“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 _recherchés_ 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, presumable and presumed; 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 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 anywhere 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.”
[Sidenote: Note the following series of unusual statements.]
99. “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.”
100. “You are mistaken; I know him well; he is both. As poet _and_
mathematician he would reason well; as mere mathematician he could not
have reasoned at all, and thus would have been at the mercy of the
Prefect.”
101. “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
long been regarded as _the_ reason _par excellence_.”
[Sidenote: “It may be said that every public idea, every received
convention, is a piece of stupidity, for it has suited the greater
number.”--NICOLAS CHAMFORT.]
[Sidenote: This whole section of the story triumphs notwithstanding
its undue length of learned discussion and its formal diction. It
must be admitted that in these respects the present-day short-story
is in advance of Poe. A number of paragraphs here fail to advance the
narration _as fiction_.]
102. “‘_Il y a à parier_,’” replied Dupin, quoting from Chamfort,
“‘_que toute idée publique, toute convention reçue, est une sottise,
car elle a convenu 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 practical 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.”
103. “You have a quarrel on hand, I see,” said I, “with some of the
algebraists of Paris; but proceed.”
[Sidenote: Unusual form. Throughout, note Poe’s unusual choice of
words.]
[Sidenote: As a piece of pure reasoning this long treatise is not
without its defects, but it does bring out--though too laboriously to
please--the point at which Dupin is driving.]
[Sidenote: Jacob Bryant.]
[Sidenote: He speaks figuratively.]
[Sidenote: A striking satire.]
[Sidenote: More satire.]
104. “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 _un_true 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 algebraists, 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.”
[Sidenote: Note the force of “last.”]
[Sidenote: A return from the special argument to the practical.]
[Sidenote: Application of the foregoing principles.]
[Sidenote: A difficult point explained.]
[Sidenote: Note the unusual use of “to,” instead of “at.”]
[Sidenote: Is this probable?]
[Sidenote: Compare ¶95.]
[Sidenote: Key. Compare ¶10.]
105. “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. 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 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.”
106. “Yes,” said I, “I remember his merriment well. I really thought he
would have fallen into convulsions.”
[Sidenote: A return to philosophising.]
[Sidenote: Force of inertia.]
[Sidenote: This inquiry is the heart of the inference.]
107. “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, 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 momentum 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?”
108. “I have never given the matter a thought,” I said.
[Sidenote: Illustrative example.]
[Sidenote: Note the diction.]
[Sidenote: Compare ¶94 and ¶98.]
[Sidenote: Summary of ”accusation” against the Prefect’s sagacity.]
109. “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.
[Sidenote: Note the alliteration.]
[Sidenote: Climax of Dupin’s inferential reasoning.]
[Sidenote: BEGINNING OF REAL PLOT.]
[Sidenote: INCIDENT OF DUPIN’S STORY.]
[Sidenote: From this point the narration is free from the formalities
of expression which mar the central section of the story. These,
however, were a characteristic of Poe and his era.]
[Sidenote: Note the use of “now.”]
110. “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.
111. “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.
112. “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.
113. “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.
[Sidenote: Dupin’s reasoning sustained.]
114. “At length my eyes, in going the circuit of the room, fell upon a
trumpery filigree card-rack of paste-board, that hung dangling, by a
dirty blue ribbon, from a little brass knob just beneath the middle of
the mantelpiece. 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.
[Sidenote: Throughout, Poe used punctuation more freely than is now the
custom.]
[Sidenote: It was the custom in earlier times simply to fold a letter,
seal it with a wafer, and address it on the back, which was allowed to
remain otherwise blank. This accounts for there being no reference to
an envelope, and also for the refolding of the letter.]
115. “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 visitor, 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.
[Sidenote: Note use of “fold” and its derivatives.]
[Sidenote: A good device.]
116. “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.
[Sidenote: APPARENT FULL CLIMAX.]
