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Produced by Levent Kurnaz and Jose Menendez
The Fall of the House of Usher
Son coeur est un luth suspendu;
Sitot qu'on le touche il resonne.
DE BERANGER.
During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the
autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the
heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a
singularly dreary tract of country; and at length found myself,
as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the
melancholy House of Usher. I know not how it was--but, with the
first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom
pervaded my spirit. I say insufferable; for the feeling was
unrelieved by any of that half-pleasureable, because poetic,
sentiment, with which the mind usually receives even the sternest
natural images of the desolate or terrible. I looked upon the
scene before me--upon the mere house, and the simple landscape
features of the domain--upon the bleak walls--upon the vacant
eye-like windows--upon a few rank sedges--and upon a few white
trunks of decayed trees--with an utter depression of soul which I
can compare to no earthly sensation more properly than to the
after-dream of the reveller upon opium--the bitter lapse into
everyday life--the hideous dropping off of the veil. There was
an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart--an unredeemed
dreariness of thought which no goading of the imagination could
torture into aught of the sublime. What was it--I paused to
think--what was it that so unnerved me in the contemplation of
the House of Usher? It was a mystery all insoluble; nor could I
grapple with the shadowy fancies that crowded upon me as I
pondered. I was forced to fall back upon the unsatisfactory
conclusion, that while, beyond doubt, there are combinations
of very simple natural objects which have the power of thus
affecting us, still the analysis of this power lies among
considerations beyond our depth. It was possible, I reflected,
that a mere different arrangement of the particulars of the
scene, of the details of the picture, would be sufficient to
modify, or perhaps to annihilate its capacity for sorrowful
impression; and, acting upon this idea, I reined my horse
to the precipitous brink of a black and lurid tarn that lay in
unruffled lustre by the dwelling, and gazed down--but with a
shudder even more thrilling than before--upon the remodelled and
inverted images of the grey sedge, and the ghastly tree-stems,
and the vacant and eye-like windows.
Nevertheless, in this mansion of gloom I now proposed to
myself a sojourn of some weeks. Its proprietor, Roderick Usher,
had been one of my boon companions in boyhood; but many years had
elapsed since our last meeting. A letter, however, had lately
reached me in a distant part of the country--a letter from
him--which, in its wildly importunate nature, had admitted of no
other than a personal reply. The MS gave evidence of nervous
agitation. The writer spoke of acute bodily illness--of a mental
disorder which oppressed him--and of an earnest desire to see me,
as his best, and indeed his only personal friend, with a view of
attempting, by the cheerfulness of my society, some alleviation
of his malady. It was the manner in which all this, and much
more, was said--it was the apparent heart that went with his
request--which allowed me no room for hesitation; and I
accordingly obeyed forthwith what I still considered a very
singular summons.
Although, as boys, we had been even intimate associates, yet
I really knew little of my friend. His reserve had been always
excessive and habitual. I was aware, however, that his very
ancient family had been noted, time out of mind, for a peculiar
sensibility of temperament, displaying itself, through long ages,
in many works of exalted art, and manifested, of late, in
repeated deeds of munificent yet unobtrusive charity, as well as
in a passionate devotion to the intricacies, perhaps even more
than to the orthodox and easily recognisable beauties of musical
science. I had learned, too, the very remarkable fact, that the
stem of the Usher race, all time-honoured as it was, had put
forth, at no period, any enduring branch; in other words, that
the entire family lay in the direct line of descent, and had
always, with very trifling and very temporary variation, so lain.
It was this deficiency, I considered, while running over in
thought the perfect keeping of the character of the premises with
the accredited character of the people, and while speculating
upon the possible influence which the one, in the long
lapse of centuries, might have exercised upon the other--it was
this deficiency, perhaps, of collateral issue, and the consequent
undeviating transmission, from sire to son, of the patrimony with
the name, which had, at length, so identified the two as to merge
the original title of the estate in the quaint and equivocal
appellation of the "House of Usher"--an appellation which seemed
to include, in the minds of the peasantry who used it, both the
family and the family mansion.
I have said that the sole effect of my somewhat childish
experiment--that of looking down within the tarn--had been to
deepen the first singular impression. There can be no doubt that
the consciousness of the rapid increase of my superstition--for
why should I not so term it?--served mainly to accelerate the
increase itself. Such, I have long known, is the paradoxical law
of all sentiments having terror as a basis. And it might have
been for this reason only, that, when I again uplifted my eyes to
the house itself, from its image in the pool, there grew in my
mind a strange fancy--a fancy so ridiculous, indeed, that I but
mention it to show the vivid force of the sensations which
oppressed me. I had so worked upon my imagination as really to
believe that about the whole mansion and domain there hung an
atmosphere peculiar to themselves and their immediate vicinity--an
atmosphere which had no affinity with the air of heaven, but
which had reeked up from the decayed trees, and the grey wall,
and the silent tarn--a pestilent and mystic vapour, dull,
sluggish, faintly discernible, and leaden-hued.
Shaking off from my spirit what must have been a dream,
I scanned more narrowly the real aspect of the building. Its
principal feature seemed to be that of an excessive antiquity.
The discoloration of ages had been great. Minute fungi
overspread the whole exterior, hanging in a fine tangled web-work
from the eaves. Yet all this was apart from any extraordinary
dilapidation. No portion of the masonry had fallen; and there
appeared to be a wild inconsistency between its still perfect
adaptation of parts, and the crumbling condition of the
individual stones. In this there was much that reminded me of
the specious totality of old wood-work which has rotted for long
years in some neglected vault, with no disturbance from the
breath of the external air. Beyond this indication of
extensive decay, however, the fabric gave little token of
instability. Perhaps the eye of a scrutinizing observer might
have discovered a barely perceptible fissure, which, extending
from the roof of the building in front, made its way down the
wall in a zigzag direction, until it became lost in the sullen
waters of the tarn.
Noticing these things, I rode over a short causeway to the
house. A servant in waiting took my horse, and I entered the
Gothic archway of the hall. A valet, of stealthy step, thence
conducted me, in silence, through many dark and intricate
passages in my progress to the studio of his master. Much
that I encountered on the way contributed, I know not how, to
heighten the vague sentiments of which I have already spoken.
While the objects around me--while the carvings of the ceilings,
the sombre tapestries of the walls, the ebony blackness of the
floors, and the phantasmagoric armorial trophies which rattled as
I strode, were but matters to which, or to such as which, I had
been accustomed from my infancy--while I hesitated not to
acknowledge how familiar was all this--I still wondered to find
how unfamiliar were the fancies which ordinary images were
stirring up. On one of the staircases, I met the physician of
the family. His countenance, I thought, wore a mingled
expression of low cunning and perplexity. He accosted me with
trepidation and passed on. The valet now threw open a door and
ushered me into the presence of his master.
The room in which I found myself was very large and lofty.
The windows were long, narrow, and pointed, and at so vast a
distance from the black oaken floor as to be altogether inaccessible
from within. Feeble gleams of encrimsoned light made their way
through the trellised panes, and served to render sufficiently
distinct the more prominent objects around; the eye, however,
struggled in vain to reach the remoter angles of the chamber, or
the recesses of the vaulted and fretted ceiling. Dark draperies
hung upon the walls. The general furniture was profuse,
comfortless, antique, and tattered. Many books and musical
instruments lay scattered about, but failed to give any vitality
to the scene. I felt that I breathed an atmosphere of sorrow.
An air of stern, deep, and irredeemable gloom hung over and
pervaded all.
Upon my entrance, Usher rose from a sofa on which he had
been lying at full length, and greeted me with a vivacious warmth
which had much in it, I at first thought, of an overdone
cordiality--of the constrained effort of the ennuye man of
the world. A glance, however, at his countenance, convinced me
of his perfect sincerity. We sat down; and for some moments,
while he spoke not, I gazed upon him with a feeling half of pity,
half of awe. Surely, man had never before so terribly altered,
in so brief a period, as had Roderick Usher! It was with
difficulty that I could bring myself to admit the identity of the
man being before me with the companion of my early boyhood. Yet
the character of his face had been at all times remarkable. A
cadaverousness of complexion; an eye large, liquid, and luminous
beyond comparison; lips somewhat thin and very pallid, but of a
surpassingly beautiful curve; a nose of a delicate Hebrew model,
but with a breadth of nostril unusual in similar formations; a
finely-moulded chin, speaking, in its want of prominence, of a
want of moral energy; hair of a more than web-like softness and
tenuity; these features, with an inordinate expansion above the
regions of the temple, made up altogether a countenance not
easily to be forgotten. And now in the mere exaggeration of the
prevailing character of these features, and of the expression
they were wont to convey, lay so much of change that I doubted to
whom I spoke. The now ghastly pallor of the skin, and the now
miraculous lustre of the eye, above all things startled and even
awed me. The silken hair, too, had been suffered to grow all
unheeded, and as, in its wild gossamer texture, it floated rather
than fell about the face, I could not, even with effort, connect
its Arabesque expression with any idea of simple humanity.
In the manner of my friend I was at once struck with an
incoherence--an inconsistency; and I soon found this to arise
from a series of feeble and futile struggles to overcome an
habitual trepidancy--an excessive nervous agitation. For
something of this nature I had indeed been prepared, no less by
his letter, than by reminiscences of certain boyish traits, and
by conclusions deduced from his peculiar physical conformation
and temperament. His action was alternately vivacious and
sullen. His voice varied rapidly from a tremulous indecision
(when the animal spirits seemed utterly in abeyance) to
that species of energetic concision--that abrupt, weighty,
unhurried, and hollow-sounding enunciation--that leaden,
self-balanced and perfectly modulated guttural utterance, which may
be observed in the lost drunkard, or the irreclaimable eater of
opium, during the periods of his most intense excitement.
It was thus that he spoke of the object of my visit, of his
earnest desire to see me, and of the solace he expected me to
afford him. He entered, at some length, into what he conceived
to be the nature of his malady. It was, he said, a
constitutional and a family evil, and one for which he despaired
to find a remedy--a mere nervous affection, he immediately added,
which would undoubtedly soon pass off. It displayed itself in a
host of unnatural sensations. Some of these, as he detailed
them, interested and bewildered me; although, perhaps, the terms,
and the general manner of the narration had their weight. He
suffered much from a morbid acuteness of the senses; the most
insipid food was alone endurable; he could wear only garments of
certain texture; the odours of all flowers were oppressive; his
eyes were tortured by even a faint light; and there were but
peculiar sounds, and these from stringed instruments, which did
not inspire him with horror.
To an anomalous species of terror I found him a bounden
slave. "I shall perish," said he, "I must perish in this
deplorable folly. Thus, thus, and not otherwise, shall I be
lost. I dread the events of the future, not in themselves, but
in their results. I shudder at the thought of any, even the most
trivial, incident, which may operate upon this intolerable
agitation of soul. I have, indeed, no abhorrence of danger,
except in its absolute effect--in terror. In this unnerved--in
this pitiable condition--I feel that the period will sooner or
later arrive when I must abandon life and reason together, in
some struggle with the grim phantasm, FEAR."
I learned, moreover, at intervals, and through broken and
equivocal hints, another singular feature of his mental
condition. He was enchained by certain superstitious impressions
in regard to the dwelling which he tenanted, and whence, for many
years, he had never ventured forth--in regard to an influence
whose supposititious force was conveyed in terms too shadowy here
to be re-stated--an influence which some peculiarities in the
mere form and substance of his family mansion, had, by
dint of long sufferance, he said, obtained over his spirit--an
effect which the physique of the grey walls and turrets, and
of the dim tarn into which they all looked down, had, at length,
brought about upon the morale of his existence.
He admitted, however, although with hesitation, that much of
the peculiar gloom which thus afflicted him could be traced to a
more natural and far more palpable origin--to the severe and
long-continued illness--indeed to the evidently approaching
dissolution--of a tenderly beloved sister--his sole companion for
long years--his last and only relative on earth. "Her decease,"
he said, with a bitterness which I can never forget, "would leave
him (him the hopeless and the frail) the last of the ancient race
of the Ushers." While he spoke, the lady Madeline (for so was
she called) passed slowly through a remote portion of the
apartment, and, without having noticed my presence, disappeared.
I regarded her with an utter astonishment not unmingled with
dread--and yet I found it impossible to account for such
feelings. A sensation of stupor oppressed me, as my eyes
followed her retreating steps. When a door, at length, closed
upon her, my glance sought instinctively and eagerly the
countenance of the brother--but he had buried his face in his
hands, and I could only perceive that a far more than ordinary
wanness had overspread the emaciated fingers through which
trickled many passionate tears.
The disease of the lady Madeline had long baffled the skill
of her physicians. A settled apathy, a gradual wasting away of
the person, and frequent although transient affections of a
partially cataleptical character, were the unusual diagnosis.
Hitherto she had steadily borne up against the pressure of her
malady, and had not betaken herself finally to bed; but, on the
closing in of the evening of my arrival at the house, she
succumbed (as her brother told me at night with inexpressible
agitation) to the prostrating power of the destroyer; and I
learned that the glimpse I had obtained of her person would thus
probably be the last I should obtain--that the lady, at least
while living, would be seen by me no more.
For several days ensuing, her name was unmentioned by either
Usher or myself: and during this period I was busied in earnest
endeavours to alleviate the melancholy of my friend. We
painted and read together; or I listened, as if in a dream, to
the wild improvisations of his speaking guitar. And thus, as a
closer and still closer intimacy admitted me more unreservedly
into the recesses of his spirit, the more bitterly did I perceive
the futility of all attempt at cheering a mind from which
darkness, as if an inherent positive quality, poured forth upon
all objects of the moral and physical universe, in one unceasing
radiation of gloom.
I shall ever bear about me a memory of the many solemn hours
I thus spent alone with the master of the House of Usher. Yet I
should fail in any attempt to convey an idea of the exact
character of the studies, or of the occupations, in which he
involved me, or led me the way. An excited and highly
distempered ideality threw a sulphureous lustre over all. His
long improvised dirges will ring for ever in my ears. Among
other things, I hold painfully in mind a certain singular
perversion and amplification of the wild air of the last waltz of
Von Weber. From the paintings over which his elaborate fancy
brooded, and which grew, touch by touch, into vagueness at which
I shuddered the more thrillingly, because I shuddered knowing not
why;--from these paintings (vivid as their images now are before
me) I would in vain endeavour to educe more than a small portion
which should lie within the compass of merely written words. By
the utter simplicity, by the nakedness of his designs, he
arrested and overawed attention. If ever mortal painted an idea,
that mortal was Roderick Usher. For me at least--in the
circumstances then surrounding me--there arose out of the pure
abstractions which the hypochondriac contrived to throw upon his
canvas, an intensity of intolerable awe, no shadow of which felt
I ever yet in the contemplation of the certainly glowing yet too
concrete reveries of Fuseli.
One of the phantasmagoric conceptions of my friend,
partaking not so rigidly of the spirit of abstraction, may be
shadowed forth, although feebly, in words. A small picture
presented the interior of an immensely long and rectangular vault
or tunnel, with low walls, smooth, white, and without
interruption or device. Certain accessory points of the design
served well to convey the idea that this excavation lay at an
exceeding depth below the surface of the earth. No outlet was
observed in any portion of its vast extent, and no torch,
or other artificial source of light was discernible; yet a flood
of intense rays rolled throughout, and bathed the whole in a
ghastly and inappropriate splendour.
I have just spoken of that morbid condition of the auditory
nerve which rendered all music intolerable to the sufferer, with
the exception of certain effects of stringed instruments. It
was, perhaps, the narrow limits to which he thus confined himself
upon the guitar, which gave birth, in great measure, to the
fantastic character of the performances. But the fervid
facility of his impromptus could not be so accounted for.
They must have been, and were, in the notes, as well as in the
words of his wild fantasias (for he not unfrequently accompanied
himself with rhymed verbal improvisations), the result of that
intense mental collectedness and concentration to which I have
previously alluded as observable only in particular moments of
the highest artificial excitement. The words of one of these
rhapsodies I have easily remembered. I was, perhaps, the more
forcibly impressed with it, as he gave it, because, in the under
or mystic current of its meaning, I fancied that I perceived, and
for the first time, a full consciousness on the part of Usher, of
the tottering of his lofty reason upon her throne. The verses,
which were entitled "The Haunted Palace," ran very nearly, if not
accurately, thus:
I.
In the greenest of our valleys,
By good angels tenanted,
Once a fair and stately palace--
Radiant palace--reared its head.
In the monarch Thought's dominion--
It stood there!
Never seraph spread a pinion
Over fabric half so fair.
II.
Banners yellow, glorious, golden,
On its roof did float and flow;
(This--all this--was in the olden
Time long ago)
And every gentle air that dallied,
In that sweet day,
Along the ramparts plumed and pallid,
A winged odour went away.
III.
Wanderers in that happy valley
Through two luminous windows saw
Spirits moving musically
To a lute's well tuned law,
Round about a throne, where sitting
(Porphyrogene!)
In state his glory well befitting,
The ruler of the realm was seen.
IV.
And all with pearl and ruby glowing
Was the fair palace door,
Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing
And sparkling evermore,
A troop of Echoes whose sweet duty
Was but to sing,
In voices of surpassing beauty,
The wit and wisdom of their king.
V.
But evil things, in robes of sorrow,
Assailed the monarch's high estate;
(Ah, let us mourn, for never morrow
Shall dawn upon him, desolate!)
And, round about his home, the glory
That blushed and bloomed
Is but a dim-remembered story,
Of the old time entombed.
VI.
And travellers now within that valley,
Through the red-litten windows, see
Vast forms that move fantastically
To a discordant melody;
While, like a rapid ghastly river,
Through the pale door,
A hideous throng rush out forever,
And laugh--but smile no more.
