Produced by David Widger
ELSIE VENNER
By Oliver Wendell Holmes
PREFACE.
This tale was published in successive parts in the “Atlantic Monthly,”
under the name of “The Professor's Story,” the first number having
appeared in the third week of December, 1859. The critic who is curious
in coincidences must refer to the Magazine for the date of publication
of the chapter he is examining.
In calling this narrative a “romance,” the Author wishes to make sure of
being indulged in the common privileges of the poetic license. Through
all the disguise of fiction a grave scientific doctrine may be detected
lying beneath some of the delineations of character. He has used this
doctrine as a part of the machinery of his story without pledging his
absolute belief in it to the extent to which it is asserted or implied.
It was adopted as a convenient medium of truth rather than as an
accepted scientific conclusion. The reader must judge for himself what
is the value of various stories cited from old authors. He must decide
how much of what has been told he can accept either as having actually
happened, or as possible and more or less probable. The Author must
be permitted, however, to say here, in his personal character, and as
responsible to the students of the human mind and body, that since
this story has been in progress he has received the most startling
confirmation of the possibility of the existence of a character like
that which he had drawn as a purely imaginary conception in Elsie
Venner.
BOSTON, January, 1861.
A SECOND PREFACE.
This is the story which a dear old lady, my very good friend, spoke of
as “a medicated novel,” and quite properly refused to read. I was always
pleased with her discriminating criticism. It is a medicated novel, and
if she wished to read for mere amusement and helpful recreation there
was no need of troubling herself with a story written with a different
end in view.
This story has called forth so many curious inquiries that it seems
worth while to answer the more important questions which have occurred
to its readers.
In the first place, it is not based on any well-ascertained
physiological fact. There are old fables about patients who have barked
like dogs or crowed like cocks, after being bitten or wounded by those
animals. There is nothing impossible in the idea that Romulus and Remus
may have imbibed wolfish traits of character from the wet nurse the
legend assigned them, but the legend is not sound history, and the
supposition is nothing more than a speculative fancy. Still, there is a
limbo of curious evidence bearing on the subject of pre-natal influences
sufficient to form the starting-point of an imaginative composition.
The real aim, of the story was to test the doctrine of “original sin”
and human responsibility for the disordered volition coming under that
technical denomination. Was Elsie Venner, poisoned by the venom of a
crotalus before she was born, morally responsible for the “volitional”
aberrations, which translated into acts become what is known as sin,
and, it may be, what is punished as crime? If, on presentation of the
evidence, she becomes by the verdict of the human conscience a proper
object of divine pity and not of divine wrath, as a subject of moral
poisoning, wherein lies the difference between her position at the bar
of judgment, human or divine, and that of the unfortunate victim who
received a moral poison from a remote ancestor before he drew his first
breath?
It might be supposed that the character of Elsie Veneer was suggested
by some of the fabulous personages of classical or mediaeval story. I
remember that a French critic spoke of her as cette pauvre Melusine. I
ought to have been ashamed, perhaps, but I had, not the slightest idea
who Melusina was until I hunted up the story, and found that she was a
fairy, who for some offence was changed every Saturday to a serpent from
her waist downward. I was of course familiar with Keats's Lamia, another
imaginary being, the subject of magical transformation into a serpent.
My story was well advanced before Hawthorne's wonderful “Marble Faun,”
which might be thought to have furnished me with the hint of a mixed
nature,--human, with an alien element,--was published or known to me. So
that my poor heroine found her origin, not in fable or romance, but in a
physiological conception fertilized by a theological dogma.
I had the dissatisfaction of enjoying from a quiet corner a well-meant
effort to dramatize “Elsie Veneer.” Unfortunately, a physiological
romance, as I knew beforehand, is hardly adapted for the melodramatic
efforts of stage representation. I can therefore say, with perfect
truth, that I was not disappointed. It is to the mind, and not to the
senses, that such a story must appeal, and all attempts to render the
character and events objective on the stage, or to make them real by
artistic illustrations, are almost of necessity failures. The story has
won the attention and enjoyed the favor of a limited class of readers,
and if it still continues to interest others of the same tastes and
habits of thought I can ask nothing more of it.
January 23, 1883.
PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION.
