where houses were more scarce and there were fewer people to be
unconcerned! In country solitudes he could still be the chief figure.
He entered Broadway at the point where Grace Church stands, and passed
on through the sparsely inhabited region now known as Union Square.
The streets hereabouts were but roughly marked out, and were left in
many places to the imagination. On the corner of Twenty-third Street
was a low whitewashed inn, whose spreading roof overshadowed the
girdling balcony. Farmers' wagons were housed beneath the adjoining
shed, and one was drawn up before the door, its driver conversing with
a personage in shirt-sleeves and straw hat, answering to the name of
Corporal Thompson.
Helwyse perhaps stopped at the Corporal's hospitable little
establishment to rest himself and get some breakfast; but whether or
not, his walk did not end here, but continued up Broadway, and after
passing a large kitchen-garden (whose owner, a stout Dutchman, was
pacing its central path, smoking a long clay pipe which he took from
his lips only to growl guttural orders to the gardeners who were
stooping here and there over the beds), emerged into open country,
where only an occasional Irish shanty broke the solitude.
How long the young man walked he never knew; but at length, from the
summit of a low hill, he looked northwest and saw the gleam of Hudson
River. Leaving the road he struck across rocky fields which finally
brought him to the river-bank. A stony promontory jutted into the
water, and on this (having clambered to its outer extremity) Helwyse
sat down, his feet overhanging the swirling current. The tide was just
past the flood.
About two hundred yards up stream, to the northward, stood a small
wooden house, on the beach in front of which a shabby old mariner was
bailing out his boat. Southwards, some miles away, curved the
shadowed edge of the city, a spire mounting here and there, a
pencilled mist of smoke from chimneys, a fringe of thready masts
around the farthest point. In front slid ceaselessly away the vast
sweep of levelled water, and still it came undiminished on. The
opposing shore was a mile distant, its rocky front gradually gaining
abruptness and height until lost round the northern curve. But
directly opposite Helwyse's promontory, the stony wall was for some
way especially precipitous and high, its lofty brink serried with a
thick phalanx of trees.
This spot finally monopolized the adventurer's attention; had he been
in Germany, he would have looked for gray castle-towers rising behind
the foliage. The place looked inaccessible and romantic, and was
undeniably picturesque. New York was far enough away to be mistaken
for--say--Alexandria; while the broad river certainly took its rise in
as prehistoric an age as the Nile itself. Perhaps in the early morning
of the world some chieftain built his stronghold there, and fought
notable battles and gave mighty feasts; and later married, and begat
stalwart sons, or a daughter beautiful as earth and sky! Where to-day
were her youth and beauty, her loving noble heart, her warm melodious
voice, her eyes full of dark light? Why were there no such women
now?--not warped, imperfect, only half alive in body and spirit; but
charged from the heart outwards with pure divine vitality,--natures
vivid as fire, yet by strength serene!
"Why did not I live when she lived, to marry her?" muttered Helwyse in
a dream. "A woman whose infinite variety age could not alter nor
custom stale! A true wife would have kept me from error. What man can
comprehend the world, if he puts half the world away? Now it is too
late; she might have helped me rise to greatness, but not to bear
disgrace. Ah, Balder Helwyse, poor fool! you babble as if she stood
before you to take or leave. _You_ rise to greatness? You never had
the germs of greatness in you! You are so little that not the goddess
Freya herself could have made you tall! Through what delusion did you
fancy yourself better than any other worm?"
There was an interval, not more than a rod or two in width, in the
tree-hedge which lined the opposite cliff. Through this one might get
a narrow glimpse of what lay beyond. A strip of grassy lawn extended
in front of what seemed to be the stone corner of a house. The
distance obscured detail, but it looked massively built, though not
after the modern style. As Helwise gazed, sharpening his eyes to
discern more clearly, he saw a figure moving across the lawn directly
towards him. Advancing to the brink of the cliff, it there paused and
seemed to return his glance. Helwyse could not tell whether it were
man or woman. Had the river only been narrower!
The next moment he remembered his telescope, and, taking it from its
case, he was at a bound within one hundred yards of the western shore.
