Mr. Langdon to the Professor.
MY DEAR PROFESSOR, You were kind enough to promise me that you would
assist me in any professional or scientific investigations in which I
might become engaged. I have of late become deeply interested in a class
of subjects which present peculiar difficulty, and I must exercise
the privilege of questioning you on some points upon which I desire
information I cannot otherwise obtain. I would not trouble you, if I
could find any person or books competent to enlighten me on some of
these singular matters which have so excited me. The leading doctor here
is a shrewd, sensible man, but not versed in the curiosities of medical
literature.
I proceed, with your leave, to ask a considerable number of
questions,--hoping to get answers to some of them, at least.
Is there any evidence that human beings can be infected or wrought
upon by poisons, or otherwise, so that they shall manifest any of
the peculiarities belonging to beings of a lower nature? Can such
peculiarities--be transmitted by inheritance? Is there anything to
countenance the stories, long and widely current, about the “evil eye”?
or is it a mere fancy that such a power belongs to any human being? Have
you any personal experience as to the power of fascination said to be
exercised by certain animals? What can you make of those circumstantial
statements we have seen in the papers, of children forming mysterious
friendships with ophidians of different species, sharing their food with
them, and seeming to be under some subtile influence exercised by those
creatures? Have you read, critically, Coleridge's poem of “Christabel,”
and Keats's “Lamia”?--If so, can you understand them, or find any
physiological foundation for the story of either?
There is another set of questions of a different nature I should like
to ask, but it is hardly fair to put so many on a single sheet. There
is one, however, you must answer. Do you think there may be
predispositions, inherited or ingrafted, but at any rate constitutional,
which shall take out certain apparently voluntary determinations
from the control of the will, and leave them as free from moral
responsibility as the instincts of the lower animals? Do you not think
there may be a crime which is not a sin?
Pardon me, my dear Sir, for troubling you with such a list of notes of
interrogation. There are some very strange things going on here in this
place, country-town as it is. Country-life is apt to be dull; but when
it once gets going, it beats the city hollow, because it gives its whole
mind to what it is about. These rural sinners make terrible work with
the middle of the Decalogue, when they get started. However, I hope I
shall live through my year's school-keeping without catastrophes, though
there are queer doings about me which puzzle me and might scare some
people. If anything should happen, you will be one of the first to
hear of it, no doubt. But I trust not to help out the editors of the
“Rockland Weekly Universe” with an obituary of the late lamented, who
signed himself in life--
Your friend and pupil, BERNARD C. LANGDON.
The Professor to Mr. Langdon.
MY DEAR MR. LANGDON, I do not wonder that you find no answer from your
country friends to the curious questions you put. They belong to that
middle region between science and poetry which sensible men, as they are
called, are very shy of meddling with. Some people think that truth and
gold are always to be washed for; but the wiser sort are of opinion,
that, unless there are so many grains to the peck of sand or nonsense
respectively, it does not pay to wash for either, so long as one can
find anything else to do. I don't doubt there is some truth in the
phenomena of animal magnetism, for instance; but when you ask me to
cradle for it, I tell you that the hysteric girls cheat so, and the
professionals are such a set of pickpockets, that I can do something
better than hunt for the grains of truth among their tricks and lies. Do
you remember what I used to say in my lectures?--or were you asleep
just then, or cutting your initials on the rail? (You see I can ask
questions, my young friend.) Leverage is everything,--was what I used to
say;--don't begin to pry till you have got the long arm on your side.
To please you, and satisfy your doubts as far as possible, I have looked
into the old books,--into Schenckius and Turner and Kenelm. Digby and
the rest, where I have found plenty of curious stories which you must
take for what they are worth.
Your first question I can answer in the affirmative upon pretty good
authority. Mizaldus tells, in his “Memorabilia,” the well-known story
of the girl fed on poisons, who was sent by the king of the Indies to
Alexander the Great. “When Aristotle saw her eyes sparkling and snapping
like those of serpents, he said, 'Look out for yourself, Alexander! this
is a dangerous companion for you!'”--and sure enough, the young lady
proved to be a very unsafe person to her friends. Cardanus gets a story
from Avicenna, of a certain man bit by a serpent, who recovered of his
bite, the snake dying therefrom. This man afterwards had a daughter
whom venomous serpents could not harm, though she had a fatal power over
them.
I suppose you may remember the statements of old authors about
Zycanthropy, the disease in which men took on the nature and aspect of
wolves. Actius and Paulus, both men of authority, describe it. Altomaris
gives a horrid case; and Fincelius mentions one occurring as late as
1541, the subject of which was captured, still insisting that he was a
wolf, only that the hair of his hide was turned in! Versipelles, it may
be remembered, was the Latin name for these “were-wolves.”
As for the cases where rabid persons have barked and bit like dogs,
there are plenty of such on record.
