,

before Ethan Brand departed on his search, he had been accustomed to evoke a fiend from the hot furnace of

the limekiln, night after night, in order to confer with him about the Unpardonable Sin; the man and the

fiend each laboring to frame the image of some mode of guilt which could neither be atoned for nor forgiven.

And, with the first gleam of light upon the mountaintop, the fiend crept in at the iron door, there to abide the

intensest element of fire until again summoned forth to share in the dreadful task of extending man's possible

While the limeburner was struggling with the horror of these thoughts, Ethan Brand rose from the log, and

flung open the door of the kiln. The action was in such accordance with the idea in Bartram's mind, that he

almost expected to see the Evil One issue forth, redhot, from the raging furnace.

"Hold! hold!" cried he, with a tremulous attempt to laugh; for he was ashamed of his fears, although they

"Man!" sternly replied Ethan Brand, "what need have I of the Devil? I have left him behind me, on my track.

It is with such halfway sinners as you that he busies himself. Fear not, because I open the door. I do but act

by old custom, and am going to trim your fire, like a limeburner, as I was once."

He stirred the vast coals, thrust in more wood, and bent forward to gaze into the hollow prisonhouse of the

fire, regardless of the fierce glow that reddened upon his face. The limeburner sat watching him, and half

suspected this strange guest of a purpose, if not to evoke a fiend, at least to plunge into the flames, and thus

vanish from the sight of man. Ethan Brand, however, drew quietly back, and closed the door of the kiln.

"I have looked," said he, "into many a human heart that was seven times hotter with sinful passions than

yonder furnace is with fire. But I found not there what I sought. No, not the Unpardonable Sin!"

"What is the Unpardonable Sin?" asked the limeburner; and then he shrank farther from his companion,

"It is a sin that grew within my own breast," replied Ethan Brand, standing erect with a pride that

distinguishes all enthusiasts of his stamp. "A sin that grew nowhere else! The sin of an intellect that

triumphed over the sense of brotherhood with man and reverence for God, and sacrificed everything to its

own mighty claims! The only sin that deserves a recompense of immortal agony! Freely, were it to do again,

"The man's head is turned," muttered the limeburner to himself. "He may be a sinner like the rest of

Nevertheless, he felt uncomfortable at his situation, alone with Ethan Brand on the wild mountainside, and

was right glad to hear the rough murmur of tongues, and the footsteps of what seemed a pretty numerous

party, stumbling over the stones and rustling through the underbrush. Soon appeared the whole lazy regiment

that was wont to infest the village tavern, comprehending three or four individuals who had drunk flip beside

the barroom fire through all the winters, and smoked their pipes beneath the stoop through all the summers,

since Ethan Brand's departure. Laughing boisterously, and mingling all their voices together in

unceremonious talk, they now burst into the moonshine and narrow streaks of firelight that illuminated the

open space before the limekiln. Bartram set the door ajar again, flooding the spot with light, that the whole

There, among other old acquaintances, was a once ubiquitous man, now almost extinct, but whom we were

formerly sure to encounter at the hotel of every thriving village throughout the country. It was the

stageagent. The present specimen of the genus was a wilted and smokedried man, wrinkled and rednosed,

in a smartly cut, brown, bobtailed coat, with brass buttons, who, for a length of time unknown, had kept his

desk and corner in the barroom, and was still puffing what seemed to be the same cigar that he had lighted

twenty years before. He had great fame as a dry joker, though, perhaps, less on account of any intrinsic

humor than from a certain flavor of brandytoddy and tobaccosmoke, which impregnated all his ideas and

expressions, as well as his person. Another wellremembered, though strangely altered, face was that of

Lawyer Giles, as people still called him in courtesy; an elderly ragamuffin, in his soiled shirtsleeves and

towcloth trousers. This poor fellow had been an attorney, in what he called his better days, a sharp

practitioner, and in great vogue among the village litigants; but flip, and sling, and toddy, and cocktails,

imbibed at all hours, morning, noon, and night, had caused him to slide from intellectual to various kinds and

degrees of bodily labor, till at last, to adopt his own phrase, he slid into a soapvat. In other words, Giles was

now a soapboiler, in a small way. He had come to be but the fragment of a human being, a part of one foot

having been chopped off by an axe, and an entire hand torn away by the devilish grip of a steamengine. Yet,

though the corporeal hand was gone, a spiritual member remained; for, stretching forth the stump, Giles

steadfastly averred that he felt an invisible thumb and fingers with as vivid a sensation as before the real ones

were amputated. A maimed and miserable wretch he was; but one, nevertheless, whom the world could not

trample on, and had no right to scorn, either in this or any previous stage of his misfortunes, since he had still

kept up the courage and spirit of a man, asked nothing in charity, and with his one handand that the left

Among the throng, too, came another personage, who, with certain points of similarity to Lawyer Giles, had

many more of difference. It was the village doctor; a man of some fifty years, whom, at an earlier period of

his life, we introduced as paying a professional visit to Ethan Brand during the latter's supposed insanity. He

was now a purplevisaged, rude, and brutal, yet halfgentlemanly figure, with something wild, ruined, and

desperate in his talk, and in all the details of his gesture and manners. Brandy possessed this man like an evil

spirit, and made him as surly and savage as a wild beast, and as miserable as a lost soul; but there was

supposed to be in him such wonderful skill, such native gifts of healing, beyond any which medical science

could impart, that society caught hold of him, and would not let him sink out of its reach. So, swaying to and

fro upon his horse, and grumbling thick accents at the bedside, he visited all the sickchambers for miles

about among the mountain towns, and sometimes raised a dying man, as it were, by miracle, or quite as often,

no doubt, sent his patient to a grave that was dug many a year too soon. The doctor had an everlasting pipe in

his mouth, and, as somebody said, in allusion to his habit of swearing, it was always alight with hellfire.

These three worthies pressed forward, and greeted Ethan Brand each after his own fashion, earnestly inviting

him to partake of the contents of a certain black bottle, in which, as they averred, he would find something far

better worth seeking than the Unpardonable Sin. No mind, which has wrought itself by intense and solitary

meditation into a high state of enthusiasm, can endure the kind of contact with low and vulgar modes of

thought and feeling to which Ethan Brand was now subjected. It made him doubtand, strange to say, it was

a painful doubtwhether he had indeed found the Unpardonable Sin, and found it within himself. The whole

question on which he had exhausted life, and more than life, looked like a delusion.

"Leave me," he said bitterly, "ye brute beasts, that have made yourselves so, shrivelling up your souls with

fiery liquors! I have done with you. Years and years ago, I groped into your hearts and found nothing there

"Why, you uncivil scoundrel," cried the fierce doctor, "is that the way you respond to the kindness of your

best friends? Then let me tell you the truth. You have no more found the Unpardonable Sin than yonder boy

Joe has. You are but a crazy fellow,I told you so twenty years ago,neither better nor worse than a crazy

He pointed to an old man, shabbily dressed, with long white hair, thin visage, and unsteady eyes. For some

years past this aged person had been wandering about among the hills, inquiring of all travellers whom he

met for his daughter. The girl, it seemed, had gone off with a company of circusperformers, and

occasionally tidings of her came to the village, and fine stories were told of her glittering appearance as she

The whitehaired father now approached Ethan Brand, and gazed unsteadily into his face.

"They tell me you have been all over the earth," said he, wringing his hands with earnestness. "You must

have seen my daughter, for she makes a grand figure in the world, and everybody goes to see her. Did she

Ethan Brand's eye quailed beneath the old man's. That daughter, from whom he so earnestly desired a word of

greeting, was the Esther of our tale, the very girl whom, with such cold and remorseless purpose, Ethan

Brand had made the subject of a psychological experiment, and wasted, absorbed, and perhaps annihilated

"Yes," he murmured, turning away from the hoary wanderer, "it is no delusion. There is an Unpardonable

While these things were passing, a merry scene was going forward in the area of cheerful light, beside the

spring and before the door of the hut. A number of the youth of the village, young men and girls, had hurried

up the hillside, impelled by curiosity to see Ethan Brand, the hero of so many a legend familiar to their

childhood. Finding nothing, however, very remarkable in his aspect,nothing but a sunburnt wayfarer, in

plain garb and dusty shoes, who sat looking into the fire as if he fancied pictures among the coals,these

young people speedily grew tired of observing him. As it happened, there was other amusement at hand. An

old German Jew travelling with a diorama on his back, was passing down the mountainroad towards the

village just as the party turned aside from it, and, in hopes of eking out the profits of the day, the showman

"Come, old Dutchman," cried one of the young men, "let us see your pictures, if you can swear they are

"Oh yes, Captain," answered the Jew,whether as a matter of courtesy or craft, he styled everybody

So, placing his box in a proper position, he invited the young men and girls to look through the glass orifices

of the machine, and proceeded to exhibit a series of the most outrageous scratchings and daubings, as

specimens of the fine arts, that ever an itinerant showman had the face to impose upon his circle of spectators.

The pictures were worn out, moreover, tattered, full of cracks and wrinkles, dingy with tobaccosmoke, and

otherwise in a most pitiable condition. Some purported to be cities, public edifices, and ruined castles in

Europe; others represented Napoleon's battles and Nelson's seafights; and in the midst of these would be

seen a gigantic, brown, hairy hand,which might have been mistaken for the Hand of Destiny, though, in

truth, it was only the showman's,pointing its forefinger to various scenes of the conflict, while its owner

gave historical illustrations. When, with much merriment at its abominable deficiency of merit, the exhibition

was concluded, the German bade little Joe put his head into the box. Viewed through the magnifyingglasses,

the boy's round, rosy visage assumed the strangest imaginable aspect of an immense Titanic child, the mouth

grinning broadly, and the eyes and every other feature overflowing with fun at the joke. Suddenly, however,

that merry face turned pale, and its expression changed to horror, for this easily impressed and excitable child

had become sensible that the eye of Ethan Brand was fixed upon him through the glass.

