Category: The Poe Museum Blog

X-ing a Paragrab

As it is well known that the ‘wise men’ came ‘from the East,’ and as Mr. Touch-and-go Bullet-head came from the East, it follows that Mr. Bullet-head was a wise man; and if collateral proof of the matter be needed, here we have it — Mr. B. was an editor. Irascibility was his sole foible; for in fact the obstinacy of which men accused him was anything but his foible, since he justly considered it his forte. It was his strong point — his virtue; and it would have required all the logic of a Brownson to convince him that it was ‘anything else.’

I have shown that Touch-and-go Bullet-head was a wise man; and the only occasion on which he did not prove infallible, was when, abandoning that legitimate home for all wise men, the East, he migrated to the city of Alexander-the-Great-o-nopolis, or some place of a similar title, out West.

I must do him the justice to say, however, that when he made up his mind finally to settle in that town, it was under the impression that no newspaper, and consequently no editor, existed in that particular section of the country. In establishing ‘The Tea-Pot,’ he expected to have the field all to himself. I feel confident he never would have dreamed of taking up his residence in Alexander-the-Great-o-nopolis, had he been aware that, in Alexander-the-Great-o-nopolis, there lived a gentleman named John Smith (if I rightly remember), who, for many years, had there quietly grown fat in editing and publishing the ‘Alexander-the-Great-o-nopolis Gazette.’ It was solely, therefore, on account of having been misinformed, that Mr. Bullet-head found himself in Alex —— suppose we call it Nopolis, ‘for short’ — but, as he did find himself there, he determined to keep up his character for obst — for firmness, and remain. So remain he did; and he did more; he unpacked his press, type, etc., etc., rented an office exactly opposite to that of the ‘Gazette,’ and, on the third morning after his arrival, issued the first number of ‘The Alexan’ — that is to say, of ‘The Nopolis Tea-Pot:’ — as nearly as I can recollect, this was the name of the new paper.

The leading article, I must admit, was brilliant — not to say severe. It was especially bitter about things in general — and as for the editor of ‘The Gazette,’ he was torn all to pieces in particular. Some of Bullet-head’s remarks were really so fiery that I have always, since that time, been forced to look upon John Smith, who is still alive, in the light of a salamander. I cannot pretend to give all the ‘Tea-pot’s’ paragraphs verbatim, but one of them runs thus:

‘Oh, yes! — Oh, we perceive! Oh, no doubt! The editor over the way is a genius — Oh, my! Oh, goodness, gracious! — what is this world coming to? Oh, tempora! Oh, Moses!’

A philippic at once so caustic and so classical, alighted like a bombshell among the hitherto peaceful citizens of Nopolis. Groups of excited individuals gathered at the corners of the streets. Every one awaited, with heartfelt anxiety, the reply of the dignified Smith. Next morning it appeared, as follows:

‘We quote from “The Tea-Pot” of yesterday the subjoined paragraph: — “Oh, yes! Oh, we perceive! Oh, no doubt! Oh, my! Oh, goodness! Oh, tempora! Oh, Moses!” Why, the fellow is all O! That accounts for his reasoning in a circle, and explains why there is neither beginning nor end to him, nor to anything that he says. We really do not believe the vagabond can write a word that hasn’t an O in it. Wonder if this O-ing is a habit of his? By-the-by, he came away from Down-East in a great hurry. Wonder if he O’s as much there as he does here? “O! it is pitiful?!” ’

The indignation of Mr. Bullet-head at these scandalous insinuations, I shall not attempt to describe. On the eel-skinning principle, however, he did not seem to be so much incensed at the attack upon his integrity as one might have imagined. It was the sneer at his style that drove him to desperation. What! — he, Touch-and-go Bullet-head! — not able to write a word without an O in it! He would soon let the jackanapes see that he was mistaken. Yes! he would let him see how much he was mistaken, the puppy! He, Touch-and-go Bullet-head, of Frogpondium, would let Mr. John Smith perceive that he, Bullet-head, could indite, if it so pleased him, a whole paragraph — ay! a whole article — in which that contemptible vowel should not once — not even once — make its appearance. But no; — that would be yielding a point to the said John Smith. He, Bullet-head, would make no alteration in his style, to suit the caprices of any Mr. Smith in Christendom. Perish so vile a thought! The O forever! He would persist in the O. He would be as O-wy as O-wy could be.

Burning with the chivalry of this determination, the great Touch-and-go, in the next ‘Tea-pot,’ came out merely with this simple but resolute paragraph, in reference to this unhappy affair:

‘The editor of the “Tea-pot” has the honor of advising the editor of “The Gazette” that he, (the “Tea-pot,”) will take an opportunity, in to-morrow morning’s paper, of convincing him, (the “Gazette,”) that he, (the “Tea-pot,”) both can and will be his own master as regards style: — he, (the “Tea-pot,”) intending to show him, (the “Gazette,”) the supreme, and indeed the withering contempt with which the criticism of him, (the “Gazette,”) inspires the independent bosom of him, (the “Tea-pot,”) by composing for the especial gratification (?) of him, (the “Gazette,”) a leading article, of some extent, in which the beautiful vowel — the emblem of Eternity — yet so offensive to the hyper-exquisite delicacy of him, (the “Gazette,”) shall most certainly not be avoided by his (the “Gazette’s”) most obedient, humble servant, the “Tea-pot.” “So much for Buckingham!” ’

In fulfilment of the awful threat thus darkly intimated rather than decidedly enunciated, the great Bullet-head, turning a deaf ear to all entreaties for ‘copy,’ and simply requesting his foreman to ‘go to the d——l,’ when he (the foreman) assured him (the ‘Tea-pot’) that it was high time to ‘go to press:’ turning a deaf ear to everything, I say, the great Bullet-head sat up until day-break, consuming the midnight oil, and absorbed in the composition of the really unparalleled paragraph, which follows:

‘So ho, John! how now? Told you so, you know. Don’t crow, another time, before you’re out of the woods! Does your mother know you’re out? Oh, no, no! — so go home at once, now, John, to your odious old woods of Concord! Go home to your woods, old owl, — go! You wont? Oh, poh, poh, John, don’t do so! You’ve got to go, you know! So go at once, and don’t go slow; for nobody owns you here, you know. Oh, John, John, if you don’t go you’re no homo — no! You’re only a fowl, an owl; a cow, a sow; a doll, a Poll; a poor, old, good-for-nothing-to-nobody, log, dog, hog, or frog, come out of a Concord bog. Cool, NOW — cool! Do be cool, you fool! None of your crowing, old cock! Don’t frown so — don’t! Don’t hollo, nor howl, nor growl, nor bow-wow-wow! Good Lord, John, how you do look! Told you so, you know — but stop rolling your goose of an old poll about so, and go and drown your sorrows in a bowl!’

Exhausted, very naturally, by so stupendous an effort, the great Touch-and-go could attend to nothing farther that night. Firmly, composedly, yet with an air of conscious power, he handed his MS. to the devil in waiting, and then, walking leisurely home, retired, with ineffable dignity, to bed.

Meantime the devil to whom the copy was entrusted, ran up stairs to his ‘case,’ in an unutterable hurry, and forthwith made a commencement at ‘setting’ the MS. ‘up.’

In the first place, of course, — as the opening word was ‘so’ — he made a plunge into the capital S hole and came out in triumph with a capital S. Elated by this success, he immediately threw himself upon the little-o box with a blind-fold impetuosity — but who shall describe his horror when his fingers came up without the anticipated letter in their clutch? who shall paint his astonishment and rage at perceiving, as he rubbed his knuckles, that he had been only thumping them, to no purpose, against the bottom of an empty box. Not a single little-o was in the little-o hole; and, glancing fearfully at the capital-O partition, he found that, to his extreme terror, in a precisely similar predicament. Awe-stricken, his first impulse was to rush to the foreman.

‘Sir!’ said he, gasping for breath, ‘I can’t never set up nothing without no o‘s.’

‘What do you mean by that?’ growled the foreman, who was in a very ill humor at being kept up so late.

‘Why, sir, there beant an o in the office, neither a big un nor a little un!’

‘What — what the d—l has become of all that were in the case?’

‘I don’t know, sir,’ said the boy, ‘but one of them ere G’zette devils is bin prowling bout here all night, and I spect he’s gone and cabbaged em every one.’

‘Dod rot him! I haven’t a doubt of it,’ replied the foreman, getting purple with rage — ‘but I tell you what you do, Bob, that’s a good boy — you go over the first chance you get and hook every one of their i’s and (d—n them!) their izzards.’

‘Jist so,’ replied Bob, with a wink and a frown — ‘I’ll be into em, I’ll let em know a thing or two; but in de meantime, that ere paragrab? Mus go in to-night, you know — else there’ll be the d—l to pay, and —’

‘And not a bit of pitch hot,’ interrupted the foreman, with a deep sigh and an emphasis on the ‘bit.’ ‘Is it a very long paragraph, Bob?’

‘Shouldn’t call it a wery long paragrab,’ said Bob.

‘Ah, well, then! do the best you can with it! we must get to press,’ said the foreman, who was over head and ears in work; ‘just stick in some other letter for o, nobody’s going to read the fellow’s trash, any how.’

‘Wery well,’ replied Bob, ‘here goes it!’ and off he hurried to his case; muttering as he went — ‘Considdeble vell, them ere expressions, perticcler for a man as doesn’t swar. So I’s to gouge out all their eyes, eh? and d——n all their gizzards! Vell! this here’s the chap as is jist able for to do it.’ The fact is, that although Bob was but twelve years old and four feet high, he was equal to any amount of fight, in a small way.

The exigency here described is by no means of rare occurrence in printing-offices; and I cannot tell how to account for it, but the fact is indisputable, that when the exigency does occur, it almost always happens that x is adopted as a substitute for the letter deficient. The true reason, perhaps, is that x is rather the most superabundant letter in the cases, or at least was so in the old times —— long enough to render the substitution in question an habitual thing with printers. As for Bob, he would have considered it heretical to employ any other character, in a case of this kind, than the x to which he had been accustomed.

‘I shell have to x this ere paragrab,’ said he to himself, as he read it over in astonishment, ‘but it’s jest about the awfulest o-wy paragrab I ever did see:’ so x it he did, unflinchingly, and to press it went x-ed.

Next morning, the population of Nopolis were taken all aback by reading, in ‘The Tea-pot,’ the following extraordinary leader:

‘Sx hx, Jxhn! hxw nxw? Txld yxu sx, yxu knxw. Dxn’t crxw, anxther time, befxre yxu’re xut xf the wxxds! Dxes yxur mxther knxw yxu’re xut? Xh, nx, nx! sx gx hxme at xnce, nxw, Jxhn, tx yxur xdixus xld wxxds xf Cxncxrd! Gx hxme tx yxur wxxds, xld xwl, —— gx! Yxu wxnt? Xh, pxh, pxh, Jxhn, dxn’t dx sx! Yxu’ve gxt tx gx, yxu knxw! sx gx at xnce and dxn’t gx slxw; fxr nxbxdy xwns yxu here, yxu knxw. Xh, Jxhn, Jxhn, if yxu dxn’t gx yxu’re nx hxmx —— nx! Yxu’re xnly a fxwl, an xwl; a cxw, a sxw; a dxll, a Pxll; a pxxr xld gxxd-fxr-nxthing-tx-nxbxdy lxg, dxg, hxg, xr frxg, cxme xut xf a Cxncxrd bxg. Cxxl, nxw —— cxxl! Dx be cxxl, yxu fxxl! Nxne xf yxur crxwing, xld cxck! Dxn’t frxwn sx — dxn’t! Dxn’t hxllx, nxr hxwl, nxr grxwl, nxr bxw-wxw-wxw! Gxxd Lxrd, Jxhn, hxw yxu dx lxxk! Txld yxu sx, yxu knxw, but stxp rxlling yxur gxxse xf an xld pxll abxut sx, and gx and drxwn yxur sxrrxws in a bxwl!’

The uproar occasioned by this mystical and cabalistical article, is not to be conceived. The first definite idea entertained by the populace was, that some diabolical treason lay concealed in the hieroglyphics; and there was a general rush to Bullet-head’s residence, for the purpose of riding him on a rail; but that gentleman was nowhere to be found. He had vanished, no one could tell how; and not even the ghost of him has ever been seen since.

Unable to discover its legitimate object, the popular fury at length subsided; leaving behind it, by way of sediment, quite a medley of opinion about this unhappy affair.

One gentleman thought the whole an X-ellent joke.

Another said that, indeed, Bullet-head had shown much X-uberance of fancy.

‘ A third admitted him X-entric, but no more.

A fourth could only suppose it the Yankee’s design to X-press, in a general way, his X-asperation.

‘Say, rather, to set an X-ample to posterity,’ suggested a fifth.

That Bullet-head had been driven to an X-tremity, was clear to all; and in fact, since that editor could not be found, there was some talk about lynching the other one.