More singular, or at least more rare, is the account given by Andreas
Baccius, of a man who was struck in the hand by a cock, with his beak,
and who died on the third day thereafter, looking for all the world like
a fighting-cock, to the great horror of the spectators.
As to impressions transmitted at a very early period of existence, every
one knows the story of King James's fear of a naked sword, and the way
it is accounted for. Sir Kenelm Digby says,--“I remember when he dubbed
me Knight, in the ceremony of putting the point of a naked sword upon
my shoulder, he could not endure to look upon it, but turned his face
another way, insomuch, that, in lieu of touching my shoulder, he had
almost thrust the point into my eyes, had not the Duke of Buckingham
guided his hand aright.” It is he, too, who tells the story of the
mulberry mark upon the neck of a certain lady of high condition, which
“every year, to mulberry season, did swell, grow big, and itch.” And
Gaffarel mentions the case of a girl born with the figure of a fish on
one of her limbs, of which the wonder was, that, when the girl did eat
fish, this mark put her to sensible pain. But there is no end to cases
of this kind, and I could give some of recent date, if necessary,
lending a certain plausibility at least to the doctrine of transmitted
impressions.
I never saw a distinct case of evil eye, though I have seen eyes so bad
that they might produce strange effects on very sensitive natures. But
the belief in it under various names, fascination, jettcztura, etc., is
so permanent and universal, from Egypt to Italy, and from the days
of Solomon to those of Ferdinand of Naples, that there must be some
peculiarity, to say the least, on which the opinion is based. There is
very strong evidence that some such power is exercised by certain of the
lower animals. Thus, it is stated on good authority that “almost every
animal becomes panic-struck at the sight of the rattlesnake, and seems
at once deprived of the power of motion, or the exercise of its usual
instinct of self-preservation.” Other serpents seem to share this power
of fascination, as the Cobra and the Buccephalus Capensis.
Some think that it is nothing but fright; others attribute it to the
“strange powers that lie
Within the magic circle of the eye,”--
as Churchill said, speaking of Garrick.
You ask me about those mysterious and frightful intimacies between
children and serpents, of which so many instances have been recorded.
I am sure I cannot tell what to make of them. I have seen several such
accounts in recent papers, but here is one published in the seventeenth
century, which is as striking as any of the more modern ones:
“Mr. Herbert Tones of Monmouth, when he was a little Boy, was used to
eat his Milk in a Garden in the Morning, and was no sooner there, but
a large Snake always came, and eat out of the Dish with him, and did so
for a considerable time, till one Morning, he striking the Snake on the
Head, it hissed at him. Upon which he told his Mother that the Baby
(for so he call'd it) cry'd Hiss at him. His Mother had it kill'd, which
occasioned him a great Fit of Sickness, and 'twas thought would have
dy'd, but did recover.”
There was likewise one “William Writtle, condemned at Maidston Assizes
for a double murder, told a Minister that was with him after he was
condemned, that his mother told him, that when he was a Child, there
crept always to him a Snake, wherever she laid him. Sometimes she would
convey him up Stairs, and leave him never so little, she should be sure
to find a Snake in the Cradle with him, but never perceived it did him
any harm.”
One of the most striking alleged facts connected with the mysterious
relation existing between the serpent and-the human species is the
influence which the poison of the Crotulus, taken internally, seemed to
produce over the moral faculties, in the experiments instituted by Dr.
Hering at Surinam. There is something frightful in the disposition of
certain ophidians, as the whipsnake, which darts at the eyes of cattle
without any apparent provocation or other motive. It is natural enough
that the evil principle should have been represented in the form of a
serpent, but it is strange to think of introducing it into a human being
like cow-pox by vaccination.
You know all about the Psylli, or ancient serpent tamers, I suppose.
Savary gives an account of the modern serpent-tamers in his “Letters on
Egypt.” These modern jugglers are in the habit of making the venomous
Naja counterfeit death, lying out straight and stiff, changing it into
a rod, as the ancient magicians did with their serpents, (probably the
same animal,) in the time of Moses.
I am afraid I cannot throw much light on “Christabel” or “Lamia” by any
criticism I can offer. Geraldine, in the former, seems to be simply a
malignant witch-woman with the evil eye, but with no absolute ophidian
relationship. Lamia is a serpent transformed by magic into a woman. The
idea of both is mythological, and not in any sense physiological. Some
women unquestionably suggest the image of serpents; men rarely or never.
I have been struck, like many others, with the ophidian head and eye of
the famous Rachel.