Man or woman? he steadied the glass on his knee and looked again. A
woman, surely,--but how strangely dressed! Such a costume had not
been in vogue since Damascus was a new name in men's mouths. Balder
gazed and gazed. Accurately to distinguish the features was
impossible,--tantalizingly so; for the gazer was convinced that she
was both young and beautiful. Her motions, her bearing, the graceful
peculiarity of her garb,--a hundred nameless evidences made it sure.
How delightful to watch her in her unconsciousness! yet Helwyse felt a
delicacy in thus stealing on her without her knowledge or consent. But
the misgiving was not strong enough to shut up his telescope; perhaps
it added a zest to the enjoyment.
"The very princess you were just now dreaming of! the most beautiful
and complete woman! Would I were the prince to win thee!"
This aspiration was whispered, as though its object were within
conversable distance. Balder could be imaginative enough when the
humor took him.
Hardly had the whisper passed his lips when he saw the princess
majestically turn her lovely head, slowly and heedfully, until her
glance seemed directly to meet his own. His cheeks burned; it was as
if she had actually overheard him. Was she gracious or offended? He
saw her stretch towards him her arms, and then, with a gesture of
beautiful power, clasp her hands and draw them in to her bosom.
Prince Balder's hand trembled, the telescope slipped; the quick effort
to regain it lent it an impetus that shot it far into the water. It
had done its work and was gone forever. The beautiful princess was
once more a vague speck across a mile of rapid river; now, even the
speck had moved beyond the trees and was out of sight!
The episode had come so unexpected, and so quickly passed, that now it
seemed never to have been at all! But Helwyse had yielded himself
unreservedly to the influence of the moment. Following so aptly the
fanciful creation of his thought, the apparition had acquired peculiar
significance. The abrupt disappearance afflicted him like a positive
loss.
Did he, then, soberly believe himself and the princess to have
exchanged glances (not to speak of thoughts) across a river a mile
wide? Perhaps he merely courted a fancy from which the test of reason
was deliberately withheld. Spirits not being amenable to material
laws, what was the odds (so far as exchange of spiritual sentiment
was concerned) whether the prince and princess were separated by miles
or inches?
But however plausible the fancy, it was over. Helwyse leaned back on
the rock, drew his hat over his eyes, folded his hands beneath his
head, and appeared to sleep.
XIV.
THE TOWER OF BABEL.
In a perfect state of society, where people will think and act in
harmony with only the purest æsthetic laws, a knowledge of stenography
and photography will suffice for the creation of perfect works of art.
But until that epoch comes, the artist must be content to do the
grouping, toning, and proportioning of his picture for himself, under
penalty of redundancy and confusion. People nowadays seldom do or
think the right thing at the fitting moment; insomuch that the
biographer, if he would be intelligible, must use his own discretion
in arranging his materials.
Now, in view of the rough shaking which late events had given Balder
and his opinions, it is doing no violence to probability to fancy him
taking an early opportunity to pass these opinions in review. It would
be easy, by a glance at the magic ring, to reproduce his meditations
just as they passed through his brain. Brevity and pertinence,
however, counsel us to recall a dialogue which had taken place about
three years before.
Balder and his father were then in the North of England; and the
latter (who never concerned himself with any save the plainest and
most practical philosophy) was not a little startled at an analogy
drawn by his son between the cloud-cap on Helvellyn's head and the
Almighty! Premising that the cloud-cap, though apparently stable, was
really created by the continuous passage of warmer air through a cold
region around the summit of the mountain, whereby it was for a moment
condensed into visibility and then swept on,--having postulated this
fact, and disregarding the elder's remark that he believed not a word
of it,--Balder went on to say that God was only a set of
attributes,--in a word, the perfection of all human attributes,--and
not at all an individual!
"And what has that to do with your cloud-making theory?" demanded
Thor, with scorn.
"The perfect human attributes," replied Balder, unruffled, "correspond
to the region of condensation,--the cold place, you understand."
"Do they? Well?"
"The constant condensation of the warm current from below corresponds
to the taking on of these attributes by a ceaseless succession of
human souls. Filling out the Divine character, they lose identity, and
so make room for others."
"What are these attributes?"
"They are ineffable,--they are omniscience,--the comprehension of the
whole creative idea."
"You expect me to believe that,--eh?" growled Thor.
