The service I was able to render an official personage connected with
----College in New England procured me access to the library belonging
to that institution. In common with many of my fellow-citizens, I had
previously enjoyed the pleasure of responding to circulars petitioning
for money to buy books for interment in this choice literary catacomb;
nay, I was even allowed the satisfaction of an annual stare at them
through an iron grating, and of reading a placard to the effect that
nobody was allowed to enter an alcove or take down a volume. As it
occurred to me that the generous donors could not object to add one more
to the select half-dozen or so, who, by having the privilege of the
shelves, could really use the library, I demanded this favor of the
gentleman who desired to recompense me for what I had done for him. The
Librarian, who valued books as things capable of being locked up in
cells like criminals, there to figure numerically to the confusion of
rival institutions, was manifestly disturbed when I presented my
credentials. The authority, however, was not to be questioned;--I was to
be admitted to the library at any hour of the day; and I took care to
drop a civil expression to imply my estimation of the privilege and my
purpose of enjoying it.
Wanting the leisure to attempt that ponderous undertaking known as "a
course of reading," it became my habit to browse about the building upon
Saturday afternoons, and finally to establish myself, with whatever
authors I had selected, in a certain retired alcove devoted to the
metaphysicians. This comfortable nook opens just behind Crawford's bust
of the late President T----, and is nearly opposite the famous Mather
Safe. As it is possible that I am addressing some who are not graduates
of ---- College, nor familiar with its library, it may be well to say a
word of the history of the spacious and ancient coffer to which
allusion is made.
The Mather Safe--which, by the way, is not of iron, but of oak heavily
bound with that metal--is said to have been among the possessions of the
author of the "Magnalia." Its last private proprietor was a collateral
descendant of the Mathers, an eccentric character, popularly known as
Miser Farrel. As Farrel was a bachelor, and had the reputation of being
enormously rich, the College authorities of his day were accustomed to
treat him with distinguished consideration, and went so far, I believe,
as to vote him some minor degree. What effect these academic
blandishments may have had upon their object cannot at present be
determined. For when the day came for the long-expected will to be
opened, it was found that the old gentleman had bequeathed to the
College only his Mather Safe, with certain papers carefully let into the
wood-work in one corner of the same,--which papers were not to be
removed or opened for a hundred years.
It may be conceived that this bulky benefaction was not accepted with
the best grace, particularly as the testator made no provision for
considerable expense necessarily incurred in moving and setting it up in
the library. Yet, not satisfied with this culpable negligence, Mr.
Farrel had affixed still other conditions to the acceptance of his gift.
He had caused two massive locks to be put upon the Mather Safe, of which
he enjoined that the respective keys should be forever held by the
President and Treasurer of the College, to the end that neither could
have access to its contents except in the presence of the other.
Moreover, he required that the Safe should be used only as a receptacle
for packages which the depositors desired to keep from the world for at
least fifty years. Of course no right-minded corporation would have
endured this posthumous fussiness, were it not for the mysterious papers
left in the Safe,--these being considered instruments whereby immense
possessions would finally come to the College. But, as their worthy
friend, however niggardly in other respects, had taken care to save
nothing in lawyers, there were really no means of disregarding his
wishes, except by relinquishing all claims under the will. And so, many
years ago, the Mather Safe came to be opened to the public on the
conditions already declared. At first, it was matter of surprise that so
many persons appeared to claim the privilege of Farrel's singular
legacy. Carefully enveloped packages had been consigned to various
periods of oblivion by all conditions of men and women. These were
numbered and registered in a volume kept for the purpose; they were
severally addressed, perhaps to a specified descendant of some living
person, perhaps to the future occupant of some professor's chair or
metropolitan pulpit.
It was near the Mather Safe, as I have already said, that my favorite
alcove opened. In the short winter afternoon, when the twilight
thickened without the building, and the type began to blur within, I
would lay aside my book and muse over wild rumors of secrets borne by
this messenger between the generations. Journals and letters, it was
said, were there concealed, which should change the current gossip of
history, and explode many bubble-reputations that had glittered on the
world. There were hints of deadly sins, committed by men high in Church
and State, which their perpetrators lacked the courage to confess before
their fellows, but which, in the bitterness of remorse, they had
recorded in the Mather Safe, to blacken their fame to future
times,--thus taking a ghastly satisfaction from the knowledge that they
should not always appear as whited sepulchres before men. There was
vague talk, also, of funds which had been deposited to found some
professorship in the College, to furnish some instruction which the age
was not advanced enough to accept. Then, too, there were intimations of
endowments to establish scholarships for women, who,--so it was
argued,--after the increasing enlightenment of a few score of years,
would be admitted to every privilege of culture offered to men. In
short, there was matter enough to send a curdling tingle through the
blood, as this tough old ark, buffeting slowly through the years,
entered its familiar night. If there was deficiency in the testimony
which consigned any special wonder to its keeping, there was, doubtless,
sufficient truth in common reports to justify the imagination in
interpreting misty hieroglyphics of its own device.
During the latter part of a certain August--my family being established
at the seaside--I determined to devote a long day to the College
Library. The fact was, that a trifling domestic incident--no other than
the smoking of a kitchen-chimney--had turned my attention to the
conditions of atmospheric changes. Certain phenomena I had observed
seemed inconsistent with the law assumed in popular text-books. Indeed,
as it appeared to me, modifications of a received theory--which might be
determined by a diligent comparison of existing authorities--would
suggest a household economy of great practical importance. Certain
facts, which must have been noted by all the great voyagers of the
world, might give me data from which to establish the suspected
conclusion. I accordingly repaired to the library at a very early hour,
and labored through the day in collecting and committing to writing what
had been observed by many eminent navigators upon the point in question.