"You make the little man to be afraid, Captain," said the German Jew, turning up the dark and strong outline

of his visage from his stooping posture. "But look again, and, by chance, I shall cause you to see somewhat

Ethan Brand gazed into the box for an instant, and then starting back, looked fixedly at the German. What

had he seen? Nothing, apparently; for a curious youth, who had peeped in almost at the same moment, beheld

"Ah, Captain," whispered the Jew of Nuremberg, with a dark smile, "I find it to be a heavy matter in my

showbox,this Unpardonable Sin! By my faith, Captain, it has wearied my shoulders, this long day, to

The Jew's exhibition had scarcely concluded, when a great, elderly dog who seemed to be his own master,

as no person in the company laid claim to himsaw fit to render himself the object of public notice.

Hitherto, he had shown himself a very quiet, welldisposed old dog, going round from one to another, and,

by way of being sociable, offering his rough head to be patted by any kindly hand that would take so much

trouble. But now, all of a sudden, this grave and venerable quadruped, of his own mere motion, and without

the slightest suggestion from anybody else, began to run round after his tail, which, to heighten the absurdity

of the proceeding, was a great deal shorter than it should have been. Never was seen such headlong eagerness

in pursuit of an object that could not possibly be attained; never was heard such a tremendous outbreak of

growling, snarling, barking, and snapping,as if one end of the ridiculous brute's body were at deadly and

most unforgivable enmity with the other. Faster and faster, round about went the cur; and faster and still

faster fled the unapproachable brevity of his tail; and louder and fiercer grew his yells of rage and animosity;

until, utterly exhausted, and as far from the goal as ever, the foolish old dog ceased his performance as

suddenly as he had begun it. The next moment he was as mild, quiet, sensible, and respectable in his

As may be supposed, the exhibition was greeted with universal laughter, clapping of hands, and shouts of

encore, to which the canine performer responded by wagging all that there was to wag of his tail, but

appeared totally unable to repeat his very successful effort to amuse the spectators.

Meanwhile, Ethan Brand had resumed his seat upon the log, and moved, as it might be, by a perception of

some remote analogy between his own case and that of this selfpursuing cur, he broke into the awful laugh,

which, more than any other token, expressed the condition of his inward being. From that moment, the

merriment of the party was at an end; they stood aghast, dreading lest the inauspicious sound should be

reverberated around the horizon, and that mountain would thunder it to mountain, and so the horror be

prolonged upon their ears. Then, whispering one to another that it was late,that the moon was almost

down,that the August night was growing chill,they hurried homewards, leaving the limeburner and little

Joe to deal as they might with their unwelcome guest. Save for these three human beings, the open space on

the hillside was a solitude, set in a vast gloom of forest. Beyond that darksome verge, the firelight

glimmered on the stately trunks and almost black foliage of pines, intermixed with the lighter verdure of

sapling oaks, maples, and poplars, while here and there lay the gigantic corpses of dead trees, decaying on the

leafstrewn soil. And it seemed to little Joe a timorous and imaginative childthat the silent forest was

Ethan Brand thrust more wood into the fire, and closed the door of the kiln; then looking over his shoulder at

the limeburner and his son, he bade, rather than advised, them to retire to rest.

"For myself, I cannot sleep," said he. "I have matters that it concerns me to meditate upon. I will watch the

"And call the Devil out of the furnace to keep you company, I suppose," muttered Bartram, who had been

making intimate acquaintance with the black bottle above mentioned. "But watch, if you like, and call as

many devils as you like! For my part, I shall be all the better for a snooze. Come, Joe!"

As the boy followed his father into the hut, he looked back at the wayfarer, and the tears came into his eyes,

for his tender spirit had an intuition of the bleak and terrible loneliness in which this man had enveloped

When they had gone, Ethan Brand sat listening to the crackling of the kindled wood, and looking at the little

spirts of fire that issued through the chinks of the door. These trifles, however, once so familiar, had but the

slightest hold of his attention, while deep within his mind he was reviewing the gradual but marvellous

change that had been wrought upon him by the search to which he had devoted himself. He remembered how

the night dew had fallen upon him,how the dark forest had whispered to him,how the stars had gleamed

upon him,a simple and loving man, watching his fire in the years gone by, and ever musing as it burned.

He remembered with what tenderness, with what love and sympathy for mankind and what pity for human

guilt and woe, he had first begun to contemplate those ideas which afterwards became the inspiration of his

life; with what reverence he had then looked into the heart of man, viewing it as a temple originally divine,

and, however desecrated, still to be held sacred by a brother; with what awful fear he had deprecated the

success of his pursuit, and prayed that the Unpardonable Sin might never be revealed to him. Then ensued

that vast intellectual development, which, in its progress, disturbed the counterpoise between his mind and

heart. The Idea that possessed his life had operated as a means of education; it had gone on cultivating his

powers to the highest point of which they were susceptible; it had raised him from the level of an unlettered

laborer to stand on a starlit eminence, whither the philosophers of the earth, laden with the lore of

universities, might vainly strive to clamber after him. So much for the intellect! But where was the heart?

That, indeed, had withered,had contracted,had hardened,had perished! It had ceased to partake of the

universal throb. He had lost his hold of the magnetic chain of humanity. He was no longer a brotherman,

opening the chambers or the dungeons of our common nature by the key of holy sympathy, which gave him a

right to share in all its secrets; he was now a cold observer, looking on mankind as the subject of his

experiment, and, at length, converting man and woman to be his puppets, and pulling the wires that moved

Thus Ethan Brand became a fiend. He began to be so from the moment that his moral nature had ceased to

keep the pace of improvement with his intellect. And now, as his highest effort and inevitable

development,as the bright and gorgeous flower, and rich, delicious fruit of his life's labor,he had

"What more have I to seek? what more to achieve?" said Ethan Brand to himself. "My task is done, and well

Starting from the log with a certain alacrity in his gait and ascending the hillock of earth that was raised

against the stone circumference of the limekiln, he thus reached the top of the structure. It was a space of

perhaps ten feet across, from edge to edge, presenting a view of the upper surface of the immense mass of

broken marble with which the kiln was heaped. All these innumerable blocks and fragments of marble were

redhot and vividly on fire, sending up great spouts of blue flame, which quivered aloft and danced madly, as

within a magic circle, and sank and rose again, with continual and multitudinous activity. As the lonely man

bent forward over this terrible body of fire, the blasting heat smote up against his person with a breath that, it

Ethan Brand stood erect, and raised his arms on high. The blue flames played upon his face, and imparted the

wild and ghastly light which alone could have suited its expression; it was that of a fiend on the verge of

"O Mother Earth," cried he, "who art no more my Mother, and into whose bosom this frame shall never be

resolved! O mankind, whose brotherhood I have cast off, and trampled thy great heart beneath my feet! O

stars of heaven, that shone on me of old, as if to light me onward and upward!farewell all, and forever.

Come, deadly element of Fire,henceforth my familiar friend! Embrace me, as I do thee! "

That night the sound of a fearful peal of laughter rolled heavily through the sleep of the limeburner and his

little son; dim shapes of horror and anguish haunted their dreams, and seemed still present in the rude hovel,

"Up, boy, up!" cried the limeburner, staring about him. "Thank Heaven, the night is gone, at last; and rather

than pass such another, I would watch my limekiln, wide awake, for a twelvemonth. This Ethan Brand, with

his humbug of an Unpardonable Sin, has done me no such mighty favor, in taking my place!"

He issued from the hut, followed by little Joe, who kept fast hold of his father's hand. The early sunshine was

already pouring its gold upon the mountaintops, and though the valleys were still in shadow, they smiled

cheerfully in the promise of the bright day that was hastening onward. The village, completely shut in by

hills, which swelled away gently about it, looked as if it had rested peacefully in the hollow of the great hand

of Providence. Every dwelling was distinctly visible; the little spires of the two churches pointed upwards,

and caught a foreglimmering of brightness from the sungilt skies upon their gilded weathercocks. The

tavern was astir, and the figure of the old, smokedried stageagent, cigar in mouth, was seen beneath the

stoop. Old Graylock was glorified with a golden cloud upon his head. Scattered likewise over the breasts of

the surrounding mountains, there were heaps of hoary mist, in fantastic shapes, some of them far down into

the valley, others high up towards the summits, and still others, of the same family of mist or cloud, hovering

in the gold radiance of the upper atmosphere. Stepping from one to another of the clouds that rested on the

hills, and thence to the loftier brotherhood that sailed in air, it seemed almost as if a mortal man might thus

ascend into the heavenly regions. Earth was so mingled with sky that it was a daydream to look at it.

To supply that charm of the familiar and homely, which Nature so readily adopts into a scene like this, the

stagecoach was rattling down the mountainroad, and the driver sounded his horn, while Echo caught up the

notes, and intertwined them into a rich and varied and elaborate harmony, of which the original performer

could lay claim to little share. The great hills played a concert among themselves, each contributing a strain

"Dear father," cried he, skipping cheerily to and fro, "that strange man is gone, and the sky and the mountains

"Yes," growled the limeburner, with an oath, "but he has let the fire go down, and no thanks to him if five

hundred bushels of lime are not spoiled. If I catch the fellow hereabouts again, I shall feel like tossing him

With his long pole in his hand, he ascended to the top of the kiln. After a moment's pause, he called to his

So little Joe ran up the hillock, and stood by his father's side. The marble was all burnt into perfect,

snowwhite lime. But on its surface, in the midst of the circle,snowwhite too, and thoroughly converted

into lime,lay a human skeleton, in the attitude of a person who, after long toil, lies down to long repose.

"Was the fellow's heart made of marble?" cried Bartram, in some perplexity at this phenomenon. "At any

rate, it is burnt into what looks like special good lime; and, taking all the bones together, my kiln is half a

So saying, the rude limeburner lifted his pole, and, letting it fall upon the skeleton, the relics of Ethan Brand

The summer moon, which shines in so many a tale, was beaming over a broad extent of uneven country.