The more common conclusion, however, was that the affair was, simply, X-traordinary and in-X-plicable. Even the town mathematician confessed that he could make nothing of so dark a problem. X, everybody knew, was an unknown quantity; but in this case (as he properly observed), there was an unknown quantity of X.

The opinion of Bob, the devil (who kept dark ‘about his having ‘X-ed the paragrab’), did not meet with so much attention as I think it deserved, although it was very openly and very fearlessly expressed. He said that, for his part, he had no doubt about the matter at all, that it was a clear case, that ‘Mr. Bullet-head never vould be persvaded fur to drink like other folks, but vas continually a-svigging o’ that ere blessed XXX ale, and, as a naiteral consekvence, it jist puffed him up savage, and made him X (cross) in the X-treme.’

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Edgar Allan Poe

Originally published in 1849

Von Kempelen and his Discovery

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

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

By reference to the ‘Diary of Sir Humphrey Davy’ (Cottle and Munroe, London, pp. 150), it will be seen at pp. 53 and 82, that this illustrious chemist had not only conceived the idea now in question, but had actually made no inconsiderable progress, experimentally, in the very identical analysis now so triumphantly brought to an issue by Von Kempelen, who, although he makes not the slightest allusion to it, is, without doubt (I say it unhesitatingly, and can prove it, if required), indebted to the ‘Diary’ for at least the first hint of his own undertaking. Although a little technical, I cannot refrain from appending two passages from the ‘Diary,’ with one of Sir Humphrey’s equations. [As we have not the algebraic signs necessary, and as the ‘Diary’ is to be found at the Athenæum Library, we omit here a small portion of Mr. Poe’s manuscript. — ED.]

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

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

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

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

‘The Literary World’ speaks of him, confidently, as a native of Presburg (misled, perhaps, by the account in the ‘Home Journal,’) but I am pleased in being able to state positively, since I have it from his own lips, that he was born in Utica, in the State of New York, although both his parents, I believe, are of Presburg descent. The family is connected, in some way, with Mäelzel, of Automaton-chess-player memory. [If we are not mistaken, the name of the inventor of the chess-player was either Kempelen, Von Kempelen, or something like it. — ED.] In person, he is short and stout, with large, fat, blue eyes, sandy hair and whiskers, a wide but pleasing mouth, fine teeth, and I think a Roman nose. There is some defect in one of his feet. His address is frank, and his whole manner noticeable for bonhommie. Altogether, he looks, speaks and acts as little like ‘a misanthrope’ as any man I ever saw. We were fellow-sojouners for a week, about six years ago, at Earl’s Hotel, in Providence, Rhode Island; and I presume that I conversed with him, at various times, for some three or four hours altogether. His principal topics were those of the day; and nothing that fell from him led me to suspect his scientific attainments. He left the hotel before me, intending to go to New York, and thence to Bremen; it was in the latter city that his great discovery was first made public; or, rather, it was there that he was first suspected of having made it. — This is about all that I personally know of the now immortal Von Kempelen; but I have thought that even these few details would have interest for the public.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Edgar Allan Poe

Originally Published in 1849

The Thousand-and-Second Tale of Scheherazade

Truth is stranger than fiction

— Old Saying

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Hum!” said the king.

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

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

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

“Hum!” said the king.

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

“Hum!” said the king.

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

“Hoo!” said the king.

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

“Humph!” said the king.

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

“Pish!” said the king.

“ ‘Continuing our progress, we perceived a district abounding with vegetables that grew not upon any soil but in the air.† There were others that sprang from the substance of other vegetables;‡ others that derived their sustenance from the bodies of living animals;§ and then, again, there were others that glowed all over with intense fire;|| and what is still more wonderful, we discovered flowers that lived and breathed and moved their limbs at will, and had, moreover, the detestable passion of mankind for enslaving other creatures, and confining them in horrid and solitary prisons until the fulfillment of appointed tasks.’ ”¶

“Pshaw!” said the king.

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

“Oh my!” said the king.

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

“Oh fy!” said the king.

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

“Stuff!” said the king.

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

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

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

“Nonsense!” said the king.

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

“Twattle!” said the king.

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

“Fal lal!” said the king.

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

“Ridiculous!” said the king.

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

“Absurd!” said the king.

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

“Preposterous!” said the king.

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

“A what?” said the king.

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

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

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

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Edgar Allan Poe

Published in 1845

All the marvels mentioned by Scheherazade are real places and things. Click the hyperlinks within the text to see what they really are.

Thou art the Man

I will now play the Œdipus to the Rattleborough enigma. I will expound to you — as I alone can — the secret of the enginery that effected the Rattleborough miracle — the one — the true — the admitted — the undisputed — the indisputable miracle which put a definite end to infidelity among the Rattleburghers, and converted to the orthodoxy of the grandames, all the carnal-minded who had ventured to be skeptical before.

This event — which I should be sorry to discuss in a tone of unsuitable levity — occurred in the summer of 18—. Mr Barnabas Shuttleworthy, one of the wealthiest and most respectable citizens of the borough, had been missing, for several days, under circumstances which gave rise to suspicion of foul play. Mr Shuttleworthy had set out from Rattleborough, very early one Saturday morning, on horseback, with the avowed intention of proceeding to the city of —— , about fifteen miles distant, and of returning the night of the same day. Two hours after his departure, however, his horse returned without him, and without the saddle-bags which had been strapped on his back at starting. The animal was wounded, too, and covered with mud. These circumstances naturally gave rise to much alarm among the friends of the missing man, and when it was found, on Sunday morning, that he had not yet made his appearance, the whole borough arose en masse, to go and look for his body.

The foremost and most energetic in instituting this search, was the bosom friend of Mr Shuttleworthy — a Mr Charles Goodfellow, or, as he was universally called, “Charley Goodfellow,” or “Old Charley Goodfellow.” Now whether it is a marvellous coincidence, or whether it is that the name itself has an imperceptible effect upon the character, I have never yet been able to ascertain — but the fact is unquestionable, that there never yet was any person named Charles, who was not an open, manly, honest, good-natured, and frank-hearted fellow, with a rich, clear voice, that did you good to hear it, and an eye that looked you always straight in the face, as much as to say “I have a clear conscience, myself, — am afraid of no man, — and am altogether above doing a mean action.” And thus all the hearty, careless, “walking gentlemen” of the stage, are very certain to be called Charles.

Now “Old Charley Goodfellow,” although he had been in Rattleborough not longer than six months, or thereabouts, and although nobody knew anything about him before he came to settle in the neighbourhood, had experienced no difficulty in the world in making the acquaintance of all the respectable people in the borough. Not a man of them but would have taken his bare word for a thousand at any moment; and, as for the women, there is no saying what they would not have done to oblige him. And all this came of his having been christened Charles, and of his possessing, in consequence, that ingenuous face which is proverbially the very “best letter of recommendation.”

I have already said that Mr Shuttleworthy was one of the most respectable, and, undoubtedly he was the most wealthy man in Rattleborough, while “Old Charley Goodfellow” was upon as intimate terms with him as if he had been his own brother. The two old gentlemen were next-door neighbours, and although Mr Shuttleworthy seldom, if ever, visited “Old Charley,” and never was known to take a meal in his house, still this did not prevent the two friends from being exceedingly intimate, as I have just observed; for “Old Charley” never let a day pass, without stepping in three or four times to see how his neighbour came on; and very often he would stay to breakfast, or tea; and almost always to dinner; and then the amount of wine that was made way with by the two cronies at a sitting, it would really be a difficult thing to ascertain. Old Charley’s favorite beverage was Chateau Margaux, and it appeared to do Mr Shuttleworthy’s heart good to see the old fellow swallow it, as he did, quart after quart; so that, one day, when the wine was in, and the wit, as a natural consequence, somewhat out, he said to his crony, as he slapped him upon the back — “I tell you what it is, Old Charley, — you are, by all odds, the heartiest old fellow I ever came across in all my born days; and, since you love to guzzle the wine at that fashion, I’ll be darned if I don’t have to make thee a present of a big box of the Chateau Margaux. Od rot me” (Mr Shuttleworthy had a sad habit of swearing, although he seldom went beyond “Od rot me,” or “By gosh,” or “By the jolly golly”) — “Od rot me” says he, “if I don’t send an order to town, this very afternoon, for a double box of the best that can be got — and I’ll make ye a present of it — I will — ye need’nt say a word, now — I will, I tell ye, and there’s an end of it; so look out for it — it will come to hand some of these fine days, precisely when ye are looking for it the least.” — I mention this little bit of liberality, on the part of Mr Shuttleworthy, just by way of showing you how very intimate an understanding existed between the two friends.

Well, on the Sunday morning in question, when it came to be fairly understood that Mr Shuttleworthy had met with foul play, I never saw any one so profoundly affected as Old Charley Goodfellow. When he first heard that the horse had come home without his master, and without his master’s saddle-bags, and all bloody from a pistol shot that had gone clean through and through the poor animal’s chest, without quite killing him; — when he heard all this, he turned as pale as if the missing man had been his own dear brother, or father, and shivered and shook all over, as if he had had a fit of the ague.

At first, he was too much overpowered with grief to be able to do anything at all, or to concert upon any plan of action — so that, for a long time, he endeavoured to dissuade Mr Shuttleworthy’s other friends from making a stir about the matter — thinking it best to wait a while — say for a week or two, or a month or two, to see if something would’nt turn up, or if Mr Shuttleworthy would’nt come in the natural way, and explain his reasons for sending his horse on before. I dare say you have often observed this disposition to temporize, or to procrastinate, in people who are laboring under any very poignant sorrow. Their powers of mind seem to be rendered torpid, so that they have a horror of anything like action, and like nothing in the world so well as to lie quietly in bed and “nurse their grief,” as the old ladies express it — that is to say, ruminate over their trouble.

The people of Rattleborough had, indeed, so high an opinion of the wisdom and discretion of “Old Charley” that the greater part of them felt disposed to agree with him, and not make a stir in the business “until something should turn up,” as the honest old gentleman worded it; and I believe that, after all, this would have been the general determination, but for the very suspicious interference of Mr Shuttleworthy’s nephew, a young man of very dissipated habits, and otherwise of rather bad character. This nephew — whose name was Pennifeather — would listen to nothing like reason, in the matter of “lying quiet,” but insisted upon making immediate search for the “corpse of the murdered man.” This was the expression he employed; and Mr Goodfellow acutely remarked, at the time, that it was “a singular expression, to say no more.” This remark of Old Charley’s, too, had great effect upon the crowd; and one of the party was heard to ask, very impressively, “how it happened that young Mr Pennifeather was so intimately cognizant of all the circumstances connected with his wealthy uncle’s disappearance, as to feel authorized to assert, distinctly and unequivocally, that his uncle was ‘a murdered man’.” Hereupon some little squibbing and bickering occurred, among various members of the crowd, and especially between “Old Charley” and Mr Pennifeather — although this latter occurrence was, indeed, by no means a novelty; for no good will had subsisted between the parties for the last three or four months; and matters had even gone so far that Mr Pennifeather had actually knocked down his uncle’s friend, for some alleged excess of liberty that the latter had taken in the uncle’s house, of which the nephew was an inmate. Upon this occasion “Old Charley” is said to have behaved with exemplary moderation and Christian charity. He arose from the blow, adjusted his clothes, and made no attempt at retaliation at all; — merely muttering a few words about “taking summary vengeance at the first convenient opportunity” — a natural and very justifiable ebullition of anger, — which meant nothing, however; and, beyond doubt, was no sooner given vent to than forgotten.

However these matters may be, (which have no reference to the point now at issue,) it is quite certain that the people of Rattleborough, principally through the persuasion of Mr Pennifeather, came, at length, to the determination of dispersing over the adjacent country, in search of the missing Mr Shuttleworthy. I say they came to this determination, in the first instance. After it had been fully resolved that a search should be made, it was considered almost a matter of course that the seekers should disperse — that is to say distribute themselves in parties — for the more thorough examination of the region round about. I forget, however, by what ingenious train of reasoning it was, that “Old Charley” finally convinced the assembly that this was the most injudicious plan that could be pursued. Convince them, however, he did — all except Mr Pennifeather — and, in the end, it was arranged that a search should be instituted carefully, and very thoroughly, by the burghers en masse; “Old Charley” himself leading the way.