I well remember that suggestions arising from this ballad,
led us into a train of thought wherein there became manifest an
opinion of Usher's which I mention not so much on account of its
novelty (for other men* have thought thus,) as on account of the
pertinacity with which he maintained it. This opinion, in its
general form, was that of the sentience of all vegetable things.
But, in his disordered fancy, the idea had assumed a more daring
character, and trespassed, under certain conditions, upon the
kingdom of inorganization. I lack words to express the full
extent, or the earnest abandon of his persuasion. The
belief, however, was connected (as I have previously hinted) with
the gray stones of the home of his forefathers. The conditions
of the sentience had been here, he imagined, fulfilled in the
method of collocation of these stones--in the order of their
arrangement, as well as in that of the many fungi which
overspread them, and of the decayed trees which stood around--above
all, in the long undisturbed endurance of this arrangement,
and in its reduplication in the still waters of the tarn. Its
evidence--the evidence of the sentience--was to be seen, he said,
(and I here started as he spoke,) in the gradual yet certain
condensation of an atmosphere of their own about the waters and
the walls. The result was discoverable, he added, in that
silent, yet importunate and terrible influence which for
centuries had moulded the destinies of his family, and which made
him what I now saw him--what he was. Such opinions need no
comment, and I will make none.
Our books--the books which, for years, had formed no small
portion of the mental existence of the invalid--were, as might be
supposed, in strict keeping with this character of phantasm. We
pored together over such works as the Ververt et Chartreuse
of Gresset; the Belphegor of Machiavelli; the Heaven and
Hell of Swedenborg; the Subterranean Voyage of Nicholas Klimm by
Holberg; the Chiromancy of Robert Flud, of Jean D'Indagine,
and of De la Chambre; the Journey into the Blue Distance of
Tieck; and the City of the Sun by Campanella. One favourite
volume was a small octavo edition of the Directorium
Inquisitorum, by the Dominican Eymeric de Gironne; and there
were passages in Pomponius Mela, about the old African Satyrs
and OEgipans, over which Usher would sit dreaming for hours. His
chief delight, however, was found in the perusal of an
exceedingly rare and curious book in quarto Gothic--the manual of
a forgotten church--the Vigiliae Mortuorum Secundum Chorum Ecclesiae
Maguntinae.
I could not help thinking of the wild ritual of this work,
and of its probable influence upon the hypochondriac, when, one
evening, having informed me abruptly that the lady Madeline was
no more, he stated his intention of preserving her corpse for a
fortnight, (previously to its final interment), in one of the
numerous vaults within the main walls of the building. The
worldly reason, however, assigned for this singular proceeding,
was one which I did not feel at liberty to dispute. The brother
had been led to his resolution (so he told me) by consideration
of the unusual character of the malady of the deceased, of
certain obtrusive and eager inquiries on the part of her medical
men, and of the remote and exposed situation of the burial-ground
of the family. I will not deny that when I called to mind the
sinister countenance of the person whom I met upon the staircase,
on the day of my arrival at the house, I had no desire to oppose
what I regarded as at best but a harmless, and by no means an
unnatural, precaution.
At the request of Usher, I personally aided him in the
arrangements for the temporary entombment. The body having been
encoffined, we two alone bore it to its rest. The vault in which
we placed it (and which had been so long unopened that our
torches, half smothered in its oppressive atmosphere, gave us
little opportunity for investigation) was small, damp, and
entirely without means of admission for light; lying, at great
depth, immediately beneath that portion of the building in which
was my own sleeping apartment. It had been used, apparently, in
remote feudal times, for the worst purposes of a donjon-keep, and,
in later days, as a place of deposit for powder, or some other
highly combustible substance, as a portion of its floor,
and the whole interior of a long archway through which we reached
it, were carefully sheathed with copper. The door, of massive
iron, had been, also, similarly protected. Its immense weight
caused an unusually sharp grating sound, as it moved upon its hinges.
Having deposited our mournful burden upon tressels within
this region of horror, we partially turned aside the yet
unscrewed lid of the coffin, and looked upon the face of the
tenant. A striking similitude between the brother and sister now
first arrested my attention; and Usher, divining, perhaps, my
thoughts, murmured out some few words from which I learned that
the deceased and himself had been twins, and that sympathies of a
scarcely intelligible nature had always existed between them.
Our glances, however, rested not long upon the dead--for we could
not regard her unawed. The disease which had thus entombed the
lady in the maturity of youth, had left, as usual in all maladies
of a strictly cataleptical character, the mockery of a faint
blush upon the bosom and the face, and that suspiciously
lingering smile upon the lip which is so terrible in death. We
replaced and screwed down the lid, and, having secured the door
of iron, made our way, with toil, into the scarcely less gloomy
apartments of the upper portion of the house.
And now, some days of bitter grief having elapsed, an
observable change came over the features of the mental disorder
of my friend. His ordinary manner had vanished. His ordinary
occupations were neglected or forgotten. He roamed from chamber
to chamber with hurried, unequal, and objectless step. The
pallor of his countenance had assumed, if possible, a more
ghastly hue--but the luminousness of his eye had utterly gone
out. The once occasional huskiness of his tone was heard no
more; and a tremulous quaver, as if of extreme terror, habitually
characterized his utterance. There were times, indeed, when I
thought his unceasingly agitated mind was labouring with some
oppressive secret, to divulge which he struggled for the
necessary courage. At times, again, I was obliged to resolve all
into the mere inexplicable vagaries of madness, for I beheld him
gazing upon vacancy for long hours, in an attitude of the
profoundest attention, as if listening to some imaginary
sound. It was no wonder that his condition terrified--that it
infected me. I felt creeping upon me, by slow yet certain
degrees, the wild influences of his own fantastic yet impressive
superstitions.
It was, especially, upon retiring to bed late in the night
of the seventh or eighth day after the placing of the lady
Madeline within the donjon, that I experienced the full power of
such feelings. Sleep came not near my couch--while the hours
waned and waned away. I struggled to reason off the nervousness
which had dominion over me. I endeavoured to believe that much,
if not all of what I felt, was due to the bewildering influence
of the gloomy furniture of the room--of the dark and tattered
draperies, which, tortured into motion by the breath of a rising
tempest, swayed fitfully to and fro upon the walls, and rustled
uneasily about the decorations of the bed. But my efforts were
fruitless. An irrepressible tremor gradually pervaded my frame;
and, at length, there sat upon my very heart an incubus of
utterly causeless alarm. Shaking this off with a gasp and a
struggle, I uplifted myself upon the pillows, and, peering
earnestly within the intense darkness of the chamber, hearkened--I
know not why, except that an instinctive spirit prompted me--to
certain low and indefinite sounds which came, through the pauses
of the storm, at long intervals, I knew not whence. Overpowered
by an intense sentiment of horror, unaccountable yet unendurable,
I threw on my clothes with haste (for I felt that I should sleep
no more during the night,) and endeavoured to arouse myself from
the pitiable condition into which I had fallen, by pacing rapidly
to and fro through the apartment.
I had taken but few turns in this manner, when a light step
on an adjoining staircase arrested my attention. I presently
recognized it as that of Usher. In an instant afterwards he
rapped, with a gentle touch, at my door, and entered, bearing a
lamp. His countenance was, as usual, cadaverously wan--but,
moreover, there was a species of mad hilarity in his eyes--an
evidently restrained hysteria in his whole demeanour. His
air appalled me--but anything was preferable to the solitude
which I had so long endured, and I even welcomed his presence as
a relief.
"And you have not seen it?" he said abruptly, after having
stared about him for some moments in silence--"you have
not then seen it?--but, stay! you shall." Thus speaking, and
having carefully shaded his lamp, he hurried to one of the
casements, and threw it freely open to the storm.
The impetuous fury of the entering gust nearly lifted us
from our feet. It was, indeed, a tempestuous yet sternly
beautiful night, and one wildly singular in its terror and its
beauty. A whirlwind had apparently collected its force in our
vicinity; for there were frequent and violent alterations in the
direction of the wind; and the exceeding density of the clouds
(which hung so low as to press upon the turrets of the house) did
not prevent our perceiving the lifelike velocity with which they
flew careering from all points against each other, without
passing away into the distance. I say that even their exceeding
density did not prevent our perceiving this--yet we had no
glimpse of the moon or stars--nor was there any flashing forth of
the lightning. But the under surfaces of the huge masses of
agitated vapor, as well as all terrestrial objects immediately
around us, were glowing in the unnatural light of a faintly
luminous and distinctly visible gaseous exhalation which hung
about and enshrouded the mansion.
"You must not--you shall not behold this!" said I,
shudderingly, to Usher, as I led him, with a gentle violence,
from the window to a seat. "These appearances, which bewilder
you, are merely electrical phenomena not uncommon--or it may be
that they have their ghastly origin in the rank miasma of the
tarn. Let us close this casement;--the air is chilling and
dangerous to your frame. Here is one of your favourite romances.
I will read, and you shall listen;--and so we will pass away this
terrible night together."
The antique volume which I had taken up was the "Mad
Trist" of Sir Launcelot Canning; but I had called it a favourite
of Usher's more in sad jest than in earnest; for, in truth, there
is little in its uncouth and unimaginative prolixity which could
have had interest for the lofty and spiritual ideality of my
friend. It was, however, the only book immediately at hand; and
I indulged a vague hope that the excitement which now agitated
the hypochondriac, might find relief (for the history of mental
disorder is full of similar anomalies) even in the extremeness of
the folly which I should read. Could I have judged, indeed, by
the wild overstrained air of vivacity with which he
hearkened, or apparently hearkened, to the words of the tale, I
might well have congratulated myself upon the success of my
design.
I had arrived at that well-known portion of the story where
Ethelred, the hero of the Trist, having sought in vain for
peaceable admission into the dwelling of the hermit, proceeds to
make good an entrance by force. Here, it will be remembered, the
words of the narrative run thus:
"And Ethelred, who was by nature of a doughty heart, and who
was now mighty withal, on account of the powerfulness of the wine
which he had drunken, waited no longer to hold parley with the
hermit, who, in sooth, was of an obstinate and maliceful turn,
but, feeling the rain upon his shoulders, and fearing the rising
of the tempest, uplifted his mace outright, and, with blows, made
quickly room in the plankings of the door for his gauntleted
hand; and now pulling therewith sturdily, he so cracked, and
ripped, and tore all asunder, that the noise of the dry and
hollow-sounding wood alarmed and reverberated throughout the
forest."
At the termination of this sentence I started, and for a
moment, paused; for it appeared to me (although I at once
concluded that my excited fancy had deceived me)--it appeared to
me that, from some very remote portion of the mansion, there
came, indistinctly, to my ears, what might have been, in its
exact similarity of character, the echo (but a stifled and dull
one certainly) of the very cracking and ripping sound which Sir
Launcelot had so particularly described. It was, beyond doubt,
the coincidence alone which had arrested my attention; for, amid
the rattling of the sashes of the casements, and the ordinary
commingled noises of the still increasing storm, the sound, in
itself, had nothing, surely, which should have interested or
disturbed me. I continued the story:
"But the good champion Ethelred, now entering within the
door, was sore enraged and amazed to perceive no signal of the
maliceful hermit; but, in the stead thereof, a dragon of a scaly
and prodigious demeanour, and of a fiery tongue, which sat in
guard before a palace of gold, with a floor of silver; and upon
the wall there hung a shield of shining brass with this legend
enwritten--
Who entereth herein, a conquerer hath bin;
Who slayeth the dragon, the shield he shall win;
and Ethelred uplifted his mace, and struck upon the head of the
dragon, which fell before him, and gave up his pesty breath, with
a shriek so horrid and harsh, and withal so piercing, that
Ethelred had fain to close his ears with his hands against the
dreadful noise of it, the like whereof was never before heard."
Here again I paused abruptly, and now with a feeling of wild
amazement--for there could be no doubt whatever that, in this
instance, I did actually hear (although from what direction it
proceeded I found it impossible to say) a low and apparently
distant, but harsh, protracted, and most unusual screaming or
grating sound--the exact counterpart of what my fancy had already
conjured up for the dragon's unnatural shriek as described by the
romancer.
Oppressed, as I certainly was, upon the occurrence of the
second and most extraordinary coincidence, by a thousand
conflicting sensations, in which wonder and extreme terror were
predominant, I still retained sufficient presence of mind to
avoid exciting, by any observation, the sensitive nervousness of
my companion. I was by no means certain that he had noticed the
sounds in question; although, assuredly, a strange alteration
had, during the last few minutes, taken place in his demeanour.
From a position fronting my own, he had gradually brought round
his chair, so as to sit with his face to the door of the chamber;
and thus I could but partially perceive his features, although I
saw that his lips trembled as if he were murmuring inaudibly.
His head had dropped upon his breast--yet I knew that he was not
asleep, from the wide and rigid opening of the eye as I caught a
glance of it in profile. The motion of his body, too, was at
variance with this idea--for he rocked from side to side with a
gentle yet constant and uniform sway. Having rapidly taken
notice of all this, I resumed the narrative of Sir Launcelot,
which thus proceeded:
"And now, the champion, having escaped from the terrible
fury of the dragon, bethinking himself of the brazen shield, and
of the breaking up of the enchantment which was upon it, removed
the carcass from out of the way before him, and approached
valorously over the silver pavement of the castle to where
the shield was upon the wall; which in sooth tarried not for his
full coming, but fell down at his feet upon the silver floor,
with a mighty great and terrible ringing sound."
No sooner had these syllables passed my lips, than--as if a
shield of brass had indeed, at the moment, fallen heavily upon a
floor of silver--I became aware of a distinct, hollow, metallic,
and clangorous, yet apparently muffled reverberation. Completely
unnerved, I leaped to my feet; but the measured rocking movement
of Usher was undisturbed. I rushed to the chair in which he sat.
His eyes were bent fixedly before him, and throughout his whole
countenance there reigned a stony rigidity. But, as I placed my
hand upon his shoulder, there came a strong shudder over his
whole person; a sickly smile quivered about his lips; and I saw
that he spoke in a low, hurried, and gibbering murmur, as if
unconscious of my presence. Bending closely over him, I at
length drank in the hideous import of his words.
"Not hear it?--yes, I hear it, and have heard it.
Long--long--long--many minutes, many hours, many days, have I heard
it--yet I dared not--oh, pity me, miserable wretch that I am!--I
dared not--I dared not speak! We have put her living in
the tomb! Said I not that my senses were acute? I now tell
you that I heard her first feeble movements in the hollow coffin.
I heard them--many, many days ago--yet I dared not--I dared
not speak! And now--to-night--Ethelred--ha! ha!--the breaking
of the hermit's door, and the death-cry of the dragon, and the
clangour of the shield!--say, rather, the rending of her coffin,
and the grating of the iron hinges of her prison, and her
struggles within the coppered archway of the vault! Oh whither
shall I fly? Will she not be here anon? Is she not hurrying to
upbraid me for my haste? Have I not heard her footsteps on the
stair? Do I not distinguish that heavy and horrible beating of
her heart? Madman!" here he sprang furiously to his feet, and
shrieked out his syllables, as if in the effort he were giving up
his soul--"Madman! I tell you that she now stands without the
door!"
As if in the superhuman energy of his utterance there had
been found the potency of a spell--the huge antique panels to
which the speaker pointed, threw slowly back, upon the instant,
their ponderous and ebony jaws. It was the work of the
rushing gust--but then without those doors there DID stand the
lofty and enshrouded figure of the lady Madeline of Usher. There
was blood upon her white robes, and the evidence of some bitter
struggle upon every portion of her emaciated frame. For a moment
she remained trembling and reeling to and fro upon the threshold,--then,
with a low moaning cry, fell heavily inward upon the person
of her brother, and in her violent and now final death-agonies,
bore him to the floor a corpse, and a victim to the terrors he
had anticipated.
From that chamber, and from that mansion, I fled aghast.
The storm was still abroad in all its wrath as I found myself
crossing the old causeway. Suddenly there shot along the path a
wild light, and I turned to see whence a gleam so unusual could
have issued; for the vast house and its shadows were alone behind
me. The radiance was that of the full, setting, and blood-red
moon which now shone vividly through that once barely-discernible
fissure of which I have before spoken as extending from the roof
of the building, in a zigzag direction, to the base. While I
gazed, this fissure rapidly widened--there came a fierce breath
of the whirlwind--the entire orb of the satellite burst at once
upon my sight--my brain reeled as I saw the mighty walls rushing
asunder--there was a long tumultuous shouting sound like the
voice of a thousand waters--and the deep and dank tarn at my feet
closed sullenly and silently over the fragments of the "House of
Usher".
* Watson, Dr Percival, Spallanzani, and especially the Bishop of Landaff. |
10,240 |
Produced by Martin Ward
Weymouth New Testament in Modern Speech, 2 Corinthians
Third Edition 1913
R. F. Weymouth
Book 47 2 Corinthians
001:001 Paul, an Apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God--
and our brother Timothy: To the Church of God in Corinth,
with all God's people throughout Greece.
001:002 May grace and peace be granted to you from God our Father
and the Lord Jesus Christ.
001:003 Heartfelt thanks be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ--
the Father who is full of compassion and the God who
gives all comfort.
001:004 He comforts us in our every affliction so that we may be able
to comfort those who are in any kind of affliction by means
of the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.
001:005 For just as we have more than our share of suffering for
the Christ, so also through the Christ we have more than our
share of comfort.
001:006 But if, on the one hand, we are enduring affliction, it is
for your comfort and salvation; and if, on the other hand,
we are receiving comfort, it is for your comfort which is
produced within you through your patient fortitude under
the same sufferings as those which we also are enduring.