Some of its brightest rays were flung into a spring of water, where no traveller, toiling, as the writer has, up

the hilly road beside which it gushes, ever failed to quench his thirst. The work of neat hands and considerate

art was visible about this blessed fountain. An open cistern, hewn and hollowed out of solid stone, was placed

above the waters, which filled it to the brim, but by some invisible outlet were conveyed away without

dripping down its sides. Though the basin had not room for another drop, and the continual gush of water

made a tremor on the surface, there was a secret charm that forbade it to overflow. I remember, that when I

had slaked my summer thirst, and sat panting by the cistern, it was my fanciful theory that Nature could not

afford to lavish so pure a liquid, as she does the waters of all meaner fountains.

While the moon was hanging almost perpendicularly over this spot, two figures appeared on the summit of

the hill, and came with noiseless footsteps down towards the spring. They were then in the first freshness of

youth; nor is there a wrinkle now on either of their brows, and yet they wore a strange, oldfashioned garb.

One, a young man with ruddy cheeks, walked beneath the canopy of a broadbrimmed gray hat; he seemed to

have inherited his greatgrandsire's squareskirted coat, and a waistcoat that extended its immense flaps to

his knees; his brown locks, also, hung down behind, in a mode unknown to our times. By his side was a

sweet young damsel, her fair features sheltered by a prim little bonnet, within which appeared the vestal

muslin of a cap; her close, longwaisted gown, and indeed her whole attire, might have been worn by some

rustic beauty who had faded half a century before. But that there was something too warm and lifelike in

them, I would here have compared this couple to the ghosts of two young lovers who had died long since in

the glow of passion, and now were straying out of their graves, to renew the old vows, and shadow forth the

"Thee and I will rest here a moment, Miriam," said the young man, as they drew near the stone cistern, "for

there is no fear that the elders know what we have done; and this may be the last time we shall ever taste this

Thus speaking, with a little sadness in his face, which was also visible in that of his companion, he made her

sit down on a stone, and was about to place himself very close to her side; she, however, repelled him, though

"Nay, Josiah," said she, giving him a timid push with her maiden hand, "thee must sit farther off, on that

other stone, with the spring between us. What would the sisters say, if thee were to sit so close to me?"

The girl persisted in her prudery, nor did the youth, in fact, seem altogether free from a similar sort of

shyness; so they sat apart from each other, gazing up the hill, where the moonlight discovered the tops of a

group of buildings. While their attention was thus occupied, a party of travellers, who had come wearily up

the long ascent, made a halt to refresh themselves at the spring. There were three men, a woman, and a little

girl and boy. Their attire was mean, covered with the dust of the summer's day, and damp with the

nightdew; they all looked woebegone, as if the cares and sorrows of the world had made their steps heavier

as they climbed the hill; even the two little children appeared older in evil days than the young man and

"Good evening to you, young folks," was the salutation of the travellers; and "Good evening, friends," replied

"Is that white building the Shaker meetinghouse?" asked one of the strangers. "And are those the red roofs

The travellers, who, from the first, had looked suspiciously at the garb of these young people, now taxed

them with an intention which all the circumstances, indeed, rendered too obvious to be mistaken.

"It is true, friends," replied the young man, summoning up his courage. "Miriam and I have a gift to love each

other, and we are going among the world's people, to live after their fashion. And ye know that we do not

transgress the law of the land; and neither ye, nor the elders themselves, have a right to hinder us."

"Yet you think it expedient to depart without leavetaking," remarked one of the travellers.

"Yea, yea," said Josiah, reluctantly, "because father Job is a very awful man to speak with; and being aged

himself, he has but little charity for what he calls the iniquities of the flesh."

"Well," said the stranger, "we will neither use force to bring you back to the village, nor will we betray you to

the elders. But sit you here awhile, and when you have heard what we shall tell you of the world which we

have left, and into which you are going, perhaps you will turn back with us of your own accord. What say

you?" added he, turning to his companions. "We have travelled thus far without becoming known to each

other. Shall we tell our stories, here by this pleasant spring, for our own pastime, and the benefit of these

In accordance with this proposal, the whole party stationed themselves round the stone cistern; the two

children, being very weary, fell asleep upon the damp earth, and the pretty Shaker girl, whose feelings were

those of a nun or a Turkish lady, crept as close as possible to the female traveller, and as far as she well could

from the unknown men. The same person who had hitherto been the chief spokesman now stood up, waving

"In me," said he, with a certain majesty of utterance,"in me, you behold a poet."

Though a lithographic print of this gentleman is extant, it may be well to notice that he was now nearly forty,

a thin and stooping figure, in a black coat, out at elbows; notwithstanding the ill condition of his attire, there

were about him several tokens of a peculiar sort of foppery, unworthy of a mature man, particularly in the

arrangement of his hair which was so disposed as to give all possible loftiness and breadth to his forehead.

"A poet!" repeated the young Shaker, a little puzzled how to understand such a designation, seldom heard in

the utilitarian community where he had spent his life. "Oh, ay, Miriam, he means a varsemaker, thee must

This remark jarred upon the susceptible nerves of the poet; nor could he help wondering what strange fatality

had put into this young man's mouth an epithet, which illnatured people had affirmed to be more proper to

"True, I am a versemaker," he resumed, "but my verse is no more than the material body into which I

breathe the celestial soul of thought. Alas! how many a pang has it cost me, this same insensibility to the

ethereal essence of poetry, with which you have here tortured me again, at the moment when I am to

relinquish my profession forever! O Fate! why hast thou warred with Nature, turning all her higher and more

perfect gifts to the ruin of me, their possessor? What is the voice of song, when the world lacks the ear of

taste? How can I rejoice in my strength and delicacy of feeling, when they have but made great sorrows out

of little ones? Have I dreaded scorn like death, and yearned for fame as others pant for vital air, only to find

myself in a middle state between obscurity and infamy? But I have my revenge! I could have given existence

to a thousand bright creations. I crush them into my heart, and there let them putrefy! I shake off the dust of

my feet against my countrymen! But posterity, tracing my footsteps up this weary hill, will cry shame upon

the unworthy age that drove one of the fathers of American song to end his days in a Shaker village! "

During this harangue, the speaker gesticulated with great energy, and, as poetry is the natural language of

passion, there appeared reason to apprehend his final explosion into an ode extempore. The reader must

understand that, for all these bitter words, he was a kind, gentle, harmless, poor fellow enough, whom Nature,

tossing her ingredients together without looking at her recipe, had sent into the world with too much of one

"Friend," said the young Shaker, in some perplexity, "thee seemest to have met with great troubles; and,

"Happy in your ignorance!" replied the poet, with an air of sublime superiority. "To your coarser mind,

perhaps, I may seem to speak of more important griefs when I add, what I had wellnigh forgotten, that I am

out at elbows, and almost starved to death. At any rate, you have the advice and example of one individual to

warn you back; for I am come hither, a disappointed man, flinging aside the fragments of my hopes, and

"I thank thee, friend," rejoined the youth, "but I do not mean to be a poet, nor, Heaven be praised! do I think

Miriam ever made a varse in her life. So we need not fear thy disappointments. But, Miriam," he added, with

real concern, "thee knowest that the elders admit nobody that has not a gift to be useful. Now, what under the

"Nay, Josiah, do not thee discourage the poor man," said the girl, in all simplicity and kindness. "Our hymns

Without noticing this hint of professional employment, the poet turned away, and gave himself up to a sort of

vague reverie, which he called thought. Sometimes he watched the moon, pouring a silvery liquid on the

clouds, through which it slowly melted till they became all bright; then he saw the same sweet radiance

dancing on the leafy trees which rustled as if to shake it off, or sleeping on the high tops of hills, or hovering

down in distant valleys, like the material of unshaped dreams; lastly, he looked into the spring, and there the

light was mingling with the water. In its crystal bosom, too, beholding all heaven reflected there, he found an

emblem of a pure and tranquil breast. He listened to that most ethereal of all sounds, the song of crickets,

coming in full choir upon the wind, and fancied that, if moonlight could be heard, it would sound just like

that. Finally, he took a draught at the Shaker spring, and, as if it were the true Castalia, was forthwith moved

to compose a lyric, a Farewell to his Harp, which he swore should be its closing strain, the last verse that an

ungrateful world should have from him. This effusion, with two or three other little pieces, subsequently

written, he took the first opportunity to send, by one of the Shaker brethren, to Concord, where they were

Meantime, another of the Canterbury pilgrims, one so different from the poet that the delicate fancy of the

latter could hardly have conceived of him, began to relate his sad experience. He was a small man, of quick

and unquiet gestures, about fifty years old, with a narrow forehead, all wrinkled and drawn together. He held

in his hand a pencil, and a card of some commissionmerchant in foreign parts, on the back of which, for

there was light enough to read or write by, he seemed ready to figure out a calculation.

"Young man," said he, abruptly, "what quantity of land do the Shakers own here, in Canterbury?"

"That is more than I can tell thee, friend," answered Josiah, "but it is a very rich establishment, and for a long

way by the roadside thee may guess the land to be ours, by the neatness of the fences."

"And what may be the value of the whole," continued the stranger, "with all the buildings and improvements,

"Well, sir," said the pilgrim, "there was a day, and not very long ago, neither, when I stood at my

countingroom window, and watched the signal flags of three of my own ships entering the harbor, from the

East Indies, from Liverpool, and from up the Straits, and I would not have given the invoice of the least of

them for the titledeeds of this whole Shaker settlement. You stare. Perhaps, now, you won't believe that I

could have put more value on a little piece of paper, no bigger than the palm of your hand, than all these solid

"I won't dispute it, friend," answered Josiah, "but I know I had rather have fifty acres of this good land than a

"You may say so now," said the ruined merchant, bitterly, "for my name would not be worth the paper I

And the stranger mentioned his name, which, however mighty it might have been in the commercial world,

"Not heard of my failure!" exclaimed the merchant, considerably piqued. "Why, it was spoken of on 'Change

in London, and from Boston to New Orleans men trembled in their shoes. At all events, I did fail, and you see

me here on my road to the Shaker village, where, doubtless (for the Shakers are a shrewd sect), they will have

a due respect for my experience, and give me the management of the trading part of the concern, in which

case I think I can pledge myself to double their capital in four or five years. Turn back with me, young man;

for though you will never meet with my good luck, you can hardly escape my bad."