I have nothing of importance to add to the two preceding Prefaces. The
continued call for this story, which was not written for popularity, but
with a very serious purpose, has somewhat surprised and, I need not add,
gratified me. I can only restate the motive idea of the tale in a little
different language. Believing, as I do, that our prevailing theologies
are founded upon an utterly false view of the relation of man to his
Creator, I attempted to illustrate the doctrine of inherited moral
responsibility for other people's misbehavior. I tried to make out a
case for my poor Elsie, whom the most hardened theologian would find
it hard to blame for her inherited ophidian tastes and tendencies. How,
then, is he to blame mankind for inheriting “sinfulness” from their
first parents? May not the serpent have bitten Eve before the birth
of Cain, her first-born? That would have made an excuse for Cain's
children, as Elsie's ante-natal misfortune made an excuse for her. But
what difference does it make in the child's responsibility whether his
inherited tendencies come from a snake-bite or some other source which
he knew nothing about and could not have prevented from acting? All this
is plain enough, and the only use of the story is to bring the dogma of
inherited guilt and its consequences into a clearer point of view.
But, after all, the tale must have proved readable as a story to account
for the large number of editions which it has reached.
Some readers have been curious about the locality the writer was
thought to have in view. No particular place was intended. Some of the
characters may have been thought to have been drawn from life; but the
personages mentioned are mostly composites, like Mr. Galton's compound
photographic likenesses, and are not calculated to provoke scandal or
suits for libel.
O. W. H.
BEVERLY FARMS, MASS., August 3, 1891.
ELSIE VENNER.
CHAPTER I. THE BRAHMIN CASTE OF NEW ENGLAND.
There is nothing in New England corresponding at all to the feudal
aristocracies of the Old World. Whether it be owing to the stock from
which we were derived, or to the practical working of our institutions,
or to the abrogation of the technical “law of honor,” which draws a
sharp line between the personally responsible class of “gentlemen” and
the unnamed multitude of those who are not expected to risk their lives
for an abstraction,--whatever be the cause, we have no such aristocracy
here as that which grew up out of the military systems of the Middle
Ages.
What we mean by “aristocracy” is merely the richer part of the
community, that live in the tallest houses, drive real carriages, (not
“kerridges,”) kidglove their hands, and French-bonnet their ladies'
heads, give parties where the persons who call them by the above title
are not invited, and have a provokingly easy way of dressing, walking,
talking, and nodding to people, as if they felt entirely at home, and
would not be embarrassed in the least, if they met the Governor, or even
the President of the United States, face to face. Some of these great
folks are really well-bred, some of them are only purse-proud and
assuming,--but they form a class, and are named as above in the common
speech.
It is in the nature of large fortunes to diminish rapidly, when
subdivided and distributed. A million is the unit of wealth, now and
here in America. It splits into four handsome properties; each of these
into four good inheritances; these, again, into scanty competences for
four ancient maidens,--with whom it is best the family should die out,
unless it can begin again as its great-grandfather did. Now a million
is a kind of golden cheese, which represents in a compendious form the
summer's growth of a fat meadow of craft or commerce; and as this kind
of meadow rarely bears more than one crop, it is pretty certain that
sons and grandsons will not get another golden cheese out of it,
whether they milk the same cows or turn in new ones. In other words,
the millionocracy, considered in a large way, is not at all an affair
of persons and families, but a perpetual fact of money with a variable
human element, which a philosopher might leave out of consideration
without falling into serious error. Of course, this trivial and,
fugitive fact of personal wealth does not create a permanent
class, unless some special means are taken to arrest the process of
disintegration in the third generation. This is so rarely done, at least
successfully, that one need not live a very long life to see most of
the rich families he knew in childhood more or less reduced, and the
millions shifted into the hands of the country-boys who were sweeping
stores and carrying parcels when the now decayed gentry were driving
their chariots, eating their venison over silver chafing-dishes,
drinking Madeira chilled in embossed coolers, wearing their hair in
powder, and casing their legs in long boots with silken tassels.
There is, however, in New England, an aristocracy, if you choose to call
it so, which has a far greater character of permanence. It has grown
to be a caste,--not in any odious sense;--but, by the repetition of the
same influences, generation after generation, it has acquired a distinct
organization and physiognomy, which not to recognize is mere stupidity,
and not to be willing to describe would show a distrust of the
good-nature and intelligence of our readers, who like to have us see all
we can and tell all we see.