001:007 And our hope for you is stedfast; for we know that as you are
partners with us in the sufferings, so you are also partners
in the comfort.
001:008 For as for our troubles which came upon us in the province of Asia,
we would have you know, brethren, that we were exceedingly
weighed down, and felt overwhelmed, so that we renounced
all hope even of life.
001:009 Nay, we had, as we still have, the sentence of death within
our own selves, in order that our confidence may repose,
not on ourselves, but on God who raised the dead to life.
001:010 He it is who rescued us from so imminent a death, and will
do so again; and we have a firm hope in Him that He will
also rescue us in all the future,
001:011 while you on your part lend us your aid in entreaty for us,
so that from many lips thanksgivings may rise on our behalf
for the boon granted to us at the intercession of many.
001:012 For the reason for our boasting is this--the testimony of our own
conscience that it was in holiness and with pure motives before God,
and in reliance not on worldly wisdom but on the gracious
help of God, that we have conducted ourselves in the world,
and above all in our relations with you.
001:013 For we are writing to you nothing different from what we have
written before, or from what indeed you already recognize
as truth and will, I trust, recognize as such to the very end;
001:014 just as some few of you have recognized us as your reason
for boasting, even as you will be ours, on the day of
Jesus our Lord.
001:015 It was because I entertained this confidence that I intended
to visit you before going elsewhere--so that you might receive
a twofold proof of God's favour--
001:016 and to pass by way of Corinth into Macedonia. Then my plan
was to return from Macedonia to you, and be helped forward
by you to Judaea.
001:017 Did I display any vacillation or caprice in this?
Or the purposes which I form--do I form them on worldly principles,
now crying "Yes, yes," and now "No, no"?
001:018 As certainly as God is faithful, our language to you is not now "Yes"
and now "No."
001:019 For Jesus Christ the Son of God--He who was proclaimed
among you by us, that is by Silas and Timothy and myself--
did not show Himself a waverer between "Yes" and "No."
But it was and always is "Yes" with Him.
001:020 For all the promises of God, whatever their number, have their
confirmation in Him; and for this reason through Him also our "Amen"
acknowledges their truth and promotes the glory of God
through our faith.
001:021 But He who is making us as well as you stedfast through union
with the Anointed One, and has anointed us, is God,
001:022 and He has also set His seal upon us, and has put His Spirit
into our hearts as a pledge and foretaste of future blessing.
001:023 But as for me, as my soul shall answer for it, I appeal to God
as my witness, that it was to spare you pain that I gave up
my visit to Corinth.
001:024 Not that we want to lord it over you in respect of your faith--
we do, however, desire to help your joy--for in the matter
of your faith you are standing firm.
002:001 But, so far as I am concerned, I have resolved not to have
a painful visit the next time I come to see you.
002:002 For if I of all men give you pain, who then is there to gladden
my heart, but the very persons to whom I give pain?
002:003 And I write this to you in order that when I come I may
not receive pain from those who ought to give me joy,
confident as I am as to all of you that my joy is the joy
of you all.
002:004 For with many tears I write to you, and in deep suffering
and depression of spirit, not in order to grieve you,
but in the hope of showing you how brimful my heart is with
love for you.
002:005 Now if any one has caused sorrow, it has been caused not so much
to me, as in some degree--for I have no wish to exaggerate--
to all of you.
002:006 In the case of such a person the punishment which was inflicted
by the majority of you is enough.
002:007 So that you may now take the opposite course, and forgive him
rather and comfort him, for fear he should perhaps be driven
to despair by his excess of grief.
002:008 I beg you therefore fully to reinstate him in your love.
002:009 For in writing to you I have also this object in view--
to discover by experience whether you are prepared to be
obedient in every respect.
002:010 When you forgive a man an offence I also forgive it;
for in fact what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything,
has always been for your sakes in the presence of Christ,
002:011 for fear Satan should gain an advantage over us.
For we are not ignorant of his devices.
002:012 Now when I came into the Troad to spread there the Good News
about the Christ, even though in the Lord's providence a door
stood open before me,
002:013 yet, obtaining no relief for my spirit because I did not find our
brother Titus, I bade them farewell and went on into Macedonia.
002:014 But to God be the thanks who in Christ ever heads our
triumphal procession, and by our hands waves in every place
that sweet incense, the knowledge of Him.
002:015 For we are a fragrance of Christ grateful to God in those whom
He is saving and in those who are perishing;
002:016 to the last-named an odor of death predictive of death,
and to the others an odor of life predictive of life.
And for such service as this who is competent?
002:017 We are; for, unlike most teachers, we are not fraudulent
hucksters of God's Message; but with transparent motives,
as commissioned by God, in God's presence and in communion
with Christ, so we speak.
003:001 Do you say that this is self-recommendation once more?
Or do we need, as some do, letters of recommendation to you
or from you?
003:002 Our letter of recommendation is yourselves--a letter written
on our hearts and everywhere known and read.
003:003 For all can see that you are a letter of Christ entrusted
to our care, and written not with ink, but with the Spirit
of the ever-living God--and not on tablets of stone,
but on human hearts as tablets.
003:004 Such is the confidence which we have through Christ in the
presence of God;
003:005 not that of ourselves we are competent to decide anything
by our own reasonings, but our competency comes from God.
003:006 It is He also who has made us competent to serve Him in connexion
with a new Covenant, which is not a written code but a Spirit;
for the written code inflicts death, but the Spirit gives Life.
003:007 If, however, the service that proclaims death--its code
being engraved in writing upon stones--came with glory,
so that the children of Israel could not look steadily
on the face of Moses because of the brightness of his face--
a vanishing brightness;
003:008 will not the service of the Spirit be far more glorious?
003:009 For if the service which pronounces doom had glory, far more
glorious still is the service which tells of righteousness.
003:010 For, in fact, that which was once resplendent in glory has no
glory at all in this respect, that it pales before the glory
which surpasses it.
003:011 For if that which was to be abolished came with glory,
much more is that which is permanent arrayed in glory.
003:012 Therefore, cherishing a hope like this, we speak without reserve,
and we do not imitate Moses,
003:013 who used to throw a veil over his face to hide from the gaze
of the children of Israel the passing away of what
was but transitory.
003:014 Nay, their minds were made dull; for to this very day during
the reading of the book of the ancient Covenant, the same
veil remains unlifted, because it is only in Christ that it
is to be abolished.
003:015 Yes, to this day, whenever Moses is read, a veil lies
upon their hearts.
003:016 But whenever the heart of the nation shall have returned
to the Lord, the veil will be withdrawn.
003:017 Now by "the Lord" is meant the Spirit; and where the Spirit
of the Lord is, freedom is enjoyed.
003:018 And all of us, with unveiled faces, reflecting like bright
mirrors the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into
the same likeness, from one degree of radiant holiness to another,
even as derived from the Lord the Spirit.
004:001 Therefore, being engaged in this service and being mindful
of the mercy which has been shown us, we are not cowards.
004:002 Nay, we have renounced the secrecy which marks a feeling of shame.
We practice no cunning tricks, nor do we adulterate God's Message.
But by a full clear statement of the truth we strive to commend
ourselves in the presence of God to every human conscience.
004:003 If, however, the meaning of our Good News has been veiled,
the veil has been on the hearts of those who are on the
way to perdition,
004:004 in whom the god of this present age has blinded their unbelieving
minds so as to shut out the sunshine of the Good News
of the glory of the Christ, who is the image of God.
004:005 (For we do not proclaim ourselves, but we proclaim Christ Jesus
as Lord, and ourselves as your bondservants for the sake of Jesus.)
004:006 For God who said, "Out of darkness let light shine," is He who
has shone in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge
of God's glory, which is radiant on the face of Christ.
004:007 But we have this treasure in a fragile vase of clay, in order
that the surpassing greatness of the power may be seen
to belong to God, and not to originate in us.
004:008 We are hard pressed, yet never in absolute distress;
perplexed, yet never utterly baffled;
004:009 pursued, yet never left unsuccoured; struck to the ground,
yet never slain;
004:010 always, wherever we go, carrying with us in our bodies
the putting to death of Jesus, so that in our bodies it may
also be clearly shown that Jesus lives.
004:011 For we, alive though we are, are continually surrendering
ourselves to death for the sake of Jesus, so that in this mortal
nature of ours it may also be clearly shown that Jesus lives.
004:012 Thus we are constantly dying, while you are in full
enjoyment of Life.
004:013 But possessing the same Spirit of faith as he who wrote,
"I believed, and therefore I have spoken," we also believe,
and therefore we speak.
004:014 For we know that He who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead
will raise us also to be with Jesus, and will cause both us
and you to stand in His own presence.
004:015 For everything is for your sakes, in order that grace,
being more richly bestowed because of the thanksgivings of the
increased number, may more and more promote the glory of God.
004:016 Therefore we are not cowards. Nay, even though our outward
man is wasting away, yet our inward man is being renewed
day by day.
004:017 For this our light and transitory burden of suffering is
achieving for us a preponderating, yes, a vastly preponderating,
and eternal weight of glory;
004:018 while we look not at things seen, but things unseen;
for things seen are temporary, but things unseen are eternal.
005:001 For we know that if this poor tent, our earthly house,
is taken down, we have in Heaven a building which God has provided,
a house not built by human hands, but eternal.
005:002 For in this one we sigh, because we long to put on over it
our dwelling which comes from Heaven--
005:003 if indeed having really put on a robe we shall not be found
to be unclothed.
005:004 Yes, we who are in this tent certainly do sigh under our burdens,
for we do not wish to lay aside that with which we are
now clothed, but to put on more, so that our mortality may
be absorbed in Life.
005:005 And He who formed us with this very end in view is God, who has
given us His Spirit as a pledge and foretaste of that bliss.
005:006 We have therefore a cheerful confidence. We know that while we
are at home in the body we are banished from the Lord;
005:007 for we are living a life of faith, and not one of sight.
005:008 So we have a cheerful confidence, and we anticipate with
greater delight being banished from the body and going home
to the Lord.
005:009 And for this reason also we make it our ambition, whether at
home or in exile, to please Him perfectly.
005:010 For we must all of us appear before Christ's judgement-seat
in our true characters, in order that each may then receive
an award for his actions in this life, in accordance with what
he has done, whether it be good or whether it be worthless.
005:011 Therefore, because we realize how greatly the Lord is to be feared,
we are endeavouring to win men over, and God recognizes
what our motives are, and I hope that you, in your hearts,
recognize them too.
005:012 We are not again commending ourselves to your favour,
but are furnishing you with a ground of boasting on our behalf,
so that you may have a reply ready for those with whom
superficial appearances are everything and sincerity of heart
counts for nothing.
005:013 For if we have been beside ourselves, it has been for God's glory;
or if we are now in our right senses, it is in order to be
of service to you.
005:014 For the love of Christ overmasters us, the conclusion at which
we have arrived being this--that One having died for all,
His death was their death,
005:015 and that He died for all in order that the living may no longer
live to themselves, but to Him who died for them and rose again.
005:016 Therefore for the future we know no one simply as a man.
Even if we have known Christ as a man, yet now we do so no longer.
005:017 So that if any one is in Christ, he is a new creature:
the old state of things has passed away; a new state of things
has come into existence.
005:018 And all this is from God, who has reconciled us to Himself
through Christ, and has appointed us to serve in the
ministry of reconciliation.
005:019 We are to tell how God was in Christ reconciling the world
to Himself, not charging men's transgressions to their account,
and that He has entrusted to us the Message of this reconciliation.
005:020 On Christ's behalf therefore we come as ambassadors, God, as it were,
making entreaty through our lips: we, on Christ's behalf,
beseech men to be reconciled to God.
005:021 He has made Him who knew nothing of sin to be sin for us,
in order that in Him we may become the righteousness of God.
006:001 And you also we, as God's fellow workers, entreat not to be
found to have received His grace to no purpose.
006:002 For He says, "At a time of welcome I have listened to you,
and on a day of salvation I have succoured you."
Now is the time of loving welcome! Now is the day of salvation!
006:003 We endeavour to give people no cause for stumbling in anything,
lest the work we are doing should fall into discredit.
006:004 On the contrary, as God's servants, we seek their full approval--
by unwearied endurance, by afflictions, by distress, by helplessness;
006:005 by floggings, by imprisonments; by facing riots, by toil,
by sleepless watching, by hunger and thirst;
006:006 by purity of life, by knowledge, by patience, by kindness,
by the Holy Spirit, by sincere love;
006:007 by the proclamation of the truth, by the power of God;
by the weapons of righteousness, wielded in both hands;
006:008 through honour and ignominy, through calumny and praise.
We are looked upon as impostors and yet are true men;
006:009 as obscure persons, and yet are well known; as on the point of death,
and yet, strange to tell, we live; as under God's discipline,
and yet we are not deprived of life;
006:010 as sad, but we are always joyful; as poor, but we bestow
wealth on many; as having nothing, and yet we securely
possess all things.
006:011 O Corinthians, our lips are unsealed to you:
our heart is expanded.
006:012 There is no narrowness in our love to you: the narrowness
is in your own feelings.
006:013 And in just requital--I speak as to my children--let your
hearts expand also.
006:014 Do not come into close association with unbelievers,
like oxen yoked with asses. For what is there in common
between righteousness and lawlessness? Or what partnership
has light with darkness?
006:015 Where can harmony between Christ and Belial be found?
Or what participation has a believer with an unbeliever?
006:016 And what compact has the Temple of God with idols?
For *we* are the Temple of the ever-living God; as God has said,
"I will dwell among them, and walk about among them;
and will be their God, and it is they who shall be My people."
006:017 Therefore, "`Come out from among them and separate yourselves,'
says the Lord, `and touch nothing impure; and I will receive you,
and will be a Father to you,
006:018 and you shall be My sons and daughters,' says the Lord
the Ruler of all."
007:001 Having therefore these promises, beloved friends, let us
purify ourselves from all defilement of body and of spirit,
and secure perfect holiness through the fear of God.
007:002 Make room for us in your hearts. There is not one of you
whom we have wronged, not one to whom we have done harm,
not one over whom we have gained any selfish advantage.
007:003 I do not say this to imply blame, for, as I have already said,
you have such a place in our hearts that we would die with you
or live with you.
007:004 I have great confidence in you: very loudly do I boast of you.
I am filled with comfort: my heart overflows with joy amid
all our affliction.
007:005 For even after our arrival in Macedonia we could get no relief
such as human nature craves. We were greatly harassed;
there were conflicts without and fears within.
007:006 But He who comforts the depressed--even God--comforted us
by the coming of Titus, and not by his coming only,
007:007 but also by the fact that he had felt comforted on your account,
and by the report which he brought of your eager affection,
of your grief, and of your jealousy on my behalf, so that I
rejoiced more than ever.
007:008 For if I gave you pain by that letter, I do not regret it,
though I did regret it then. I see that that letter,
even though for a time it gave you pain, had a salutary effect.
007:009 Now I rejoice, not in your grief, but because the grief
led to repentance; for you sorrowed with a godly sorrow,
which prevented you from receiving injury from us in any respect.
007:010 For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation,
a repentance not to be regretted; but the sorrow of the world
finally produces death.
007:011 For mark the effects of this very thing--your having sorrowed
with a godly sorrow--what earnestness it has called forth in you,
what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what alarm,
what longing affection, what jealousy, what meting out of justice!
You have completely wiped away reproach from yourselves
in the matter.
007:012 Therefore, though I wrote to you, it was not to punish the offender,
nor to secure justice for him who had suffered the wrong,
but it was chiefly in order that your earnest feeling on our
behalf might become manifest to yourselves in the sight of God.
007:013 For this reason we feel comforted; and--in addition to this
our comfort--we have been filled with all the deeper joy
at Titus's joy, because his spirit has been set at rest
by you all.
007:014 For however I may have boasted to him about you, I have no
reason to feel ashamed; but as we have in all respects spoken
the truth to you, so also our boasting to Titus about you
has turned out to be the truth.
007:015 And his strong and tender affection is all the more drawn
out towards you when he recalls to mind the obedience which
all of you manifested by the timidity and nervous anxiety
with which you welcomed him.
007:016 I rejoice that I have absolute confidence in you.
008:001 But we desire to let you know, brethren, of the grace of God
which has been bestowed on the Churches of Macedonia;
008:002 how, while passing through great trouble, their boundless
joy even amid their deep poverty has overflowed to increase
their generous liberality.
008:003 For I can testify that to the utmost of their power,
and even beyond their power, they have of their own free
will given help.
008:004 With earnest entreaty they begged from us the favour of
being allowed to share in the service now being rendered
to God's people.
008:005 They not only did this, as we had expected, but first of all in
obedience to God's will they gave their own selves to the Lord
and to us.
008:006 This led us to urge Titus that, as he had previously been
the one who commenced the work, so he should now go and complete
among you this act of beneficence also.
008:007 Yes, just as you are already very rich in faith, readiness of speech,
knowledge, unwearied zeal, and in the love that is in you,
implanted by us, see to it that this grace of liberal giving
also flourishes in you.
008:008 I am not saying this by way of command, but to test by the standard
of other men's earnestness the genuineness of your love also.
008:009 For you know the condescending goodness of our Lord Jesus Christ--
how for your sakes He became poor, though He was rich,
in order that you through His poverty might grow rich.
008:010 But in this matter I give you an opinion; for my doing this helps
forward your own intentions, seeing that not only have you
begun operations, but a year ago you already had the desire
to do so.
008:011 And now complete the doing also, in order that, just as there
was then the eagerness in desiring, there may now be
the accomplishment in proportion to your means.