"I will not turn back for this," replied Josiah. calmly, "any more than for the advice of the varsemaker,

between whom and thee, friend, I see a sort of likeness, though I can't justly say where it lies. But Miriam and

I can earn our daily bread among the world's people as well as in the Shaker village. And do we want

"Yea, Miriam, and daily bread for some other little mouths, if God send them," observed the simple Shaker

Miriam did not reply, but looked down into the spring, where she encountered the image of her own pretty

face, blushing within the prim little bonnet. The third pilgrim now took up the conversation. He was a

sunburnt countryman, of tall frame and bony strength, on whose rude and manly face there appeared a darker,

more sullen and obstinate despondency, than on those of either the poet or the merchant.

"Well, now, youngster," he began, "these folks have had their say, so I'll take my turn. My story will cut but a

poor figure by the side of theirs; for I never supposed that I could have a right to meat and drink, and great

praise besides, only for tagging rhymes together, as it seems this man does; nor ever tried to get the substance

of hundreds into my own hands, like the trader there. When I was about of your years, I married me a

wife,just such a neat and pretty young woman as Miriam, if that's her name,and all I asked of

Providence was an ordinary blessing on the sweat of my brow, so that we might be decent and comfortable,

and have daily bread for ourselves, and for some other little mouths that we soon had to feed. We had no very

great prospects before us; but I never wanted to be idle; and I thought it a matter of course that the Lord

"No," said the yeoman, sullenly; "for then you would not have seen me here. I have labored hard for years;

and my means have been growing narrower, and my living poorer, and my heart colder and heavier, all the

time; till at last I could bear it no longer. I set myself down to calculate whether I had best go on the Oregon

expedition, or come here to the Shaker village; but I had not hope enough left in me to begin the world over

again; and, to make my story short, here I am. And now, youngster, take my advice, and turn back; or else,

some few years hence, you'll have to climb this hill, with as heavy a heart as mine."

This simple story had a strong effect on the young fugitives. The misfortunes of the poet and merchant had

won little sympathy from their plain good sense and unworldly feelings, qualities which made them such

unprejudiced and inflexible judges, that few men would have chosen to take the opinion of this youth and

maiden as to the wisdom or folly of their pursuits. But here was one whose simple wishes had resembled their

own, and who, after efforts which almost gave him a right to claim success from fate, had failed in

"But thy wife, friend?" exclaimed the younger man. "What became of the pretty girl, like Miriam? Oh, I am

The female pilgrim had been leaning over the spring, wherein latterly a tear or two might have been seen to

fall, and form its little circle on the surface of the water. She now looked up, disclosing features still comely,

but which had acquired an expression of fretfulness, in the same long course of evil fortune that had thrown a

"I am his wife," said she, a shade of irritability just perceptible in the sadness of her tone. "These poor little

things, asleep on the ground, are two of our children. We had two more, but God has provided better for them

"And what would thee advise Josiah and me to do?" asked Miriam, this being the first question which she had

" 'Tis a thing almost against nature for a woman to try to part true lovers," answered the yeoman's wife, after

a pause; "but I'll speak as truly to you as if these were my dying words. Though my husband told you some of

our troubles, he didn't mention the greatest, and that which makes all the rest so hard to bear. If you and your

sweetheart marry, you'll be kind and pleasant to each other for a year or two, and while that's the case, you

never will repent; but, by and by, he'll grow gloomy, rough, and hard to please, and you'll be peevish, and full

of little angry fits, and apt to be complaining by the fireside, when he comes to rest himself from his troubles

out of doors; so your love will wear away by little and little, and leave you miserable at last. It has been so

with us; and yet my husband and I were true lovers once, if ever two young folks were ."

As she ceased, the yeoman and his wife exchanged a glance, in which there was more and warmer affection

than they had supposed to have escaped the frost of a wintry fate, in either of their breasts. At that moment,

when they stood on the utmost verge of married life, one word fitly spoken, or perhaps one peculiar look, had

they had mutual confidence enough to reciprocate it, might have renewed all their old feelings, and sent them

back, resolved to sustain each other amid the struggles of the world. But the crisis passed and never came

again. Just then, also, the children, roused by their mother's voice, looked up, and added their wailing accents

to the testimony borne by all the Canterbury pilgrims against the world from which they fled.

The Shaker youth and maiden looked mournfully into each other's eyes. They had but stepped across the

threshold of their homes, when lo! the dark array of cares and sorrows that rose up to warn them back. The

varied narratives of the strangers had arranged themselves into a parable; they seemed not merely instances of

woful fate that had befallen others, but shadowy omens of disappointed hope and unavailing toil, domestic

grief and estranged affection, that would cloud the onward path of these poor fugitives. But after one instant's

hesitation, they opened their arms, and sealed their resolve with as pure and fond an embrace as ever youthful

"We will not go back," said they. "The world never can be dark to us, for we will always love one another."

Then the Canterbury pilgrims went up the hill, while the poet chanted a drear and desperate stanza of the

Farewell to his Harp, fitting music for that melancholy band. They sought a home where all former ties of

nature or society would be sundered, and all old distinctions levelled, and a cold and passionless security be

substituted for mortal hope and fear, as in that other refuge of the world's weary outcasts, the grave. The

lovers drank at the Shaker spring, and then, with chastened hopes, but more confiding affections, went on to

On a bitter evening of December, I arrived by mail in a large town, which was then the residence of an

intimate friend, one of those gifted youths who cultivate poetry and the belleslettres, and call themselves

students at law. My first business, after supper, was to visit him at the office of his distinguished instructor.

As I have said, it was a bitter night, clear starlight, but cold as Nova Zembla,the shopwindows along the

street being frosted, so as almost to hide the lights, while the wheels of coaches thundered equally loud over

frozen earth and pavements of stone. There was no snow, either on the ground or the roofs of the houses. The

wind blew so violently, that I had but to spread my cloak like a mainsail, and scud along the street at the rate

of ten knots, greatly envied by other navigators, who were beating slowly up, with the gale right in their teeth.

One of these I capsized, but was gone on the wings of the wind before he could even vociferate an oath.

After this picture of an inclement night, behold us seated by a great blazing fire, which looked so comfortable

and delicious that I felt inclined to lie down and roll among the hot coals. The usual furniture of a lawyer's

office was around us,rows of volumes in sheepskin, and a multitude of writs, summonses, and other legal

papers, scattered over the desks and tables. But there were certain objects which seemed to intimate that we

had little dread of the intrusion of clients, or of the learned counsellor himself, who, indeed, was attending

court in a distant town. A tall, decantershaped bottle stood on the table, between two tumblers, and beside a

pile of blotted manuscripts, altogether dissimilar to any law documents recognized in our courts. My friend,

whom I shall call Oberon,it was a name of fancy and friendship between him and me,my friend Oberon

"I do believe," said he, soberly, "or, at least, I could believe, if I chose, that there is a devil in this pile of

blotted papers. You have read them, and know what I mean,that conception in which I endeavored to

embody the character of a fiend, as represented in our traditions and the written records of witchcraft. Oh, I

have a horror of what was created in my own brain, and shudder at the manuscripts in which I gave that dark

"You remember," continued Oberon, "how the hellish thing used to suck away the happiness of those who, by

a simple concession that seemed almost innocent, subjected themselves to his power. Just so my peace is

gone, and all by these accursed manuscripts. Have you felt nothing of the same influence?"

"Nothing," replied I, "unless the spell be hid in a desire to turn novelist, after reading your delightful tales."

"Novelist!" exclaimed Oberon, half seriously. "Then, indeed, my devil has his claw on you! You are gone!

You cannot even pray for deliverance! But we will be the last and only victims; for this night I mean to burn

"Even so," said the author, despondingly. "You cannot conceive what an effect the composition of these tales

has had on me. I have become ambitious of a bubble, and careless of solid reputation. I am surrounding

myself with shadows, which bewilder me, by aping the realities of life. They have drawn me aside from the

beaten path of the world, and led me into a strange sort of solitude,a solitude in the midst of men,where

nobody wishes for what I do, nor thinks nor feels as I do. The tales have done all this. When they are ashes,

perhaps I shall be as I was before they had existence. Moreover, the sacrifice is less than you may suppose,

"They have been offered, by letter," continued Oberon, reddening with vexation, "to some seventeen

booksellers. It would make you stare to read their answers; and read them you should, only that I burnt them

as fast as they arrived. One man publishes nothing but schoolbooks; another has five novels already under

"What a voluminous mass the unpublished literature of America must be!" cried I.

"Oh, the Alexandrian manuscripts were nothing to it!" said my friend. "Well, another gentleman is just giving

up business, on purpose, I verily believe, to escape publishing my book. Several, however, would not

absolutely decline the agency, on my advancing half the cost of an edition, and giving bonds for the

remainder, besides a high percentage to themselves, whether the book sells or not. Another advises a

"A fact!" said Oberon. "In short, of all the seventeen booksellers, only one has vouchsafed even to read my

tales; and hea literary dabbler himself, I should judgehas the impertinence to criticise them, proposing

what he calls vast improvements, and concluding, after a general sentence of condemnation, with the

"If the whole 'trade' had one common nose, there would be some satisfaction in pulling it," answered the

author. "But, there does seem to be one honest man among these seventeen unrighteous ones; and he tells me

fairly, that no American publisher will meddle with an American work,seldom if by a known writer, and

"The paltry rogues!" cried I. "Will they live by literature, and yet risk nothing for its sake? But, after all, you

"And so I might," replied Oberon. "But the devil of the business is this. These people have put me so out of

conceit with the tales, that I loathe the very thought of them, and actually experience a physical sickness of

the stomach, whenever I glance at them on the table. I tell you there is a demon in them! I anticipate a wild

enjoyment in seeing them in the blaze; such as I should feel in taking vengeance on an enemy, or destroying

I did not very strenuously oppose this determination, being privately of opinion, in spite of my partiality for

the author, that his tales would make a more brilliant appearance in the fire than anywhere else. Before

proceeding to execution, we broached the bottle of champagne, which Oberon had provided for keeping up

his spirits in this doleful business. We swallowed each a tumblerful, in sparkling commotion; it went

bubbling down our throats, and brightened my eyes at once, but left my friend sad and heavy as before. He

drew the tales towards him, with a mixture of natural affection and natural disgust, like a father taking a

"Pooh! Pish! Pshaw!" exclaimed he, holding them at arm'slength. "It was Gray's idea of heaven, to lounge

on a sofa and read new novels. Now, what more appropriate torture would Dante himself have contrived, for

the sinner who perpetrates a bad book, than to be continually turning over the manuscript?"