As for the matter of that, there could have been no better pioneer than “Old Charley,” whom every body knew to have the eye of a lynx; but, although he led them into all  manner of out-of-the-way holes and corners, by routes that nobody had ever suspected of existing in the neighbourhood; and although the search was incessantly kept up, day and night, for nearly a week, still no trace of Mr Shuttleworthy could be discovered. When I say no trace, however, I must not be understood to speak literally — for trace, to some extent, there certainly was. The poor gentleman had been tracked, by his horse’s shoes, (which were peculiar,) to a spot about three miles to the east of the borough, on the main road, leading to the city. Here the track made off into a by-path through a piece of woodland — this path coming out again into the main road and cutting off about half a mile of the regular distance. Following the shoe-marks down this lane, the party came, at length, to a pool of stagnant water, half hidden by the brambles to the right of the lane; and opposite this pool all vestige of the track was lost sight of. It appeared, however, that a struggle of some nature had here taken place, and it seemed as if some large and heavy body — much larger and heavier than a man — had been dragged from the by-path to the pool. This latter was carefully dragged, twice; but nothing was found; and the party were upon the point of going away, in despair of coming to any result, when Providence suggested to Mr Goodfellow the expediency of draining the water off altogether. This project was received with cheers, and many high compliments to “Old Charley” upon his sagacity and consideration. As many of the burghers had brought spades with them, supposing that they might possibly be called upon to disinter a corpse, the drain was easily and speedily effected; and no sooner was the bottom visible, than, right in the middle of the mud that remained, was discovered a black silk velvet waistcoat, which nearly every one present immediately recognized as the property of Mr Pennifeather. This waistcoat was much torn, and stained with blood; and there were several persons, among the party, who had a distinct remembrance of its having been worn by its owner on the very morning of Mr Shuttleworthy’s departure for the city; while there were others, again, ready to testify upon oath, if required, that Mr P. did not wear the garment in question, at any period during the remainder of that memorable day; — nor could any one be found to say that he had seen it upon Mr P.’s person at any period at all, subsequent to Mr Shuttleworthy’s disappearance.

Matters now wore a very serious aspect for Mr Pennifeather, and it was observed, as an indubitable confirmation of the suspicions which were excited against him, that he grew exceedingly pale, and when asked what he had to say for himself, was utterly incapable of saying a word. Hereupon, the few friends his riotous mode of living had left him, deserted him, at once, to a man, and were even more clamorous than his ancient and avowed enemies, for his instantaneous arrest. But, on the other hand, the magnanimity of Mr Goodfellow shone forth with only the more brilliant lustre, through contrast. He made a warm and intensely eloquent defence of Mr Pennifeather, in which he alluded, more than once, to his own sincere forgiveness of that wild young gentleman — “the heir of the worthy Mr Shuttleworthy” — for the insult which he (the young gentleman) had, no doubt in the heat of passion, thought proper to put upon him (Mr Goodfellow). “He forgave him for it,” he said, “from the very bottom of his heart; and, for himself, (Mr Goodfellow), so far from pushing the suspicious circumstances to extremity, which, he was sorry to say, really had arisen against Mr Pennifeather, he (Mr Goodfellow) would make every exertion in his power — would employ all the little eloquence in his possession — to — to — to — soften down, as much as he could conscientiously do so, the worst features of this really exceedingly perplexing piece of business.”

Mr Goodfellow went on, for some half hour longer, in this strain, very much to the credit both of his head and of his heart; but your warm-hearted people are seldom apposite in their observations; — they run into all sorts of blunders, contre-temps and mal à propos -isms, in the hot-headedness of their zeal to serve a friend; thus, often, with the kindest intentions in the world, doing infinitely more to prejudice his cause, than to advance it.

So, in the present instance, it turned out with all the eloquence of “Old Charley”; for, although he laboured earnestly in behalf of the suspected, yet it so happened, somehow or other, that every syllable he uttered of which the direct but unwitting tendency was not to exalt the speaker in the good opinion of his audience, had the effect to deepen the suspicion already attached to the individual whose cause he pleaded, and to arouse against him the fury of the mob.

One of the most unaccountable errors committed by the orator, was his allusion to the suspected, as “the heir of the worthy old gentleman, Mr Shuttleworthy.” The people had really never thought of this before. They had only remembered certain threats of disinheritance uttered, a year or two previously, by the uncle (who had no living relative except the nephew); and they had, therefore, always looked upon this disinheritance as a matter that was settled — so single-minded a race of beings were the Rattleburghers; — but the remark of “Old Charley” brought them at once to a consideration of this point, and thus gave them to see the possibility of the threats having been nothing more than a threat. And straightway, hereupon, arose the natural question of cui bono? — a question that tended, even more than the waistcoat, to fasten the terrible crime upon the young man. And here, lest I be misunderstood, permit me to digress, for one moment, merely to observe that the exceedingly brief and simple Latin phrase which I have employed, is invariably mistranslated and misconceived. “Cui bono”, in all the crack novels, and elsewhere, — in those of Mrs Gore, for example (the author of “Cecil”) a lady who quotes all tongues from the Chaldæan to Chickasaw, and is helped to her learning, “as needed,” upon a systematic plan, by Mr Beckford; — in all the crack novels, I say, from those of Bulwer and Dickens, to those of Turnapenny and Ainsworth, the two little Latin words cui bono, are rendered “to what purpose,” or, (as if quo bono) , “to what good.” Their true meaning, nevertheless, is “for whose advantage.” Cui, to whom; bono, is it for a benefit. It is a purely legal phrase, and applicable precisely in cases such as we have now under consideration, where the probability of the doer of a deed, hinges upon the probability of the benefit accruing to this individual, or to that, from the deed’s accomplishment. Now, in the present instance, the question, cui bono, very pointedly implicated Mr Pennifeather. His uncle had threatened him, after making a will in his favor, with disinheritance. But the threat had not been actually kept; the original will, it appeared, had not been altered. Had it been altered, the only supposable motive for murder, on the part of the suspected, would have been the ordinary one of revenge; and even this would have been counteracted by the hope of reinstation into the good graces of the uncle. But, the will being unaltered, while the threat to alter remained suspended over the nephew’s head, there appears, at once, the very strongest possible inducement for the atrocity: and so concluded, very sagaciously, the worthy citizens of the borough of Rattle.

Mr Pennifeather was, accordingly, arrested upon the spot; and the crowd, after some farther search, proceeded homewards, having him in custody. On the route, however, another circumstance occurred, tending to confirm the suspicion entertained. Mr Goodfellow, whose zeal led him to be always a little in advance of the party, was seen suddenly to run forward a few paces, stoop, and then, apparently, to pick up some small object from the grass. Having quickly examined it, he was observed, too, to make a sort of half attempt at concealing it in his coat-pocket; but this action was noticed, as I say, and consequently prevented; when the object picked up was found to be a Spanish knife, which a dozen persons at once recognized as belonging to Mr Pennifeather. Moreover, his initials were engraved upon the handle. The blade of this knife was open, and bloody.

No doubt now remained of the guilt of the nephew, and, immediately upon reaching Rattleborough, he was taken before a magistrate for examination.

Here matters again took a most unfavourable turn. The prisoner, being questioned as to his whereabouts on the morning of Mr Shuttleworthy’s disappearance, had absolutely the audacity to acknowledge that, on that very morning, he had been out with his rifle, deer-stalking, in the immediate neighbourhood of the pool where the blood-stained waistcoat had been discovered, through the sagacity of Mr Goodfellow.

This latter now came forward, and, with tears in his eyes, asked permission to be examined. He said that stern sense of the duty he owed to his Maker, not less than to his fellow men, would permit him no longer to remain silent. Hitherto, the sincerest affection for the young man (notwithstanding the latter’s ill treatment of himself, Mr Goodfellow), had induced him to make every hypothesis which imagination could suggest, by way of endeavoring to account for what appeared suspicious, in the circumstances that told so seriously against Mr Pennifeather; — but these circumstances were now altogether too convincing — too damning; — he would hesitate no longer; — he would tell all he knew — although his heart (Mr Goodfellow’s) should absolutely burst asunder in the effort. He then went on to state that, on the afternoon of the day previous to Mr Shuttleworthy’s departure for the city, that worthy old gentleman had mentioned to his nephew, in his hearing (Mr Goodfellow’s), that his object in going to town on the morrow, was to make a deposit of an unusually large sum of money, in the “Farmer’s and Mechanics’ Bank”; and that, then and there, the said Mr Shuttleworthy had distinctly avowed to the said nephew, his irrevocable determination of rescinding the will originally made, and of cutting him off with a shilling. He, (the witness), now solemnly called upon the accused to state whether what he, (the witness), had just stated, was, or was not, the truth, in every substantial particular. Much to the astonishment of every one present, Mr Pennifeather frankly admitted that it was.

The magistrate now considered it his duty to send a couple of constables to search the chamber of the accused, in the house of his uncle. From this search they almost immediately returned, with the well-known, steel-bound, russet-leather pocket-book, which the old gentleman had been in the habit of carrying for years. Its valuable contents, however, had been abstracted; and the magistrate in vain endeavoured to extort from the prisoner the use which had been made of them, or the place of their concealment. Indeed he obstinately denied all knowledge of the matter. The constables also discovered, between the bed and sacking of the unhappy man, a shirt and neck-handkerchief, both marked with the initials of his name, and both hideously besmeared with the blood of the victim.

At this juncture, it was announced that the horse of the murdered man had just expired in the stable from the effects of the wound he had received, and it was proposed by Mr Goodfellow, that a post mortem examination of the beast should be immediately made, with the view, if possible, of discovering the ball. This was accordingly done; and, as if to demonstrate, beyond a question, the guilt of the accused, Mr Goodfellow, after considerable searching in the cavity of the chest, was enabled to detect, and to pull forth, a bullet of very extraordinary size, which, upon trial, was found to be exactly adapted to the bore of Mr Pennifeather’s rifle, while it was far too large for that of any other person in the borough, or its vicinity. To render the matter even surer yet, however, this bullet was discovered to have a flaw, or seam, at right angles to the usual suture; and, upon examination, this seam corresponded precisely with an accidental ridge, or elevation, in a pair of moulds, acknowledged by the accused himself to be his own property. Upon the finding of this bullet, the examining magistrate refused to listen to any farther testimony, and immediately committed the prisoner for trial; declining, resolutely, to take any bail in the case; although against this severity Mr Goodfellow very warmly remonstrated, and offered to become surety in whatever amount might be required. This generosity on the part of “Old Charley,” was only in accordance with the whole tenor of his amiable and chivalrous conduct, during the entire period of his sojourn in the borough of Rattle. In the present instance, the worthy man was so entirely carried away by the excessive warmth of his sympathy, that he seemed to have quite forgotten, when he offered to go bail for his young friend, that he himself (Mr Goodfellow) did not possess a single dollar’s worth of property upon the face of the earth.

The result of the committal may be readily foreseen. Mr Pennifeather, amid the loud execrations of all Rattleborough, was brought to trial at the next Criminal Sessions; when the chain of circumstantial evidence, (strengthened, as it was, by some additional damning facts, which Mr Goodfellow’s sensitive conscientiousness forbade him to withhold from the court), was considered so unbroken and so thoroughly conclusive, that the jury, without leaving their seats, returned an immediate verdict of “Guilty of Murder in the First Degree.” Soon afterwards the unhappy wretch received sentence of death, and was remanded to the county jail, to await the inexorable vengeance of the Law.

In the meantime, the noble behaviour of “Old Charley Goodfellow” had doubly endeared him to the honest citizens of the borough. He became ten times a greater favorite than ever; and, as a natural result of the hospitality with which he was treated, he relaxed, as it were, perforce, the extremely parsimonious habits which his poverty had hitherto impelled him to observe, and very frequently had little réunions at his own house, when wit and jollity reigned supreme — dampened a little, of course, by the occasional remembrance of the untoward and melancholy fate which impended over the nephew of the late lamented bosom friend of the generous host.

One fine day, this magnanimous old gentleman was agreeably surprized at the receipt of the following letter:

Chat. Mar. A — No. 1 — 6 Doz. Bottles (1/2 Gross).

From H. F. B. & co.

Charles Goodfellow, Esq., Rattleborough.

 

Charles Goodfellow, Esquire,

Dr Sir,

In conformity with an order transmitted to our firm, about two months since, by our esteemed correspondent, Mr Barnabus Shuttleworthy, we have the honor of forwarding, this morning, to your address, a double box of Chateau-Margaux, of the antelope brand, violet seal. Box numbered and marked as per margin.

We remain, Sir,  
Yr. mo. ob. sts,  
Hoggs, Frogs, Bogs & co.  
==================   

City of —, June 21rst, 18—.

P.S. — The box will reach you, by wagon, on the day after your receipt of this letter. Our respects to Mr Shuttleworthy.

H. F. B. & co.

The fact is that Mr Goodfellow had, since the death of Mr Shuttleworthy, given over all expectation of ever receiving the promised Chateau-Margaux; and he, therefore looked upon it, now, as a sort of especial dispensation of Providence in his behalf. He was highly delighted, of course; and, in the exuberance of his joy, invited a large party of friends to a petit souper, on the morrow, for the purpose of broaching the good old Mr Shuttleworthy’s present. Not that he said anything about “the good old Mr Shuttleworthy” when he issued the invitations. The fact is, he thought much, and concluded to say nothing at all. He did not mention to any one — if I remember aright — that he had received a present of Chateau-Margaux. He merely asked his friends to come and help him to drink some, of a remarkably fine quality, and rich flavor, that he had ordered up from the city, a couple of months ago, and of which he would be in the receipt upon the morrow. I have often puzzled myself to imagine why it was that “Old Charley” came to the conclusion to say nothing about having received the wine from his old friend — but I could never precisely understand his reason for the silence — although he had some excellent and very magnanimous reason, no doubt.