008:012 For, assuming the earnest willingness, the gift is acceptable
according to whatever a man has, and not according to what
he has not.
008:013 I do not urge you to give in order that others may have relief
while you are unduly pressed,
008:014 but that, by equalization of burdens, your superfluity
having in the present emergency supplied their deficiency,
their superfluity may in turn be a supply for your deficiency
later on, so that there may be equalization of burdens.
008:015 Even as it is written, "He who gathered much had not too much,
and he who gathered little had not too little."
008:016 But thanks be to God that He inspires the heart of Titus
with the same deep interest in you;
008:017 for Titus welcomed our request, and, being thoroughly in earnest,
comes to you of his own free will.
008:018 And we send with him the brother whose praises for his
earnestness in proclaiming the Good News are heard throughout
all the Churches.
008:019 And more than that, he is the one who was chosen by the vote
of the Churches to travel with us, sharing our commission
in the administration of this generous gift to promote
the Lord's glory and gratify our own strong desire.
008:020 For against one thing we are on our guard--I mean against blame
being thrown upon us in respect to these large and liberal
contributions which are under our charge.
008:021 For we seek not only God's approval of our integrity,
but man's also.
008:022 And we send with them our brother, of whose zeal we have had
frequent proof in many matters, and who is now more zealous
than ever through the strong confidence which he has in you.
008:023 As for Titus, remember that he is a partner with me, and is
my comrade in my labours for you. And as for our brethren,
remember that they are delegates from the Churches, and are
men in whom Christ is glorified.
008:024 Exhibit therefore to the Churches a proof of your love,
and a justification of our boasting to these brethren about you.
009:001 As to the services which are being rendered to God's people,
it is really unnecessary for me to write to you.
009:002 For I know your earnest willingness, on account of which I
habitually boast of you to the Macedonians, pointing out
to them that for a whole year you in Greece have been ready;
and the greater number of them have been spurred on
by your ardour.
009:003 Still I send the brethren in order that in this matter our
boast about you may not turn out to have been an idle one;
so that, as I have said, you may be ready;
009:004 for fear that, if any Macedonians come with me and find
you unprepared, we--not to say you yourselves--should be put
to the blush in respect to this confidence.
009:005 I have thought it absolutely necessary therefore to request
these brethren to visit you before I myself come, and to make
sure beforehand that the gift of love which you have already
promised may be ready as a gift of love, and may not seem
to have been something which I have extorted from you.
009:006 But do not forget that he who sows with a niggardly hand will
also reap a niggardly crop, and that he who sows bountifully
will also reap bountifully.
009:007 Let each contribute what he has decided upon in his own mind,
and not do it reluctantly or under compulsion.
"It is a cheerful giver that God loves."
009:008 And God is able to bestow every blessing on you in abundance,
so that richly enjoying all sufficiency at all times,
you may have ample means for all good works.
009:009 As it is written, "He has scattered abroad, he has given
to the poor, his almsgiving remains for ever."
009:010 And God who continually supplies seed for the sower and bread
for eating, will supply you with seed and multiply it,
and will cause your almsgiving to yield a plentiful harvest.
009:011 May you be abundantly enriched so as to show all liberality,
such as through our instrumentality brings thanksgiving to God.
009:012 For the service rendered in this sacred gift not only helps
to relieve the wants of God's people, but it is also rich
in its results and awakens a chorus of thanksgiving to God.
009:013 For, by the practical proof of it which you exhibit in
this service, you cause God to be extolled for your fidelity
to your professed adherence to the Good News of the Christ,
and for the liberality of your contributions for them and
for all who are in need,
009:014 while they themselves also in supplications on your behalf
pour out their longing love towards you because of God's
surpassing grace which is resting upon you.
009:015 Thanks be to God for His unspeakably precious gift!
010:001 But as for me Paul, I entreat you by the gentleness and
self-forgetfulness of Christ--I who when among you have not
an imposing personal presence, but when absent am fearlessly
outspoken in dealing with you.
010:002 I beseech you not to compel me when present to make a bold
display of the confidence with which I reckon I shall show
my `courage' against some who reckon that we are guided
by worldly principles.
010:003 For, though we are still living in the world, it is no worldly
warfare that we are waging.
010:004 The weapons with which we fight are not human weapons,
but are mighty for God in overthrowing strong fortresses.
010:005 For we overthrow arrogant `reckonings,' and every stronghold
that towers high in defiance of the knowledge of God,
and we carry off every thought as if into slavery--
into subjection to Christ;
010:006 while we hold ourselves in readiness to punish every act
of disobedience, as soon as ever you as a Church have fully
shown your obedience.
010:007 Is it outward appearances you look to? If any man is confident
as regards himself that he specially belongs to Christ,
let him consider again and reflect that just as he belongs
to Christ, so also do we.
010:008 If, however, I were to boast more loudly of our Apostolic authority,
which the Lord has given us that we may build you up,
not pull you down, I should have no reason to feel ashamed.
010:009 Let it not seem as if I wanted to frighten you by my letters.
010:010 For they say "His letters are authoritative and forcible,
but his personal presence is unimpressive, and as for eloquence,
he has none."
010:011 Let such people take this into their reckoning, that whatever
we are in word by our letters when absent, the same are we
also in act when present.
010:012 For we have not the `courage' to rank ourselves among,
or compare ourselves with, certain persons distinguished
by their self-commendation. Yet they are not wise,
measuring themselves, as they do, by one another and comparing
themselves with one another.
010:013 We, however, will not exceed due limits in our boasting,
but will keep within the limits of the sphere which God has
assigned to us as a limit, which reaches even to you.
010:014 For there is no undue stretch of authority on our part,
as though it did not extend to you. We pressed on even
to Corinth, and were the first to proclaim to you the Good News
of the Christ.
010:015 We do not exceed our due limits, and take credit for
other men's labours; but we entertain the hope that,
as your faith grows, we shall gain promotion among you--
still keeping within our own sphere--promotion to a larger
field of labour,
010:016 and shall tell the Good News in the districts beyond you,
not boasting in another man's sphere about work already
done by him.
010:017 But "whoever boasts, let his boast be in the Lord."
010:018 For it is not the man that commends himself who is really approved,
but he whom the Lord commends.
011:001 I wish you could have borne with a little foolish boasting
on my part. Nay, do bear with me.
011:002 I am jealous over you with God's own jealousy. For I have
betrothed you to Christ to present you to Him like a faithful
bride to her one husband.
011:003 But I am afraid that, as the serpent in his craftiness deceived Eve,
so your minds may be led astray from their single-heartedness
and their fidelity to Christ.
011:004 If indeed some visitor is proclaiming among you another Jesus
whom we did not proclaim, or if you are receiving a Spirit
different from the One you have already received or a Good News
different from that which you have already welcomed,
your toleration is admirable!
011:005 Why, I reckon myself in no respect inferior to those
superlatively great Apostles.
011:006 And if in the matter of speech I am no orator, yet in knowledge
I am not deficient. Nay, we have in every way made that fully
evident to you.
011:007 Is it a sin that I abased myself in order for you to be exalted,
in that I proclaimed God's Good News to you without fee or reward?
011:008 Other Churches I robbed, receiving pay from them in order
to do you service.
011:009 And when I was with you and my resources failed, there was
no one to whom I became a burden--for the brethren
when they came from Macedonia fully supplied my wants--
and I kept myself from being in the least a burden to you,
and will do so still.
011:010 Christ knows that it is true when I say that I will not be
stopped from boasting of this anywhere in Greece.
011:011 And why? Because I do not love you? God knows that I do.
011:012 But I will persist in the same line of conduct in order
to cut the ground from under the feet of those who desire
an opportunity of getting themselves recognized as being
on a level with us in the matters about which they boast.
011:013 For men of this stamp are sham apostles, dishonest workmen,
assuming the garb of Apostles of Christ.
011:014 And no wonder. Satan, their master, can disguise himself
as an angel of light.
011:015 It is therefore no great thing for his servants also
to disguise themselves as servants of righteousness.
Their end will be in accordance with their actions.
011:016 To return to what I was saying. Let no one suppose that I
am foolish. Or if you must, at any rate make allowance
for me as being foolish, in order that I, as well as they,
may boast a little.
011:017 What I am now saying, I do not say by the Lord's command,
but as a fool in his folly might, in this reckless boasting.
011:018 Since many boast for merely human reasons, I too will boast.
011:019 Wise as you yourselves are, you find pleasure in tolerating fools.
011:020 For you tolerate it, if any one enslaves you, lives at your expense,
makes off with your property, gives himself airs, or strikes
you on the face.
011:021 I use the language of self-disparagement, as though I
were admitting our own feebleness. Yet for whatever
reason any one is `courageous'--I speak in mere folly--
I also am courageous.
011:022 Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are
they descendants of Abraham? So am I.
011:023 Are they servants of Christ? (I speak as if I were out of my mind.)
Much more am I His servant; serving Him more thoroughly than they
by my labours, and more thoroughly also by my imprisonments,
by excessively cruel floggings, and with risk of life
many a time.
011:024 From the Jews I five times have received forty lashes all but one.
011:025 Three times I have been beaten with Roman rods, once I have
been stoned, three times I have been shipwrecked, once for full
four and twenty hours I was floating on the open sea.
011:026 I have served Him by frequent travelling, amid dangers
in crossing rivers, dangers from robbers; dangers from my
own countrymen, dangers from the Gentiles; dangers in the city,
dangers in the Desert, dangers by sea, dangers from spies
in our midst;
011:027 with labour and toil, with many a sleepless night,
in hunger and thirst, in frequent fastings, in cold,
and with insufficient clothing.
011:028 And besides other things, which I pass over, there is that
which presses on me daily--my anxiety for all the Churches.
011:029 Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is led astray into sin,
and I am not aflame with indignation?
011:030 If boast I must, it shall be of things which display my weakness.
011:031 The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ--He who is blessed
throughout the Ages--knows that I am speaking the truth.
011:032 In Damascus the governor under King Aretas kept guards at
the gates of the city in order to apprehend me,
011:033 but through an opening in the wall I was let down in a basket,
and so escaped his hands.
012:001 I am compelled to boast. It is not a profitable employment,
but I will proceed to visions and revelations granted me
by the Lord.
012:002 I know a Christian man who fourteen years ago--whether in
the body I do not know, or out of the body I do not know;
God knows--was caught up (this man of whom I am speaking)
even to the highest Heaven.
012:003 And I know that this man--whether in the body or apart from
the body I do not know;
012:004 God knows--was caught up into Paradise and heard unspeakable
things which no human being is permitted to repeat.
012:005 Of such a one I will boast; but of myself I will not boast,
except in my weaknesses.
012:006 If however I should choose to boast, I should not be a fool
for so doing, for I should be speaking the truth.
But I forbear, lest any one should be led to estimate me
more highly than what his own eyes attest, or more highly
than what he hears from my lips.
012:007 And judging by the stupendous grandeur of the revelations--
therefore lest I should be over-elated there has been sent to me,
like the agony of impalement, Satan's angel dealing blow
after blow, lest I should be over-elated.
012:008 As for this, three times have I besought the Lord to rid
me of him;
012:009 but His reply has been, "My grace suffices for you,
for power matures in weakness." Most gladly therefore
will I boast of my infirmities rather than complain of them--
in order that Christ's power may overshadow me.
012:010 In fact I take pleasure in infirmities, in the bearing of insults,
in distress, in persecutions, in grievous difficulties--
for Christ's sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.
012:011 It is foolish of me to write all this, but you have compelled
me to do so. Why, you ought to have been my vindicators;
for in no respect have I been inferior to these superlatively
great Apostles, even though in myself I am nothing.
012:012 The signs that characterize the true Apostle have been done
among you, accompanied by unwearied fortitude, and by tokens
and marvels and displays of power.
012:013 In what respect, therefore, have you been worse dealt with than
other Churches, except that I myself never hung as a dead
weight upon you? Forgive the injustice I thus did you!
012:014 See, I am now for the third time prepared to visit you, but I
will not be a dead weight to you. I desire not your money,
but yourselves; for children ought not to put by for their parents,
but parents for their children.
012:015 And as for me, most gladly will I spend all I have and be
utterly spent for your salvation.
012:016 If I love you so intensely, am I the less to be loved?
Be that as it may: I was not a burden to you.
But being by no means scrupulous, I entrapped you, they say!
012:017 Have I gained any selfish advantage over you through any one
of the messengers I have sent to you?
012:018 I begged Titus to visit you, and sent our other brother
with him. Did Titus gain any selfish advantage over you?
Were not he and I guided by one and the same Spirit, and did
we not walk in the same steps?
012:019 You are imagining, all this time, that we are making our
defense at your bar. In reality it is as in God's presence
and in communion with Christ that we speak; but, dear friends,
it is all with a view to your progress in goodness.
012:020 For I am afraid that perhaps when I come I may not find you to be
what I desire, and that you may find me to be what you do not desire;
that perhaps there may be contention, jealousy, bitter feeling,
party spirit, ill-natured talk, backbiting, undue eulogy, unrest;
012:021 and that upon re-visiting you I may be humbled by my God
in your presence, and may have to mourn over many whose
hearts still cling to their old sins, and who have not
repented of the impurity, fornication, and gross sensuality,
of which they have been guilty.
013:001 This intended visit of mine is my third visit to you.
"On the evidence of two or three witnesses every charge
shall be sustained."
013:002 Those who cling to their old sins, and indeed all of you,
I have forewarned and still forewarn (as I did on my second
visit when present, so I do now, though absent) that, when I
come again, I shall not spare you;
013:003 since you want a practical proof of the fact that Christ
speaks by my lips--He who is not feeble towards you,
but powerful among you.
013:004 For though it is true that He was crucified through weakness,
yet He now lives through the power of God. We also are weak,
sharing His weakness, but with Him we shall be full of life
to deal with you through the power of God.
013:005 Test yourselves to discover whether you are true believers:
put your own selves under examination. Or do you not know
that Jesus Christ is within you, unless you are insincere?
013:006 But I trust that you will recognize that we are not insincere.
013:007 And our prayer to God is that you may do nothing wrong;
not in order that our sincerity may be demonstrated,
but that you may do what is right, even though our sincerity
may seem to be doubtful.
013:008 For we have no power against the truth, but only for the furtherance
of the truth;
013:009 and it is a joy to us when we are powerless, but you are strong.
This we also pray for--the perfecting of your characters.
013:010 For this reason I write thus while absent, that when present I
may not have to act severely in the exercise of the authority
which the Lord has given me for building up, and not
for pulling down.
013:011 Finally, brethren, be joyful, secure perfection of character,
take courage, be of one mind, live in peace. And then God
who gives love and peace will be with you.
013:012 Salute one another with a holy kiss.
013:013 All God's people here send greetings to you.
013:014 May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God,
and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you all.
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Weymouth New Testament in Modern
Speech, 2 Corinthians, by R. F. |
10,240 |
Produced by Anthony J. Adam
MY GARDEN ACQUAINTANCE
By James Russell Lowell
ONE of the most delightful books in my father's library was White's
"Natural History of Selborne." For me it has rather gained in charm with
years. I used to read it without knowing the secret of the pleasure I
found in it, but as I grow older I begin to detect some of the simple
expedients of this natural magic. Open the book where you will, it takes
you out of doors. In our broiling July weather one can walk out with
this genially garrulous Fellow of Oriel and find refreshment instead
of fatigue. You have no trouble in keeping abreast of him as he ambles
along on his hobby-horse, now pointing to a pretty view, now stopping to
watch the motions of a bird or an insect, or to bag a specimen for the
Honorable Daines Barrington or Mr. Pennant. In simplicity of taste and
natural refinement he reminds one of Walton; in tenderness toward
what he would have called the brute creation, of Cowper. I do not know
whether his descriptions of scenery are good or not, but they have made
me familiar with his neighborhood. Since I first read him, I have walked
over some of his favorite haunts, but I still see them through his eyes
rather than by any recollection of actual and personal vision. The book
has also the delightfulness of absolute leisure. Mr. White seems never
to have had any harder work to do than to study the habits of his
feathered fellow-townsfolk, or to watch the ripening of his peaches on
the wall. His volumes are the journal of Adam in Paradise,
"Annihilating all that's made
To a green thought in a green shade."
It is positive rest only to look into that garden of his. It is vastly
better than to
"See great Diocletian walk
In the Salonian garden's noble shade,"
for thither ambassadors intrude to bring with them the noises of Rome,
while here the world has no entrance. No rumor of the revolt of the
American Colonies seems to have reached him. "The natural term of an
hog's life" has more interest for him than that of an empire. Burgoyne
may surrender and welcome; of what consequence is _that_ compared with
the fact that we can explain the odd tumbling of rooks in the air
by their turning over "to scratch themselves with one claw"? All the
couriers in Europe spurring rowel-deep make no stir in Mr. White's
little Chartreuse;(1) but the arrival of the house-martin a day earlier
or later than last year is a piece of news worth sending express to all
his correspondents.
(1) _La Grande Chartreuse_ was the original Carthusian monastery in
France, where the most austere privacy was maintained.
