"That would indeed be difficult to determine," he replied. "If the
criterion is to be my own intellectual enjoyment, I should mention one;
if my feelings, then another. It is possible that I might select one in
which my intellectual enjoyment, and my feelings pure and simple, were
about equally engaged. We shall probably agree that the most important
object of fiction is to produce in the reader a state of feeling, just
as musical composition is intended to produce a state of feeling--the
short story being comparable with a brief musical production intended to
produce a single variety of emotion; the novel, to the music of an opera
with its many parts, intended each to excite a particular state of
feeling. Naturally prose fiction may, and almost necessarily does, have
other objects. Now the reading of 'The Fall of the House of Usher'
produces a certain state of emotion, and that wholly apart from any
appeal to intellect; no endeavor to do more than produce that state of
feeling is made, nothing more than that is effected, and that much is
attained in a manner which no pen that has traced short-story fiction,
save that of Poe, has ever accomplished. Hence, if the production of
feeling--an appeal to the purely moral side of the triangle of mind--be
the paramount essential in fiction, 'The Fall of the House of Usher' is
the best short story in the English language."
Here Doctor Bainbridge rose from his chair, and taking a turn or two
across the floor, continued, in tones indicating vexation,
"Why has not somebody with a ray of the imagination necessary to a
comprehension of Poe's genius given us at least a decent sketch of his
brief life! Was Poe in a state of mental aberration when he made
Griswold his literary executor? Is the world forever to hear of him only
from those who see the dark side of his life and know nothing of his
life's work?--from those who look at his life and his life's work
through the smoked glass of their dull provincial minds? Let us hope for
an assay of what is left to us of Poe--an assay which, not wholly
ignoring the little dross, will still lose no grain of the pure, virgin
gold, and give to the world something approaching what is due to the
genius himself, and what, with such a subject, is due to the world."
"Let me alter my question--or, I should say, ask a different one," I
said, when he had again seated himself: "Which of Poe's stories most
interested you? From which did you receive the most satisfaction?"
"I have been more occupied and interested by 'The Narrative of A. Gordon
Pym' than by any two or three of his other stories."
I expressed surprise at this avowal; and my comments on what appeared to
me to show a peculiar taste implied a desire for explanation. He
continued:
"Although 'The Narrative of A. Gordon Pym' has served as a suggestion,
or even a pattern, for some of our best recent stories of adventure, and
although it has many points of excellence in itself, it is not the story
alone, but the opportunity which the story affords of an analysis of
Poe's mind, that creates the greater interest for me. I have always been
puzzled to find a reasonably adequate cause for the incomplete state of
that narrative. The supposition that Poe had not at his disposal, at the
moment he required it, the necessary time for its completion is an
hypothesis which I only mention to dispose of. At its close he wrote and
added to the narrative a 'Note' of nearly a thousand words; and in the
time required for the penning of that addition, he could have brought
the story to--perhaps an abrupt, but still, an artistic close. No. Then
did Poe not complete 'The Narrative of A. Gordon Pym' because his
imagination failed him--failed to supply material of such a quality as
his refined and faultless taste demanded? If so, then why did he begin
it? Why write more than sixty thousand words in his usual careful and
precise style, on a subject to him little known, in to him a new field
of literary effort? He could in the time required to write 'The
Narrative of A. Gordon Pym' have written from five to ten short stories
along familiar lines. No: none of these hypotheses explains the
unfinished state of that narrative. My explanation is that the story has
a foundation in fact, and that Poe himself never learned more than a
foundation for the portion which he wrote. Its leading character next to
Pym is one Dirk Peters, a sailor, mutineer, etc. It is my theory that
Pym and Peters existed in fact, but that Poe never met either of them,
though he did meet sailors who had known Dirk Peters, and that he heard
from them the first part of the story, in the form in which it grew to
be repeated by seafaring men along the New England coast in the '30s and
'40s. Having heard what he supposed to be sufficient, with the aid of
his own imagination, to make an interesting story for publication, Poe
began and continued to write. Then, as he progressed, he found that his
imagination was embarrassed--frustrated by the known facts already
employed--whilst it was not assisted by new facts which he was positive
existed, but which he could not procure. As he attempted to close the
narrative, the cold, written page was a very different thing from what
he had conceived it would be as he sat in the tap-room of some New
England old 'Sailor's Home,' with a couple of glasses of Burton ale on
the table, listening through the drowsy afternoon to the fact and
fiction of some old 'tar,' as the two looked across the white-sanded
floor at the old moss-grown dock without, and listened to the salt
wavelets splashing against its rotting timbers, and watched the far-
distant sails on the outer sea. It is not very difficult to picture to
one's self Poe searching among these sailors' lodging-houses for Dirk
Peters; nor is it unreasonable to assume that he did so search for him.
If Dirk Peters was twenty-seven years old in 1827, when the mutiny
occurred, he was only forty-nine at the time of Poe's death--in fact,
would be only seventy-seven if now alive. Poe says in his 'Note,' that
'Peters, from whom some information might be expected, is still alive,
and a resident of Illinois, but cannot be met with at present. He may
hereafter be found, and will, no doubt, afford material for a conclusion
of Mr. Pym's account.' I have no doubt that Poe eventually learned
exactly where Peters resided; but no matter how much Poe may have
desired to meet with Peters, he could not have done so. In the '40s it
was a long, tedious, expensive journey from New York to Illinois. Still,
Poe hoped some day to meet Peters, and did not care to say to the public
exactly where he could be met with. Then came Poe's unutterably sad
death, leaving the narrative incomplete."