The morrow at length arrived, and, with it, a very large and highly respectable company at Mr Goodfellow’s house. Indeed, half the borough was there — I myself among the number — but, much to the vexation of the host, the Chateau-Margaux did not arrive until a late hour, and when the sumptuous supper, supplied by “Old Charley”, had been done very ample justice by the guests. It came at length, however, — a monstrously big box of it there was, too, — and as the whole party were in excessively good humour, it was decided, nem: con:, that it should be lifted upon the table, and its contents disembowelled forthwith.

No sooner said than done. I lent a helping hand; and, in a trice, we had the box upon the table, in the midst of all the bottles and glasses, not a few of which were demolished in the scuffle. “Old Charley,” who was pretty much intoxicated, and excessively red in the face, now took a seat, with an air of mock dignity, at the head of the board, and thumped furiously upon it with a decanter, calling upon the company to keep order “during the ceremony of disinterring the treasure.”

After some vociferation, quiet was, at length, fully restored, and, as very often happens in similar cases, a profound and remarkable silence ensued. Being then requested to force open the lid, I complied, of course, “with an infinite deal of pleasure.” I inserted a chisel, and, giving it a few slight taps with a hammer, the top of the box flew suddenly and violently off, and, at the same instant, there sprang up into a sitting position, directly facing the host, the bruised, bloody, and nearly putrid corpse of the murdered Mr Shuttleworthy himself. It gazed, for a few moments, fixedly and sorrowfully, with its decaying and lack-lustre eyes, full into the countenance of Mr Goodfellow; uttered slowly, but clearly and impressively, the words “Thou art the Man!”; and then, falling over the side of the chest, as if thoroughly satisfied, stretched out its limbs, quiveringly, upon the table.

The scene that ensued is altogether beyond description. The rush for the doors and windows was terrific, and many of the most robust men in the room fainted, outright, through sheer horror. But after the first wild, shrieking burst of affright, all eyes were directed to Mr Goodfellow. If I live a thousand years, I can never forget the more than mortal agony which was depicted in that ghastly face of his, so lately rubicund with triumph and wine. For several minutes, he sat rigidly as a statue of marble; his eyes seeming, in the intense vacancy of their gaze, to be turned inwards, and absorbed in the contemplation of his own miserable, murderous soul. At length, their expression appeared to flash suddenly out into the external world; when, with a quick leap, he sprang from his chair, and falling heavily with his head and shoulders upon the table, and in contact with the corpse, poured out, rapidly and vehemently, a detailed confession of the hideous crime for which Mr Pennifeather was then imprisoned and doomed to die.

What he recounted, was, in substance, this: — He followed his victim to the vicinity of the pool; there shot his horse with a pistol; despatched the rider with its butt-end; possessed himself of the pocket book; and, supposing the horse dead, dragged it, with great labor, to the brambles by the pond. Upon his own beast he slung the corpse of Mr Shuttleworthy, and thus bore it to a secure place of concealment, a long distance off, through the woods.

The waistcoat, the knife, the pocket-book, and the bullet, had been placed by himself where found, with the view of avenging himself upon Mr Pennifeather. He had also contrived the discovery of the stained handkerchief and shirt.

Towards the end of the blood-chilling recital, the words of the guilty wretch faltered, and grew hollow. When the record was finally exhausted, he arose, staggered backwards from the table, and fell, dead.

———————————

The means by which this happily-timed confession was extorted, although efficient, were simple indeed. Mr Goodfellow’s excess of frankness had disgusted me, and excited my suspicion, from the first. I was present when Mr Pennifeather had struck him; and the fiendish expression which then arose upon his countenance, although momentary, assured me that his threat of vengeance would, if possible, be rigidly fulfilled. I was thus prepared to view the manœuvering of “Old Charley” in a very different light from that in which it was regarded by the good citizens of Rattleborough. I saw, at once, that all the criminating discoveries arose, either directly or indirectly, from himself. But the fact which clearly opened my eyes to the true state of the case, was the affair of the bullet, found by Mr G. in the carcass of the horse. I had not forgotten, although the Rattleburghers had, that there was a hole where the ball had entered the horse, and another where it went out. If it were found in the animal, then, after having made its exit, I saw clearly that it must have been deposited by the person who found it. The bloody shirt and handkerchief confirmed the idea suggested by the bullet; for the blood, upon examination, proved to be capital claret, and no more. When I came to think of these things, and also of the late increase of liberality and expenditure on the part of Mr Goodfellow, I entertained a suspicion which was none the less strong ,because I kept it altogether to myself.

In the meantime, I instituted a rigorous private search for the corpse of Mr Shuttleworthy, and, for good reasons, searched in quarters as divergent as possible from those to which Mr Goodfellow conducted his party. The result was that, after some days, I came across an old dry well, the mouth of which was nearly hidden by brambles; — and here, at the bottom, I discovered what I sought.

Now it so happened that I had overheard the colloquy between the two cronies, when Mr Goodfellow had contrived to cajole his host into the promise of a box of Chateau Margaux. Upon this hint I acted. I procured a stiff piece of whalebone, thrust it down the throat of the corpse, and deposited the latter in an old wine-box; taking care so to double the body up, as to double the whalebone with it. In this manner, I had to press forcibly upon the lid to keep it down, while I secured it with nails; and I anticipated, of course, that as soon as these latter were removed, the top would fly off, and the body fly up.

Having thus arranged the box, I marked, numbered, and addressed it, as already told; and then, writing a letter in the name of the wine merchants with whom Mr Shuttleworthy dealt, I gave instructions to my servant to wheel the box to Mr Goodfellow’s door, in a barrow, at a given signal from myself. For the words which I intended the corpse to speak, I confidently depended upon my ventriloquial abilities; for their effect, I counted upon the conscience of the murderous wretch.

I believe there is nothing more to be explained. Mr Pennifeather was released upon the spot, inherited the fortune of his uncle, profited by the lessons of experience, turned over a new leaf, and led happily, ever afterwards, a new life.

---

Edgar Allan Poe

Originally published in 1844

A Tale of Jerusalem

Intensos rigidam in frontem ascendere canos

Passus erat.

— LUCAN DE CATONE.

A bristly bore.

— TRANSLATION.

“Let us hurry to the walls,” said Abel-Shittim to Buzi-Ben-Levi and Simeon the Pharisee, on the tenth day of the month Thammuz, in the year of the world Three Thousand Nine Hundred and Forty-one — “let us hasten to the ramparts adjoining the gate of Benjamin, which is in the city of David, and overlooking the camp of the uncircumcised, for it is the last hour of the fourth watch, being sunrise, and the idolaters, in fulfilment of the promise of Pompey, should be waiting for us with the lambs for the sacrifices.”

Simeon, Abel-Shittim, and Buzi-Ben-Levi were the Gizbarim, or sub-collectors of the offering in the holy city of Jerusalem — more correctly Jeruschalaim, which signifies, being interpreted, “the possession of the inheritance of peace.”

“Verily,” replied the Pharisee, “let us hasten — for this generosity in the heathen is unwonted, and fickle-mindedness has ever been an attribute of the worshippers of Baal.”

“That they are fickle-minded, and treacherous is as true as the Pentateuch,” said Buzi-Ben-Levi; “but that is only towards the people of Adonai. When was it ever known that the Ammonites proved wanting to their own interest? Methinks it is no great stretch of generosity to allow us lambs for the altar of the Lord, receiving in lieu thereof thirty silver shekels per head.”

“Thou forgettest, however, Ben-Levi,” said Abel-Shittim, “that the Roman Pompey, who is now impiously besieging the city of the Most High, has no assurance that we apply not the lambs thus purchased for the altar to the sustenance of the body rather than of the spirit.”

“By the five corners of my beard!” shouted the Pharisee, who belonged to the sect called “the Dashers,” (that little knot of saints whose manner of dashing, and lacerating the feet upon the pavement was long a thorn and a reproach to less zealous devotees — a stumbling block to less gifted perambulators,) “By the five corners of that beard which, as a priest, I am forbidden to shave! Have we lived to see the day when a blaspheming and idolatrous Roman upstart shall accuse us of appropriating to the appetites of the flesh the most holy and consecrated elements? Have we ——”

“Let us not question the motives of the Philistine,” interrupted Abel-Shittim, “for to-day we profit for the first time by his avarice or his generosity: but rather let us hurry to the ramparts, lest offerings should be wanting for that altar, whose fire the rain cannot put out, and whose pillar of smoke the winds cannot turn aside.”

---

That part of the city to which our worthy Gizbarim now hastened, and which bore the name of its architect, king David, was esteemed the most strongly fortified district of Jerusalem, being situated on the steep and lofty hill of Zion. Here a broad, deep circumvallatory trench, hewn from the solid rock, was defended by a wall of great strength erected upon its inner edge. This wall was beautified at regular interspaces, by square towers of white marble — the lowest sixty, and the highest one hundred and twenty cubits in height. But in the vicinity of the gate of Benjamin, the wall arose by no means immediately from the margin of the fosse; on the contrary, between the level of the ditch and the basement of the rampart arose a perpendicular cliff of two hundred and fifty cubits, forming part of the precipitous Mount Moriah. So that when Simeon and his associates arrived on the summit of the tower called Adoni-Bezek, the highest of all the turrets round about Jerusalem, and the usual place of conference with the besieging army, they looked down upon the camp of the enemy from an eminence excelling by many feet that of the pyramid of Cheops, and by several, that of the Temple of Belus.

“Verily,” sighed the Pharisee, as he peered dizzily over the precipice, “the uncircumcised are as the sands by the sea-shore, as the locusts in the wilderness: and the valley of the king hath become the valley of Adommin.”

“And yet,” added Ben-Levi, “thou can’st not point me out a Philistine — no, not from the forest to the battlements — from Aleph to Tau, who seemeth any bigger than the letter Jod.”

“Lower away the basket with the shekels of silver!” shouted a Roman soldier in a hoarse, rough voice, which seemed to issue from the regions of Pluto; “lower away the basket with that accursed coin which hath broken the jaw of a noble Roman to pronounce! Is it thus you evince your gratitude to our master Pompeius, who, in his condescension, has thought proper to listen to your idolatrous importunities? The god Phœbus, who is a true god, and no barbarian, has been charioted for an hour — and were you not to have been on the walls by sunrise? Ædepol! do you think that we, the conquerors of the world, have nothing better to do than to stand waiting by the walls of every kennel to traffic with the dogs of the earth? Lower away, I say! and see that your trumpery be just in weight, and bright in colour.”

“El Elohim!” ejaculated the Pharisee, as the discordant tones of the centurion rattled up the crags of the precipice, and fainted away against the temple — “El Elohim! Who is the god Phœbus? Whom doth the blasphemer invoke? Thou, Buzi-Ben-Levi, who art read in the laws of the Gentiles, and hast sojourned among those who dabble with the Teraphim, is it Nergal of whom the idolater speaketh? — or Ashimah? — or Nibhaz? — or Tartak? — or Adramalech? — or Anamalech? — or Succoth-Benoth? — or Dagon? — or Belial? — or Baal-Perith? — or Baal-Peor? — or Baal-Zebub?”

“Verily it is neither — but beware how thou lettest the rope slip too rapidly through thy fingers; for should the wicker-work chance to hang on the projection of yonder crag, there will be a woful outpouring of the holy things of the sanctuary.”

---

By the assistance of some rudely-constructed machinery, the heavily-laden basket was now lowered carefully down among the multitude; and from the giddy pinnacle the Romans were seen crowding confusedly around it. But owing to the vast height and the prevalence of a fog, (which is unusual at Jerusalem,) no distinct view of their operations could be obtained.

A half hour had already elapsed.

“We shall be too late,” sighed the pharisee, as at the expiration of this period he looked over into the abyss — “We shall be too late — we shall be turned out of office by the Katholim.”

“No more,” responded Abel-Shittim, “shall we feast upon the fat of the land — no longer shall our beards be odorous with frankincense — our loins girded up with fine linen from the temple.”

“Raca!” swore Ben-Levi, — “Raca! — do they mean to defraud us of the purchase money! — or, Holy Moses! are they weighing the shekels of the tabernacle?”

“They have given the signal at last,” roared the pharisee. “Pull away, Abel-Shittim! — and thou, Buzi-Ben-Levi, pull away! for verily, the Philistines have still hold of the basket, or the Lord hath softened their hearts to place therein a beast of good weight!”

And the Gizbarim pulled away, while their burthen swung heavily upwards through the still increasing mist.

---

“Booshoh he!” said Ben-Levi, as at the conclusion of an hour some object became indistinctly visible at the extremity of the rope — “Vah! Climah he! for shame? — it is a ram from the thickets of Engedi, and as rugged as the valley of Jehoshaphat.”

“It is a firstling of the flock,” said Abel-Shittim; “I know him by the bleating of his lips, and the innocent folding of his limbs. His eyes are more beautiful than the jewels of the pectoral, and his flesh is like the honey of hebron.”

