indiscretion, suffered his heart to be torn and pierced by various cruel
young ladies, was somewhat afflicted with the _cacöethes scribendi_—a
disease inseparable, I believe, from blighted affection. In person he
was large, rawboned—perhaps a little unwieldy; but these
characteristics were made up for by a countenance unusually
prepossessing. Mr. Martagon was withal a wag among the ladies, and his
wit was really quite pungent and original.
Mr. Pratt was of a different cast. Being closely related to the Miss
Melvilles, there was an obvious resemblance, in features and mind,
between him and those young ladies. A handsome person, a countenance
mild but decisive, and a highly intelligent mind, stored with much
useful knowledge, formed some of those recommendations which endeared
him to the one sex and caused him to be admired and esteemed by the
other.
Having now, assisted by the courtesy of the reader, delineated
imperfectly the chief objects of my little scene, I shall take a short
respite, leaving behind me the assurance that, in my second book, much
rare and amusing matter may be expected.
* * * * *
TO HELEN.
BY EDGAR A. POE.
Helen, thy beauty is to me
Like those Nicéan barks of yore
That gently, o’er a perfumed sea,
The weary, wayworn wanderer bore
To his own native shore.
On desperate seas long wont to roam,
Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,
Thy Naiad airs, have brought me home
To the glory that was Greece—
To the grandeur that was Rome.
Lo! in that shadowy window-niche
How statue-like I see thee stand,
The folded scroll within thy hand—
Ah! Psyche, from the regions which
Are Holy-Land!
* * * * *
NEVER BET YOUR HEAD.
A MORAL TALE.
BY EDGAR A. POE.
“_Con tal que las costumbres de un autor_,” says Don Tomas De Las
Torres, in the Preface to his Amatory Poems, “_sean puras y castas,
importo muy poco que no sean igualmente severas sus obras_”—meaning, in
plain English, that, provided the morals of an author are pure,
personally, it signifies nothing what are the morals of his books. We
presume that Don Torres is now in Purgatory for so heterodox an
assertion. It would be a clever thing, too, in the way of poetical
justice, to keep him there until his “Amatory Poems” get out of print,
or are laid definitively upon the shelf through lack of readers. Every
fiction _should have_ its moral; and, what is more to the purpose, our
modern critics have discovered that every fiction _has_. These ingenious
fellows demonstrate a hidden meaning in the “Antediluvians,” a parable
in “Powhatan,” new views in “Cock Robin,” and transcendentalism in “Hop
O’ My Thumb.” It has been proved that no man can sit down to write
without a very profound design. Thus to authors in general much trouble
is spared. A novelist, for example, need have no care of his moral. It
is there—that is to say it is somewhere—and the moral and the critics
can take care of themselves. When the proper time arrives, all that the
gentleman intended, and all that he did not intend, will be brought to
light, in the “Dial,” or the “Down-Easter,” together with all that he
ought to have intended, and the rest that he clearly meant to
intend:—so that it will all come very straight in the end.
There is no just ground, therefore, for the charge brought against me by
certain ignoramuses—that I have never written a moral tale, or, in more
precise words, a tale with a moral. They are not the critics predestined
to bring me out, and _develop_ my morals:—that is the secret. By and
bye the “North American Quarterly Humdrum” will make them ashamed of
their stupidity. In the meantime, by way of staying execution, by way of
mitigating the accusations against me, I offer the sad history
appended—a history about whose obvious moral there can be no question
whatever, since he who runs may read it in the large capitals which form
the title of the tale. I should have credit for this arrangement—a far
wiser one than that of La Fontaine and others, who reserve the
impression to be conveyed until the last moment, and thus sneak it in at
the fag end of their fables.
_De mortuis nil nisi bonum_ is an excellent injunction—even if the dead
in question be nothing but dead small beer. It is not my design,
therefore, to vituperate my deceased friend, Toby Dammit. He was a sad
dog, it is true, and a dog’s death it was that he died; but he himself
was not to blame for his vices. They grew out of a personal defect in
his mother. She did her best in the way of flogging him while an
infant—for duties to her well-regulated mind were always pleasures, and
babies, like tough steaks, are invariably the better for beating—but,
poor woman! she had the misfortune to be left-handed, and a child
flogged left-handedly had better be left unflogged. The world revolves
from right to left. It will not do to whip a baby from left to right. If
each blow in the proper direction drives an evil propensity out, it
follows that every thump in an opposite one knocks its quota of
wickedness in. I was often present at Toby’s chastisements, and, even by
the way in which he kicked, I could perceive he was getting worse and
worse every day. At last I saw, through the tears in my eyes, that there
was no hope of the villain at all, and one day when he had been cuffed
until he grew so black in the face that one might have mistaken him for
a little African, and no effect had been produced beyond that of making
him wriggle himself into a fit, I could stand it no longer, but went
down upon my knees forthwith, and, uplifting my voice, made prophecy of
his ruin.