"It would fail of effect," said I, "because a bad author is always his own great admirer."

"I lack that one characteristic of my tribe,the only desirable one," observed Oberon. "But how many

recollections throng upon me, as I turn over these leaves! This scene came into my fancy as I walked along a

hilly road, on a starlight October evening; in the pure and bracing air, I became all soul, and felt as if I could

climb the sky, and run a race along the Milky Way. Here is another tale, in which I wrapt myself during a

dark and dreary nightride in the month of March, till the rattling of the wheels and the voices of my

companions seemed like faint sounds of a dream, and my visions a bright reality. That scribbled page

describes shadows which I summoned to my bedside at midnight: they would not depart when I bade them;

the gray dawn came, and found me wide awake and feverish, the victim of my own enchantments!"

"There must have been a sort of happiness in all this," said I, smitten with a strange longing to make proof of

"There may be happiness in a fever fit," replied the author. "And then the various moods in which I wrote!

Sometimes my ideas were like precious stones under the earth, requiring toil to dig them up, and care to

polish and brighten them; but often a delicious stream of thought would gush out upon the page at once, like

water sparkling up suddenly in the desert; and when it had passed, I gnawed my pen hopelessly, or blundered

on with cold and miserable toil, as if there were a wall of ice between me and my subject."

"Do you now perceive a corresponding difference," inquired I, "between the passages which you wrote so

"No," said Oberon, tossing the manuscripts on the table. "I find no traces of the golden pen with which I

wrote in characters of fire. My treasure of fairy coin is changed to worthless dross. My picture, painted in

what seemed the loveliest hues, presents nothing but a faded and indistinguishable surface. I have been

eloquent and poetical and humorous in a dream,and behold! it is all nonsense, now that I am awake."

My friend now threw sticks of wood and dry chips upon the fire, and seeing it blaze like Nebuchadnezzar's

furnace, seized the champagne bottle, and drank two or three brimming bumpers, successively. The heady

liquor combined with his agitation to throw him into a species of rage. He laid violent hands on the tales. In

one instant more, their faults and beauties would alike have vanished in a glowing purgatory. But, all at once,

I remembered passages of high imagination, deep pathos, original thoughts, and points of such varied

excellence, that the vastness of the sacrifice struck me most forcibly. I caught his arm.

"Let me alone!" cried Oberon, his eyes flashing fire. "I will burn them! Not a scorched syllable shall escape!

Would you have me a damned author?To undergo sneers, taunts, abuse, and cold neglect, and faint praise,

bestowed, for pity's sake, against the giver's conscience! A hissing and a laughingstock to my own traitorous

thoughts! An outlaw from the protection of the grave,one whose ashes every careless foot might spurn,

unhonored in life, and remembered scornfully in death! Am I to bear all this, when yonder fire will insure me

from the whole? No! There go the tales! May my hand wither when it would write another!"

The deed was done. He had thrown the manuscripts into the hottest of the fire, which at first seemed to shrink

away, but soon curled around them, and made them a part of its own fervent brightness. Oberon stood gazing

at the conflagration, and shortly began to soliloquize, in the wildest strain, as if Fancy resisted and became

riotous, at the moment when he would have compelled her to ascend that funeral pile. His words described

objects which he appeared to discern in the fire, fed by his own precious thoughts; perhaps the thousand

visions which the writer's magic had incorporated with these pages became visible to him in the dissolving

heat, brightening forth ere they vanished forever; while the smoke, the vivid sheets of flame, the ruddy and

"They blaze," said he, "as if I had steeped them in the intensest spirit of genius. There I see my lovers clasped

in each other's arms. How pure the flame that bursts from their glowing hearts! And yonder the features of a

villain writhing in the fire that shall torment him to eternity. My holy men, my pious and angelic women,

stand like martyrs amid the flames, their mild eyes lifted heavenward. Ring out the bells! A city is on fire.

See!destruction roars through my dark forests, while the lakes boil up in steaming billows, and the

mountains are volcanoes, and the sky kindles with a lurid brightness! All elements are but one pervading

I was somewhat startled by this latter exclamation. The tales were almost consumed, but just then threw forth

a broad sheet of fire, which flickered as with laughter, making the whole room dance in its brightness, and

"You saw him? You must have seen him!" cried Oberon. "How he glared at me and laughed, in that last sheet

of flame, with just the features that I imagined for him! Well! The tales are gone."

The papers were indeed reduced to a heap of black cinders, with a multitude of sparks hurrying confusedly

among them, the traces of the pen being now represented by white lines, and the whole mass fluttering to and

"What is more potent than fire!" said he, in his gloomiest tone. "Even thought, invisible and incorporeal as it

is, cannot escape it. In this little time, it has annihilated the creations of long nights and days, which I could

no more reproduce, in their first glow and freshness, than cause ashes and whitened bones to rise up and live.

There, too, I sacrificed the unborn children of my mind. All that I had accomplishedall that I planned for

future yearshas perished by one common ruin, and left only this heap of embers! The deed has been my

fate. And what remains? A weary and aimless life,a long repentance of this hour,and at last an obscure

As the author concluded his dolorous moan, the extinguished embers arose and settled down and arose again,

and finally flew up the chimney, like a demon with sable wings. Just as they disappeared, there was a loud

and solitary cry in the street below us. "Fire!" Fire! Other voices caught up that terrible word, and it speedily

became the shout of a multitude. Oberon started to his feet, in fresh excitement.

"A fire on such a night!" cried he. "The wind blows a gale, and wherever it whirls the flames, the roofs will

flash up like gunpowder. Every pump is frozen up, and boiling water would turn to ice the moment it was

flung from the engine. In an hour, this wooden town will be one great bonfire! What a glorious scene for my

The street was now all alive with footsteps, and the air full of voices. We heard one engine thundering round

a corner, and another rattling from a distance over the pavements. The bells of three steeples clanged out at

once, spreading the alarm to many a neighboring town, and expressing hurry, confusion, and terror, so

inimitably that I could almost distinguish in their peal the burden of the universal cry,"Fire! Fire! Fire!"

"What is so eloquent as their iron tongues!" exclaimed Oberon. "My heart leaps and trembles, but not with

fear. And that other sound, too, deep and awful as a mighty organ,the roar and thunder of the multitude

on the pavement below! Come! We are losing time. I will cry out in the loudest of the uproar, and mingle my

spirit with the wildest of the confusion, and be a bubble on the top of the ferment!"

From the first outcry, my forebodings had warned me of the true object and centre of alarm. There was

nothing now but uproar, above, beneath, and around us; footsteps stumbling pellmell up the public staircase,

eager shouts and heavy thumps at the door, the whiz and dash of water from the engines, and the crash of

furniture thrown upon the pavement. At once, the truth flashed upon my friend. His frenzy took the hue of

joy, and, with a wild gesture of exultation, he leaped almost to the ceiling of the chamber.

"My tales!" cried Oberon. "The chimney! The roof! The Fiend has gone forth by night, and startled thousands

in fear and wonder from their beds! Here I stand,a triumphant author! Huzza! Huzza! My brain has set the

After the kings of Great Britain had assumed the right of appointing the colonial governors, the measures of

the latter seldom met with the ready and generous approbation which had been paid to those of their

predecessors, under the original charters. The people looked with most jealous scrutiny to the exercise of

power which did not emanate from themselves, and they usually rewarded their rulers with slender gratitude

for the compliances by which, in softening their instructions from beyond the sea, they had incurred the

reprehension of those who gave them. The annals of Massachusetts Bay will inform us, that of six governors

in the space of about forty years from the surrender of the old charter, under James II, two were imprisoned

by a popular insurrection; a third, as Hutchinson inclines to believe, was driven from the province by the

whizzing of a musketball; a fourth, in the opinion of the same historian, was hastened to his grave by

continual bickerings with the House of Representatives; and the remaining two, as well as their successors,

till the Revolution, were favored with few and brief intervals of peaceful sway. The inferior members of the

court party, in times of high political excitement, led scarcely a more desirable life. These remarks may serve

as a preface to the following adventures, which chanced upon a summer night, not far from a hundred years

ago. The reader, in order to avoid a long and dry detail of colonial affairs, is requested to dispense with an

account of the train of circumstances that had caused much temporary inflammation of the popular mind.

It was near nine o'clock of a moonlight evening, when a boat crossed the ferry with a single passenger, who

had obtained his conveyance at that unusual hour by the promise of an extra fare. While he stood on the

landingplace, searching in either pocket for the means of fulfilling his agreement, the ferryman lifted a

lantern, by the aid of which, and the newly risen moon, he took a very accurate survey of the stranger's figure.

He was a youth of barely eighteen years, evidently countrybred, and now, as it should seem, upon his first

visit to town. He was clad in a coarse gray coat, well worn, but in excellent repair; his under garments were

durably constructed of leather, and fitted tight to a pair of serviceable and wellshaped limbs; his stockings of

blue yarn were the incontrovertible work of a mother or a sister; and on his head was a threecornered hat,

which in its better days had perhaps sheltered the graver brow of the lad's father. Under his left arm was a

heavy cudgel formed of an oak sapling, and retaining a part of the hardened root; and his equipment was

completed by a wallet, not so abundantly stocked as to incommode the vigorous shoulders on which it hung.