“It is a fatted calf from the pastures of Bashan,” said the Pharisee; “the heathen have dealt wonderfully with us. Let us raise up our voices in a psalm — let us give thanks on the shawm and on the psaltery — on the harp and the huggab — on the cythern, and on the sackbut.”

It was not until the basket had arrived within a few feet of the Gizbarim, that a low grunt betrayed to their perception a hog of no common size.

“Now El Emanu!” slowly, and with upturned eyes ejaculated the trio, as releasing their hold, the emancipated porker fell headlong among the Philistines. “El Emanu! God be with us! it is the unutterable flesh!”

“Let me no longer” — said the Pharisee, “let me no longer be called Simeon, which signifieth ‘he who hastens,’ but Boanerges, ‘the son of thunder.’ ”

---

Edgar Allan Poe

Originally Published in 1832

The story was published as a parody of “Zillah – Tale of the Holy City” by Horace Smith

Why The Little Frenchman Wears His Arm in a Sling

It’s on my wisiting cards sure enough (and it’s them that’s all o’ pink satin paper) that inny gintleman that plases may behould the intheristhing words, “Sir Pathrick O’Grandison, Barronitt, 39 Southampton Row, Russell Square, Parrish o’ Bloomsbury.” And shud ye be wantin to diskiver who is the pink of purliteness quite, and the laider of the hot tun in the houl city o’London — why it’s jist meself. And faith that same is no wonder at all at all, so be plased to stop curlin your nose, for every inch o’ the six wakes that I’ve been a gintleman, and lift aff wid the bog-throthing to take up wid the Barronissy, it’s Pathrick that’s been living like a houly imperor, and gitting the iddication and the graces. Och! and would’nt it be a blessed thing for your sperrits if ye cud lay your two peepers jist, upon Sir Pathrick O’Grandison, Barronitt, when he is all riddy drissed for the hopperer, or stipping into the Brisky for the drive into the Hyde Park. But it’s the illigant big figgur that I have, for the rason o’ which all the ladies fall in love wid me. Isn’t it my own swate self now that’ll missure the six fut, and the three inches more nor that in me stockings, and that am excadingly will proportioned all over to match? And is it really more than the three fut and a bit that there is, inny how, of the little ould furrener Frinchman that lives jist over the way, and that’s a oggling and a goggling the houl day, (and bad luck to him,) at the purty widdy Misthress Tracle that’s my own nixt door neighbor, (God bliss her) and most particuller frind and acquaintance? You percave the little spalpeen is summat down in the mouth, and wears his lift hand in a sling; and it’s for that same thing, by yur lave, that I’m going to give you the good rason.

The thruth of the houl matter is jist simple enough; for the very first day that I com’d from Connaught, and showd my swate little silf in the strait to the widdy, who was looking through the windy, it was a gone case althegither wid the heart o’ the purty Misthress Tracle. I percaved it, ye see, all at once, and no mistake, and that’s God’s thruth. First of all it was up wid the windy in a jiffy, and thin she threw open her two peepers to the itmost, and thin it was a little gould spy-glass that she clapped tight to one o’ them, and divil may burn me if it didn’t spake to me as plain as a peeper cud spake, and says it, through the spy-glass — “Och! the tip o’ the mornin to ye, Sir Pathrick O’Grandison, Barronitt, mavourneen; and it’s a nate gintleman that ye are, sure enough, and it’s meself and me fortin jist that’ll be at yur sarvice, dear, inny time o’ day at all at all for the asking.” And it’s not meself ye wud have to be bate in the purliteness; so I made her a bow that wud have broken yur heart althegither to behould, and thin I pulled aff me hat with a flourish, and thin I winked at her hard wid both eyes, as much as to say — “Thrue for you, yer a swate little crature, Mrs. Tracle, me darlint, and I wish I may be drownthed dead in a bog, if it’s not meself, Sir Pathrick O’Grandison, Barronitt, that’ll make a houl bushel o’ love to yur leddy-ship, in the twinkling o’ the eye of a Londonderry purraty.”

And it was the nixt mornin, sure enough, jist as I was making up me mind whither it wouldn’t be the purlite thing to sind a bit o’ writing to the widdy by way of a love-litter, when up cum’d the delivery sarvant wid an illigant card, and he tould me that the name on it (for I niver cud rade the copper-plate printing on account of being lift handed) was all about Mounseer, the Count, A Goose, Look-aisy, Maiter-di-dauns, and that the houl o’ the divilish lingo was the spalpeeny long name of the little ould furrener Frinchman as lived over the way.

And jist wid that in cum’d the little willain himself, and thin he made me a broth of a bow, and thin he said he had ounly taken the liberty of doing me the honor, of the giving me a call, and thin he went on to palaver at a great rate, and divil the bit did I comprehind what he wud be afther the tilling me at all at all, excipting and saving that he said “pully wou, woolly wou,” and tould me, among a bushel o’ lies, bad luck to him, that he was mad for the love o’ my widdy Misthress Tracle, and that my widdy Mrs. Tracle had a puncheon for him.

At the hearin of this, ye may swear, though, I was as mad as a grasshopper, but I remimbered that I was Sir Pathrick O’Grandison, Barronitt, and that it wasn’t althegither gentaal to lit the anger git the upper hand o’ the purliteness, so I made light o’ the matter and kipt dark, and got quite sociable wid the little chap, and afther a while what did he do but ask me to go wid him to the widdy’s, saying he wud give me the feshionable introduction to her leddyship.

“Is it there ye are?” said I thin to meself — “and it’s thrue for you Pathrick that ye’re the fortunnittest mortal in life. We’ll soon see now whither it’s your swate silf, dear, or whither its it’s little Mounseer Maiter-di-dauns, that Misthress Tracle is head and ears in the love wid.”

Wid that we wint aff to the widdy’s, next door, and ye may well say it was an illigant place — so it was. There was a carpet all over the floor, and in one corner there was a forty-pinny and a jews-harp and the divil knows what ilse, and in another corner was a sofy — the beautifullest thing in all natur — and sittin on the sofy, sure enough there was the swate little angel, Misthress Tracle.

“The tip o’ the mornin to ye,” says I — “Mrs. Tracle” — and thin I made sich an illigant obaysance that it wud ha quite althegither bewildered the brain o’ ye.

“Wully woo, pully woo, plump in the mud,” says the little furrenner Frinchman — “and sure enough Mrs. Tracle,” says he, that he did — “isn’t this gintleman here jist his riverence Sir Pathrick O’Grandison, Barronitt, and isn’t he althegither and intirely the most purticular frind and acquaintance that I have in the houl world?”

And wid that the widdy, she gits up from the sofy, and makes the swatest curtchy nor iver was seen; and thin down she gits agin like an angel; and thin, by the powers, it was that little spalpeen Mounseer Maiter-di-dauns that plumped his self right down by the right side of her. Och hon! I ixpicted the two eyes o’ me wud ha cum’d out of my head on the spot, I was so dispirate mad! Howiver — “Bait who!” says I, afther a while. “Is it there ye are, Mounseer Maiter-di-dauns?” and so down I plumped on the lift side of her leddyship, to be aven wid the willain. Botheration! it wud ha done your heart good to percave the illigant double wink that I gived her jist thin right in the face wid both eyes.

But the little ould Frinchman he niver beginned to suspict me at all at all, and disperate hard it was he made the love to her leddyship. “Woully wou” says he — “Pully wou” says he — “Plump in the mud.”

“That’s all to no use, Mounseer Frog, mavourneen,” thinks I — and I talked as hard and as fast as I could all the while, and troth it was meself jist that divarted her leddyship complately and intirely, by rason of the illigant conversation that I kipt up wid her all about the swate bogs of Connaught. And by and by she giv’d me sich a swate smile, from one ind of her mouth to the other, that it made me as bould as a pig, and I jist took hould of the ind of her little finger in the most dillikittest manner in natur, looking at her all the while out o’ the whites of my eyes.

And thin ounly to percave the cuteness of the swate angel, for no sooner did she obsarve that I was afther the squazing of her flipper, thin she up wid it in a jiffy, and put it away behind her back, jist as much as to say — “Now thin, Sir Pathrick O’Grandison, there’s a bitther chance for ye, mavourneen, for it’s not althegither the gentaal thing to be afther the squazing of my flipper right full in the sight of that little furrenner Frinchman, Mounseer Maiter-di-dauns.”

Wid that I giv’d her a big wink jist to say — “lit Sir Pathrick alone for the likes o’ them thricks” — and thin I wint aisy to work, and you’d have died wid the divarsion to behould how cliverly I slipped my right arm betwane the back o’ the sofy, and the back of her leddyship, and there, sure enough, I found a swate little flipper all a waiting to say — “the tip o’ the mornin to ye, Sir Pathrick O’Grandison, Barronitt.” And wasn’t it meself, sure, that jist giv’d the laste little bit of a squaze in the world, all in the way of a commincement, and not to be too rough wid her leddyship? and och, botheration, wasn’t it the gentaalest and dillikitttest of all the little squazes that I got in return? “Blood and thunder, Sir Pathrick, mavourneen” thinks I to meself, “faith it’s jist the mother’s son of you, and nobody else at all at all, that’s the handsommest and the fortunittest young bogthrotter that ever cum’d out of Connaught!” And wid that I giv’d the flipper a big squaze — and a big squaze it was, by the powers, that her leddyship giv’d to me back. But it wud ha split the seven sides of you wid the laffin to behould, jist thin all at once, the concated behaviour of Mounseer Maiter-di-dauns. The likes o’ sich a jabbering, and a smirking, and a parly-wouing as he begin’d wid her leddyship, niver was known before upon arth; and divil may burn me if it wasn’t my own very two peepers that cotch’d him tipping her the wink out of one eye. Och hon! if it wasn’t meself thin that was as mad as a Kilkenny cat I shud like to be tould who it was!

“Let me infarm you, Mounseer Maiter-di-dauns,” said I, as purlit as iver ye seed, “that it’s not the gintaal thing at all at all, and not for the likes o’ you inny how, to be afther the oggling and a goggling at her leddyship in that fashion” — and jist wid that such another squaze as it was I giv’d her flipper, all as much as to say — “isn’t it Sir Pathrick now, my jewel, that’ll be able to the proticting o’ you, my darlint?” — and thin there cum’d another squaze back, all by way of the answer — “Thrue for you, Sir Pathrick,” it said as plain as iver a squaze said in the world — “Thrue for you, Sir Pathrick, mavourneen, and it’s a proper nate gintleman ye are — that God’s thruth” — and wid that she opened her two beautiful peepers till I belaved they wud ha com’d out of her head althegither and intirely, and she looked first as mad as a cat at Mounseer Frog, and thin as smiling as all out o’ doors at meself.

“Thin,” says he, the willian, “Och hon! and a woolly-wou, pully-wou,” and thin wid that he shoved up his two shoulders, till the divil the bit of his head was to be diskivered, and thin he let down the two corners of his purraty-trap, and thin not the bit more of the satisfaction could I git out o’ the spalpeen.

Belave me, my jewel, it was Sir Pathrick that was unrasonable mad thin, sure enough, and the more by token that he kept on wid his winking and blinking at the widdy; and the widdy she kept on wid the squazing of my flipper, as much as to say — “At him again, Sir Pathrick O’Grandison, mavourneen,” so I jist ripped out wid a big oath, and says I, sure enough —

“Ye little spalpeeny frog of a bog-throtting son of a bloody-noun!” — and jist thin what d’ye think it was that her leddyship did? Troth she jumped up from the sofy as if she was bit, and made aff through the door, while I turned my head round afther her, in a complate bewilderment and botheration, and followed her wid me two peepers. You percave I had a rason of my own for the knowing that she couldn’t git down the stairs althegither and intirely — for I knew very well that I had hould of her hand, for divil the bit had I iver lit it go. And says I —

“Isn’t it the laste little bit of a mistake in the world that ye’ve been afther the making, yer leddyship? Come back now, that’s a darlint, and I’ll give ye yur flipper.” But aff she wint down the stairs like a shot, and thin I turned round to the little Frinch furrenner. Och hon! if it wasn’t his spalpeeny little flipper that I had hould of in my own — why thin — thin it was’nt — that’s all.

Maybe it wasn’t meself that jist died thin outright wid the laffin, to behould the little chap when he found out that it wasn’t the widdy at all that he had hould of, but ounly Sir Pathrick O’Grandison. The ould divil himself niver behild such a long face as he pet on! As for Sir Pathrick O’Grandison, Barronitt, it wasn’t for the likes of his riverence to be afther the minding a thrifle of a mistake. Ye may jist say, though — for it’s God’s thruth — that afore I lift hould of the flipper of the spalpeen, (which was not till afther her leddyship’s futmen had kicked us both down the stairs,) I gived it such a nate little broth of a squaze, as made it all up into raspberry jam.

“Wouly-wou” — says he — “pully-wou” — says he — “Cot tam!”