The fact is that his precocity in vice was awful. At five months of age
he used to get into such passions that he was unable to articulate. At
six I caught him gnawing a pack of cards. At seven he was in the
constant habit of catching and kissing the female babies. At eight he
peremptorily refused to put his signature to the Temperance pledge. Thus
he went on increasing in iniquity, month after month, until, at the
close of his first year, he not only insisted upon wearing Melnotte
frocks, but had contracted a propensity for cursing and swearing, and
for backing his assertions by bets.
Through this latter most ungentlemanly practice, the ruin which I had
predicted to Toby Dammit overtook him at last. The fashion had “grown
with his growth and strengthened with his strength,” so that when he
came to be a man he could scarcely utter a sentence without interlarding
it with a proposition to gamble. Not that he actually _laid_ wagers—no.
I will do my friend the justice to say that he would as soon have laid
eggs. With him the thing was a mere formula—nothing more. His
expressions on this head had no meaning attached to them whatever. They
were simple, if not altogether innocent expletives—imaginative phrases
wherewith to round off a sentence. When he said “I’ll bet you so and
so,” nobody ever thought of taking him up; but still I could not help
thinking it my duty to put him down. The habit was an immoral one, and
so I told him. It was a vulgar one—this I begged him to believe. It was
discountenanced by society—here I said nothing but the truth. It was
forbidden by act of Congress—here I had not the slightest intention of
telling a lie. I remonstrated—but to no purpose. I demonstrated—but in
vain. I entreated—he smiled. I implored—he laughed. I preached—he
sneered. I threatened—he swore. I kicked him, and he called for the
police. I pulled his nose, and he bet me that I dared not do it again.
Poverty was another vice which the peculiar physical deficiency of
Dammit’s mother had entailed upon her son. He was detestably poor; and
this was the reason, no doubt, that his expletive expressions about
betting seldom took a pecuniary turn. I will not be bound to say that I
ever heard him make use of such figures of speech as “I’ll bet you a
dollar.” It was usually “I’ll bet you what you please,” or “I’ll bet you
what you dare,” or “I’ll bet you a trifle,” or else, more significantly
still, “_I’ll bet you my head_.”
This latter form seemed to please him the best:—perhaps because it
involved less risk; for Dammit had become excessively parsimonious. Had
any one taken him up, his head was small, and thus his loss would be
small too. But these are my own reflections, and I am by no means sure
that I am right in attributing them to him. At all events, the phrase in
question grew daily in favor, notwithstanding the gross impropriety of a
man’s betting his brains like bank-notes:—but this was a point which my
friend’s perversity of disposition would not permit him to comprehend.
In the end, he abandoned all other forms of wager, and gave himself up
to “_I’ll bet you my head_,” with a pertinacity and exclusiveness of
devotion that displeased not less than it surprised me. I am always
displeased by circumstances for which I cannot account. Mysteries force
a man to think, and so injure his health. The truth is, there was
something in _the air_ with which Mr. Dammit was wont to give utterance
to his offensive expression—something in his _manner_ of
enunciation—which at first interested, and afterwards made me very
uneasy—something which, for want of a more definite term at present, I
must be permitted to call _queer_; but which Mr. Coleridge would have
called mystical, Mr. Kant pantheistical, Mr. Carlisle twistical, and Mr.
Emerson hyper-fizzitistical. I began not to like it at all. Mr. Dammit’s
soul was in a perilous state. I resolved to bring all my eloquence into
play to save it. I vowed to serve him as Saint Patrick, in the Irish
chronicle, is said to have served the snakes and toads when he “awakened
them to a sense of their situation.” I addressed myself to the task
forthwith. Once more I betook myself to remonstrance. Again I collected
my energies for a final attempt at expostulation.