"If I could believe you understood it, dear old sceptic!" returned
Balder, with affectionate irreverence, throwing his arm across his
father's broad shoulders. "I say that every soul of right capacity,
living for culture, and not afraid of itself, will at last reach that
highest point. It is the sublime goal of man, and no human life is
complete unless in gaining it. Many fail, but not all. I will not! No,
I am not blasphemous; I think life without definite aim not worth
having; and that aim, the highest conceivable."
Thor, having stared in silence at his descendant, came out with a
stentorian Viking laugh, which Balder sustained with perfect
good-humor.
"Ho, ho!--the devil is in you, son!--in those black eyes of
yours,--ho, ho! No other Helwyse ever had such eyes,--or such ideas
either! Well, but supposing you passed the condensation point, what
then?"
Balder, who was entirely in earnest about the matter, answered
gravely,--
"I cease to be; but what was I becomes the pure, life-giving,
spiritual substance, and enters into fresh personalities, and so
passes up again in endless circulation."
"Hum! and how with the evil ones, boy?"
"As with all waste matter; they are cast aside, and, as distinct
souls, are gradually annihilated. But they may still manure the soil,
and involuntarily help the growth of others. Sooner or later, in one
or another form, all come into use."
"For all I see, then," quoth Thor, "your devils come to the same end
as your gods!"
"There is the same kind of difference," returned the philosopher, "as
between light and earth,--both of which help the growth of flowers;
but light gives color and beauty, earth only the insipid matter. I
would rather be the light."
"Another thing," proceeded Thor, ignoring this distinction; "admitting
all else, how do you account for your region of condensation?"
"By the necessity of perfection," answered Balder, after some
consideration. "There would be no meaning in existence unless it
tended towards perfection. But you have hit on the unanswerable
question."
Thor shook his head and huge grizzled beard. "German University
humbug!" growled he. "Get you into a scrape some day. The cloud's not
made in that way, I tell you! Come, let's go back to the inn."
"Take my arm," said Balder; and as together they descended the spur of
the mountain, he added lovingly, "I'll bring no clouds across your
sky, my dear old man!" So the hospitable inn received them.
The discussion between the two was never renewed; but Balder held to
his creed. He elaborated and fortified what had been mere outline
before. No dogma can be conceived which many circumstances will not
seem to confirm and justify. But we cannot attempt to keep abreast of
Balder's deductions. There are as many theological systems as
individual souls; and no system can be wholly apprehended by any one
save its author.
Mastery of men and things,--supreme knowledge to the end of supreme
power,--such seems to have been his ambition,--an ambition too
abstract and lofty for much rivalry. Nature and human nature were at
once his laboratory and his instruments. His senses were to him
outlets of divinity. The good and evil of such a scheme scarce need
pointing out. It was the apotheosis of self-respect; but self-respect
raised to such a height becomes self-worship; human vision dazzles at
the sublimity of the prospect; at the moment of greatest weakness the
soul arrogates invincible power, and falls! For, the mightier man is,
the more absolutely does he need the support of a mightier Man than he
can ever be.
No doubt Balder had often been assailed by doubts and weariness; the
path had seemed too long and arduous, and he had secretly pined for
some swift issue from perplexity and delay. In such a moment was it
that the voice of darkness gained his ear, and, like a will-o'-the-wisp,
lured him to calamity. Verily, it is not easy to be God. Only builders
of the Tower of Babel know the awfulness of its overthrow.
Balder's spirit lay prostrate among the ruins, too stunned and
bewildered to see the reason or justice of his fall. Such a state is
dangerous, for, the better part of the mind being either occupied with
its disaster or stupefied by it, the superficial part is readily moved
to folly or extravagance,--to deeds and thoughts which a saner moment
would scout and ridicule. Well is it, then, if the blind steps are
guided to better foothold than they know how to choose. Angels are
said to be particularly watchful over those who sleep; perhaps, also,
during the darkness which follows on moral perversion.
XV.
CHARON'S FERRY.
After lying motionless for half an hour, Balder suddenly sat upright
and settled his hat on his head. A new purpose had come to him which,
arriving later than it might have done, made him wish to act upon it
without delay.
The old mariner had by this time bailed out his boat, and, having
shipped a mast in the forward thwart, was dropping down stream. As he
neared the promontory Balder hailed him:--
"Hullo! skipper, take me across?"