And that’s jist the thruth of the rason why he wears his lift hand in a sling.

---

 Edgar Allan Poe

Published in 1840

A Succession of Sundays

“You hard-hearted, dunder-headed, obstinate, rusty, crusty, musty, fusty old savage!” said I, in fancy, one afternoon, to my grand uncle Rumgudgeon — shaking my fist at him in imagination.

Only in imagination. The fact is that some trivial discrepancy did exist between what I said just then and what I had not the courage to say — between what I did and what I had half a mind to do.

The old porpoise, as I opened the dining-room door, was sitting with his feet up on the mantel-piece, and a bumper of Port in his paw, making strenuous efforts to accomplish the ditty.

Remplis ton verre vide,

Vide ton verre plein.

“My dear uncle,” said I, closing the door gently, and approaching him with the blandest of smiles — “you are always so very kind and considerate, and have evinced your benevolence in so many — so very many ways — that — that I feel I have only to suggest this little point to you once more to procure your full acquiescence.”

“Hem!” said he — “good boy! — go on!”

“I am sure, my dearest uncle, (you confounded old rascal!) that you have no design really, seriously to oppose my union with Kate. This is merely a joke of yours, I know — ha! ha! ha! — how very pleasant you are at times.”

“Ha! ha! ha!” said he — “curse you! — yes!”

“Of course, I knew you were jesting. Now, uncle, all that Kate and myself wish at present, is that you would oblige us with your advice — you are so very competent to advise us, uncle — and — and — as regards the time, you know, uncle — in short when will it be most convenient for yourself, that the wedding shall — shall — come off you know?”

“Come off! you scoundrel! — what do you mean by that? Better wait till it goes on.”

“Ha! ha! ha! — he! he! he! — hi! hi! hi! — ho! ho! ho! — hu! hu! hu! — oh, that’s good! — oh, that’s capital — such a wit! But all we wish, just now you know, uncle, is that you would indicate the time precisely.”

“Ah! — precisely?”

“Yes, uncle — that is, if it would be quite agreeable to yourself.”

“Wouldn’t it answer, Bobby, if I were to leave it at random — sometime within a year or so, for example — must I say precisely?”

“If you please, uncle — precisely.”

“Well then Bobby my boy — you’re a fine fellow aren’t you? — since you will have the exact time I’ll — I’ll oblige you for once.”

“Dear uncle!”

“Hush, sir! — I’ll oblige you for once. You shall have my consent — and the plum, Bobby, we musn’t forget the plum — let me see, now, when shall it be? To-day’s Sunday — isn’t it? Well then, I have it. You shall be married precisely — precisely, now mind! when three Sundays come in succession! Do you hear me, sir? — what are you gaping at? — I say you shall have Kate (and the plum) when three Sundays come in succession — but not till then, you young scapegrace — not till then if I die for it. You know me — I’m a man of my word — now be off!” Here he swallowed his tumbler of Port, while I rushed from the room in despair.

A very “fine old English gentleman” was my grand-uncle Rumgudgeon; but, unlike him of the song, he had his weak points. He was a little, pursy, pompous, passionate, semicircular somebody, with a red nose, a thick skull, a long purse, and a strong sense of his own consequence. With the best heart in the world, he contrived to earn for himself, among those who only knew him superficially, the character of a curmudgeon, merely through a predominant whim of contradiction. Like many excellent people, he seemed possessed by a spirit of tantalization which might easily, at a casual glance, have been mistaken for malevolence. To every request a positive “No!” was his immediate answer; but in the end — in the long, long end, — there were exceedingly few requests which he refused. Against all attacks upon his purse he made the most sturdy defence; but the amount extorted from him at last, was always in exact ratio with the length of the siege and the stubbornness of the resistance. In charity, no one gave more liberally, or with worse grace.

For the fine arts, and especially for the belles lettres he entertained a profound contempt. With this he had been inspired by Casimir Perier, whose pert little query — a quoi un poete est-il bon? he was in the habit of quoting, with a very droll pronunciation, as the ne plus ultra of logical wit. Thus my own inkling for the Muses excited his entire displeasure. He assured me one day, when I had asked him for a new copy of Horace, that the meaning of “Poeta nascitur non fit” was “a nasty poet for nothing fit” — an insult which I took in very serious dudgeon. His repugnance to “the humanities” had, also, been much increased, of late, by an accidental bias in favor of what he supposed to be natural science. Somebody had accosted him in the street, mistaking him for no less a personage than Doctor Dubble L. Dee, the lecturer upon quack physics. This set him off at a tangent; and just at the epoch of this story — for story it is growing to be after all — my grand-uncle Rumgudgeon was accessible and pacific only upon points which happened to chime in with the caprioles of the hobby he was riding. For the rest — he laughed with his arms and legs, and his politics were stubborn and easily understood. He thought, with Horsley, that “the people had nothing to do with the laws but to obey them.”

I had lived with the old gentleman all my life. My parents had bequeathed me to him, as a rich legacy, in dying. I believed the old villain loved me as his own child — nearly if not quite as well as he loved Kate — but it was a dog’s existence that he led me, after all. From my first year until my fifth he obliged me with very regular floggings. From five to fifteen he threatened me hourly with the House of Correction. From fifteen to twenty not a day passed in which he did not swear a round oath that he would cut me off with a shilling. I was a sad dog, it is true; but then it was a part of my nature — a point of my faith. In Kate I had, however, a firm friend, and I knew it. She was a good girl, and told me very sweetly that I might have her (plum and all) whenever I could badger my grand-uncle Rumgudgeon into the necessary consent. Poor girl! — she was barely fifteen, and, without this consent, her little amount in the funds would not be come-at-able until five immeasurable summers had “dragged their slow lengths along.” What, then, to do? At fifteen, or even at twenty (for I had now reached my fifth lustrum) five years in prospect are very much the same as five hundred. In vain we besieged the old gentleman with importunities. Here was a piece de resistance (as Messieurs Ude and Carême would say) which suited his perverse fancy to a T. It would have stirred the indignation of Job himself to see how much like an old mouser he behaved to us two poor wretched little mice. In his heart he wished for nothing more ardently than our own union. He had made up his mind to this all along. In fact, he would have given ten thousand pounds from his own pocket (Kate’s plum was her own) if he could have discovered or invented any thing like a decent excuse for complying with our very natural wishes. But then we had been so imprudent as to broach the subject ourselves. Not to oppose it under such circumstances I sincerely believe was not in the power of my dear, good, obstinate, tantalistical, old uncle Rumgudgeon.

I have said already that he had his weak points; but in speaking of these I must not be understood as referring to his obstinacy. That was one of his strong points — “assurement ce n’etait pas sa foible.” When I mentioned his weakness I had allusion to a kind of bizarre old-womanish superstition which beset him. He was great in dreams, portents, et id genus omne of rigmarole. He was excessively punctilious, too, upon small points of honor — although sufficiently loose in regard to large ones. He was a man of his word, beyond doubt, but it was after his own fashion, to

Keep the word of promise to the ear,

But break it to the hope,

was, in fact, one of his hobbies. The spirit of his vows he made no scruple of setting at naught — but the letter of his word was a bond inviolable. Now it was this latter peculiarity in his disposition of which Kate’s ingenuity enabled us, one fine day, not long after our interview in the dining-room, to take a very unexpected advantage; and having thus, in the fashion of all modern bards and orators, exhausted, in prolegomend, all the time at my command, and nearly every inch of the space assigned me, I will sum up what constitutes the pith of the story in as concise a style as that of Tacitus or Montesquieu.

It happened then — so the Fates ordered it — that, among the naval acquaintances of my betrothed, there were two gentlemen who had just set foot on the shores of England after a year’s absence, each, in foreign travel. In company with these gentlemen, my cousin and I, preconcertedly, paid old Uncle Rumgudgeon a visit, on the afternoon of Sunday, October the 10th, — just three weeks after the memorable decision which had so cruelly defeated our hopes. For about half an hour the conversation ran upon ordinary topics — but at last we contrived, quite naturally, to give it the following turn.

Uncle. — And so, Captain Pratt, you have been absent from London a whole year — a whole year to-day, as I live. Let me see — yes — this is October the tenth.

Capt. Pratt. — A whole year to-day, sir, — precisely. You remember I called to bid you good bye. And, by the way, Mr. Rumgudgeon, it does seem something like a coincidence, does it not? — that our friend Captain Smitherton, here, has been absent exactly a year, also — a year to-day?

Capt. Smitherton. — Yes — just one year to a fraction. You will remember, Mr. Rumgudgeon, that I called with Captain Pratt on this very day last year, to pay you my parting respects.

Uncle. — Yes, yes, yes — I remember it well — very queer indeed! Both of you gone just one year. A very strange coincidence indeed. Just what Doctor Dubble L. Dee —

Kate. — To be sure, Papa, it is something strange; but then Captain Pratt and Captain Smitherton didn’t go altogether the same route, and that makes a difference, you know.

Uncle. — I don’t know any such thing; you huzzey. How should I? I think it only makes the matter more remarkable. Doctor Dubble L. Dee —

Kate. — Why, Papa, Captain Pratt went round Cape Horn, and Captain Smitherton doubled the Cape of Good Hope.

Uncle. — Precisely! — the one went East and the other went West, you jade, and they both have gone quite round the world. By the bye, Doctor Dubble L. Dee —

Myself. — (hurriedly) — Captain Pratt, you must come and spend the evening with us to-morrow — you and Captain Smitherton — you can tell us all about your voyage, and we’ll have a game of whist, and —

Captain Pratt. — Whist! my dear fellow, you forget yourself. To-morrow will be Sunday. Some other evening —

Kate. — Oh no! fie! — Bobby’s not quite so bad as that. To-day’s Sunday.

Uncle. — To be sure — to be sure!

Capt. Pratt. — I beg both your pardons — but I can’t be so much mistaken. I know to-morrow’s Sunday, because —

Capt. Smitherton ( in surprise.) — What are you all thinking about? Wasn’t yesterday Sunday, I should like to know?

All. — Yesterday indeed! you are out!

Uncle. — To-day’s Sunday I say — don’t I know?

Capt. Pratt. — Oh no! — to-morrow’s Sunday.

Capt. Smitherton. — You are all mad — every one of you — I am as positive that yesterday was Sunday as I am that I sit upon this chair.

Kate (jumping up eagerly.) — I see it — I see it all. Papa this is a judgment upon you about — about you know what. Let me alone and I’ll explain it all in a minute. It’s a very simple thing, indeed. Captain Smitherton says that yesterday was Sunday: — so it was — he is right. Cousin Bobby, and Uncle, and I, say to-day is Sunday: — so it is — we are right. Captain Pratt maintains that to-morrow will be Sunday: — so it will — he is right too. The fact is we are all right, and thus three Sundays have come together.

Smitherton. — O yes, by the bye, Pratt, Kate is quite rational. What fools we two are! Mr. Rumgudgeon, the matter stands thus. The earth, you know, is twenty-four thousand miles in circumference —

Uncle. — To be sure! — Doctor Dubble —

Smitherton. — Twenty-four thousand miles in circumference. Now this globe of the earth turns upon its own axis — revolves — spins round these twenty-four thousand miles of extent, going from West to East, in precisely twenty-four hours. Do you understand Mr. Rumgudeon?

Uncle. — To be sure — to be sure: — Doctor Dub —

Smitherton. — Well, sir — that is at the rate of one thousand miles per hour. Now I sail, from this position, a thousand miles East. I anticipate the rising of the sun, here at London, by just one hour. Proceeding in the same direction yet another thousand miles, I anticipate the rising by two hours — another thousand and I anticipate it by three hours. And so on, until I go entirely round the globe, and back to this spot, when, having gone twenty-four thousand miles East, I anticipate the rising of the London sun by no less than twenty-four hours — that is to say, I am a day in advance of your time. Captain Pratt, on the contrary, when he had sailed a thousand miles west of this position, was an hour, and when he had sailed twenty-four thousand miles West, was twenty-four hours, or a day, behind the time at London. Thus with me yesterday was Sunday — thus with you to-day is Sunday — and thus with Pratt to-morrow will be Sunday — and, what is more, Mr. Rumgudgeon, it is positively clear that we are all right; for there can be no philosophical or just reason assigned, why the idea of one should have preference over that of the other.

Uncle. — My eyes! — well, Kate — well, Bobby! — this is a judgment upon me, as you say. I always was a great old scoundrel. But I am a man of my word — mark that! You shall have her, my boy, (plum and all) when you please. Done up, by Jove! Three Sundays all in a row! I’ll go and take Dubble L. Dee’s opinion upon that.

---

Edgar Allan Poe

Published in 1841

Silence. — A Fable.