Another secret charm of this book is its inadvertent humor, so
much the more delicious because unsuspected by the author. How pleasant
is his innocent vanity in adding to the list of the British, and
still more of the Selbornian, _fauna!_ I believe he would gladly have
consented to be eaten by a tiger or a crocodile, if by that means
the occasional presence within the parish limits of either of these
anthropophagous brutes could have been established. He brags of no
fine society, but is plainly a little elated by "having considerable
acquaintance with a tame brown owl." Most of us have known our share
of owls, but few can boast of intimacy with a feathered one. The great
events of Mr. White's life, too, have that disproportionate importance
which is always humorous. To think of his hands having actually been
though worthy (as neither Willoughby's nor Ray's were) to hold a stilted
plover, the _Charadrius himaniopus,_ with no back toe, and therefore
"liable, in speculation, to perpetual vacillations"! I wonder, by
the way, if metaphysicians have no hind toes. In 1770 he makes the
acquaintance in Sussex of "an old family tortoise," which had then been
domesticated for thirty years. It is clear that he fell in love with it
at first sight. We have no means of tracing the growth of his passion;
but in 1780 we find him eloping with its object in a post-chaise. "The
rattle and hurry of the journey so perfectly roused it that, when I
turned it out in a border, it walked twice down to the bottom of my
garden." It reads like a Court Journal: "Yesterday morning H.R.H. the
Princess Alice took an airing of half an hour on the terrace of Windsor
Castle." This tortoise might have been a member of the Royal Society,
if he could have condescended to so ignoble an ambition. It had but
just been discovered that a surface inclined at a certain angle with
the plane of the horizon took more of the sun's rays. The tortoise had
always known this (though he unostentatiously made no parade of it),
and used accordingly to tilt himself up against the garden-wall in the
autumn. He seems to have been more of a philosopher than even Mr. White
himself, caring for nothing but to get under a cabbage-leaf when
it rained, or the sun was too hot, and to bury himself alive before
frost,--a four-footed Diogenes, who carried his tub on his back.
There are moods in which this kind of history is infinitely
refreshing. These creatures whom we affect to look down upon as the
drudges of instinct are members of a commonwealth whose constitution
rests on immovable bases, never any need of reconstruction there! _They_
never dream of settling it by vote that eight hours are equal to ten, or
that one creature is as clever as another and no more. _They_ do not
use their poor wits in regulating God's clocks, nor think they cannot
go astray so long as they carry their guide-board about with them,--a
delusion we often practise upon ourselves with our high and mighty
reason, that admirable finger-post which points every way and always
right. It is good for us now and then to converse with a world like Mr.
White's, where Man is the least important of animals. But one who, like
me, has always lived in the country and always on the same spot, is
drawn to his book by other occult sympathies. Do we not share his
indignation at that stupid Martin who had graduated his thermometer no
lower than 4o above zero of Fahrenheit, so that in the coldest weather
ever known the mercury basely absconded into the bulb, and left us to
see the victory slip through our fingers, just as they were closing
upon it? No man, I suspect, ever lived long in the country without being
bitten by these meteorological ambitions. He likes to be hotter and
colder, to have been more deeply snowed up, to have more trees and
larger blow down than his neighbors. With us descendants of the Puritans
especially, these weather-competitions supply the abnegated excitement
of the race-course. Men learn to value thermometers of the true
imaginative temperament, capable of prodigious elations and
corresponding dejections. The other day (5th July) I marked 98o in the
shade, my high water mark, higher by one degree than I had ever seen it
before. I happened to meet a neighbor; as we mopped our brows at each
other, he told me that he had just cleared 100o, and I went home
a beaten man. I had not felt the heat before, save as a beautiful
exaggeration of sunshine; but now it oppressed me with the prosaic
vulgarity of an oven. What had been poetic intensity became all at once
rhetorical hyperbole. I might suspect his thermometer (as indeed I did,
for we Harvard men are apt to think ill of any graduation but our
own); but it was a poor consolation. The fact remained that his herald
Mercury, standing a tiptoe, could look down on mine. I seem to glimpse
something of this familiar weakness in Mr. White. He, too, has shared in
these mercurial triumphs and defeats. Nor do I doubt that he had a
true country-gentleman's interest in the weather-cock; that his first
question on coming down of a morning was, like Barabas's,
"Into what quarter peers my halcyon's bill?"
It is an innocent and healthful employment of the mind,
distracting one from too continual study of himself, and leading him to
dwell rather upon the indigestions of the elements than his own. "Did
the wind back round, or go about with the sun?" is a rational question
that bears not remotely on the making of hay and the prosperity of
crops. I have little doubt that the regulated observation of the vane
in many different places, and the interchange of results by telegraph,
would put the weather, as it were, in our power, by betraying its
ambushes before it is ready to give the assault. At first sight,
nothing seems more drolly trivial than the lives of those whose single
achievement is to record the wind and the temperature three times a day.
Yet such men are doubtless sent into the world for this special end, and
perhaps there is no kind of accurate observation, whatever its object,
that has not its final use and value for some one or other. It is even
to be hoped that the speculations of our newspaper editors and their
myriad correspondence upon the signs of the political atmosphere may
also fill their appointed place in a well-regulated universe, if it
be only that of supplying so many more jack-o'-lanterns to the future
historian. Nay, the observations on finance of an M.C. whose sole
knowledge of the subject has been derived from a life-long success
in getting a living out of the public without paying any equivalent
therefor, will perhaps be of interest hereafter to some explorer of our
_cloaca maxima,_ whenever it is cleansed.
For many years I have been in the habit of noting down some of
the leading events of my embowered solitude, such as the coming of
certain birds and the like,--a kind of _memoires pour servir,_ after
the fashion of White, rather than properly digested natural history.
I thought it not impossible that a few simple stories of my winged
acquaintances might be found entertaining by persons of kindred taste.
There is a common notion that animals are better meteorologists
than men, and I have little doubt that in immediate weather-wisdom
they have the advantage of our sophisticated senses (though I suspect a
sailor or shepherd would be their match), but I have seen nothing that
leads me to believe their minds capable of erecting the horoscope of a
whole season, and letting us know beforehand whether the winter will be
severe or the summer rainless. I more than suspect that the clerk of the
weather himself does not always know very long in advance whether he
is to draw an order for hot or cold, dry or moist, and the musquash is
scarce likely to be wiser. I have noted but two days' difference in
the coming of the song-sparrow between a very early and a very backward
spring. This very year I saw the linnets at work thatching, just before
a snow-storm which covered the ground several inches deep for a number
of days. They struck work and left us for a while, no doubt in search
of food. Birds frequently perish from sudden changes in our whimsical
spring weather of which they had no foreboding. More than thirty years
ago, a cherry-tree, then in full bloom, near my window, was covered
with humming-birds benumbed by a fall of mingled rain and snow, which
probably killed many of them. It should seem that their coming was dated
by the height of the sun, which betrays them into unthrifty matrimony;
"So priketh hem Nature in hir corages;"(1)
but their going is another matter. The chimney swallows leave us early,
for example, apparently so soon as their latest fledglings are firm
enough of wing to attempt the long rowing-match that is before them. On
the other hand the wild-geese probably do not leave the North till they
are frozen out, for I have heard their bugles sounding southward so
late as the middle of December. What may be called local migrations are
doubtless dictated by the chances of food. I have once been visited by
large flights of cross-bills; and whenever the snow lies long and deep
on the ground, a flock of cedar-birds comes in mid-winter to eat the
berries on my hawthorns. I have never been quite able to fathom the
local, or rather geographical partialities of birds. Never before this
summer (1870) have the king-birds, handsomest of flycatchers, built in
my orchard; though I always know where to find them within half a mile.
The rose-breasted grosbeak has been a familiar bird in Brookline (three
miles away), yet I never saw one here till last July, when I found a
female busy among my raspberries and surprisingly bold. I hope she was
_prospecting_ with a view to settlement in our garden. She seemed, on
the whole, to think well of my fruit, and I would gladly plant another
bed if it would help to win over so delightful a neighbor.
(1) Chaucer's _Canterbury Tales, Prologue,_ line 11.
The return of the robin is commonly announced by the
newspapers, like that of eminent or notorious people to a
watering-place, as the first authentic notification of spring. And such
his appearance in the orchard and garden undoubtedly is. But, in spite
of his name of migratory thrush, he stays with us all winter, and I
have seen him when the thermometer marked 15 degrees below zero of
Fahrenheit, armed impregnably within,(1) like Emerson's Titmouse, and as
cheerful as he. The robin has a bad reputation among people who do not
value themselves less for being fond of cherries. There is, I admit,
a spice of vulgarity in him, and his song is rather of the Bloomfield
sort, too largely ballasted with prose. His ethics are of the Poor
Richard school, and the main chance which calls forth all his energy
is altogether of the belly. He never has these fine intervals of lunacy
into which his cousins, the catbird and the mavis, are apt to fall. But
for a' that and twice as muckle's a' that, I would not exchange him for
all the cherries that ever came out of Asia Minor. With whatever faults,
he has not wholly forfeited that superiority which belongs to the
children of nature. He has a finer taste in fruit than could be
distilled from many successive committees of the Horticultural Society,
and he eats with a relishing gulp not inferior to Dr. Johnson's. He
feels and freely exercises his right of eminent domain. His is the
earliest mess of green peas; his all the mulberries I had fancied mine.
But if he get also the lion's share of the raspberries, he is a
great planter, and sows those wild ones in the woods that solace the
pedestrian, and give a momentary calm even to the jaded victims of the
White Hills. He keeps a strict eye over one's fruit, and knows to a
shade of purple when your grapes have cooked long enough in the sun.
During the severe drought a few years ago the robins wholly vanished
from my garden. I neither saw nor heard one for three weeks, meanwhile
a small foreign grape-vine, rather shy of bearing, seemed to find the
dusty air congenial, and, dreaming, perhaps of its sweet Argos across
the sea, decked itself with a score or so of fair bunches. I watched
them from day to day till they should have secreted sugar enough from
the sunbeams, and at last made up my mind that I would celebrate my
vintage the next morning. But the robins, too, had somehow kept note of
them. They must have sent out spies, as did the Jews into the promised
land, before I was stirring. When I went with my basket at least a
dozen of these winged vintagers bustled out from among the leaves, and
alighting on the nearest trees interchanged some shrill remarks about
me of a derogatory nature. They had fairly sacked the vine. Not
Wellington's veterans made cleaner work of a Spanish town; not Federals
or Confederates were ever more impartial in the confiscation of neutral
chickens. I was keeping my grapes a secret to surprise the fair Fidele
with, but the robins made them a profounder secret to her than I had
meant. The tattered remnant of a single bunch was all my harvest-home.
How paltry it looked at the bottom of my basket,--as if a humming-bird
had laid her egg in an eagle's nest! I could not help laughing; and
the robins seemed to join heartily in the merriment. There was a native
grape-vine close by, blue with its less refined abundance, but my
cunning thieves preferred the foreign flavor. Could I tax them with want
of taste?
(1) "For well the soul, if stout within, Can arm impregnably the skin."
_The Titmouse,_ lines 75, 76.
The robins are not good solo singers, but their chorus, as, like
primitive fire-worshippers, they hail the return of light and warmth to
the world, is unrivalled. There are a hundred singing like one. They are
noisy enough then, and sing, as poets should, with no afterthought. But
when they come after cherries to the tree near my window, they muffle
their voices, and their faint _pip pip pop!_ sounds far away at the
bottom of the garden, where they know I shall not suspect them of
robbing the great black-walnut of its bitter-rinded store.(1) They are
feathered Pecksniffs, to be sure, but then how brightly their breasts,
that look rather shabby in the sunlight, shine in a rainy day against
the dark green of the fringe-tree! After they have pinched and shaken
all the life of an earthworm, as Italian cooks pound all the spirit
out of a steak, and then gulped him, they stand up in honest
self-confidence, expand their red waistcoats with the virtuous air of
a lobby member, and outface you with an eye that calmly challenges
inquiry. "Do _I_ look like a bird that knows the flavor of raw vermin?
I throw myself upon a jury of my peers. Ask any robin if he ever ate
anything less ascetic than the frugal berry of the juniper, and he will
answer that his vow forbids him." Can such an open bosom cover such
depravity? Alas, yes! I have no doubt his breast was redder at that very
moment with the blood of my raspberries. On the whole, he is a doubtful
friend in the garden. He makes his dessert of all kinds of berries, and
is not averse from early pears. But when we remember how omnivorous he
is, eating his own weight in an incredibly short time, and that Nature
seems exhaustless in her invention of new insects hostile to vegetation,
perhaps we may reckon that he does more good than harm. For my own part,
I would rather have his cheerfulness and kind neighborhood than many
berries.
(1) The screech-owl, whose cry, despite his ill name, is one o the
sweetest sounds in nature, softens his voice in the same way with the
most beguiling mockery of distance. J.R.L.
For his cousin, the catbird, I have a still warmer regard. Always a
good singer, he sometimes nearly equals the brown thrush, and has the
merit of keeping up his music later in the evening than any bird of my
familiar acquaintance. Ever since I can remember, a pair of them have
built in a gigantic syringa near our front door, and I have known the
male to sing almost uninterruptedly during the evenings of early summer
till twilight duskened into dark. They differ greatly in vocal talent,
but all have a delightful way of crooning over, and, as it were,
rehearsing their song in an undertone, which makes their nearness
always unobtrusive. Though there is the most trustworthy witness to the
imitative propensity of this bird, I have only once, during an intimacy
of more than forty years, heard him indulge it. In that case,
the imitation was by no means so close as to deceive, but a free
reproduction of the notes of some other birds, especially of the oriole,
as a kind of variation in his own song. The catbird is as shy as the
robin is vulgarly familiar. Only when his nest or his fledglings are
approached does he become noisy and almost aggressive. I have known
him to station his young in a thick cornel-bush on the edge of the
raspberry-bed, after the fruit began to ripen, and feed them there for a
week or more. In such cases he shows none of that conscious guilt which
makes the robin contemptible. On the contrary, he will maintain his post
in the thicket, and sharply scold the intruder who ventures to steal
_his_ berries. After all, his claim is only for tithes, while the robin
will bag your entire crop if he get a chance.
Dr. Watts's statement that "birds in their little nests agree," like
too many others intended to form the infant mind, is very far from
being true. On the contrary, the most peaceful relation of the different
species to each other is that of armed neutrality. They are very jealous
of neighbors. A few years ago I was much interested in the housebuilding
of a pair of summer yellow-birds. They had chosen a very pretty site
near the top of a tall white lilac, within easy eye-shot of a chamber
window. A very pleasant thing it was to see their little home growing
with mutual help, to watch their industrious skill interrupted only
by little flirts and snatches of endearment, frugally cut short by the
common-sense of the tiny house-wife. They had brought their work
nearly to an end, and had already begun to line it with fern-down, the
gathering of which demanded more distant journeys and longer absences.
But, alas! the syringa, immemorial manor of the catbirds, was not more
than twenty feet away, and these "giddy neighbors" had, as it appeared,
been all along jealously watchful, though silent, witnesses of what they
deemed an intrusion of squatters. No sooner were the pretty mates fairly
gone for a new load of lining, than
"To their unguarded nest these weasel Scots
Came stealing."(1)
Silently they flew back and forth, each giving a vengeful dab at the
nest in passing. They did not fall-to and deliberately destroy it, for
they might have been caught at their mischief. As it was, whenever
the yellow-birds came back, their enemies were hidden in their own
sight-proof bush. Several times their unconscious victims repaired
damages, but at length, after counsel taken together, they gave it up.
Perhaps, like other unlettered folk, they came to the conclusion
that the Devil was in it, and yielded to the invisible persecution of
witchcraft.
(1) Shakespeare: _King Henry V.,_ act i, scene 2.
The robins, by constant attacks and annoyances, have succeeded
in driving off the blue-jays who used to build in our pines, their gay
colors and quaint, noisy ways making them welcome and amusing neighbors.
I once had the chance of doing a kindness to a household of them, which
they received with very friendly condescension. I had had my eye for
some time upon a nest, and was puzzled by a constant fluttering of what
seemed full-grown wings in it whenever I drew nigh. At last I climbed
the tree, in spite of angry protests from the old birds against my
intrusion. The mystery had a very simple solution. In building the nest,
a long piece of packthread had been somewhat loosely woven in. Three
of the young had contrived to entangle themselves in it, and had become
full-grown without being able to launch themselves upon the air. One was
unharmed; another had so tightly twisted the cord about its shank that
one foot was curled up and seemed paralyzed; the third, in its struggles
to escape, had sawn through the flesh of the thigh and so much harmed
itself that I thought it humane to put an end to its misery. When I took
out my knife to cut their hempen bonds, the heads of the family seemed
to divine my friendly intent. Suddenly ceasing their cries and threats.
they perched quietly within reach of my hand, and watched me in my work
of manumission. This, owing to the fluttering terror of the prisoners,
was an affair of some delicacy; but ere long I was rewarded by seeing
one of them fly away to a neighboring tree, while the <DW36>, making
a parachute of his wings, came lightly to the ground, and hopped off as
well as he could with one leg, obsequiously waited on by his elders. A
week later I had the satisfaction of meeting him in the pine-walk, in
good spirits, and already so far recovered as to be able to balance
himself with the lame foot. I have no doubt that in his old age he
accounted for his lameness by some handsome story of a wound received at
the famous Battle of the Pines, when our tribe, overcome by numbers,
was driven from its ancient camping-ground. Of late years the jays have
visited us only at intervals; and in winter their bright plumage, set
off by the snow, and their cheerful cry, are especially welcome. They
would have furnished Aesop with a fable, for the feathered crest in
which they seem to take so much satisfaction is often their fatal snare.
Country boys make a hole with their finger in the snow-crust just large
enough to admit the jay's head, and, hollowing it out somewhat beneath,
bait it with a few kernels of corn. The crest slips easily into the
trap, but refuses to be pulled out again, and he who came to feast
remains a prey.