Your question about inherited predispositions, as limiting the sphere of
the will, and, consequently, of moral accountability, opens a very wide
range of speculation. I can give you only a brief abstract of my own
opinions on this delicate and difficult subject. Crime and sin, being
the preserves of two great organized interests, have been guarded
against all reforming poachers with as great jealousy as the Royal
Forests. It is so easy to hang a troublesome fellow! It is so much
simpler to consign a soul to perdition, or say masses, for money, to
save it, than to take the blame on ourselves for letting it grow up in
neglect and run to ruin for want of humanizing influences! They hung
poor, crazy Bellingham for shooting Mr. Perceval. The ordinary of
Newgate preached to women who were to swing at Tyburn for a petty theft
as if they were worse than other people,--just as though he would not
have been a pickpocket or shoplifter, himself, if he had been born in
a den of thieves and bred up to steal or starve! The English law never
began to get hold of the idea that a crime was not necessarily a sin,
till Hadfield, who thought he was the Saviour of mankind, was tried for
shooting at George the Third;--lucky for him that he did not hit his
Majesty!
It is very singular that we recognize all the bodily defects that unfit
a man for military service, and all the intellectual ones that limit his
range of thought, but always talk at him as if all his moral powers were
perfect. I suppose we must punish evil-doers as we extirpate vermin; but
I don't know that we have any more right to judge them than we have to
judge rats and mice, which are just as good as cats and weasels, though
we think it necessary to treat them as criminals.
The limitations of human responsibility have never been properly
studied, unless it be by the phrenologists. You know from my lectures
that I consider phrenology, as taught, a pseudo-science, and not a
branch of positive knowledge; but, for all that, we owe it an immense
debt. It has melted the world's conscience in its crucible, and cast it
in a new mould, with features less like those of Moloch and more like
those of humanity. If it has failed to demonstrate its system of special
correspondences, it has proved that there are fixed relations between
organization and mind and character. It has brought out that great
doctrine of moral insanity, which has done more to make men charitable
and soften legal and theological barbarism than any one doctrine that I
can think of since the message of peace and good-will to men.
Automatic action in the moral world; the reflex movement which seems
to be self-determination, and has been hanged and howled at as such
(metaphorically) for nobody knows how many centuries: until somebody
shall study this as Marshall Hall has studied reflex nervous action in
the bodily system, I would not give much for men's judgments of each
others' characters. Shut up the robber and the defaulter, we must. But
what if your oldest boy had been stolen from his cradle and bred in a
North-Street cellar? What if you are drinking a little too much wine and
smoking a little too much tobacco, and your son takes after you, and so
your poor grandson's brain being a little injured in physical texture,
he loses the fine moral sense on which you pride yourself, and doesn't
see the difference between signing another man's name to a draft and his
own?
I suppose the study of automatic action in the moral world (you see what
I mean through the apparent contradiction of terms) may be a dangerous
one in the view of many people. It is liable to abuse, no doubt.
People are always glad to, get hold of anything which limits their
responsibility. But remember that our moral estimates come down to us
from ancestors who hanged children for stealing forty shillings' worth,
and sent their souls to perdition for the sin of being born,--who
punished the unfortunate families of suicides, and in their eagerness
for justice executed one innocent person every three years, on the
average, as Sir James Mackintosh tells us.
I do not know in what shape the practical question may present itself to
you; but I will tell you my rule in life, and I think you will find it
a good one. Treat bad men exactly as if they were insane. They are
in-sane, out of health, morally. Reason, which is food to sound minds,
is not tolerated, still less assimilated, unless administered with the
greatest caution; perhaps, not at all. Avoid collision with them, so far
as you honorably can; keep your temper, if you can,--for one angry
man is as good as another; restrain them from violence, promptly,
completely, and with the least possible injury, just as in the case of
maniacs,--and when you have got rid of them, or got them tied hand and
foot so that they can do no mischief, sit down and contemplate them
charitably, remembering that nine tenths of their' perversity comes from
outside influences, drunken ancestors, abuse in childhood, bad company,
from which you have happily been preserved, and for some of which you,
as a member of society, may be fractionally responsible. I think also
that there are special influences which work in the brood lake ferments,
and I have a suspicion that some of those curious old stories I cited
may have more recent parallels. Have you ever met with any cases which
admitted of a solution like that which I have mentioned?
Yours very truly, _____________ _____________
Bernard Langdon to Philip Staples.
MY DEAR PHILIP,--
I have been for some months established in this place, turning the
main crank of the machinery for the manufactory of accomplishments
superintended by, or rather worked to the profit of, a certain Mr. Silas
Peckham. He is a poor wretch, with a little thin fishy blood in his
body, lean and flat, long-armed and large-handed, thick-jointed
and thin-muscled,--you know those unwholesome, weak-eyed, half-fed
creatures, that look not fit to be round among live folks, and yet not
quite dead enough to bury. If you ever hear of my being in court to
answer to a charge of assault and battery, you may guess that I have
been giving him a thrashing to settle off old scores; for he is a
tyrant, and has come pretty near killing his principal lady-assistant
with overworking her and keeping her out of all decent privileges.