The skipper, without replying, steered shorewards, the other
clambering down the rock to meet him. After a brief parley, during
which the old fellow closely scrutinized his intending passenger from
head to foot, a bargain was struck, and they put forth, tacking
diagonally across stream. For Balder, having charged his imagination
with castles, warlike chieftains, and beautiful princesses, had
finally arrived at the conclusion that the stone house was an
enchanter's castle; the figure he had seen, an imprisoned lady;
himself, a knight-errant bound to rescue her and give the wicked
enchanter his deserts. This idea possessed his brain for the moment
more vividly than do realities most men. The plumed helmet was on his
head, he glittered with shining arms and sword, his heart warmed and
throbbed with visions of conflict and bold emprise. The commonplace
assumed an aspect of grandeur and magnificence in harmony with his
chivalric mania. The leaky craft in which he sat became a majestic
barge; the skipper, some wrinkled Charon who doubtless had ferried
many a brave knight to his death beneath yonder castle's walls. That
seeming birch-stump on the farther shore was the castle champion,
armed cap-a-pie in silver harness and ready with drawn sword to do
battle against all comers. Trim the sail, ferryman, and steer thy
skilfullest!
The kind of insanity which sees in outward manifestation the fantasies
of the mind is an affection incident at times to every one. An artist
sees beauties in a landscape, an artisan in pulleys and levers, and
either may be so far insane in the eyes of the other. Nature discovers
grandeur, beauty, or truth according as the quality abides in the
seer. In this view Balder or Don Quixote was no more insane than other
people. Their eyes bore true witness to what was in their minds, and
the sanest eyes can do no more. Their minds were, perhaps, out of
focus; but who can cast the first stone?
The skipper, when not masquerading as Charon, was a lean, brown, and
wrinkled old salt, neither complete nor clean of garb, and bulging as
to one lank cheek with a quid of tobacco. At first he sat silent,
dividing his attention between the conduct of his boat and his
passenger.
"Whereabouts will yer land, Captain?" he asked when they were fairly
under way.
"Wherever there is a path upwards. Who is the owner of the castle?"
"The castle? Well, there ain't many rightly knows just what his name
is," answered Charon, cocking his gray eye rather quizzically. "Some
says one thing, some another. I have heard tell he was Davy Jones
himself!"
"Have you ever seen him?"
"Well, I don't know; I've seen something that might have been him; but
there's no telling! he can fix himself up to look like pretty much
anything, they say. There ain't many calls up to the castle, anyway."
"Why not?"
"Well, there's a big wall all around the place, for one thing, and
never a gate in it; so without yer dives under ground and up again,
there don't seem no easy way of getting in."
"Does the owner never come out, then?"
"Well, he can get out, I expect, when he wants to," replied the
wrinkled humorist, with a weather-beaten grin. "They do say he whips
off on a broomstick about once a month and steers for Bos-ton!" His
fashion of utterance was a leisurely sing-song, like the roll of a
vessel anchored in a ground-swell.
"Why does he go there?" demanded Prince Balder, with the air of
finding nothing extravagant or improbable in the sailor's yarn. The
latter (a little doubting whether his interlocutor were a simpleton or
a "deep one") answered, after a moment's pause,--to replenish his
imagination perhaps,--
"Well, in course, I knows nothing what he does; but they do say he
coasts around to all the ho-tels and overhauls the log. He's been
laying for some one this twenty year. My idea, it's about time he
hailed him!"
"What does he want with him?"
"Well, yer see, what folks say is, this chap had played some game or
other off on Davy; so Davy he puts a rod in pickle and vows he'd be
even with the chap, yet.
"Yer see,--I'll tell yer," continued Charon, leaning forward on his
knee and speaking confidentially; "just as this chap was putting
off,--with some of Davy's belongings, likely,--Davy up and cuts a
slice of flesh and blood off him. Well, he takes this slice and fixes
it up one way or another, and makes a witch out of it,--handsome as
she can be,--enough to draw a chap's heart right out through his
jacket. Now, being as she's his own flesh and blood, d' yer see, this
chap I'm telling yer on's bound to come back after her afore he dies.