Twice have the crow-blackbirds attempted a settlement in my
pines, and twice have the robins, who claim a right of preemption,
so successfully played the part of border-ruffians as to drive them
away,--to my great regret, for they are the best substitute we have
for rooks. At Shady Hill(1) (now, alas! empty of its so long-loved
household) they build by hundreds, and nothing can be more cheery than
their creaking clatter (like a convention of old-fashioned tavern-signs)
as they gather at evening to debate in mass meeting their windy
politics, or to gossip at their tent-doors over the events of the day.
Their port is grave, and their stalk across the turf as martial as that
of a second-rate ghost in Hamlet. They never meddled with my corn, so
far as I could discover.
(1) The home of the Nortons, in Cambridge, who were at the time of this
paper in Europe.
For a few years I had crows, but their nests are an irresistible bait
for boys, and their settlement was broken up. They grew so wonted as
to throw off a great part of their shyness, and to tolerate my near
approach. One very hot day I stood for some time within twenty feet of a
mother and three children, who sat on an elm bough over my head gasping
in the sultry air, and holding their wings half-spread for coolness.
All birds during the pairing season become more or less sentimental, and
murmur soft nothings in a tone very unlike the grinding-organ repetition
and loudness of their habitual song. The crow is very comical as a
lover, and to hear him trying to soften his croak to the proper Saint
Preux(1) standard has something the effect of a Mississippi boatman
quoting Tennyson. Yet there are few things to my ear more melodious than
his caw of a clear winter morning as it drops to you filtered through
five hundred fathoms of crisp blue air. The hostility of all smaller
birds makes the moral character of the row, for all his deaconlike
demeanor and garb, somewhat questionable. He could never sally forth
without insult. The golden robins, especially, would chase him as far
as I could follow with my eye, making him duck clumsily to avoid their
importunate bills. I do not believe, however, that he robbed any nests
hereabouts, for the refuse of the gas-works, which, in our free-and-easy
community, is allowed to poison the river, supplied him with dead
alewives in abundance. I used to watch him making his periodical visits
to the salt-marshes and coming back with a fish in his beak to his young
savages, who, no doubt, like it in that condition which makes it savory
to the Kanakas and other corvine races of men.
(1) See Rousseau's _La Nouvelle Heloise._
Orioles are in great plenty with me. I have seen seven males
flashing about the garden at once. A merry crew of them swing their
hammocks from the pendulous boughs. During one of these later years,
when the canker-worms stripped our elms as bare as winter, these birds
went to the trouble of rebuilding their unroofed nests, and chose for
the purpose trees which are safe from those swarming vandals, such as
the ash and the button-wood. One year a pair (disturbed, I suppose,
elsewhere) built a second next in an elm within a few yards of the
house. My friend, Edward E. Hale, told me once that the oriole rejected
from his web all strands of brilliant color, and I thought it a striking
example of that instinct of concealment noticeable in many birds, though
it should seem in this instance that the nest was amply protected by its
position from all marauders but owls and squirrels. Last year, however,
I had the fullest proof that Mr. Hale was mistaken. A pair of orioles
built on the lowest trailer of a weeping elm, which hung within ten feet
of our drawing-room window, and so low that I could reach it from the
ground. The nest was wholly woven and felted with ravellings of woollen
carpet in which scarlet predominated. Would the same thing have happened
in the woods? Or did the nearness of a human dwelling perhaps give the
birds a greater feeling of security? They are very bold, by the way, in
quest of cordage, and I have often watched them stripping the fibrous
bark from a honeysuckle growing over the very door. But, indeed, all
my birds look upon me as if I were a mere tenant at will, and they
were landlords. With shame I confess it, I have been bullied even by a
hummingbird. This spring, as I was cleansing a pear-tree of its lichens,
one of these little zigzagging blurs came purring toward me, couching
his long bill like a lance, his throat sparkling with angry fire, to
warn me off from a Missouri-currant whose honey he was sipping. And many
a time he has driven me out of a flower-bed. This summer, by the way,
a pair of these winged emeralds fastened their mossy acorn-cup upon a
bough of the same elm which the orioles had enlivened the year before.
We watched all their proceedings from the window through an opera-glass,
and saw their two nestlings grow from black needles with a tuft of
down at the lower end, till they whirled away on their first short
experimental flights. They became strong of wing in a surprisingly short
time, and I never saw them or the male bird after, though the female was
regular as usual in her visits to our petunias and verbenas. I do not
think it ground enough for a generalization, but in the many times when
I watched the old birds feeding their young, the mother always alighted,
while the father as uniformly remained upon the wing.
The bobolinks are generally chance visitors, tinkling through the
garden in blossoming-time, but this year, owing to the long rains early
in the season, their favorite meadows were flooded, and they were driven
to the upland. So I had a pair of them domiciled in my grass field. The
male used to perch in an apple-tree, then in full bloom, and, while I
stood perfectly still close by, he would circle away, quivering round
the entire field of five acres, with no break in his song, and settle
down again among the blooms, to be hurried away almost immediately by a
new rapture of music. He had the volubility of an Italian charlatan at a
fair, and, like him, appeared to be proclaiming the merits of some quack
remedy. _Opodeldoc-opodeldoc-try-Doctor-Lincoln's-opodeldoc!_ he seemed
to repeat over and over again, with a rapidity that would have distanced
the deftest-tongued Figaro that ever rattled. I remember Count Gurowski
saying once, with that easy superiority of knowledge about this country
which is the monopoly of foreigners, that we had no singing-birds! Well,
well, Mr. Hepworth Dixon(1) has found the typical America in Oneida and
Salt Lake City. Of course, an intelligent European is the best judge
of these matters. The truth is there are more singing-birds in Europe
because there are fewer forests. These songsters love the neighborhood
of man because hawks and owls are rarer, while their own food is more
abundant. Most people seem to think, the more trees, the more birds.
Even Chateaubriand, who first tried the primitive-forest-cure, and whose
description of the wilderness in its imaginative effects is unmatched,
fancies the "people of the air singing their hymns to him." So far as my
own observation goes, the farther one penetrates the sombre solitudes of
the woods, the more seldom does he hear the voice of any singing-bird.
In spite of Chateaubriand's minuteness of detail, in spite of that
marvellous reverberation of the decrepit tree falling of its own weight,
which he was the first to notice, I cannot help doubting whether he
made his way very deep into the wilderness. At any rate, in a letter to
Fontanes, written in 1804, he speaks of _mes chevaux paissant a quelque
distance._ To be sure Chateaubriand was at to mount the high horse,
and this may have been but an afterthought of the _grand seigneur,_ but
certainly one would not make much headway on horseback toward the druid
fastnesses of the primaeval pine.
(1) In his book of travels, _New America._
The bobolinks build in considerable numbers in a meadow within
a quarter of a mile of us. A houseless land passes through the midst of
their camp, and in clear westerly weather, at the right season, one
may hear a score of them singing at once. When they are breeding, if
I chance to pass, one of the male birds always accompanies me like a
constable, flitting from post to post of the rail-fence, with a short
note of reproof continually repeated, till I am fairly out of the
neighborhood. Then he will swing away into the air and run down the
wind, gurgling music without stint over the unheeding tussocks of
meadow-grass and dark clumps of bulrushes that mark his domain.
We have no bird whose song will match the nightingale's in
compass, none whose note is so rich as that of the European blackbird;
but for mere rapture I have never heard the bobolink's rival. But his
opera-season is a short one. The ground and tree sparrows are our most
constant performers. It is now late in August, and one of the latter
sings every day and all day long in the garden. Till within a fortnight,
a pair of indigo-birds would keep up their lively _duo_ for an hour
together. While I write, I hear an oriole gay as in June, and the
plaintive _may-be_ of the goldfinch tells me he is stealing my
lettuce-seeds. I know not what the experience of others may have been,
but the only bird I have ever hard sing in the night has been the
chip-bird. I should say he sang about as often during the darkness as
cocks crow. One can hardly help fancying that he sings in his dreams.
"Father of light, what sunnie seed,
What glance of day hast thou confined
Into this bird? To all the breed
This busie ray thou hast assigned;
Their magnetism works all night,
And dreams of Paradise and light."
On second thought, I remember to have heard the cuckoo strike the hours
nearly all night with the regularity of a Swiss clock.
The dead limbs of our elms, which I spare to that end, bring us
the flicker every summer, and almost daily I hear his wild scream and
laugh close at hand, himself invisible. He is a shy bird, but a few days
ago I had the satisfaction of studying him through the blinds as he sat
on a tree within a few feet of me. Seen so near and at rest, he makes
good his claim to the title of pigeon-woodpecker. Lumberers have a
notion that he is harmful to timber, digging little holes through the
bark to encourage the settlement of insects. The regular rings of such
perforations which one may see in almost any apple-orchard seem to give
some probability to this theory. Almost every season a solitary quail
visits us, and, unseen among the currant bushes, alls _Bob White, Bob
White,_ as if he were playing at hide-and-seek with that imaginary
being. A rarer visitant is the turtle-dove, whose pleasant coo
(something like the muffled crow of a cock from a coop covered with
snow) I have sometimes heard, and whom I once had the good luck to see
close by me in the mulberry-tree. The wild-pigeon, once numerous, I have
not seen for many years.(1) Of savage birds, a hen-hawk now and then
quarters himself upon us for a few days, sitting sluggish in a tree
after a surfeit of poultry. One of them once offered me a near shot from
my study-window one drizzly day for several hours. But it was Sunday,
and I gave him the benefit of its gracious truce of God.
(1) They made their appearance again this summer (1870).--J.R.L.
Certain birds have disappeared from our neighborhood within my
memory. I remember when the whippoorwill could be heard in Sweet Auburn.
The night-hawk, once common, is now rare. The brown thrush has moved
farther up country. For years I have not seen or heard any of the larger
owls, whose hooting was once of my boyish terrors. The cliff-swallow,
strange emigrant, that eastward takes his way, has come and gone again
in my time. The bank-swallows, wellnigh innumerable during my boyhood,
no longer frequent the crumbly cliff of the gravel-pit by the river.
The barn-swallows, which once swarmed in our barn, flashing through the
dusty sun-streak of the mow, have been gone these many years. My father
would lead me out to see them gather on the roof, and take counsel
before their yearly migration, as Mr. White used to see them at
Selborne. _Eheu fugaces!_ Thank fortune, the swift still glues his
nest, and rolls his distant thunders night and day in the wide-throated
chimneys, still sprinkles the evening air with his merry twittering. The
populous heronry in Fresh Pond meadows has wellnigh broken up, but still
a pair or two haunt the old home, as the gypsies of Ellangowan their
ruined huts, and every evening fly over us riverwards, clearing their
throats with a hoarse hawk as they go, and, in cloudy weather. scarce
higher than the tops of the chimneys. Sometimes I have known one to
alight in one of our trees, though for what purpose I never could
divine. Kingfishers have sometimes puzzled me in the same way, perched
at high noon in a pine, springing their watchman's rattle when they
flitted away from my curiosity, and seeming to shove their top-heavy
heads along as a man does a wheelbarrow.
Some birds have left us, I suppose, because the country is
growing less wild. I once found a summer duck's nest within a quarter of
a mile of our house, but such a _trouvaille_ would be impossible now as
Kidd's treasure. And yet the mere taming of the neighborhood does not
quite satisfy me as an explanation. Twenty years ago, on my way to bathe
in the river, I saw every day a brace of woodcock, on the miry edge of
a spring within a few rods of a house, and constantly visited by thirsty
cows. There was no growth of any kind to conceal them, and yet these
ordinarily shy birds were almost as indifferent to my passing as common
poultry would have been. Since bird-nesting has become scientific, and
dignified itself as oology, that, no doubt, is partly to blame for some
of our losses. But some old friends are constant. Wilson's thrush comes
every year to remind me of that most poetic or ornithologists. He flits
before me through the pine-walk like the very genius of solitude. A
pair of pewees have built immemorially on a jutting brick in the arched
entrance to the ice-house; always on the same brick, and never more than
a single pair, though two broods of five each are raised there every
summer. How do they settle their claim to the homestead? By what right
of primogeniture? Once the children of a man employed about the place
_oologized_ the nest, and the pewees left us for a year or two. I
felt towards those boys as the messmates of the Ancient Mariner(1) did
towards him after he had shot the albatross. But the pewees came back at
last, and one of them is now on his wonted perch, so near my window that
I can hear the click of his bill as he snaps a fly on the wing with the
unerring precision a stately Trasteverina shows in the capture of her
smaller deer. The pewee is the first bird to pipe up in the morning; and
during the early summer he preludes his matutinal ejaculation of _pewee_
with a slender whistle, unheard at any other time. He saddens with the
season, and, as summer declines, he changes his note to _cheu, pewee!_
as if in lamentation. Had he been an Italian bird, Ovid would have had a
plaintive tale to tell about him. He is so familiar as often to pursue a
fly through the open window into my library.
(1) In Coleridge's poem of that name.
There is something inexpressibly dear to me in these old
friendships of a lifetime. There is scarce a tree of mine but has had,
at some time or other, a happy homestead among its boughs, and to which
I cannot say,
"Many light hearts and wings,
Which now be head, lodged in thy living bowers."
My walk under the pines would lose half its summer charm were I to miss
that shy anchorite, the Wilson's thrush, nor hear in haying-time
the metallic ring of his song, that justifies his rustic name of
_scythe-whet._ I protect my game as jealously as an English squire. If
anybody had oologized a certain cuckoo's nest I know of (I have a pair
in my garden every year), it would have left me a sore place in my mind
for weeks. I love to bring these aborigines back to the mansuetude they
showed to the early voyagers, and before (forgive the involuntary pun)
they had grown accustomed to man and knew his savage ways. And they
repay your kindness with a sweet familiarity too delicate ever to breed
contempt. I have made a Penn-treaty with them, preferring that to the
Puritan way with the natives, which converted them to a little Hebraism
and a great deal of Medford rum. If they will not come near enough to me
(as most of them will), I bring them close with an opera-glass,--a much
better weapon than a gun. I would not, if i could, convert them from
their pretty pagan ways. The only one I sometimes have savage doubts
about is the red squirrel. I _think_ he oologizes. I _know_ he eats
cherries (we counted five of them at one time in a single tree, the
stones pattering down like the sparse hail that preludes a storm), and
that he gnaws off the small end of pears to get at the seeds. He steals
the corn from under the noses of my poultry. But what would you have?
He will come down upon the limb of the tree I am lying under till he is
within a yard of me. He and his mate will scurry up and down the great
black-walnut for my diversion, chattering like monkeys. Can I sign his
death-warrant who has tolerated me about his grounds so long? Not I. Let
them steal, and welcome. I am sure I should, had I had the same bringing
up and the same temptation. As for the birds, I do not believe there is
one of them but does more good than harm; and of how many featherless
bipeds can this be said? |
10,240 |
Produced by David Widger. HTML version by Al Haines.
MOSSES FROM AN OLD MANSE
By Nathaniel Hawthorne
EARTH'S HOLOCAUST
Once upon a time--but whether in the time past or time to come is a
matter of little or no moment--this wide world had become so
overburdened with an accumulation of worn-out trumpery, that the
inhabitants determined to rid themselves of it by a general bonfire.
The site fixed upon at the representation of the insurance
companies, and as being as central a spot as any other on the globe,
was one of the broadest prairies of the West, where no human
habitation would be endangered by the flames, and where a vast
assemblage of spectators might commodiously admire the show. Having
a taste for sights of this kind, and imagining, likewise, that the
illumination of the bonfire might reveal some profundity of moral
truth heretofore hidden in mist or darkness, I made it convenient to
journey thither and be present. At my arrival, although the heap of
condemned rubbish was as yet comparatively small, the torch had
already been applied. Amid that boundless plain, in the dusk of the
evening, like a far off star alone in the firmament, there was merely
visible one tremulous gleam, whence none could have anticipated so
fierce a blaze as was destined to ensue. With every moment,
however, there came foot-travellers, women holding up their aprons,
men on horseback, wheelbarrows, lumbering baggage-wagons, and other
vehicles, great and small, and from far and near, laden with
articles that were judged fit for nothing but to be burned.
"What materials have been used to kindle the flame?" inquired I of a
bystander; for I was desirous of knowing the whole process of the
affair from beginning to end.
The person whom I addressed was a grave man, fifty years old or
thereabout, who had evidently come thither as a looker-on. He
struck me immediately as having weighed for himself the true value
of life and its circumstances, and therefore as feeling little
personal interest in whatever judgment the world might form of them.
Before answering my question, he looked me in the face by the
kindling light of the fire.
"O, some very dry combustibles," replied he, "and extremely suitable
to the purpose,--no other, in fact, than yesterday's newspapers,
last month's magazines, and last year's withered leaves. Here now
comes some antiquated trash that will take fire like a handful of
shavings."
As he spoke, some rough-looking men advanced to the verge of the
bonfire, and threw in, as it appeared, all the rubbish of the
herald's office,--the blazonry of coat armor, the crests and
devices of illustrious families, pedigrees that extended back, like
lines of light, into the mist of the dark ages, together with stars,
garters, and embroidered collars, each of which, as paltry a bawble
as it might appear to the uninstructed eye, had once possessed vast
significance, and was still, in truth, reckoned among the most
precious of moral or material facts by the worshippers of the
gorgeous past. Mingled with this confused heap, which was tossed
into the flames by armfuls at once, were innumerable badges of
knighthood, comprising those of all the European sovereignties, and
Napoleon's decoration of the Legion of Honor, the ribbons of which
were entangled with those of the ancient order of St. Louis. There,
too, were the medals of our own Society of Cincinnati, by means of
which, as history tells us, an order of hereditary knights came near
being constituted out of the king quellers of the Revolution. And
besides, there were the patents of nobility of German counts and
barons, Spanish grandees, and English peers, from the worm-eaten
instruments signed by William the Conqueror down to the bran-new
parchment of the latest lord who has received his honors from the
fair hand of Victoria.