Helen Darley is this lady's name,--twenty two or three years old,
I should think,--a very sweet, pale woman,--daughter of the usual
country-clergyman,--thrown on her own resources from an early age, and
the rest: a common story, but an uncommon person,--very. All conscience
and sensibility, I should say,--a cruel worker,--no kind of regard for
herself, seems as fragile and supple as a young willow-shoot, but try
her and you find she has the spring in her of a steel cross-bow. I am
glad I happened to come to this place, if it were only for her sake. I
have saved that girl's life; I am as sure of it as if I had pulled her
out of the fire or water.
Of course I'm in love with her, you say,--we always love those whom
we have benefited; “saved her life,--her love was the reward of his
devotion,” etc., etc., as in a regular set novel. In love, Philip? Well,
about that,--I love Helen Darley--very much: there is hardly anybody I
love so well. What a noble creature she is! One of those that just go
right on, do their own work and everybody else's, killing themselves
inch by inch without ever thinking about it,--singing and dancing
at their toil when they begin, worn and saddened after a while, but
pressing steadily on, tottering by and by, and catching at the rail by
the way-side to help them lift one foot before the other, and at last
falling, face down, arms stretched forward.
Philip, my boy, do you know I am the sort of man that locks his door
sometimes and cries his heart out of his eyes,--that can sob like a
woman and not be ashamed of it? I come of fighting-blood on one side,
you know; I think I could be savage on occasion. But I am tender,--more
and more tender as I come into my fulness of manhood. I don't like
to strike a man, (laugh, if you like,--I know I hit hard when I do
strike,)--but what I can't stand is the sight of these poor, patient,
toiling women, who never find out in this life how good they are, and
never know what it is to be told they are angels while they still wear
the pleasing incumbrances of humanity. I don't know what to make
of these cases. To think that a woman is never to be a woman again,
whatever she may come to as an unsexed angel,--and that she should die
unloved! Why does not somebody come and carry off this noble woman,
waiting here all ready to make a man happy? Philip, do you know the
pathos there is in the eyes of unsought women, oppressed with the burden
of an inner life unshared? I can see into them now as I could not in
those 'earlier days. I sometimes think their pupils dilate on purpose to
let my consciousness glide through them; indeed, I dread them, I come so
close to the nerve of the soul itself in these momentary intimacies. You
used to tell me I was a Turk,--that my heart was full of pigeon-holes,
with accommodations inside for a whole flock of doves. I don't know but
I am still as Youngish as ever in my ways,--Brigham-Youngish, I mean;
at any rate, T. always want to give a little love to all the poor
things that cannot have a whole man to themselves. If they would only be
contented with a little!
Here now are two girls in this school where I am teaching. One of them,
Rosa M., is not more than sixteen years old, I think they say; but
Nature has forced her into a tropical luxuriance of beauty, as if it
were July with her, instead of May. I suppose it is all natural enough
that this girl should like a young man's attention, even if he were
a grave schoolmaster; but the eloquence of this young thing's look
is unmistakable,--and yet she does not know the language it is
talking,--they none of them do; and there is where a good many poor
creatures of our good-for-nothing sex are mistaken. There is no danger
of my being rash, but I think this girl will cost somebody his life
yet. She is one of those women men make a quarrel about and fight to the
death for,--the old feral instinct, you know.
Pray, don't think I am lost in conceit, but there is another girl here
who I begin to think looks with a certain kindness on me. Her name is
Elsie V., and she is the only daughter and heiress of an old family in
this place. She is a portentous and almost fearful creature. If I should
tell you all I know and half of what I fancy about her, you would
tell me to get my life insured at once. Yet she is the most painfully
interesting being,--so handsome! so lonely!--for she has no friends
among the girls, and sits apart from them,--with black hair like the
flow of a mountain-brook after a thaw, with a low-browed, scowling
beauty of face, and such eyes as were never seen before, I really
believe, in any human creature.
Philip, I don't know what to say about this Elsie. There is something
about her I have not fathomed. I have conjectures which I could not
utter to any living soul. I dare not even hint the possibilities which
have suggested themselves to me. This I will say, that I do take the
most intense interest in this young person, an interest much more like
pity than love in its common sense. If what I guess at is true, of all
the tragedies of existence I ever knew this is the saddest, and yet so
full of meaning! Do not ask me any questions,--I have said more than
I meant to already; but I am involved in strange doubts and
perplexities,--in dangers too, very possibly,--and it is a relief just
to speak ever so guardedly of them to an early and faithful friend.
Yours ever, BERNARD.
P. S. I remember you had a copy of Fortunius Licetus' “De Monstris”
among your old books. Can't you lend it to me for a while? I am curious,
and it will amuse me.