When I had made an end of my lecture Mr. Dammit indulged himself in some
very equivocal behavior. For some moments he remained silent, merely
looking me inquisitively in the face. But presently he threw his head to
one side, and elevated his eyebrows to great extent. Then he spread out
the palms of his hands and shrugged up his shoulders. Then he winked
with the right eye. Then he repeated the operation with his left. Then
he shut them both up very tight, as if he was trying to crack nuts
between the lids. Then he opened them both so very wide that I became
seriously alarmed for the consequences. Then, applying his thumb to his
nose, he thought proper to make an indescribable movement with the rest
of his fingers. Finally, setting his arms a-kimbo, he condescended to
reply.
I can call to mind only the heads of his discourse. He would be obliged
to me if I would keep my opinions within my own bosom. He wished none of
my advice. He despised all my insinuations. He was old enough to take
care of himself. Did I mean to say anything against his character? Did I
intend to insult him? Did I take him for an idiot? Did I still think him
baby Dammit? Was I a fool?—or was I not? Was I mad?—or was I drunk?
Was my maternal parent aware, in a word, of my absence from the
domiciliary residence? He would put this latter question to me as to a
man of veracity, and he would bind himself to abide by my reply. Once
more he would demand explicitly if my mother knew that I was out. My
confusion, he said, betrayed me, and he would be willing to bet his head
that she did not.
Mr. Dammit did not pause for my rejoinder. Turning upon his heel, he
left my presence with undignified precipitation. It was well for him
that he did so. My feelings had been wounded. Even my anger had been
aroused. For once I would have taken him up upon his insulting wager. I
would have won his little head. My maternal parent was _very_ well aware
of my temporary absence from home.
_Khoda shefa midêhed_—Heaven gives relief—as the Musselmen say when
you tread upon their toes. It was in pursuance of my duty that I had
been insulted, and I bore the insult like a man. It now seemed to me,
however, that I had done all that could be required of me, in the case
of this miserable individual, and I resolved to trouble him no longer
with my counsel, but to leave him to his conscience and to himself. But
although I forbore to intrude with my advice, I could not bring myself
to give up his society altogether. I even went so far as to humor some
of his less reprehensible propensities, and there were times when I
found myself lauding his wicked jokes, as epicures do mustard, with
tears in my eyes:—so profoundly did it grieve me to hear his evil talk.
One fine day, having strolled out together arm in arm, our route led us
in the direction of a river. There was a bridge, and we resolved to
cross it. It was roofed over, by way of protection from the weather, and
the arch-way, having but few windows, was thus very uncomfortably dark.
As we entered the passage, the contrast between the external glare, and
the interior gloom, struck heavily upon my spirits. Not so upon those of
the unhappy Dammit, who offered to bet me his head that I was hipped. He
seemed to be in an extravagantly good humor. He was excessively
lively—so much so that I entertained I know not what of uneasy
suspicion. It is not impossible that he was affected with the
transcendentals. I am not well enough versed, however, in the diagnosis
of this disease to speak with decision upon the point; and unhappily
there were none of my friends of “The Dial” present. I suggest the idea,
nevertheless, because of a certain austere species of Merry-Andrewism
which seemed to beset my poor friend, and caused him to make quite a
Tom-Fool of himself. Nothing would serve him but wriggling and skipping
about under and over everything that came in his way, now shouting out,
and now lisping out, all manner of odd little and big words, yet
preserving the gravest face in the world all the time. I really could
not make up my mind whether to kick or to pity him. At length, having
passed nearly across the bridge, we approached the termination of the
foot-way, when our progress was impeded by a turnstile of some height.
Through this I made my way quietly, pushing it around as is usual. But
this turn would not serve the turn of Mr. Dammit. He insisted upon
leaping the stile, and said he could cut a pigeon-wing over it while in
the air. Now this, conscientiously speaking, I did not think he could
do. The best pigeon-winger over all kinds of style, was my friend Mr.
Carlyle, and as I knew he could not do it, I would not believe it could
be done by Toby Dammit. I therefore told him, in so many words, that he
was a braggadocio, and could not do what he said. For this I had reason
to be sorry afterwards—for he straightway _bet me his head_ that he
could.
I was about to reply, notwithstanding my previous resolutions, with some
remonstrance against his impiety, when I heard, close at my elbow, a
slight cough, which sounded very much like the ejaculation “_ahem!_” I
started, and looked about me in surprise. My glance at length fell into
a nook of the frame-work of the bridge, and upon the figure of a little
lame old gentleman of venerable aspect. Nothing could be more reverend
than his whole appearance; for, he not only had on a full suit of black,
but his shirt was perfectly clean and the collar turned neatly down over
a white cravat, while his hair was parted in front like a girl’s, his
hands were clasped pensively together over his stomach, and his two eyes
carefully rolled up into the top of his head.