At sight of the dense volumes of smoke, mingled with vivid jets of
flame, that gushed and eddied forth from this immense pile of
earthly distinctions, the multitude of plebeian spectators set up a
joyous shout, and clapped their hands with an emphasis that made the
welkin echo. That was their moment of triumph, achieved, after long
ages, over creatures of the same clay and the same spiritual
infirmities, who had dared to assume the privileges due only to
Heaven's better workmanship. But now there rushed towards the
blazing heap a gray-haired man, of stately presence, wearing a coat,
from the breast of which a star, or other badge of rank, seemed to
have been forcibly wrenched away. He had not the tokens of
intellectual power in his face; but still there was the demeanor,
the habitual and almost native dignity, of one who had been born to
the idea of his own social superiority, and had never felt it
questioned till that moment.
"People," cried he, gazing at the ruin of what was dearest to his
eyes with grief and wonder, but nevertheless with a degree of
stateliness,--"people, what have you done? This fire is consuming
all that marked your advance from barbarism, or that could have
prevented your relapse thither. We, the men of the privileged
orders, were those who kept alive from age to age the old chivalrous
spirit; the gentle and generous thought; the higher, the purer, the
more refined and delicate life. With the nobles, too, you cast off
the poet, the painter, the sculptor,--all the beautiful arts; for
we were their patrons, and created the atmosphere in which they
flourish. In abolishing the majestic distinctions of rank, society
loses not only its grace, but its steadfastness--"
More he would doubtless have spoken; but here there arose an outcry,
sportive, contemptuous, and indignant, that altogether drowned the
appeal of the fallen nobleman, insomuch that, casting one look of
despair at his own half-burned pedigree, he shrunk back into the
crowd, glad to shelter himself under his new-found insignificance.
"Let him thank his stars that we have not flung him into the same
fire!" shouted a rude figure, spurning the embers with his foot.
"And henceforth let no man dare to show a piece of musty parchment
as his warrant for lording it over his fellows. If he have strength
of arm, well and good; it is one species of superiority. If he have
wit, wisdom, courage, force of character, let these attributes do
for him what they may; but from this day forward no mortal must hope
for place and consideration by reckoning up the mouldy bones of his
ancestors. That nonsense is done away."
"And in good time," remarked the grave observer by my side, in a low
voice, however, "if no worse nonsense comes in its place; but, at
all events, this species of nonsense has fairly lived out its life."
There was little space to muse or moralize over the embers of this
time-honored rubbish; for, before it was half burned out, there came
another multitude from beyond the sea, bearing the purple robes of
royalty, and the crowns, globes, and sceptres of emperors and kings.
All these had been condemned as useless bawbles, playthings at best,
fit only for the infancy of the world or rods to govern and chastise
it in its nonage, but with which universal manhood at its full-grown
stature could no longer brook to be insulted. Into such contempt
had these regal insignia now fallen that the gilded crown and
tinselled robes of the player king from Drury Lane Theatre had been
thrown in among the rest, doubtless as a mockery of his brother
monarchs on the great stage of the world. It was a strange sight to
discern the crown jewels of England glowing and flashing in the
midst of the fire. Some of them had been delivered down from the
time of the Saxon princes; others were purchased with vast revenues,
or perchance ravished from the dead brows of the native potentates
of Hindustan; and the whole now blazed with a dazzling lustre, as if
a star had fallen in that spot and been shattered into fragments.
The splendor of the ruined monarchy had no reflection save in those
inestimable precious stones. But enough on this subject. It were
but tedious to describe how the Emperor of Austria's mantle was
converted to tinder, and how the posts and pillars of the French
throne became a heap of coals, which it was impossible to
distinguish from those of any other wood. Let me add, however, that
I noticed one of the exiled Poles stirring up the bonfire with the
Czar of Russia's sceptre, which he afterwards flung into the flames.
"The smell of singed garments is quite intolerable here," observed
my new acquaintance, as the breeze enveloped us in the smoke of a
royal wardrobe. "Let us get to windward and see what they are doing
on the other side of the bonfire."
We accordingly passed around, and were just in time to witness the
arrival of a vast procession of Washingtonians,--as the votaries of
temperance call themselves nowadays,--accompanied by thousands of
the Irish disciples of Father Mathew, with that great apostle at
their head. They brought a rich contribution to the bonfire, being
nothing less than all the hogsheads and barrels of liquor in the
world, which they rolled before them across the prairie.
"Now, my children," cried Father Mathew, when they reached the verge
of the fire, "one shove more, and the work is done. And now let us
stand off and see Satan deal with his own liquor."
Accordingly, having placed their wooden vessels within reach of the
flames, the procession stood off at a safe distance, and soon beheld
them burst into a blaze that reached the clouds and threatened to
set the sky itself on fire. And well it might; for here was the
whole world's stock of spirituous liquors, which, instead of
kindling a frenzied light in the eyes of individual topers as of
yore, soared upwards with a bewildering gleam that startled all
mankind. It was the aggregate of that fierce fire which would
otherwise have scorched the hearts of millions. Meantime numberless
bottles of precious wine were flung into the blaze, which lapped up
the contents as if it loved them, and grew, like other drunkards,
the merrier and fiercer for what it quaffed. Never again will the
insatiable thirst of the fire-fiend be so pampered. Here were the
treasures of famous bon vivants,--liquors that had been tossed on
ocean, and mellowed in the sun, and hoarded long in the recesses of
the earth,--the pale, the gold, the ruddy juice of whatever
vineyards were most delicate,--the entire vintage of Tokay,--all
mingling in one stream with the vile fluids of the common pot house,
and contributing to heighten the self-same blaze. And while it rose
in a gigantic spire that seemed to wave against the arch of the
firmament and combine itself with the light of stars, the multitude
gave a shout as if the broad earth were exulting in its deliverance
from the curse of ages.
But the joy was not universal. Many deemed that human life would be
gloomier than ever when that brief illumination should sink down.
While the reformers were at work I overheard muttered expostulations
from several respectable gentlemen with red noses and wearing gouty
shoes; and a ragged worthy, whose face looked like a hearth where
the fire is burned out, now expressed his discontent more openly and
boldly.
"What is this world good for," said the last toper, "now that we can
never be jolly any more? What is to comfort the poor man in sorrow
and perplexity? How is he to keep his heart warm against the cold
winds of this cheerless earth? And what do you propose to give him
in exchange for the solace that you take away? How are old friends
to sit together by the fireside without a cheerful glass between
them? A plague upon your reformation! It is a sad world, a cold
world, a selfish world, a low world, not worth an honest fellow's
living in, now that good fellowship is gone forever!"
This harangue excited great mirth among the bystanders; but,
preposterous as was the sentiment, I could not help commiserating
the forlorn condition of the last toper, whose boon companions had
dwindled away from his side, leaving the poor fellow without a soul
to countenance him in sipping his liquor, nor indeed any liquor to
sip. Not that this was quite the true state of the case; for I had
observed him at a critical moment filch a bottle of fourth-proof
brandy that fell beside the bonfire and hide it in his pocket.
The spirituous and fermented liquors being thus disposed of, the
zeal of the reformers next induced them to replenish the fire with
all the boxes of tea and bags of coffee in the world. And now came
the planters of Virginia, bringing their crops of tobacco. These,
being cast upon the heap of inutility, aggregated it to the size of
a mountain, and incensed the atmosphere with such potent fragrance
that methought we should never draw pure breath again. The present
sacrifice seemed to startle the lovers of the weed more than any
that they had hitherto witnessed.
"Well, they've put my pipe out," said an old gentleman, flinging it
into the flames in a pet. "What is this world coming to? Everything
rich and racy--all the spice of life--is to be condemned as useless.
Now that they have kindled the bonfire, if these nonsensical
reformers would fling themselves into it, all would be well enough!"
"Be patient," responded a stanch conservative; "it will come to that
in the end. They will first fling us in, and finally themselves."
From the general and systematic measures of reform I now turn to
consider the individual contributions to this memorable bonfire. In
many instances these were of a very amusing character. One poor
fellow threw in his empty purse, and another a bundle of counterfeit
or insolvable bank-notes. Fashionable ladies threw in their last
season's bonnets, together with heaps of ribbons, yellow lace, and
much other half-worn milliner's ware, all of which proved even more
evanescent in the fire than it had been in the fashion. A multitude
of lovers of both sexes--discarded maids or bachelors and couples
mutually weary of one another--tossed in bundles of perfumed letters
and enamored sonnets. A hack politician, being deprived of bread by
the loss of office, threw in his teeth, which happened to be false
ones. The Rev. Sydney Smith--having voyaged across the Atlantic for
that sole purpose--came up to the bonfire with a bitter grin and
threw in certain repudiated bonds, fortified though they were with
the broad seal of a sovereign state. A little boy of five years
old, in the premature manliness of the present epoch, threw in his
playthings; a college graduate, his diploma; an apothecary, ruined
by the spread of homeopathy, his whole stock of drugs and medicines;
a physician, his library; a parson, his old sermons; and a fine
gentleman of the old school, his code of manners, which he had
formerly written down for the benefit of the next generation. A
widow, resolving on a second marriage, slyly threw in her dead
husband's miniature. A young man, jilted by his mistress, would
willingly have flung his own desperate heart into the flames, but
could find no means to wrench it out of his bosom. An American
author, whose works were neglected by the public, threw his pen and
paper into the bonfire and betook himself to some less discouraging
occupation. It somewhat startled me to overhear a number of ladies,
highly respectable in appearance, proposing to fling their gowns and
petticoats into the flames, and assume the garb, together with the
manners, duties, offices, and responsibilities, of the opposite sex.
What favor was accorded to this scheme I am unable to say, my
attention being suddenly drawn to a poor, deceived, and
half-delirious girl, who, exclaiming that she was the most worthless
thing alive or dead, attempted to cast herself into the fire amid
all that wrecked and broken trumpery of the world. A good man,
however, ran to her rescue.
"Patience, my poor girl!" said he, as he drew her back from the
fierce embrace of the destroying angel. "Be patient, and abide
Heaven's will. So long as you possess a living soul, all may be
restored to its first freshness. These things of matter and
creations of human fantasy are fit for nothing but to be burned when
once they have had their day; but your day is eternity!"
"Yes," said the wretched girl, whose frenzy seemed now to have sunk
down into deep despondency, "yes, and the sunshine is blotted out of
it!"
It was now rumored among the spectators that all the weapons and
munitions of war were to be thrown into the bonfire with the
exception of the world's stock of gunpowder, which, as the safest
mode of disposing of it, had already been drowned in the sea. This
intelligence seemed to awaken great diversity of opinion. The
hopeful philanthropist esteemed it a token that the millennium was
already come; while persons of another stamp, in whose view mankind
was a breed of bulldogs, prophesied that all the old stoutness,
fervor, nobleness, generosity, and magnanimity of the race would
disappear,--these qualities, as they affirmed, requiring blood for
their nourishment. They comforted themselves, however, in the belief
that the proposed abolition of war was impracticable for any length
of time together.
Be that as it might, numberless great guns, whose thunder had long
been the voice of battle,--the artillery of the Armada, the
battering trains of Marlborough, and the adverse cannon of Napoleon
and Wellington,--were trundled into the midst of the fire. By the
continual addition of dry combustibles, it had now waxed so intense
that neither brass nor iron could withstand it. It was wonderful to
behold how these terrible instruments of slaughter melted away like
playthings of wax. Then the armies of the earth wheeled around the
mighty furnace, with their military music playing triumphant
marches,--and flung in their muskets and swords. The
standard-bearers, likewise, cast one look upward at their banners, all
tattered with shot-holes and inscribed with the names of victorious
fields; and, giving them a last flourish on the breeze, they lowered
them into the flame, which snatched them upward in its rush towards
the clouds. This ceremony being over, the world was left without a
single weapon in its hands, except possibly a few old king's arms
and rusty swords and other trophies of the Revolution in some of our
State armories. And now the drums were beaten and the trumpets
brayed all together, as a prelude to the proclamation of universal
and eternal peace and the announcement that glory was no longer to
be won by blood, but that it would henceforth be the contention of
the human race to work out the greatest mutual good, and that
beneficence, in the future annals of the earth, would claim the
praise of valor. The blessed tidings were accordingly promulgated,
and caused infinite rejoicings among those who had stood aghast at
the horror and absurdity of war.
But I saw a grim smile pass over the seared visage of a stately
old commander,--by his war-worn figure and rich military dress, he
might have been one of Napoleon's famous marshals,--who, with the
rest of the world's soldiery, had just flung away the sword that had
been familiar to his right hand for half a century.
"Ay! ay!" grumbled he. "Let them proclaim what they please; but,
in the end, we shall find that all this foolery has only made more
work for the armorers and cannon-founders."
"Why, sir," exclaimed I, in astonishment, "do you imagine that the
human race will ever so far return on the steps of its past madness
as to weld another sword or cast another cannon?"
"There will be no need," observed, with a sneer, one who neither
felt benevolence nor had faith in it. "When Cain wished to slay his
brother, he was at no loss for a weapon."
"We shall see," replied the veteran commander. "If I am mistaken,
so much the better; but in my opinion, without pretending to
philosophize about the matter, the necessity of war lies far deeper
than these honest gentlemen suppose. What! is there a field for all
the petty disputes of individuals? and shall there be no great law
court for the settlement of national difficulties? The battle-field
is the only court where such suits can be tried."
"You forget, general," rejoined I, "that, in this advanced stage of
civilization, Reason and Philanthropy combined will constitute just
such a tribunal as is requisite."
"Ah, I had forgotten that, indeed!" said the old warrior, as he
limped away.
The fire was now to be replenished with materials that had hitherto
been considered of even greater importance to the well-being of
society than the warlike munitions which we had already seen
consumed. A body of reformers had travelled all over the earth in
quest of the machinery by which the different nations were
accustomed to inflict the punishment of death. A shudder passed
through the multitude as these ghastly emblems were dragged forward.
Even the flames seemed at first to shrink away, displaying the shape
and murderous contrivance of each in a full blaze of light, which of
itself was sufficient to convince mankind of the long and deadly
error of human law. Those old implements of cruelty; those horrible
monsters of mechanism; those inventions which it seemed to demand
something worse than man's natural heart to contrive, and which had
lurked in the dusky nooks of ancient prisons, the subject of
terror-stricken legend,--were now brought forth to view. Headsmen's
axes, with the rust of noble and royal blood upon them, and a vast
collection of halters that had choked the breath of plebeian
victims, were thrown in together. A shout greeted the arrival of
the guillotine, which was thrust forward on the same wheels that had
borne it from one to another of the bloodstained streets of Paris.
But the loudest roar of applause went up, telling the distant sky of
the triumph of the earth's redemption, when the gallows made its
appearance. An ill-looking fellow, however, rushed forward, and,
putting himself in the path of the reformers, bellowed hoarsely, and
fought with brute fury to stay their progress.
It was little matter of surprise, perhaps, that the executioner
should thus do his best to vindicate and uphold the machinery by
which he himself had his livelihood and worthier individuals their
death; but it deserved special note that men of a far different
sphere--even of that consecrated class in whose guardianship the
world is apt to trust its benevolence--were found to take the
hangman's view of the question.
"Stay, my brethren!" cried one of them. "You are misled by a false
philanthropy; you know not what you do. The gallows is a Heaven-ordained
instrument. Bear it back, then, reverently, and set it up
in its old place, else the world will fall to speedy ruin and
desolation!"
"Onward! onward!" shouted a leader in the reform. "Into the flames
with the accursed instrument of man's bloody policy! How can human
law inculcate benevolence and love while it persists in setting up the
gallows as its chief symbol? One heave more, good friends, and the
world will be redeemed from its greatest error."
A thousand hands, that nevertheless loathed the touch, now lent
their assistance, and thrust the ominous burden far, far into the
centre of the raging furnace. There its fatal and abhorred image
was beheld, first black, then a red coal, then ashes.
"That was well done!" exclaimed I.
"Yes, it was well done," replied, but with less enthusiasm than I
expected, the thoughtful observer, who was still at my side,--"well
done, if the world be good enough for the measure. Death, however,
is an idea that cannot easily be dispensed with in any condition
between the primal innocence and that other purity and perfection
which perchance we are destined to attain after travelling round the
full circle; but, at all events, it is well that the experiment
should now be tried."
"Too cold! too cold!" impatiently exclaimed the young and ardent
leader in this triumph. "Let the heart have its voice here as well
as the intellect. And as for ripeness, and as for progress, let
mankind always do the highest, kindest, noblest thing that, at any
given period, it has attained the perception of; and surely that
thing cannot be wrong nor wrongly timed."
I know not whether it were the excitement of the scene, or whether
the good people around the bonfire were really growing more
enlightened every instant; but they now proceeded to measures in the
full length of which I was hardly prepared to keep them company.
For instance, some threw their marriage certificates into the
flames, and declared themselves candidates for a higher, holier, and
more comprehensive union than that which had subsisted from the
birth of time under the form of the connubial tie. Others hastened
to the vaults of banks and to the coffers of the rich--all of which
were opened to the first comer on this fated occasion--and brought
entire bales of paper-money to enliven the blaze, and tons of coin
to be melted down by its intensity. Henceforth, they said,
universal benevolence, uncoined and exhaustless, was to be the
golden currency of the world. At this intelligence the bankers and
speculators in the stocks grew pale, and a pickpocket, who had
reaped a rich harvest among the crowd, fell down in a deadly
fainting fit. A few men of business burned their day-books and
ledgers, the notes and obligations of their creditors, and all other
evidences of debts due to themselves; while perhaps a somewhat
larger number satisfied their zeal for reform with the sacrifice of
any uncomfortable recollection of their own indebtment. There was
then a cry that the period was arrived when the title-deeds of
landed property should be given to the flames, and the whole soil of
the earth revert to the public, from whom it had been wrongfully
abstracted and most unequally distributed among individuals.