‘Ενδονσιν δ’ορεων κορνφαι τε και φαραγγες

Πρωνες τε και χαραδραι

-ALCMAN

The mountain pinnacles slumber; valleys, crags and caves are silent.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

************

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

---

Edgar Allan Poe

Originally published as “Siope — A Fable” in 1832

Image by Harry Clarke

Shadow. A Fable

Ye who read are still among the living, but I who write shall have long since gone my way into the region of shadows. For indeed strange things shall happen, and secret things be known, and many centuries shall pass away ere these memorials be seen of men. And when seen there will be some to disbelieve, and some to doubt, and yet a few who will find much to ponder upon in the characters here graven with a stylus of iron.

The year had been a year of terror, and of feelings more intense than terror for which there is no name upon the earth. For many prodigies and signs had taken place, and far and wide, over sea and land, the black wings of the Pestilence were spread abroad. To those, nevertheless, cunning in the stars, it was not unknown that the Heavens wore an aspect of ill; and to me, the Greek Oinos, among others it was evident, that now had arrived the alternation of that seven hundred and ninety-fourth year when, at the entrance of Aries, the planet Jupiter is conjoined with the red ring of the terrible Saturnus. The peculiar spirit of the skies, if I mistake not, greatly made itself manifest, not only in the physical orb of the earth, but in the souls, imaginations, and meditations of mankind.

Over some flasks of the red Chian wine, within the walls of a noble hall, in a dim city by the melancholy sea, we sat, at night, a company of seven. And to our chamber there was no entrance save by a lofty door of brass: and the door was fashioned by the artizan Corinnos, and being of rare workmanship was fastened from within. Black draperies, likewise, in the gloomy room shut out from our view the moon, the lurid stars, and the peopleless streets — but the boding and the memory of Evil, they would not be so excluded. There were things around us and about of which I can render no distinct account — things material and spiritual. Heaviness in the atmosphere — a sense of suffocation — anxiety — and above all, that terrible state of existence which the nervous experience when the senses are keenly living and awake, and meanwhile the powers of thought lie dormant. A dead weight hung upon us. It hung upon our limbs — upon the household furniture — upon the goblets from which we drank; and all things were depressed, and borne down thereby — all things save only the flames of the seven iron lamps which illumined our revel. Uprearing themselves in tall slender lines of light, they thus remained burning all pallid and motionless; and in the mirror which their lustre formed upon the round table of ebony at which we sat, each of us there assembled beheld the pallor of his own countenance, and the unquiet glare in the downcast eyes of his companions. Yet we laughed and were merry in our proper way — which was hysterical; and sang the songs of Anacreon — which are madness; and drank deeply — although the purple wine reminded us of blood. For there was yet another tenant of our chamber in the person of young Zoilus. Dead, and at full length he lay, enshrouded — the genius and the demon of the scene. Alas! he bore no portion in our mirth, save that his countenance distorted with the plague, and his eyes in which Death had but half extinguished the fire of the pestilence, seemed to take such interest in our merriment as the dead may take in the merriment of those who are to die. But although I, Oinos, felt that the eyes of the departed were upon me, still I forced myself not to perceive the bitterness of their expression, and, gazing down steadily into the depths of the ebony mirror, sang with a loud and sonorous voice the songs of the son of Teios. But gradually my songs they ceased, and their echoes rolling afar off among the sable draperies of the chamber became weak, and indistinguishable, and so fainted away. And lo! from among those sable draperies where the sounds of the song departed, there came forth a dark and undefined shadow — a shadow such as the moon when low in Heaven might fashion from the figure of a man: but it was the shadow neither of man, nor of God, nor of any familiar thing. And quivering awhile among the draperies of the room, it at length rested in full view upon the surface of the door of brass. But the shadow was vague, and formless, and indefinitive, and was the shadow neither of man nor God — neither God of Greece, nor God of Chaldæa, nor any Egyptian God. And the shadow rested upon the brazen doorway, and under the arch of the entablature of the door, and moved not, nor spoke any word, but there became stationary and remained. And the door whereupon the shadow rested was, if I remember aright, over against the feet of the young Zoilus enshrouded. But we, the seven there assembled, having seen the shadow as it came out from among the draperies, dared not steadily behold it, but cast down our eyes, and gazed continually into the depths of the mirror of ebony. And at length I, Oinos, speaking some low words, demanded of the shadow its dwelling and its appellation. And the shadow answered, “I am SHADOW, and my dwelling is near to the Catacombs of Ptolemais, and hard by those dim plains of Helusion which border upon the foul Charonian canal.” And then did we, the seven, start from our seats in horror, and stand trembling, and shuddering, and aghast: for the tones in the voice of the shadow were not the tones of any one being, but of a multitude of beings, and, varying in their cadences from syllable to syllable, fell duskily upon our ears in the well remembered and familiar accents of many thousand departed friends.

---

 Edgar Allan Poe

Published in 1835

The Purloined Letter

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Simple and odd,” said Dupin.

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

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

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

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

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

“A little too self-evident.”

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

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

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

“Proceed,” said I.

“Or not,” said Dupin.

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

“How is this known?” asked Dupin.

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

“Be a little more explicit,” I said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Its susceptibility of being produced?” said I.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Why so?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“You include the grounds about the houses?”

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

“And the roofs?”

“We surveyed every inch of the external surface, and probed carefully beneath every tile.”

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

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

“You explored the floors beneath the carpets?”

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

“And the paper on the walls?”

“Yes.”

“You looked into the cellars?”

“We did; and, as time and labour were no objects, we dug up every one of them to the depth of four feet.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“How? — in what way?’

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

“No; hang Abernethy!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I dispute the availability, and thus the value, of that reason which is cultivated in any especial form other than the abstractly logical. I dispute, in particular, the reason educed by mathematical study. The mathematics are the science of form and quantity; mathematical reasoning is merely logic applied to observation upon form and quantity. The great error lies in supposing that even the truths of what is called pure algebra, are abstract or general truths. And this error is so egregious that I am confounded at the universality with which it has been received. Mathematical axioms are not axioms of general truth. What is true of relation — of form and quantity — is often grossly false in regard to morals, for example. In this latter science it is very usually untrue that the aggregated parts are equal to the whole. In chemistry also the axiom fails. In the consideration of motive it fails; for two motives, each of a given value, have not, necessarily, a value when united, equal to the sum of their values apart. There are numerous other mathematical truths which are only truths within the limits of relation. But the mathematician argues, from his finite truths, through habit, as if they were of an absolutely general applicability — as the world indeed imagines them to be. Bryant, in his very learned ‘Mythology,’ mentions an analogous source of error, when he says that ‘although the Pagan fables are not believed, yet we forget ourselves continually, and make inferences from them as existing realities.’ With the algebraist, however, who are Pagans themselves, the ‘Pagan fables’ are believed, and the inferences are made, not so much through lapse of memory, as through an unaccountable addling of the brains. In short, I never yet encountered the mere mathematician who could be trusted out of equal roots, or one who did not clandestinely hold it as a point of his faith that x ² +px was absolutely and unconditionally equal to q. Say to one of these gentlemen, by way of experiment, if you please, that you believe occasions may occur where x ² +px is not altogether equal to q, and, having made him understand what you mean, get out of his reach as speedily as convenient, for, beyond doubt, he will endeavor to knock you down.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

---

Edgar Allan Poe

Published in 1844

Image by Fritz Eichenberg

How to write a Blackwood Article

“In the name of the Prophet — figs!!”

Cry of the Turkish fig-pedler

I presume every body has heard of me. My name is the Signora Psyche Zenobia. This I know to be a fact. Nobody but my enemies ever calls me Suky Snobbs. I have been assured that Suky is but a vulgar corruption of Psyche, which is good Greek, and means “the soul” (that’s me, I’m all soul) and sometimes “a butterfly,” which latter meaning alludes to my appearance in my new crimson satin dress, with the sky-blue Arabian mantelet, and the trimmings of green agraffas, and the seven flounces of orange-colored auriculas. As for Snobbs — any person who should look at me would be instantly aware that my name was’nt Snobbs. Miss Tabitha Turnip propagated that report through sheer envy. Tabitha Turnip indeed! Oh the little wretch! But what can we expect from a turnip? Wonder if she remembers the old adage about “blood out of a turnip, &c.” [Mem: put her in mind of it the first opportunity.] [Mem: again — pull her nose.] Where was I? Ah! I have been assured that Snobbs is a mere corruption of Zenobia, and that Zenobia was a queen (So am I. Dr. Moneypenny, always calls me the Queen of Hearts) and that Zenobia, as well as Psyche, is good Greek, and that my father was “a Greek,” and that consequently I have a right to our original patronymic, which is Zenobia, and not by any means Snobbs. Nobody but Tabitha Turnip calls me Suky Snobbs. I am the Signora Psyche Zenobia.

As I said before, every body has heard of me. I am that very Signora Psyche Zenobia, so justly celebrated as corresponding secretary to the “Philadelphia, Regular-Exchange, Tea-Total, Young, Belles-Lettres, Universal, Experimental, Bibliographical Association to Civilize Humanity.” Dr. Moneypenny made the title for us, and says he chose it because it sounded big like an empty rum-puncheon. (A vulgar man that sometimes — but he’s deep.) We all sign the initials of the society after our names, in the fashion of the R.S.A., Royal Society of Arts — the S.D.U.K., Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, &c., &c. Dr. Moneypenny says that S stands for stale, and that D. U. K. spells duck, (but it don’t,) and that S.D.U.K. stands for Stale Duck, and not for Lord Brougham’s society — but then Dr. Moneypenny is such a queer man that I am never sure when he is telling me the truth. At any rate we always add to our names the initials P.R.E.T.T.Y.B.L.U.E.B.A.T.C.H. — that is to say, Philadelphia, Regular, Exchange, Tea, Total, Young, Belles, Lettres, Universal, Experimental, Bibliographical, Association, To, Civilize, Humanity — one letter for each word, which is a decided improvement upon Lord Brougham. Dr. Moneypenny will have it that our initials give our true character — but for my life I can’t see what he means.

Notwithstanding the good offices of the Doctor, and the strenuous exertions of the association to get itself into notice, it met with no very great success until I joined it. The truth is, members indulged in too flippant a tone of discussion. The papers read every Saturday evening were characterized less by depth than buffoonery. They were all whipped syllabub. There was no investigation of first causes, first principles. There was no investigation of anything at all. There was no attention paid to that great point the “fitness of things.” In short, there was no fine writing like this. It was all low — very! No profundity, no reading, no metaphysics — nothing which the learned call spirituality, and which the unlearned choose to stigmatise as cant. [Dr. M. says I ought to spell “cant” with a capital K — but I know better.]

When I joined the society it was my endeavor to introduce a better style of thinking and writing, and all the world knows how well I have succeeded. We get up as good papers now in the P.R.E.T.T.Y.B.L.U.E.B.A.T.C.H. as any to be found even in Blackwood. I say, Blackwood, because I have been assured that the finest writing upon every subject, is to be discovered in the pages of that justly celebrated Magazine. We now take it for our model upon all themes, and are getting into rapid notice accordingly. And, after all, it’s not so very difficult a matter to compose an article of the genuine Blackwood stamp, if one only goes properly about it. Of course I don’t speak of the political articles. Every body knows how they are managed, since Dr. Moneypenny explained it. Mr. Blackwood has a pair of tailor’s shears, and three apprentices who stand by him for orders. One hands him the “Times,” another the “Examiner,” and a third a “Gulley’s New Compendium of Slang-Whang.” Mr. B. merely cuts out and intersperses. It is soon done — nothing but Examiner, Slang-Whang, and Times — then Times, Slang-Whang, and Examiner — and then Times, Examiner, and Slang-Whang.

But the chief merit of the Magazine lies in its miscellaneous articles; and the best of these come under the head of what Dr. Moneypenny calls the bizarreries (whatever that may mean) and what every body else calls the intensities. This is a species of writing which I have long known how to appreciate, although it is only since my late visit to Mr. Blackwood (deputed by the society) that I have been made aware of the exact method of composition. This method is very simple, but not so much so as the politics. Upon my calling at Mr. B.’s, and making known to him the wishes of the society, he received me with great civility, took me into his study, and gave me a clear explanation of the whole process.

“My dear madam,” said he, evidently struck with my majestic appearance, for I had on the crimson satin, with the green agraffas, and orange-colored auriculas — “My dear madam,” said he, “sit down. The matter stands thus. In the first place, your writer of intensities must have very black ink, and a very big pen, with a very blunt nib. And, mark me, Miss Psyche Zenobia!” he continued, after a pause, with the most impressive energy and solemnity of manner, “mark me! — that pen — must — never be mended! Herein, madam, lies the secret, the soul, of intensity. I assume it upon myself to say, that no individual, of however great genius, ever wrote with a good pen — understand me — a good article. You may take it for granted, madam, that when a manuscript can be read it is never worth reading. This is a leading principle in our faith, to which if you cannot readily assent, our conference is at an end.”

He paused. But, of course, as I had no wish to put an end to the conference, I assented to a proposition so very obvious, and one, too, of whose truth I had all along been sufficiently aware. He seemed pleased, and went on with his instructions.