Brown, curly hair, wellshaped features, and bright, cheerful eyes were nature's gifts, and worth all that art

The youth, one of whose names was Robin, finally drew from his pocket the half of a little province bill of

five shillings, which, in the depreciation in that sort of currency, did but satisfy the ferryman's demand, with

the surplus of a sexangular piece of parchment, valued at three pence. He then walked forward into the town,

with as light a step as if his day's journey had not already exceeded thirty miles, and with as eager an eye as if

he were entering London city, instead of the little metropolis of a New England colony. Before Robin had

proceeded far, however, it occurred to him that he knew not whither to direct his steps; so he paused, and

looked up and down the narrow street, scrutinizing the small and mean wooden buildings that were scattered

"This low hovel cannot be my kinsman's dwelling," thought he, "nor yonder old house, where the moonlight

enters at the broken casement; and truly I see none hereabouts that might be worthy of him. It would have

been wise to inquire my way of the ferryman, and doubtless he would have gone with me, and earned a

shilling from the Major for his pains. But the next man I meet will do as well."

He resumed his walk, and was glad to perceive that the street now became wider, and the houses more

respectable in their appearance. He soon discerned a figure moving on moderately in advance, and hastened

his steps to overtake it. As Robin drew nigh, he saw that the passenger was a man in years, with a full periwig

of gray hair, a wideskirted coat of dark cloth, and silk stockings rolled above his knees. He carried a long

and polished cane, which he struck down perpendicularly before him at every step; and at regular intervals he

uttered two successive hems, of a peculiarly solemn and sepulchral intonation. Having made these

observations, Robin laid hold of the skirt of the old man's coat just when the light from the open door and

"Good evening to you, honored sir," said he, making a low bow, and still retaining his hold of the skirt. "I

The youth's question was uttered very loudly; and one of the barbers, whose razor was descending on a

wellsoaped chin, and another who was dressing a Ramillies wig, left their occupations, and came to the

door. The citizen, in the mean time, turned a longfavored countenance upon Robin, and answered him in a

tone of excessive anger and annoyance. His two sepulchral hems, however, broke into the very centre of his

rebuke, with most singular effect, like a thought of the cold grave obtruding among wrathful passions.

"Let go my garment, fellow! I tell you, I know not the man you speak of. What! I have authority, I

havehem, hemauthority; and if this be the respect you show for your betters, your feet shall be brought

Robin released the old man's skirt, and hastened away, pursued by an illmannered roar of laughter from the

barber's shop. He was at first considerably surprised by the result of his question, but, being a shrewd youth,

"This is some country representative," was his conclusion, "who has never seen the inside of my kinsman's

door, and lacks the breeding to answer a stranger civilly. The man is old, or verilyI might be tempted to

turn back and smite him on the nose. Ah, Robin, Robin! even the barber's boys laugh at you for choosing

He now became entangled in a succession of crooked and narrow streets, which crossed each other, and

meandered at no great distance from the waterside. The smell of tar was obvious to his nostrils, the masts of

vessels pierced the moonlight above the tops of the buildings, and the numerous signs, which Robin paused

to read, informed him that he was near the centre of business. But the streets were empty, the shops were

closed, and lights were visible only in the second stories of a few dwellinghouses. At length, on the corner

of a narrow lane, through which he was passing, he beheld the broad countenance of a British hero swinging

before the door of an inn, whence proceeded the voices of many guests. The casement of one of the lower

windows was thrown back, and a very thin curtain permitted Robin to distinguish a party at supper, round a

wellfurnished table. The fragrance of the good cheer steamed forth into the outer air, and the youth could

not fail to recollect that the last remnant of his travelling stock of provision had yielded to his morning

"Oh, that a parchment threepenny might give me a right to sit down at yonder table!" said Robin, with a

sigh. "But the Major will make me welcome to the best of his victuals; so I will even step boldly in, and

He entered the tavern, and was guided by the murmur of voices and the fumes of tobacco to the publicroom.

It was a long and low apartment, with oaken walls, grown dark in the continual smoke, and a floor which was

thickly sanded, but of no immaculate purity. A number of personsthe larger part of whom appeared to be

mariners, or in some way connected with the seaoccupied the wooden benches, or leatherbottomed chairs,

conversing on various matters, and occasionally lending their attention to some topic of general interest.

Three or four little groups were draining as many bowls of punch, which the West India trade had long since

made a familiar drink in the colony. Others, who had the appearance of men who lived by regular and

laborious handicraft, preferred the insulated bliss of an unshared potation, and became more taciturn under its

influence. Nearly all, in short, evinced a predilection for the Good Creature in some of its various shapes, for

this is a vice to which, as Fast Day sermons of a hundred years ago will testify, we have a long hereditary

claim. The only guests to whom Robin's sympathies inclined him were two or three sheepish countrymen,

who were using the inn somewhat after the fashion of a Turkish caravansary; they had gotten themselves into

the darkest corner of the room, and heedless of the Nicotian atmosphere, were supping on the bread of their

own ovens, and the bacon cured in their own chimneysmoke. But though Robin felt a sort of brotherhood

with these strangers, his eyes were attracted from them to a person who stood near the door, holding

whispered conversation with a group of illdressed associates. His features were separately striking almost to

grotesqueness, and the whole face left a deep impression on the memory. The forehead bulged out into a

double prominence, with a vale between; the nose came boldly forth in an irregular curve, and its bridge was

of more than a finger's breadth; the eyebrows were deep and shaggy, and the eyes glowed beneath them like

While Robin deliberated of whom to inquire respecting his kinsman's dwelling, he was accosted by the

innkeeper, a little man in a stained white apron, who had come to pay his professional welcome to the

stranger. Being in the second generation from a French Protestant, he seemed to have inherited the courtesy

of his parent nation; but no variety of circumstances was ever known to change his voice from the one shrill

"From the country, I presume, sir?" said he, with a profound bow. "Beg leave to congratulate you on your

arrival, and trust you intend a long stay with us. Fine town here, sir, beautiful buildings, and much that may

interest a stranger. May I hope for the honor of your commands in respect to supper?"

"The man sees a family likeness! the rogue has guessed that I am related to the Major!" thought Robin, who

All eyes were now turned on the country lad, standing at the door, in his worn threecornered hat, gray coat,

leather breeches, and blue yarn stockings, leaning on an oaken cudgel, and bearing a wallet on his back.

Robin replied to the courteous innkeeper, with such an assumption of confidence as befitted the Major's

relative. "My honest friend," he said, "I shall make it a point to patronize your house on some occasion,

when"here he could not help lowering his voice"when I may have more than a parchment threepence

in my pocket. My present business," continued he, speaking with lofty confidence, "is merely to inquire my

There was a sudden and general movement in the room, which Robin interpreted as expressing the eagerness

of each individual to become his guide. But the innkeeper turned his eyes to a written paper on the wall,

which he read, or seemed to read, with occasional recurrences to the young man's figure.

"What have we here?" said he, breaking his speech into little dry fragments. " 'Left the house of the

subscriber, bounden servant, Hezekiah Mudge,had on, when he went away, gray coat, leather breeches,

master's thirdbest hat. One pound currency reward to whosoever shall lodge him in any jail of the

Robin had begun to draw his hand towards the lighter end of the oak cudgel, but a strange hostility in every

countenance induced him to relinquish his purpose of breaking the courteous innkeeper's head. As he turned

to leave the room, he encountered a sneering glance from the boldfeatured personage whom he had before

noticed; and no sooner was he beyond the door, than he heard a general laugh, in which the innkeeper's voice

"Now, is it not strange," thought Robin, with his usual shrewdness, "is it not strange that the confession of an

empty pocket should outweigh the name of my kinsman, Major Molineux? Oh, if I had one of those grinning

rascals in the woods, where I and my oak sapling grew up together, I would teach him that my arm is heavy

On turning the corner of the narrow lane, Robin found himself in a spacious street, with an unbroken line of

lofty houses on each side, and a steepled building at the upper end, whence the ringing of a bell announced

the hour of nine. The light of the moon, and the lamps from the numerous shopwindows, discovered people

promenading on the pavement, and amongst them Robin had hoped to recognize his hitherto inscrutable

relative. The result of his former inquiries made him unwilling to hazard another, in a scene of such publicity,

and he determined to walk slowly and silently up the street, thrusting his face close to that of every elderly

gentleman, in search of the Major's lineaments. In his progress, Robin encountered many gay and gallant

figures. Embroidered garments of showy colors, enormous periwigs, goldlaced hats, and silverhilted

swords glided past him and dazzled his optics. Travelled youths, imitators of the European fine gentlemen of

the period, trod jauntily along, half dancing to the fashionable tunes which they hummed, and making poor

Robin ashamed of his quiet and natural gait. At length, after many pauses to examine the gorgeous display of

goods in the shopwindows, and after suffering some rebukes for the impertinence of his scrutiny into

people's faces, the Major's kinsman found himself near the steepled building, still unsuccessful in his search.

As yet, however, he had seen only one side of the thronged street; so Robin crossed, and continued the same

sort of inquisition down the opposite pavement, with stronger hopes than the philosopher seeking an honest

man, but with no better fortune. He had arrived about midway towards the lower end, from which his course

began, when he overheard the approach of some one who struck down a cane on the flagstones at every

Turning a corner, which chanced to be close at his right hand, he hastened to pursue his researches in some

other part of the town. His patience now was wearing low, and he seemed to feel more fatigue from his

rambles since he crossed the ferry, than from his journey of several days on the other side. Hunger also

pleaded loudly within him, and Robin began to balance the propriety of demanding, violently, and with lifted

cudgel, the necessary guidance from the first solitary passenger whom he should meet. While a resolution to

this effect was gaining strength, he entered a street of mean appearance, on either side of which a row of

illbuilt houses was straggling towards the harbor. The moonlight fell upon no passenger along the whole

extent, but in the third domicile which Robin passed there was a halfopened door, and his keen glance

Accordingly, he approached the doors and beheld it shut closer as he did so; yet an open space remained,

sufficing for the fair occupant to observe the stranger, without a corresponding display on her part. All that

Robin could discern was a strip of scarlet petticoat, and the occasional sparkle of an eye, as if the moonbeams

"Pretty mistress," for I may call her so with a good conscience thought the shrewd youth, since I know

nothing to the contrary,"my sweet pretty mistress, will you be kind enough to tell me whereabouts I must

Robin's voice was plaintive and winning, and the female, seeing nothing to be shunned in the handsome

country youth, thrust open the door, and came forth into the moonlight. She was a dainty little figure with a

white neck, round arms, and a slender waist, at the extremity of which her scarlet petticoat jutted out over a

hoop, as if she were standing in a balloon. Moreover, her face was oval and pretty, her hair dark beneath the

little cap, and her bright eyes possessed a sly freedom, which triumphed over those of Robin.