If you will look carefully at any class of students in one of our
colleges, you will have no difficulty in selecting specimens of two
different aspects of youthful manhood. Of course I shall choose extreme
cases to illustrate the contrast between them. In the first, the figure
is perhaps robust, but often otherwise,--inelegant, partly from careless
attitudes, partly from ill-dressing,--the face is uncouth in feature, or
at least common,--the mouth coarse and unformed,--the eye unsympathetic,
even if bright,--the movements of the face are clumsy, like those of
the limbs,--the voice is unmusical,--and the enunciation as if the words
were coarse castings, instead of fine carvings. The youth of the
other aspect is commonly slender, his face is smooth, and apt to be
pallid,--his features are regular and of a certain delicacy,--his eye
is bright and quick,--his lips play over the thought he utters as a
pianist's fingers dance over their music, and his whole air, though
it may be timid, and even awkward, has nothing clownish. If you are
a teacher, you know what to expect from each of these young men. With
equal willingness, the first will be slow at learning; the second will
take to his books as a pointer or a setter to his field-work.
The first youth is the common country-boy, whose race has been bred to
bodily labor. Nature has adapted the family organization to the kind of
life it has lived. The hands and feet by constant use have got more than
their share of development,--the organs of thought and expression less
than their share. The finer instincts are latent and must be developed.
A youth of this kind is raw material in its first stage of elaboration.
You must not expect too much of any such. Many of them have force of
will and character, and become distinguished in practical life; but
very few of them ever become great scholars. A scholar is, in a large
proportion of cases, the son of scholars or scholarly persons.
That is exactly what the other young man is. He comes of the Brahmin
caste of New England. This is the harmless, inoffensive, untitled
aristocracy referred to, and which many readers will at once
acknowledge. There are races of scholars among us, in which aptitude for
learning, and all these marks of it I have spoken of, are congenital and
hereditary. Their names are always on some college catalogue or other.
They break out every generation or two in some learned labor which calls
them up after they seem to have died out. At last some newer name takes
their place, it maybe,--but you inquire a little and you find it is the
blood of the Edwardses or the Chauncys or the Ellerys or some of the
old historic scholars, disguised under the altered name of a female
descendant.
There probably is not an experienced instructor anywhere in our
Northern States who will not recognize at once the truth of this general
distinction. But the reader who has never been a teacher will very
probably object, that some of our most illustrious public men have come
direct from the homespun-clad class of the people,--and he may, perhaps,
even find a noted scholar or two whose parents were masters of the
English alphabet, but of no other.
It is not fair to pit a few chosen families against the great multitude
of those who are continually working their way up into the intellectual
classes. The results which are habitually reached by hereditary training
are occasionally brought about without it. There are natural filters as
well as artificial ones; and though the great rivers are commonly more
or less turbid, if you will look long enough, you may find a spring that
sparkles as no water does which drips through your apparatus of
sands and sponges. So there are families which refine themselves
into intellectual aptitude without having had much opportunity for
intellectual acquirements. A series of felicitous crosses develops an
improved strain of blood, and reaches its maximum perfection at last in
the large uncombed youth who goes to college and startles the hereditary
class-leaders by striding past them all. That is Nature's republicanism;
thank God for it, but do not let it make you illogical. The race of the
hereditary scholar has exchanged a certain portion of its animal vigor
for its new instincts, and it is hard to lead men without a good deal
of animal vigor. The scholar who comes by Nature's special grace from an
unworn stock of broad-chested sires and deep-bosomed mothers must always
overmatch an equal intelligence with a compromised and lowered vitality.
A man's breathing and digestive apparatus (one is tempted to add
muscular) are just as important to him on the floor of the Senate as his
thinking organs. You broke down in your great speech, did you? Yes, your
grandfather had an attack of dyspepsia in '82, after working too hard on
his famous Election Sermon. All this does not touch the main fact: our
scholars come chiefly from a privileged order, just as our best fruits
come from well-known grafts, though now and then a seedling apple, like
the Northern Spy, or a seedling pear, like the Seckel, springs from a
nameless ancestry and grows to be the pride of all the gardens in the
land.
Let me introduce you to a young man who belongs to the Brahmin caste of
New England.