As Bainbridge neared the close of his remarks, we heard a heavy and
rapid step approach along the hall. It stopped before my door; and just
as Bainbridge ceased to speak, a loud rap, evidently made with the head
of a heavy cane, sounded on the panel. The door flew open, and Doctor
Castleton rushed into the middle of the room--or, rather, bounded across
the room. Bainbridge and I instantly arose, and I stepped forward to
take Doctor Castleton's hand in mine, and to care for his hat and cane;
but he waved me off. "No, no: no time--not a minute to spare--three
patients waiting"--here he glanced at Bainbridge, as if to observe the
effect of his speech on a beginner, who was fortunate if he yet
possessed a single patient--"like to keep my word--fine evening." He
seated himself on the edge of a chair, and projected his glance around
the room. No better subject immediately presenting itself to mind, I
remarked that we had just been talking of Edgar Allan Poe, and his
unfinished story, "The Narrative of A. Gordon Pym"; and I spoke of Dirk
Peters.
"I know old man Peters--know him well, sir," said Doctor Castleton,
without a moment's hesitation; "short old fellow--seafaring man--about
four feet six, or seven--must have been a devil in his day--old man,
now--seventy or eighty; no hair, no beard; farms a few acres on the
Bluff; very sick man, right now."
Bainbridge and I had cast at each other a glance, which plainly said,
"Isn't that Castleton for you?" But as he continued, and we had time to
consider, the probability that Dirk Peters was alive, and the bare
possibility that he was in the neighborhood, and that, if he did reside
near Bellevue, Doctor Castleton would be very likely to have met him,
gradually dawned on our minds. Quick as was the glance we exchanged,
Castleton saw it--yes, and understood it.
"Gentlemen," he continued, "I know whereof I speak. It is true, I never
before thought of Peters in this connection. In the cases of my library,
the books stand two rows deep. Thousands of books have been carried into
my attic, to make room for newer books--I never need to glance twice at
a book. Of course I have Poe's works, and bound in morocco, too--the
grandest genius ever bestowed upon humanity by the prolific and liberal
hand of our Creator. Still, I never happened to read the grand and
mighty effort of that colossal intellect to which you refer--'The
Narrative of a Snorting Thing,' though I recall 'The Literary Life of
Thingum Bob.' But I am certain--certain as the unerring fiat of
Omnipotent Power--that this man Peters is within ten miles of us, and is
at this moment a mighty ill man--almost ready, in fact, to visit a land
from which he will be little likely to return. I refer to 'The
undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveller returns.' By
superhuman efforts I have kept this man Peters alive now long past the
time-limit set by his Creator for him to go--I mean, three score and ten
years; but even I and science have our limitations, and the beginning of
the end is at hand."
By this time Doctor Castleton was pacing up and down the room, stopping
now and then to look at an engraving on the wall, taking up and
replacing books, seeing everything. I could not but feel that already
the curiosity which had impelled him to "run in" was satisfied, and that
he would soon be going. A minute after his last recorded words, Dirk
Peters seemed to have dropped completely from his mind. I was wholly
absorbed with the thought that Dirk Peters might be within our reach;
and that if he really was, it was possible that we might learn whether
Pym and he had reached the South Pole, and if so, what they had there
discovered. It was plainly evident that the mind of Doctor Bainbridge
was deeply engaged with the same subject. I was anxious to know what he
thought of Castleton's statement; for the more I discussed the matter
within myself, the more I felt inclined to believe that Castleton was
not making a mistake. But Castleton was certainly now not thinking of
Peters. I could, amid my thoughts, hear him declaiming,
"Yes, sir; England is a mighty power. Her navy, sir, can--and mark me,
it will--sweep France and Russia and Prussia and Austria and Italy from
the ocean as--as a shar--a wha--a huge and voracious swordfish sweeps
before its imperious onslaught, with unerring certainty and cyclonic
power, a whole school of sneaking mackerel or codfish from the pathway
fixed for it by Eternal Destiny."
His prognostication was intended to be a graceful compliment paid to the
country of a visiting stranger, and, in the absence of other foreigners,
not discourteous to anybody. I never before or since knew his natural
flow of eloquence to waver as in this instance--a rarity that of itself
makes the remark worthy of record. Doctor Castleton soon, against all
protests, bounded out of the door, as he had bounded in; and then
Bainbridge and I discussed the astonishing possibilities should it prove
true that Dirk Peters was within our reach. We concluded that
Castleton's statement was one of great importance, and we agreed upon a
course of procedure. We spent the remainder of the evening in a manner
very enjoyable to myself, and evidently gratifying to Doctor Bainbridge;
and it was past midnight when we separated.
The following morning I looked up Doctor Castleton; and he, ever
courteous and obliging, did more than consent to permit me to drive out
to the home of his patient, Peters. He proposed that I wait a day, as he
knew that Peters would within that time, and might any hour, send for
him; and as soon as he was summoned he would notify me, and together we
would drive out to the old sailor's residence--which, the doctor said,
was a small, two-roomed log structure, where the old man dwelt entirely
alone.