Now, her voice was the sweetest Robin had heard that night, yet he could not help doubting whether that

sweet voice spoke Gospel truth. He looked up and down the mean street, and then surveyed the house before

which they stood. It was a small, dark edifice of two stories, the second of which projected over the lower

"Now, truly, I am in luck," replied Robin, cunningly, "and so indeed is my kinsman, the Major, in having so

pretty a housekeeper. But I prithee trouble him to step to the door; I will deliver him a message from his

"Nay, the Major has been abed this hour or more," said the lady of the scarlet petticoat; "and it would be to

little purpose to disturb him tonight, seeing his evening draught was of the strongest. But he is a

kindhearted man, and it would be as much as my life's worth to let a kinsman of his turn away from the

door. You are the good old gentleman's very picture, and I could swear that was his rainyweather hat. Also

he has garments very much resembling those leather smallclothes. But come in, I pray, for I bid you hearty

So saying, the fair and hospitable dame took our hero by the hand; and the touch was light, and the force was

gentleness, and though Robin read in her eyes what he did not hear in her words, yet the slenderwaisted

woman in the scarlet petticoat proved stronger than the athletic country youth. She had drawn his

halfwilling footsteps nearly to the threshold, when the opening of a door in the neighborhood startled the

Major's housekeeper, and, leaving the Major's kinsman, she vanished speedily into her own domicile. A

heavy yawn preceded the appearance of a man, who, like the Moonshine of Pyramus and Thisbe, carried a

lantern, needlessly aiding his sister luminary in the heavens. As he walked sleepily up the street, he turned his

"Home, vagabond, home!" said the watchman, in accents that seemed to fall asleep as soon as they were

"This is the second hint of the kind," thought Robin. "I wish they would end my difficulties, by setting me

Nevertheless, the youth felt an instinctive antipathy towards the guardian of midnight order, which at first

prevented him from asking his usual question. But just when the man was about to vanish behind the corner,

Robin resolved not to lose the opportunity, and shouted lustily after him, "I say, friend! will you guide me to

The watchman made no reply, but turned the corner and was gone; yet Robin seemed to hear the sound of

drowsy laughter stealing along the solitary street. At that moment, also, a pleasant titter saluted him from the

open window above his head; he looked up, and caught the sparkle of a saucy eye; a round arm beckoned to

him, and next he heard light footsteps descending the staircase within. But Robin, being of the household of a

New England clergyman, was a good youth, as well as a shrewd one; so he resisted temptation, and fled

He now roamed desperately, and at random, through the town, almost ready to believe that a spell was on

him, like that by which a wizard of his country had once kept three pursuers wandering, a whole winter night,

within twenty paces of the cottage which they sought. The streets lay before him, strange and desolate, and

the lights were extinguished in almost every house. Twice, however, little parties of men, among whom

Robin distinguished individuals in outlandish attire, came hurrying along; but, though on both occasions, they

paused to address him such intercourse did not at all enlighten his perplexity. They did but utter a few words

in some language of which Robin knew nothing, and perceiving his inability to answer, bestowed a curse

upon him in plain English and hastened away. Finally, the lad determined to knock at the door of every

mansion that might appear worthy to be occupied by his kinsman, trusting that perseverance would overcome

the fatality that had hitherto thwarted him. Firm in this resolve, he was passing beneath the walls of a church,

which formed the corner of two streets, when, as he turned into the shade of its steeple, he encountered a

bulky stranger muffled in a cloak. The man was proceeding with the speed of earnest business, but Robin

planted himself full before him, holding the oak cudgel with both hands across his body as a bar to further

"Halt, honest man, and answer me a question," said he, very resolutely. "Tell me, this instant, whereabouts is

"Keep your tongue between your teeth, fool, and let me pass!" said a deep, gruff voice, which Robin partly

"No, no, neighbor!" cried Robin, flourishing his cudgel, and then thrusting its larger end close to the man's

muffled face. "No, no, I'm not the fool you take me for, nor do you pass till I have an answer to my question.

Whereabouts is the dwelling of my kinsman, Major Molineux?" The stranger, instead of attempting to force

his passage, stepped back into the moonlight, unmuffled his face, and stared full into that of Robin.

Robin gazed with dismay and astonishment on the unprecedented physiognomy of the speaker. The forehead

with its double prominence the broad hooked nose, the shaggy eyebrows, and fiery eyes were those which he

had noticed at the inn, but the man's complexion had undergone a singular, or, more properly, a twofold

change. One side of the face blazed an intense red, while the other was black as midnight, the division line

being in the broad bridge of the nose; and a mouth which seemed to extend from ear to ear was black or red,

in contrast to the color of the cheek. The effect was as if two individual devils, a fiend of fire and a fiend of

darkness, had united themselves to form this infernal visage. The stranger grinned in Robin's face, muffled

He seated himself, however, upon the steps of the churchdoor, resolving to wait the appointed time for his

kinsman. A few moments were consumed in philosophical speculations upon the species of man who had just

left him; but having settled this point shrewdly, rationally, and satisfactorily, he was compelled to look

elsewhere for his amusement. And first he threw his eyes along the street. It was of more respectable

appearance than most of those into which he had wandered, and the moon, creating, like the imaginative

power, a beautiful strangeness in familiar objects, gave something of romance to a scene that might not have

possessed it in the light of day. The irregular and often quaint architecture of the houses, some of whose roofs

were broken into numerous little peaks, while others ascended, steep and narrow, into a single point, and

others again were square; the pure snowwhite of some of their complexions, the aged darkness of others,

and the thousand sparklings, reflected from bright substances in the walls of many; these matters engaged

Robin's attention for a while, and then began to grow wearisome. Next he endeavored to define the forms of

distant objects, starting away, with almost ghostly indistinctness, just as his eye appeared to grasp them, and

finally he took a minute survey of an edifice which stood on the opposite side of the street, directly in front of

the churchdoor, where he was stationed. It was a large, square mansion, distinguished from its neighbors by

a balcony, which rested on tall pillars, and by an elaborate Gothic window, communicating therewith.

Then he strove to speed away the time, by listening to a murmur which swept continually along the street, yet

was scarcely audible, except to an unaccustomed ear like his; it was a low, dull, dreamy sound, compounded

of many noises, each of which was at too great a distance to be separately heard. Robin marvelled at this

snore of a sleeping town, and marvelled more whenever its continuity was broken by now and then a distant

shout, apparently loud where it originated. But altogether it was a sleepinspiring sound, and, to shake off its

drowsy influence, Robin arose, and climbed a windowframe, that he might view the interior of the church.

There the moonbeams came trembling in, and fell down upon the deserted pews, and extended along the quiet

aisles. A fainter yet more awful radiance was hovering around the pulpit, and one solitary ray had dared to

rest upon the open page of the great Bible. Had nature, in that deep hour, become a worshipper in the house

which man had builded? Or was that heavenly light the visible sanctity of the place,visible because no

earthly and impure feet were within the walls? The scene made Robin's heart shiver with a sensation of

loneliness stronger than he had ever felt in the remotest depths of his native woods; so he turned away and sat

down again before the door. There were graves around the church, and now an uneasy thought obtruded into

Robin's breast. What if the object of his search, which had been so often and so strangely thwarted, were all

the time mouldering in his shroud? What if his kinsman should glide through yonder gate, and nod and smile

Recalling his thoughts from this uncomfortable track, he sent them over forest, hill, and stream, and

attempted to imagine how that evening of ambiguity and weariness had been spent by his father's household.

He pictured them assembled at the door, beneath the tree, the great old tree, which had been spared for its

huge twisted trunk and venerable shade, when a thousand leafy brethren fell. There, at the going down of the

summer sun, it was his father's custom to perform domestic worship that the neighbors might come and join

with him like brothers of the family, and that the wayfaring man might pause to drink at that fountain, and

keep his heart pure by freshening the memory of home. Robin distinguished the seat of every individual of

the little audience; he saw the good man in the midst, holding the Scriptures in the golden light that fell from

the western clouds; he beheld him close the book and all rise up to pray. He heard the old thanksgivings for

daily mercies, the old supplications for their continuance to which he had so often listened in weariness, but

which were now among his dear remembrances. He perceived the slight inequality of his father's voice when

he came to speak of the absent one; he noted how his mother turned her face to the broad and knotted trunk;

how his elder brother scorned, because the beard was rough upon his upper lip, to permit his features to be

moved; how the younger sister drew down a low hanging branch before her eyes; and how the little one of

all, whose sports had hitherto broken the decorum of the scene, understood the prayer for her playmate, and

burst into clamorous grief. Then he saw them go in at the door; and when Robin would have entered also, the

"Am I here, or there?" cried Robin, starting; for all at once, when his thoughts had become visible and

He aroused himself, and endeavored to fix his attention steadily upon the large edifice which he had surveyed

before. But still his mind kept vibrating between fancy and reality; by turns, the pillars of the balcony

lengthened into the tall, bare stems of pines, dwindled down to human figures, settled again into their true

shape and size, and then commenced a new succession of changes. For a single moment, when he deemed

himself awake, he could have sworn that a visageone which he seemed to remember, yet could not

absolutely name as his kinsman'swas looking towards him from the Gothic window. A deeper sleep

wrestled with and nearly overcame him, but fled at the sound of footsteps along the opposite pavement.