“It may appear invidious in me, Miss Psyche Zenobia, to refer you to any article, or set of articles, in the way of model or study; yet perhaps I may as well call your attention to a few cases. Let me see. There was ‘The Dead Alive,’ a capital thing! — the record of a gentleman’s sensations when entombed before the breath was out of his body — full of tact, taste, terror, sentiment, metaphysics, and erudition. You would have sworn that the writer had been born and brought up in a coffin. Then we had the ‘Confessions of an Opium-eater’ — fine, very fine! — glorious imagination — deep philosophy — acute speculation — plenty of fire and fury, and a good spicing of the decidedly unintelligible. That was a nice bit of flummery, and went down the throats of the people delightfully. They would have it that Coleridge wrote the paper — but not so. It was composed by my pet baboon, Juniper, over a rummer of Hollands and water, hot, without sugar. [This I could scarcely have believed had it been any body but Mr. Blackwood, who assured me of it.] Then there was ‘The Involuntary Experimentalist,’ all about a gentleman who got baked in an oven, and came out alive and well, although certainly done to a turn. And then there was ‘The Diary of a Late Physician,’ where the merit lay in good rant, and indifferent Greek — both of them taking things, with the public. And then there was ‘The Man in the Bell,’ a paper by-the-bye, Miss Zenobia, which I cannot sufficiently recommend to your attention. It is the history of a young person who goes to sleep under the clapper of a church bell, and is awakened by its tolling for a funeral. The sound drives him mad, and, accordingly, pulling out his tablets, he gives a record of his sensations. Sensations are the great things after all. Should you ever be drowned or hung, be sure and make a note of your sensations — they will be worth to you ten guineas a sheet. If you wish to write forcibly, Miss Zenobia, pay minute attention to the sensations.”

“That I certainly will, Mr. Blackwood,” said I.

“Good!” he replied. “I see you are a pupil after my own heart. But I must put you au fait to the details necessary in composing what may be denominated a genuine Blackwood article of the sensation stamp — the kind which you will understand me to say I consider the best for all purposes.

“The first thing requisite is to get yourself into such a scrape as no one ever got into before. The oven, for instance — that was a good hit. But if you have no oven, or big bell, at hand, and if you cannot conveniently tumble out of a balloon, or be swallowed up in an earthquake, or get stuck fast in a chimney, you will have to be contented with simply imagining some similar misadventure. I should prefer, however, that you have the actual fact to bear you out. Nothing so well assists the fancy, as an experimental knowledge of the matter in hand. ‘Truth is strange,’ you know, ‘stranger than fiction’ — besides being more to the purpose.”

Here I assured him I had an excellent pair of garters, and would go and hang myself forthwith.

“Good!” he replied, “do so — although hanging is somewhat hacknied. Perhaps you might do better. Take a dose of Brandreth’s pills, and then give us your sensations. However, my instructions will apply equally well to any variety of misadventure, and in your way home you may easily get knocked in the head, or run over by an omnibus, or bitten by a mad dog, or drowned in a gutter. But, to proceed.

“Having determined upon your subject, you must next consider the tone, or manner, of your narration. There is the tone didactic, the tone enthusiastic, the tone sentimental, and the tone natural — all common-place enough. But then there is the tone laconic, or curt, which has lately come much into use. It consists in short sentences. Somehow thus. Can’t be too brief. Can’t be too snappish. Always a full stop. And never a paragraph.

“Then there is the tone elevated, diffusive, and interjectional. Some of our best novelists patronize this tone. The words must be all in a whirl, like a humming-top, and make a noise very similar, which answers remarkably well instead of meaning. This is the best of all possible styles where the writer is in too great a hurry to think.

“The tone mystic is also a good one — but requires some skill in the handling. The beauty of this lies in a knowledge of innuendo. Hint all, and assert nothing. If you desire to say ‘bread and butter,’ do not by any means say it outright. You may say anything and everything approaching to ‘bread and butter.’ You may hint at ‘buckwheat cake,’ or you may even go as far as to insinuate ‘oatmeal porridge,’ but, if ‘bread and butter’ is your real meaning, be cautious, my dear Miss Psyche, not on any account to say ‘bread and butter.’

I assured him that I would never say it again as long as I lived. He continued:

“There are various other tones of equal celebrity, but I shall only mention two more, the tone metaphysical, and the tone heterogeneous. In the former, the merit consists in seeing into the nature of affairs a very great deal farther than any body else. This second sight is very efficient when properly managed. A little reading of Coleridge’s Table-Talk will carry you a great way. If you know any big words this is your chance for them. Talk of the Ionic and Eleatic Schools — of Archytas, Gorgias and Alemæon. Say something about objects and subjects. Be sure and abuse a man called Locke. Turn up your nose at things in general; and when you let slip anything very unconsionably absurd, you need not be at the trouble of scratching it out, but just put in a foot-note and say you are indebted for the above profound observation to the ‘Kritik der reinen Vermunft’ or to the ‘Metaphysische Anfangsgrunde der Naturwissenschaft’. This will look erudite and at the same time frank. As for the tone heterogeneous, it is merely a judicious mixture, in equal proportions, of all the other tones in the world, and is consequently made up of everything deep, great, odd, piquant, pertinent, and pretty.

“Let us suppose now you have determined upon your incidents and tone. The most important portion, in fact the soul of the whole business, is yet to be attended to; — I allude to the filling up. It is not to be supposed that a lady or gentleman either has been leading the life of a bookworm. And yet above all things is it necessary that your article have an air of erudition, or at least afford evidence of extensive general reading. Now I’ll put you in the way of accomplishing this point. See here! (pulling down some three or four ordinary looking volumes, and opening them at random.) By casting your eye down almost any page of any book in the world, you will be able to perceive at once a host of little scraps of either learning or bel-esprit-ism which are the very thing for the spicing of a Blackwood article. You might as well note down a few while I read them to you. I shall make two divisions: first, Piquant Facts for the Manufacture of Similes; and second, Piquant Expressions to be introduced as occasion may require. Write now! —” and I wrote as he dictated.

“PIQUANT FACTS FOR SIMILES. ‘There were originally but three muses — Melete, Mneme, and Aœde — meditation, memory, and singing.’ You may make a great deal of that little fact if properly worked. You see it is not generally known, and looks recherché. You must be careful and give the thing with a downright improviso air.

“Again. ‘The river Alpheus passed beneath the sea, and emerged without injury to the purity of its waters.’ Rather stale that, to be sure, but, if properly dressed and dished up, will look quite as fresh as ever.

“Here is something better. ‘The Persian Iris appears to some persons to possess a sweet and very powerful perfume, while to others it is perfectly scentless.’ Fine that, and very delicate! Turn it about a little, and it will do wonders. We’ll have something else in the botanical line. There’s nothing goes down so well, especially with the help of a little Latin. Write!

“ ‘The Epidendrum Flos Aeris, of Java, bears a very beautiful flower, and will live when pulled up by the roots. The natives suspend it by a cord from the ceiling, and enjoy its fragrance for years.’ That’s capital! That will do for the similes. Now for the piquant expressions.

“PIQUANT EXPRESSIONS. ‘The venerable Chinese novel Ju-Kiao-Li.’ Good! By introducing these few words with dexterity you will evince your intimate acquaintance with the language and literature of the Chinese. With the aid of this you may possibly get along without either Arabic, or Sanscrit, or Chickasaw. There is no passing muster, however, without French, Spanish, Italian, German, Latin, and Greek. I must look you out a little specimen of each. Any scrap will answer, because you must depend upon your own ingenuity to make it fit into your article. Now write!

“ ‘Aussi tendre que Zaire’ — as tender as Zaire — French. Alludes to the frequent repetition of the phrase, la tendre Zaire, in the French tragedy of that name. Properly introduced, will show not only your knowledge of the language, but your general reading and wit. You can say, for instance, that the chicken you were eating (write an article about being choked to death by a chicken-bone) was not altogether aussi tendre que Zaire. Write!

‘Ven muerte tan escondida,

Que no te sienta venir,

Porque el plazer del morir

No me torne a dar la vida.’

That’s Spanish — from Miguel de Cervantes. ‘Come quickly O death! but be sure and don’t let me see you coming, lest the pleasure I shall feel at your appearance should unfortunately bring me back again to life.’ This you may slip in quite à propos when you are struggling in the last agonies with the chicken-bone. Write!

‘I’l pover ‘huomo che non s’en era accorto,

Andava combattendo, e era morto.’

That’s Italian, you perceive — from Ariosto. It means that a great hero, in the heat of combat, not perceiving that he had been fairly killed, continued to fight valiantly, dead as he was. The application of this to your own case is obvious — for I trust, Miss Psyche, that you will not neglect to kick for at least an hour and a half after you have been choked to death by that chicken-bone. Please to write!

‘Und sterb’ich doch, so sterb’ich denn

Durch sie — durch sie!’

That’s German — from Schiller. ‘And if I die, at least I die — for thee — for thee!’ Here it is clear that you are apostrophising the cause of your disaster, the chicken. Indeed what gentleman (or lady either) of sense, would’nt die, I should like to know, for a well fattened capon of the right Molucca breed, stuffed with capers and mushrooms, and served up in a salad-bowl, with orange-jellies en mosäiques. Write! (You can get them that way at Tortoni’s,) write, if you please!

“Here is a nice little Latin phrase, and rare too, (one can’t be too recherché or brief in one’s Latin, it’s getting so common.) Ignoratio elenchi. He has committed an ignoratio elenchi — that is to say, he has understood the words of your proposition, but not the ideas. The man was a fool, you see. Some poor fellow whom you addressed while choking with that chicken-bone, and who therefore did’nt precisely understand what you were talking about. Throw the ignoratio elenchi in his teeth, and, at once, you have him annihilated. If he dares to reply, you can tell him from Lucan (here it is) that his speeches are mere anemonae verborum, anemone words. The anemone, with great brilliancy, has no smell. Or, if he begins to bluster, you may be down upon him with insomnia Jovis, reveries of Jupiter — a phrase which Silius Italicus (see here!) applies to thoughts pompous and inflated. This will be sure and cut him to the heart. He can do nothing but roll over and die. Will you be kind enough to write.

“In Greek we must have something pretty from — Demosthenes, for example. Ανηρ ο φευγων χαι παλιν μαχησεται. [Aner o pheogon kai palin makesetai.] There is a tolerably good translation of it in Hudibras —

For he that flies may fight again,

Which he can never do that’s slain.

In a Blackwood article nothing makes so fine a show as your Greek. The very letters have an air of profundity about them. Only observe, madam, the acute look of that Epsilon! That Phi ought certainly to be a bishop! Was ever there a smarter fellow than that Omicron? Just twig that Tau! In short, there’s nothing like Greek for a genuine sensation-paper. In the present case your application is the most obvious thing in the world. Rap out the sentence, with a huge oath, and by way of ultimatum, at the good-for-nothing dunder-headed villain who couldn’t understand your plain English in relation to the chicken-bone. He’ll take the hint and be off, you may depend upon it.”

These were all the instructions Mr. B. could afford me upon the topic in question, but I felt they would be entirely sufficient. I was, at length, able to write a genuine Blackwood article, and determined to do it forthwith. In taking leave of me, Mr. B. made a proposition for the purchase of the paper when written; but, as he could only offer me fifty guineas a sheet, I thought it better to let our society have it, than sacrifice it for so paltry a sum. Notwithstanding this niggardly spirit, however, the gentleman showed his consideration for me in all other respects, and indeed treated me with the greatest civility. His parting words made a deep impression upon my heart, and I hope I shall always remember them with gratitude.

“My dear Miss Zenobia,” he said, while tears stood in his eyes, “is there any thing else I can do to promote the success of your laudable undertaking? Let me reflect! It is just possible that you may not be able, as soon as convenient, to — to — get yourself drowned, or — choked with a chicken-bone, or— or hung, — or — bitten by a — but stay! Now I think me of it, there are a couple of very excellent bull-dogs in the yard — fine fellows, I assure you — savage, and all that — indeed just the thing for your money — they’ll have you eaten up, auriculas and all, in less than five minutes (here’s my watch!) — and then only think of the sensations! Here! I say — Tom! — Peter! — Dick, you villain! — let out those” — but as I was really in a great hurry, and had not another moment to spare, I was reluctantly forced to expedite my departure, and accordingly took leave at once — somewhat more abruptly, I admit, than strict courtesy would have, otherwise, allowed.

It was my primary object, upon quitting Mr. Blackwood, to get into some immediate difficulty, pursuant to his advice, and with this view I spent a greater part of the day in wandering about Edinburgh, seeking for desperate adventures — adventures adequate to the intensity of my feelings, and adapted to the vast character of the article I intended to write. In this excursion I was attended by my negro-servant Pompey, and my little lap-dog Diana, whom I had brought with me from Philadelphia. It was not, however, until late in the afternoon that I fully succeeded in my arduous undertaking. An important event then happened, of which the following Blackwood article, in the tone heterogeneous, is the substance and result.

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Edgar Allan Poe

Originally Published as “The Psyche Zenobia” alongside “The Scythe of Time” in 1838