Well, soon as Davy gets hold on him, he ups with him to the place
yonder and outs with the witch. 'Here yer are, my dear friend!' says
he (as civil as may be), 'here's yer own flesh and blood a-waiting for
yer!' Well, the chap grabs for her, and once he touches her there
ain't no letting go no more. Off she starts on her broomstick, he
along behind, till they gets over Hell gate--" Charon checked himself,
made an ominous downward gesture with his right forefinger, and
emphasized it by spitting solemnly to leeward.
"Did you ever meet him,--this man?" asked Helwyse, rousing himself
from a brown study and looking Charon in the eyes.
"Well, now, I couldn't tell for certain as I ever met him," replied
the other, returning the look with an odd wrinkling of the features.
"But it's nigh on twenty year that I fetched a man across this very
spot, and back again in the evening, that might have been him.
Leastways, he was the last caller ever I took over to that house."
"I am the first since he--eh?"
"Well, yer are; and, Captain,--no offence to you,--but allowing for a
lot of hair he had, he was like enough to you to be yer twin brother!"
"Or even myself! So Davy Jones goes by the name of Doctor Glyphic in
these parts, does he?" said Balder, with a sudden, incisive smile,
which almost cut through the old ferryman's self-possession. The boat
at the same moment glided into a little cove, and the passenger jumped
ashore. Charon stood deferentially touching his weather-stained hat,
too much mystified to speak. But the fare which Helwyse handed him
restored his voice.
"Thank yer, Captain,--thank yer kindly!--hope no offence, Captain,--a
chap picks up a deal of gossip in twenty year, and--"
"No offence in the world!" cried Helwyse; "I take you for a powerful
enchanter, who seems to steer one way, when he is in fact taking his
passenger in another. Where are you bound?"
"Well, I was dropping down a bit to see if the schooner ain't around
yet. She'd ought to be in by now, if nothing ain't runned into her in
the fog."
Helwyse paused a moment, eying Charon sharply. "The schooner
'Resurrection,'" he began, and, seeing he had hit the mark, continued,
"was run into last night on Long Island Sound, and had her bowsprit
carried away. But no serious damage was done, and she'll be in by
night, if the wind holds."
With this he bade the awe-stricken old yarn-spinner farewell, and,
with secret laughter at his bewilderment, turned to the narrow zigzag
path that climbed the bank, passing the birch-stump champion without a
glance of recognition. A few vigorous minutes brought him to the
summit, whence, facing round, he saw the broad river crawl beneath
him; the little boat, with Charon in the stern, drift downwards; and
beyond, the whole rough length of Manhattan Island.
A few days before Thor Helwyse's departure for Europe (some four years
after his wife's death) he had left a certain little boy and girl in
charge of the nurse,--a woman in whose faithfulness he placed the
utmost confidence,--and had crossed from Brooklyn to New Jersey, to
say good by to Brother Hiero. Returning at night he found one of the
children--his son Balder--locked up in the nursery; the nurse and the
little girl had disappeared, nor did Thor again set eyes on either of
them.
Balder, as he grew up, often questioned his father concerning various
events which had happened beyond the reach of his childish memory; and
among other stories, no doubt this of the farewell visit to Uncle
Glyphic had been often told with all the details. By no miracle,
therefore, but simply by an acute mental process, associating together
time, place, and description, was Balder enabled so to dumfounder old
Charon.
Embarking on a phantom quest, his brain full of whimsical visions,
Balder had thus unexpectedly stepped into the path of his legitimate
affair. The accident (for no better reason than that it was such)
inspired him with a superficial cheerfulness. He had landed some
distance below his uncle Glyphic's house,--for such indeed it
was,--and he now took his way towards it through trees and underbrush.
It was so situated, and so thickly surrounded with foliage, as to be
visible from no point in the vicinity. Had the site been chosen with a
view to concealment, the builder could not have succeeded better.
Remembering the eccentricity of his uncle's character, as portrayed in
many an anecdote, Balder would not have been surprised to find him
living under ground, or in a pyramid.
On arriving at the wall whereof the ferryman had told him, he found it
a truly formidable affair, some twelve feet high and built of brick.
To scale it without a ladder was impossible; but Balder, never
doubting that there was a gate somewhere, set out in search of it.