Robin rubbed his eyes, discerned a man passing at the foot of the balcony, and addressed him in a loud,

The sleeping echoes awoke, and answered the voice; and the passenger, barely able to discern a figure sitting

in the oblique shade of the steeple, traversed the street to obtain a nearer view. He was himself a gentleman in

his prime, of open, intelligent, cheerful, and altogether prepossessing countenance. Perceiving a country

youth, apparently homeless and without friends, he accosted him in a tone of real kindness, which had

"Well, my good lad, why are you sitting here?" inquired he. "Can I be of service to you in any way?"

"I am afraid not, sir," replied Robin, despondingly; "yet I shall take it kindly, if you'll answer me a single

question. I've been searching, half the night, for one Major Molineux, now, sir, is there really such a person in

"Major Molineux! The name is not altogether strange to me," said the gentleman, smiling. "Have you any

Then Robin briefly related that his father was a clergyman, settled on a small salary, at a long distance back

in the country, and that he and Major Molineux were brothers' children. The Major, having inherited riches,

and acquired civil and military rank, had visited his cousin, in great pomp, a year or two before; had

manifested much interest in Robin and an elder brother, and, being childless himself, had thrown out hints

respecting the future establishment of one of them in life. The elder brother was destined to succeed to the

farm which his father cultivated in the interval of sacred duties; it was therefore determined that Robin should

profit by his kinsman's generous intentions, especially as he seemed to be rather the favorite, and was thought

"For I have the name of being a shrewd youth," observed Robin, in this part of his story.

"I doubt not you deserve it," replied his new friend, goodnaturedly; "but pray proceed."

"Well, sir, being nearly eighteen years old, and well grown, as you see," continued Robin, drawing himself up

to his full height, "I thought it high time to begin in the world. So my mother and sister put me in handsome

trim, and my father gave me half the remnant of his last year's salary, and five days ago I started for this

place, to pay the Major a visit. But, would you believe it, sir! I crossed the ferry a little after dark, and have

yet found nobody that would show me the way to his dwelling; only, an hour or two since, I was told to wait

"Oh, he was a very illfavored fellow, sir," replied Robin, "with two great bumps on his forehead, a hook

nose, fiery eyes; and, what struck me as the strangest, his face was of two different colors. Do you happen to

"Not intimately," answered the stranger, "but I chanced to meet him a little time previous to your stopping

me. I believe you may trust his word, and that the Major will very shortly pass through this street. In the

mean time, as I have a singular curiosity to witness your meeting, I will sit down here upon the steps and bear

He seated himself accordingly, and soon engaged his companion in animated discourse. It was but of brief

continuance, however, for a noise of shouting, which had long been remotely audible, drew so much nearer

"What may be the meaning of this uproar?" asked he. "Truly, if your town be always as noisy, I shall find

"Why, indeed, friend Robin, there do appear to be three or four riotous fellows abroad tonight," replied the

gentleman. "You must not expect all the stillness of your native woods here in our streets. But the watch will

"Ay, and set them in the stocks by peep of day," interrupted Robin recollecting his own encounter with the

drowsy lanternbearer. "But, dear sir, if I may trust my ears, an army of watchmen would never make head

against such a multitude of rioters. There were at least a thousand voices went up to make that one shout."

"May not a man have several voices, Robin, as well as two complexions?" said his friend.

"Perhaps a man may; but Heaven forbid that a woman should!" responded the shrewd youth, thinking of the

The sounds of a trumpet in some neighboring street now became so evident and continual, that Robin's

curiosity was strongly excited. In addition to the shouts, he heard frequent bursts from many instruments of

discord, and a wild and confused laughter filled up the intervals. Robin rose from the steps, and looked

"Surely some prodigious merrymaking is going on," exclaimed he "I have laughed very little since I left

home, sir, and should be sorry to lose an opportunity. Shall we step round the corner by that darkish house

"Sit down again, sit down, good Robin," replied the gentleman, laying his hand on the skirt of the gray coat.

"You forget that we must wait here for your kinsman; and there is reason to believe that he will pass by, in

The near approach of the uproar had now disturbed the neighborhood; windows flew open on all sides; and

many heads, in the attire of the pillow, and confused by sleep suddenly broken, were protruded to the gaze of

whoever had leisure to observe them. Eager voices hailed each other from house to house, all demanding the

explanation, which not a soul could give. Halfdressed men hurried towards the unknown commotion

stumbling as they went over the stone steps that thrust themselves into the narrow footwalk. The shouts, the

laughter, and the tuneless bray the antipodes of music, came onwards with increasing din, till scattered

individuals, and then denser bodies, began to appear round a corner at the distance of a hundred yards

"Will you recognize your kinsman, if he passes in this crowd?" inquired the gentleman

"Indeed, I can't warrant it, sir; but I'll take my stand here, and keep a bright lookout," answered Robin,

A mighty stream of people now emptied into the street, and came rolling slowly towards the church. A single

horseman wheeled the corner in the midst of them, and close behind him came a band of fearful wind

instruments, sending forth a fresher discord now that no intervening buildings kept it from the ear. Then a

redder light disturbed the moonbeams, and a dense multitude of torches shone along the street, concealing, by

their glare, whatever object they illuminated. The single horseman, clad in a military dress, and bearing a

drawn sword, rode onward as the leader, and, by his fierce and variegated countenance, appeared like war

personified; the red of one cheek was an emblem of fire and sword; the blackness of the other betokened the

mourning that attends them. In his train were wild figures in the Indian dress, and many fantastic shapes

without a model, giving the whole march a visionary air, as if a dream had broken forth from some feverish

brain, and were sweeping visibly through the midnight streets. A mass of people, inactive, except as

applauding spectators, hemmed the procession in; and several women ran along the sidewalk, piercing the

"The doublefaced fellow has his eye upon me," muttered Robin, with an indefinite but an uncomfortable

The leader turned himself in the saddle, and fixed his glance full upon the country youth, as the steed went

slowly by. When Robin had freed his eyes from those fiery ones, the musicians were passing before him, and

the torches were close at hand; but the unsteady brightness of the latter formed a veil which he could not

penetrate. The rattling of wheels over the stones sometimes found its way to his ear, and confused traces of a

human form appeared at intervals, and then melted into the vivid light. A moment more, and the leader

thundered a command to halt: the trumpets vomited a horrid breath, and then held their peace; the shouts and

laughter of the people died away, and there remained only a universal hum, allied to silence. Right before

Robin's eyes was an uncovered cart. There the torches blazed the brightest, there the moon shone out like

He was an elderly man, of large and majestic person, and strong, square features, betokening a steady soul;

but steady as it was, his enemies had found means to shake it. His face was pale as death, and far more

ghastly; the broad forehead was contracted in his agony, so that his eyebrows formed one grizzled line; his

eyes were red and wild, and the foam hung white upon his quivering lip. His whole frame was agitated by a

quick and continual tremor, which his pride strove to quell, even in those circumstances of overwhelming

humiliation. But perhaps the bitterest pang of all was when his eyes met those of Robin; for he evidently

knew him on the instant, as the youth stood witnessing the foul disgrace of a head grown gray in honor. They

stared at each other in silence, and Robin's knees shook, and his hair bristled, with a mixture of pity and

terror. Soon, however, a bewildering excitement began to seize upon his mind; the preceding adventures of

the night, the unexpected appearance of the crowd, the torches, the confused din and the hush that followed,

the spectre of his kinsman reviled by that great multitude,all this, and, more than all, a perception of

tremendous ridicule in the whole scene, affected him with a sort of mental inebriety. At that moment a voice

of sluggish merriment saluted Robin's ears; he turned instinctively, and just behind the corner of the church

stood the lanternbearer, rubbing his eyes, and drowsily enjoying the lad's amazement. Then he heard a peal

of laughter like the ringing of silvery bells; a woman twitched his arm, a saucy eye met his, and he saw the

lady of the scarlet petticoat. A sharp, dry cachinnation appealed to his memory, and, standing on tiptoe in the

crowd, with his white apron over his head, he beheld the courteous little innkeeper. And lastly, there sailed

over the heads of the multitude a great, broad laugh, broken in the midst by two sepulchral hems; thus, "Haw,

The sound proceeded from the balcony of the opposite edifice, and thither Robin turned his eyes. In front of

the Gothic window stood the old citizen, wrapped in a wide gown, his gray periwig exchanged for a nightcap,

which was thrust back from his forehead, and his silk stockings hanging about his legs. He supported himself

on his polished cane in a fit of convulsive merriment, which manifested itself on his solemn old features like

a funny inscription on a tombstone. Then Robin seemed to hear the voices of the barbers, of the guests of the

inn, and of all who had made sport of him that night. The contagion was spreading among the multitude,

when all at once, it seized upon Robin, and he sent forth a shout of laughter that echoed through the

street,every man shook his sides, every man emptied his lungs, but Robin's shout was the loudest there.

The cloudspirits peeped from their silvery islands, as the congregated mirth went roaring up the sky! The

Man in the Moon heard the far bellow. "Oho," quoth he, "the old earth is frolicsome tonight!"

When there was a momentary calm in that tempestuous sea of sound, the leader gave the sign, the procession

resumed its march. On they went, like fiends that throng in mockery around some dead potentate, mighty no

more, but majestic still in his agony. On they went, in counterfeited pomp, in senseless uproar, in frenzied

merriment, trampling all on an old man's heart. On swept the tumult, and left a silent street behind.

"Well, Robin, are you dreaming?" inquired the gentleman, laying his hand on the youth's shoulder.

Robin started, and withdrew his arm from the stone post to which he had instinctively clung, as the living

stream rolled by him. His cheek was somewhat pale, and his eye not quite as lively as in the earlier part of the

"Will you be kind enough to show me the way to the ferry?" said he, after a moment's pause.

"You have, then, adopted a new subject of inquiry?" observed his companion, with a smile.

"Why, yes, sir," replied Robin, rather dryly. "Thanks to you, and to my other friends, I have at last met my

kinsman, and he will scarce desire to see my face again. I begin to grow weary of a town life, sir. Will you

"No, my good friend Robin,not tonight, at least," said the gentleman. "Some few days hence, if you wish

it, I will speed you on your journey. Or, if you prefer to remain with us, perhaps, as you are a shrewd youth,