Upon observing him more closely, I perceived that he wore a black silk
apron over his small-clothes; and this was a thing which I thought very
odd. Before I had time to make any remark, however, upon so singular a
circumstance, he interrupted me with a second “_ahem!_”
To this observation of his I was not immediately prepared to reply. The
fact is, remarks of this nature are nearly unanswerable. I have known a
profound Quarterly Review stumped by the word “_Fudge!_” I am not
ashamed to say that I turned to Mr. Dammit for assistance.
“Dammit,” said I, “what are you about! don’t you hear?—the gentleman
says ‘_ahem!_’” I looked sternly at my friend while I thus addressed
him; for, to say the truth, I felt particularly puzzled, and when a man
is puzzled, he must knit his brows and look savage, or else he is pretty
sure to look like a fool.
“Dammit,” observed I—although this sounded very much like an oath, than
which nothing was farther from my thoughts—“Dammit,” I suggested—“the
gentleman says ‘_ahem!_’” I do not attempt to defend my remark on the
score of profundity; I did not think it profound myself; but I have
noticed that the effect of our speeches is not always proportionate with
their importance in our own eyes; and if I had shot Mr. D. through and
through with a Paixhan bomb, or knocked him in the head with one of
Doctor McHenry’s epics, he could hardly have been more discomfited than
when I addressed him with those simple words—“Dammit, what are you
about?—don’t you hear?—the gentleman says ‘_ahem!_’”
“You don’t say so?” gasped he at length, after turning more colors than
a pirate runs up one after the other when chased by a man-of-war. “Are
you quite sure that he said _that_? Well, at all events I am in for it
now, and may as well put a bold face upon the matter. Here goes,
then—_ahem!_”
At this the little old gentleman seemed pleased—God only knows why. He
left his station in the nook of the bridge, limped forward with a
gracious air, took Dammit by the hand and shook it cordially, looking
all the while straight up in his face with a countenance of the most
unadulterated benignity which it is possible for the mind of man to
imagine.
“I am quite sure you’ll win it, Dammit,” said he with the frankest of
all smiles, “but we are obliged to have a trial, you know, for the sake
of mere form.”
“Ahem!” replied my friend, taking off his coat with a deep sigh, tying a
pocket-handkerchief around his waist, and producing an unaccountable
alteration in his countenance by twisting up his eyes, and bringing down
the corners of his mouth—“ahem!” And “ahem,” said he again, after a
pause; and devil the word more than “ahem!” did I ever know him to say
after that. “Aha!” thought I, without expressing myself aloud—“This is
quite a remarkable silence on the part of my friend, Toby Dammit, and is
no doubt a consequence of his great verbosity upon a previous occasion.
One extreme induces another. I wonder if he has forgotten the many
unanswerable questions which he propounded to me so fluently on the day
when I gave him my last lecture? At all events he is cured of the
transcendentals.”
“Ahem!” here replied Toby, just as if he had been reading my thoughts,
and looking like a very old sheep in a reverie.
The old gentleman now took him by the arm, and led him more into the
shade of the bridge—a few paces back from the turnstile. “My good
fellow,” said he, “I make it a point of conscience to allow you this
much run. Wait here till I take my place by the stile, so that I may see
whether you go over it handsomely, and transcendentally, and don’t omit
any flourishes of the pigeon-wing. A mere form, you know. I will say
‘one, two, three, and away.’ Mind you start at the word ‘away.’” Here he
took his position by the stile, paused a moment as if in profound
reflection, then looked down, then _looked up_, and, I thought, smiled
very slightly, then tightened the strings of his apron, then took a long
look at Dammit, then put his fore-finger to the side of his nose, and
finally gave the word as agreed upon—
_One—two—three—and away!_
Punctually, at the word “away,” my poor friend set off in a strong
gallop. The style was not very high, like Mr. Pue’s—nor yet to say very
low like that of Mr. Pue’s reviewers, but upon the whole I made sure
that he would clear it. And then what if he did not?—ah, that was the
question—what if he did not? “What right,” said I, “had the old
gentleman to make any other gentleman jump? The little old
dot-and-carry-one! who is _he_? If he asks me to jump, I won’t do it,
that’s flat, and I don’t care who _the devil he is_.” The bridge, as I
say, was arched and covered in, in a very ridiculous manner, and there
was a most uncomfortable echo about it at all times—an echo which I
never before so particularly observed as when I uttered the four last
words of my remark.