117. “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 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 _facsimile_ (so far as regards externals) which I had carefully
prepared at my lodgings--imitating the D---- cipher very readily by
means of a seal formed of bread.
[Sidenote: Concluding explanations.]
[Sidenote: Note how the climax of Dupin’s story also serves as the
climax of the Prefect’s earlier statement of the problem and his
efforts to solve it.]
118. “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.”
119. “But what purpose had you,” I asked, “in replacing the letter by a
_facsimile_? Would it not have been better, at the first visit, to have
seized it openly and departed?”
[Sidenote: In the interest in Dupin’s reasoning and its results we have
lost sight of the real importance of the letter.]
[Sidenote: Is “was” correct?]
[Sidenote: The descent to Avernus (the fabled entrance to the Infernal
Regions) is easy.]
[Sidenote: Monster to be shuddered at.]
120. “D----,” replied Dupin, “is a desperate man, and a man of nerve.
His hotel, too, is not without attendants devoted to his interest.
Had I made the wild attempt you suggest I might never have left the
ministerial presence alive. The good people of Paris might 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.”
121. “How? Did you put anything particular in it?”
[Sidenote: REAL CLIMAX.]
122. “Why, it did not seem altogether right to leave the interior
blank--that would have been insulting. D----, at Vienna, once did me an
evil turn, which I told him, quite good-humoredly, 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 clew. 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.’
[Sidenote: A design so baleful, if not worthy of Atreus, is worthy of
Thyestes.]
They are to be found in Crébillon’s ‘Atrée.’”
JACOBS AND HIS WRITINGS
William Wymark Jacobs was born in London, September 8, 1863, the son of
William Gage Jacobs. He was educated at private schools, and entered
the employ of the Post Office Savings Bank at sixteen. Four years
later he secured a regular clerkship there. He began his literary
career at the age of twenty-one with a contribution to the _Blackfriars
Magazine_, a publication conducted by the clerks at the Post Office,
and from that he was led to contributing articles to various London
papers, though he retained his Civil Service position until 1899. His
remarkable acquaintance with nautical subjects, and characters of the
coasting trade and seaport wharves, was acquired during several years
spent in Wapping, while his father was wharfinger there, as during
that period the younger Jacobs was brought into contact with many
seamen and wharf hands, and came to know many of them very well. In
1900 he married Agnes Eleanor Williams. Some of Jacobs’ most popular
collections of stories are _Many Cargoes_; _More Cargoes_; _Short
Cruises_; _Odd Craft_; _Captains All_; _Light Freights_; and _The
Lady of the Barge_. His longer stories include _A Master of Craft_,
_Dialstone Lane_; _Salthaven_, and _At Sunwich Port_.
Mr. Jacobs is known mostly by his delightfully quaint and humorous
character delineations of river, shore, and sea-faring folk. The
remarkable short-story given herewith, however, is of a very different
sort and discloses a mastery of the weird, of the supernatural, which
is not surpassed in the whole short-story field. With a sureness of
character-drawing which is nothing short of amazing in a humorist,
he outlines scene and actors, and when the crises are reached--so
completely is all visualized--we are able to infer the swift-moving
climax with scarce the need of a word. “The Monkey’s Paw” is one of the
most dramatically poignant stories of the supernatural ever written,
and invites us to a closer study of its gifted and versatile author.
It [a sea-life] is a man’s life. It teaches self-restraint and
discipline and the art of governing men. It is a fine, healthy
life that breeds men. All that I mean to say is that distance
lends enchantment to the view, and that the essential romance and
comedy of the life of those who go down to the sea in ships are
intensified in the perspective of years.--W. W. JACOBS, _London
Daily Chronicle_.
Londoners, in particular, should hail him with applause, for he has
done more than make them laugh; he has added character to their
river. Henceforward no one who has read _Many Cargoes_ will look
at a passing barge with an apathetic gaze. He will see before him
not merely a vehicle of porterage, but a hot-bed of liquorish and
acceptable sarcasm.--_Academy_ (London).