Another party demanded that all written constitutions, set forms of
government, legislative acts, statute-books, and everything else on
which human invention had endeavored to stamp its arbitrary laws,
should at once be destroyed, leaving the consummated world as free
as the man first created.
Whether any ultimate action was taken with regard to these
propositions is beyond my knowledge; for, just then, some matters
were in progress that concerned my sympathies more nearly.
"See! see! What heaps of books and pamphlets!" cried a fellow, who
did not seem to be a lover of literature. "Now we shall have a
glorious blaze!"
"That's just the thing!" said a modern philosopher. "Now we shall
get rid of the weight of dead men's thought, which has hitherto
pressed so heavily on the living intellect that it has been
incompetent to any effectual self-exertion. Well done, my lads!
Into the fire with them! Now you are enlightening the world
indeed!"
"But what is to become of the trade?" cried a frantic bookseller.
"O, by all means, let them accompany their merchandise," coolly
observed an author. "It will be a noble funeral-pile!"
The truth was, that the human race had now reached a stage of
progress so far beyond what the wisest and wittiest men of former
ages had ever dreamed of, that it would have been a manifest
absurdity to allow the earth to be any longer encumbered with their
poor achievements in the literary line. Accordingly a thorough and
searching investigation had swept the booksellers' shops, hawkers'
stands, public and private libraries, and even the little book-shelf
by the country fireside, and had brought the world's entire mass of
printed paper, bound or in sheets, to swell the already mountain
bulk of our illustrious bonfire. Thick, heavy folios, containing the
labors of lexicographers, commentators, and encyclopedists, were
flung in, and, falling among the embers with a leaden thump,
smouldered away to ashes like rotten wood. The small, richly gilt
French tomes of the last age, with the hundred volumes of Voltaire
among them, went off in a brilliant shower of sparkles and little
jets of flame; while the current literature of the same nation
burned red and blue, and threw an infernal light over the visages of
the spectators, converting them all to the aspect of party-colored
fiends. A collection of German stories emitted a scent of
brimstone. The English standard authors made excellent fuel,
generally exhibiting the properties of sound oak logs. Milton's
works, in particular, sent up a powerful blaze, gradually reddening
into a coal, which promised to endure longer than almost any other
material of the pile. From Shakespeare there gushed a flame of such
marvellous splendor that men shaded their eyes as against the sun's
meridian glory; nor even when the works of his own elucidators were
flung upon him did he cease to flash forth a dazzling radiance from
beneath the ponderous heap. It is my belief that he is still
blazing as fervidly as ever.
"Could a poet but light a lamp at that glorious flame," remarked I,
"he might then consume the midnight oil to some good purpose."
"That is the very thing which modern poets have been too apt to do,
or at least to attempt," answered a critic. "The chief benefit to
be expected from this conflagration of past literature undoubtedly
is, that writers will henceforth be compelled to light their lamps
at the sun or stars."
"If they can reach so high," said I; "but that task requires a
giant, who may afterwards distribute the light among inferior men.
It is not every one that can steal the fire from heaven like
Prometheus; but, when once he had done the deed, a thousand hearths
were kindled by it."
It amazed me much to observe how indefinite was the proportion
between the physical mass of any given author and the property of
brilliant and long-continued combustion. For instance, there was
not a quarto volume of the last century--nor, indeed, of the
present--that could compete in that particular with a child's little
gilt-covered book, containing _Mother Goose's Melodies_. _The Life
and Death of Tom Thumb_ outlasted the biography of Marlborough. An
epic, indeed a dozen of them, was converted to white ashes before
the single sheet of an old ballad was half consumed. In more than
one case, too, when volumes of applauded verse proved incapable of
anything better than a stifling smoke, an unregarded ditty of some
nameless bard--perchance in the corner of a newspaper--soared up
among the stars with a flame as brilliant as their own. Speaking of
the properties of flame, methought Shelley's poetry emitted a purer
light than almost any other productions of his day, contrasting
beautifully with the fitful and lurid gleams and gushes of black
vapor that flashed and eddied from the volumes of Lord Byron. As
for Tom Moore, some of his songs diffused an odor like a burning
pastil.
I felt particular interest in watching the combustion of American
authors, and scrupulously noted by my watch the precise number of
moments that changed most of them from shabbily printed books to
indistinguishable ashes. It would be invidious, however, if not
perilous, to betray these awful secrets; so that I shall content
myself with observing that it was not invariably the writer most
frequent in the public mouth that made the most splendid appearance
in the bonfire. I especially remember that a great deal of
excellent inflammability was exhibited in a thin volume of poems by
Ellery Channing; although, to speak the truth, there were certain
portions that hissed and spluttered in a very disagreeable fashion.
A curious phenomenon occurred in reference to several writers,
native as well as foreign. Their books, though of highly
respectable figure, instead of bursting into a blaze or even
smouldering out their substance in smoke, suddenly melted away in a
manner that proved them to be ice.
If it be no lack of modesty to mention my own works, it must here be
confessed that I looked for them with fatherly interest, but in
vain. Too probably they were changed to vapor by the first action
of the heat; at best, I can only hope that, in their quiet way, they
contributed a glimmering spark or two to the splendor of the
evening.
"Alas! and woe is me!" thus bemoaned himself a heavy-looking
gentleman in green spectacles. "The world is utterly ruined, and
there is nothing to live for any longer. The business of my life is
snatched from me. Not a volume to be had for love or money!"
"This," remarked the sedate observer beside me, "is a bookworm,--one
of those men who are born to gnaw dead thoughts. His clothes, you
see, are covered with the dust of libraries. He has no inward
fountain of ideas; and, in good earnest, now that the old stock is
abolished, I do not see what is to become of the poor fellow. Have
you no word of comfort for him?"
"My dear sir," said I to the desperate bookworm, "is not nature
better than a book? Is not the human heart deeper than any system
of philosophy? Is not life replete with more instruction than past
observers have found it possible to write down in maxims? Be of
good cheer. The great book of Time is still spread wide open before
us; and, if we read it aright, it will be to us a volume of eternal
truth."
"O, my books, my books, my precious printed books!" reiterated the
forlorn bookworm. "My only reality was a bound volume; and now they
will not leave me even a shadowy pamphlet!"
In fact, the last remnant of the literature of all the ages was now
descending upon the blazing heap in the shape of a cloud of
pamphlets from the press of the New World. These likewise were
consumed in the twinkling of an eye, leaving the earth, for the
first time since the days of Cadmus, free from the plague of
letters,--an enviable field for the authors of the next generation.
"Well, and does anything remain to be done?" inquired I, somewhat
anxiously. "Unless we set fire to the earth itself, and then leap
boldly off into infinite space, I know not that we can carry reform
to any farther point."
"You are vastly mistaken, my good friend," said the observer.
"Believe me, the fire will not be allowed to settle down without the
addition of fuel that will startle many persons who have lent a
willing hand thus far."
Nevertheless there appeared to be a relaxation of effort for a
little time, during which, probably, the leaders of the movement
were considering what should be done next. In the interval, a
philosopher threw his theory into the flames,--a sacrifice which, by
those who knew how to estimate it, was pronounced the most
remarkable that had yet been made. The combustion, however, was by
no means brilliant. Some indefatigable people, scorning to take a
moment's ease, now employed themselves in collecting all the
withered leaves and fallen boughs of the forest, and thereby
recruited the bonfire to a greater height than ever. But this was
mere by-play.
"Here comes the fresh fuel that I spoke of," said my companion.
To my astonishment the persons who now advanced into the vacant
space around the mountain fire bore surplices and other priestly
garments, mitres, crosiers, and a confusion of Popish and Protestant
emblems with which it seemed their purpose to consummate the great
act of faith. Crosses from the spires of old cathedrals were cast
upon the heap with as little remorse as if the reverence of
centuries passing in long array beneath the lofty towers had not
looked up to them as the holiest of symbols. The font in which
infants were consecrated to God, the sacramental vessels whence
piety received the hallowed draught, were given to the same
destruction. Perhaps it most nearly touched my heart to see among
these devoted relics fragments of the humble communion-tables and
undecorated pulpits which I recognized as having been torn from the
meeting-houses of New England. Those simple edifices might have
been permitted to retain all of sacred embellishment that their
Puritan founders had bestowed, even though the mighty structure of
St. Peter's had sent its spoils to the fire of this terrible
sacrifice. Yet I felt that these were but the externals of
religion, and might most safely be relinquished by spirits that best
knew their deep significance.
"All is well," said I, cheerfully. "The wood-paths shall be the
aisles of our cathedral, the firmament itself shall be its ceiling.
What needs an earthly roof between the Deity and his worshippers?
Our faith can well afford to lose all the drapery that even the
holiest men have thrown around it, and be only the more sublime in
its simplicity."
"True," said my companion; "but will they pause here?"
The doubt implied in his question was well founded. In the general
destruction of books already described, a holy volume, that stood
apart from the catalogue of human literature, and yet, in one sense,
was at its head, had been spared. But the Titan of innovation,--angel
or fiend, double in his nature, and capable of deeds befitting
both characters,--at first shaking down only the old and rotten
shapes of things, had now, as it appeared, laid his terrible hand
upon the main pillars which supported the whole edifice of our moral
and spiritual state. The inhabitants of the earth had grown too
enlightened to define their faith within a form of words, or to
limit the spiritual by any analogy to our material existence.
Truths which the heavens trembled at were now but a fable of the
world's infancy. Therefore, as the final sacrifice of human error,
what else remained to be thrown upon the embers of that awful pile,
except the book which, though a celestial revelation to past ages,
was but a voice from a lower sphere as regarded the present race of
man? It was done! Upon the blazing heap of falsehood and worn-out
truth--things that the earth had never needed, or had ceased to
need, or had grown childishly weary of--fell the ponderous church
Bible, the great old volume that had lain so long on the cushion of
the pulpit, and whence the pastor's solemn voice had given holy
utterance on so many a Sabbath day. There, likewise, fell the
family Bible, which the long-buried patriarch had read to his
children,--in prosperity or sorrow, by the fireside and in the
summer shade of trees,--and had bequeathed downward as the heirloom
of generations. There fell the bosom Bible, the little volume that
had been the soul's friend of some sorely tried child of dust, who
thence took courage, whether his trial were for life or death,
steadfastly confronting both in the strong assurance of immortality.
All these were flung into the fierce and riotous blaze; and then a
mighty wind came roaring across the plain with a desolate howl, as
if it were the angry lamentation of the earth for the loss of
heaven's sunshine; and it shook the gigantic pyramid of flame and
scattered the cinders of half-consumed abominations around upon the
spectators.
"This is terrible!" said I, feeling that my check grew pale, and
seeing a like change in the visages about me.
"Be of good courage yet," answered the man with whom I had so often
spoken. He continued to gaze steadily at the spectacle with a
singular calmness, as if it concerned him merely as an observer.
"Be of good courage, nor yet exult too much; for there is far less
both of good and evil in the effect of this bonfire than the world
might be willing to believe."
"How can that be?" exclaimed I, impatiently. "Has it not consumed
everything? Has it not swallowed up or melted down every human or
divine appendage of our mortal state that had substance enough to be
acted on by fire? Will there be anything left us to-morrow morning
better or worse than a heap of embers and ashes?"
"Assuredly there will," said my grave friend. "Come hither
to-morrow morning, or whenever the combustible portion of the pile
shall be quite burned out, and you will find among the ashes
everything really valuable that you have seen cast into the flames.
Trust me, the world of to-morrow will again enrich itself with the
gold and diamonds which have been cast off by the world of today.
Not a truth is destroyed nor buried so deep among the ashes but it
will be raked up at last."
This was a strange assurance. Yet I felt inclined to credit it, the
more especially as I beheld among the wallowing flames a copy of the
Holy Scriptures, the pages of which, instead of being blackened into
tinder, only assumed a more dazzling whiteness as the fingermarks of
human imperfection were purified away. Certain marginal notes and
commentaries, it is true, yielded to the intensity of the fiery
test, but without detriment to the smallest syllable that had flamed
from the pen of inspiration.
"Yes; there is the proof of what you say," answered I, turning to
the observer; "but if only what is evil can feel the action of the
fire, then, surely, the conflagration has been of inestimable
utility. Yet, if I understand aright, you intimate a doubt whether
the world's expectation of benefit would be realized by it."
"Listen to the talk of these worthies," said he, pointing to a group
in front of the blazing pile; "possibly they may teach you something
useful, without intending it."
The persons whom he indicated consisted of that brutal and most
earthy figure who had stood forth so furiously in defence of the
gallows,--the hangman, in short,--together with the last thief and
the last murderer, all three of whom were clustered about the last
toper. The latter was liberally passing the brandy bottle, which he
had rescued from the general destruction of wines and spirits. This
little convivial party seemed at the lowest pitch of despondency, as
considering that the purified world must needs be utterly unlike the
sphere that they had hitherto known, and therefore but a strange and
desolate abode for gentlemen of their kidney.
"The best counsel for all of us is," remarked the hangman, "that,
as soon as we have finished the last drop of liquor, I help you, my
three friends, to a comfortable end upon the nearest tree, and then
hang myself on the same bough. This is no world for us any longer."
"Poh, poh, my good fellows!" said a dark-complexioned personage, who
now joined the group,--his complexion was indeed fearfully dark, and
his eyes glowed with a redder light than that of the bonfire; "be
not so cast down, my dear friends; you shall see good days yet.
There is one thing that these wiseacres have forgotten to throw into
the fire, and without which all the rest of the conflagration is
just nothing at all; yes, though they had burned the earth itself to
a cinder."
"And what may that be?" eagerly demanded the last murderer.
"What but the human heart itself?" said the dark-visaged stranger,
with a portentous grin. "And, unless they hit upon some method of
purifying that foul cavern, forth from it will reissue all the
shapes of wrong and misery--the same old shapes or worse ones--which
they have taken such a vast deal of trouble to consume to ashes. I
have stood by this livelong night and laughed in my sleeve at the
whole business. O, take my word for it, it will be the old world
yet!"
This brief conversation supplied me with a theme for lengthened
thought. How sad a truth, if true it were, that man's age-long
endeavor for perfection had served only to render him the mockery of
the evil principle, from the fatal circumstance of an error at the
very root of the matter! The heart, the heart, there was the little
yet boundless sphere wherein existed the original wrong of which the
crime and misery of this outward world were merely types. |
10,240 | "\n\n\n\nProduced by Juliet Sutherland, Tonya Allen, and Project\nGutenberg Distributed Proofreaders(...TRUNCATED) |
10,240 | "\n\n\n\nProduced by John Bickers, and Dagny\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE NAPOLEON OF THE PEOPLE\n\n\nBy Honore De(...TRUNCATED) |
10,240 | "\n\n\n\nProduced by David Widger\n\n\n\n\nQUOTES AND IMAGES FROM THE DIARY OF PEPYS\n\n\n\n\nTHE DI(...TRUNCATED) |
10,240 | "\n\n\n\nProduced by David Widger\n\n\n\n\n\n LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI\n\n (...TRUNCATED) |
10,240 | "\n\n\n\nProduced by David Widger. HTML version by Al Haines\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n (...TRUNCATED) |
10,240 | "\n\n\n\nProduced by David Starner, Phil Petersen, and the Online\nDistributed Proofreading Team\n\n(...TRUNCATED) |
End of preview. Expand
in Data Studio
Dataset Card for pg19-test
This dataset is a curated subset of the PG-19 dataset (a large collection of classic books from Project Gutenberg), specifically processed to generate text samples with controlled token lengths—using the Llama3.1-8B-Instruct tokenizer for precise tokenization—for long-context language model evaluation and research. The dataset contains stratified text excerpts at six distinct token length targets (10240 to 61440 tokens) with consistent sample sizes per length, ensuring sentence-level coherence (truncation at natural sentence endings) and minimal text reuse.
Dataset Details
Key Features
- Length Stratification: Samples across 6 target token lengths: 10k, 20k, 30k, 40k, 50k, 60k tokens.Note that the actual token length of samples does not strictly adhere to the target values, and a fluctuation of several hundred tokens (either above or below the target) may occur.
- Coherent Truncation: Text is truncated at natural sentence endings (.!?) rather than arbitrary token positions to preserve readability and semantic integrity.
- Language(s) (NLP): English
- Size of the dataset: 54.7MB
Dataset Sources
- Homepage: https://huggingface.co/datasets/hcyy/pg19-test
- Paper: SpecPV: Improving Self-Speculative Decoding for Long-Context Generation via Partial Verification
Dataset Structure
This dataset consists of 120 text samples structured into two core fields: "length" (an integer representing the target token length, which falls into six tiers: 10k, 20k, 30k, 40k, 50k, 60k tokens) and "text" (a string of coherently truncated PG-19 excerpts ending at natural sentence boundaries); it has 100 samples per length tier, with actual token lengths fluctuating by several hundred tokens around the targets to prioritize coherence, and is available in both Parquet formats.
Dataset Creation
Curation Rationale
This dataset is used to evaluate the performance of the SpecPV algorithm.
Source Data
The dataset is directly derived from the PG-19 dataset (hosted at https://huggingface.co/datasets/emozilla/pg19/), a large collection of public-domain books published before 1919 (from Project Gutenberg).
BibTeX:
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APA:
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