But what I said, or what I thought, or what I heard, occupied only an
instant of time. In less than five seconds from his starting my poor
Toby had taken the leap. I saw him run nimbly, and spring grandly from
the floor of the bridge, cutting the most awful flourishes with his legs
as he went up. I saw him high in the air, pigeon-winging it to
admiration just over the top of the stile; and of course I thought it an
unusually singular thing that he did not _continue_ to go over. But the
whole leap was the affair of a moment, as they always say in the crack
historical novels, and before I had a chance to make any profound
reflections, down came Mr. Dammit on the flat of his back on the same
side of the stile from which he had started. In the same instant I saw
the old gentleman limping off at the top of his speed, having caught and
wrapped up in his apron something that fell heavily into it from the
darkness of the arch just over the turnstile. At all this I was much
astonished; but I had no leisure to think, for Mr. Dammit lay
particularly still, and I concluded that his feelings had been hurt, and
that he stood in need of my assistance. I hurried up to him and found
that he had received what might be termed a serious injury. The truth
is, he had been deprived of his head, which after a close search I could
not find anywhere—so I determined to take him home, and send for the
homœopathics. In the meantime a thought struck me, and I threw open an
adjacent window of the bridge, when the sad truth flashed upon me at
once. About five feet just above the top of the turnstile, and crossing
the arch of the foot-path so as to constitute a brace, there extended a
flat and sharp iron bar, lying with its breadth horizontally, and
forming one of a series that served to strengthen the structure
throughout its extent. With the edge of this brace it appeared evident
that the neck of my unfortunate friend had come precisely in contact.
He did not long survive his terrible loss. The homœopathics did not give
him little enough physic, and what little they did give him he hesitated
to take. So in the end he grew worse, and at length died, a lesson to
all riotous livers. I bedewed his grave with my tears, worked a _bar_
sinister on his family escutcheon, and for the general expenses of his
funeral, sent in my very moderate bill to the transcendentalists. The
scoundrels refused to pay it, so I had Mr. Dammit dug up at once, and
sold him for dog’s meat.
* * * * *
THE FIRST KISS OF LOVE.
BY G. A. RAYBOLD.
The first kiss of love, when the favor is won,
Fills the heart with pure bliss, if ’tis modestly done,
For ’tis like a brief glance from the sun’s clouded eye
Which just touches the earth and flies back to the sky.
Ah! the bliss of that moment; ’twill ever remain,
While my heart in its depths can feel pleasure or pain;
For that kiss, to my heart was like rain to the flower,
Just ready to die, till refresh’d by a shower.
The soft touch of _her_ hand, the bright glance of her eye;
The whisper’d word spoken, the half suppress’d sigh,
May be proofs of true love, but the _kiss_ is the token,
And pledge of a faith which may _never_ be broken.
How fondly does memory dwell on it yet!
The scene and the hour, who can ever forget,
When reclin’d on your bosom, sustained in your arms,
You breathed out the heart long subdued by her charms?
Her _kiss_ was the answer; so slight yet so sweet,
’Twas enough; and that moment your bliss was complete;
From the lips to each heart went a holier thrill,
Delighting and binding those hearts closer still.
That first kiss of love, when no mortal was near,
Was a _sign_ that dispersed the last vestige of fear;
She is mine, she is mine; mine now and forever;
By those holiest ties that death only can sever.
* * * * *
LAME FOR LIFE, OR LESLIE PIERPOINT.
A TALE, IN TWO PARTS.
BY PROFESSOR J. H. INGRAHAM, AUTHOR OF “LAFITTE,” “KYD,” “THE QUADROONE,”
ETC.
“Is health returnless? Never more may I
Throw by the staff on which, alas! I lean?
Is the woof woven of my destiny?
Shall I be ne’er again what I have been?
And must the bodily anguish be combined
With the intenseness of the anxious mind?”
F. W. Thomas.
If the reader will take the trouble to look in the revised edition of
the Philadelphia Directory for the year 1838, he will find recorded the
name of
“Leslie Pierpoint, Gent. House No. 2-7 South Sixth St.”
At the period of which we write this was the residence of this
distinguished party to our story, and still would have been but for the
simple incident that has led us to write it.