Four o'clock in the afternoon found me too tired to apply any process of
analysis to the observations obtained. I therefore retired to my
accustomed seat, took down almost the first book which came to hand, and
resigned myself to the impressions of a favorite author. I had passed
about an hour in a delicious state of dreamy tranquillity, sometimes
reading, sometimes pausing to color the faded page with the brilliant
hues of more modern thought, when my attention was attracted by a
familiar voice proceeding from the neighborhood of the Mather Safe.
"The President and Treasurer were to have been here at five o'clock."
"I have heard nothing of it," said the Librarian. "I am sure that the
President is out of town for the day."
"Strange! strange!" exclaimed the Reverend Mr. Clifton, in a very
excited tone. "I wish to make a deposit of great importance in the
Mather Safe. I had the assurance that the Safe should be opened at five
this afternoon. Here, read the solemn promise upon which I have come
from Foxden!"
The Librarian glanced at an open letter which Clifton held out to him,
and said, in a quiet manner,--
"The President promises to meet you in the College Library on the
afternoon of Thursday, the twenty-fourth instant; to-day is Wednesday,
the twenty-third."
"Is it possible?" muttered the clergyman, with a look of startled
despair. "Pardon my disturbance. I have been hardly myself for these
last weeks. Yet I can wait."
I spoke to Mr. Clifton as he was about to leave the library. He blenched
at hearing my voice, and strove to conceal the package beneath his arm.
"How do my good friends in Foxden?" said I, inviting him into my alcove.
"Is it true that Dr. Dastick has presented his cabinet of curiosities to
the town?"
"What are you reading?" said the clergyman, in a tone of curt authority
very foreign to the mild persuasiveness of his usual professional
accents.
I exhibited the title of the book: it was the "Meditations of
Descartes."
"And do you follow those who vainly seek for truth through the inner
world of man, not conforming themselves to the necessities of the
outward world and the teachings of Revelation?"
I defended the usefulness of some acquaintance with the original and
powerful thinker, whose apologies are certainly profuse enough to
satisfy the most orthodox.
"Yes; I suppose you read Spinoza, Hegel, Fichte, the Atheism of
D'Holbach, Utilitarianism Systematized by Auguste Comte! Did you ever go
fishing in a dory when the wind was off shore?"
There was an alarm in the eye and manner of Mr. Clifton, a tremulous
restlessness in his speech, which warned me to avoid discussion, and
endeavor to soothe his agitation. It was only to the last interrogatory,
therefore, that I made some light reply.
"The sea sparkles gayly," pursued the clergyman, in the manner of an
extemporaneous preacher who strives to catch in a net of decorations
some illustration which presents itself,--"the boat tosses on from wave
to wave, for dories will sail before the wind. Soon we are miles from
shore, and throw the anchor. What auspicious expansion of soul and body!
How we slide up and down the backs of great billows, and cast our lines
with ever-varying success! But the night comes, and with it the
necessity of rowing back against wind and tide. Ah, then how long the
lonely ocean-leagues! How distant the time when we may hope to stand
confused and giddy upon solid earth! Some never see the land again, but
are swept out into the storm and darkness, and are lost,--_lost_!"
"I presume I understand the significance of your similitude," I replied,
a little annoyed at this inopportune indulgence of the pastoral
privilege. "You would imply the dangerous tendency of a certain sort of
philosophical speculation; and so far we doubtless agree. Yet I ought to
say, that, in cases where personal investigation is possible, I would
take neither popular clamor nor learned dogmatism as conclusive evidence
against any writer's honesty and usefulness. With the vulgar, genius has
always seemed a sort of madness; and should a man rise preeminent above
the teachers of his generation, his wisdom would appear to them as
foolishness."
A change came over the face of Clifton as I said these words. It was as
if a mask had fallen. Perchance he had wished to appear to me in that
character of instructor which he desired some competent person to assume
to him. Now, the relaxed muscles and averted eye only asked the sympathy
of an equal. He spoke with forced, and almost grating, utterance.
"Then you have used experience well enough to know that some minds may
bear into the world a light, a knowledge too fine for general
perception, too pure for even exceptional recognition."
"I fully believe it possible," I said. "Yonder old Safe, if rumor says
true, holds many mystic signals which the past and present could address
only to the future,--signs meaningless, no doubt, to you or me, but
which the freemasonry of higher intelligence shall render plain in the
time hereafter."
"And what if I had come," exclaimed Clifton, eagerly,--"what if I had
come to add to those deposits which are not for this time, but which may
be for other times? What blame to me, if I am here to do this? Should we
common men, who find a life full of active duties presented to our
acceptance,--should such as we, I say, receive this world as a pageant
before which we must sit down and evolve a doctrine? The conceit of
external education is at present too strong to acknowledge a divine
element radiating from the depths of the soul, and finding in the mind
only an awkward and imperfect instrument. Any extravagance is now
tolerated, but an extravagance of spirituality; and we find altogether
wanting the perception, that, rising from the gross symbols of language,
can know the subtile and precious emotion which in a more advanced state
of being those symbols might suggest."
As it was evident that Mr. Clifton was laboring under great nervous
excitability, I judged it prudent not to question the sequence of what
he said, or even demand that it be made intelligible by further
explanation. Indeed, I was sufficiently occupied in striving to identify
this incomprehensible person with my familiar acquaintance, the pastor
of the First Church in Foxden. It occurred to me that something had
once been said of Clifton's connection with that topsy-turvy sodality
popularly known as "The Transcendentalists." But this was many years
ago; and the world always supposed that he had outgrown his early
errors, and found, in the liberal theology of New England, a more
genuine inspiration. In meeting him in his pastoral relation, I had only
remarked that he was one of those men who find it very difficult to
resist the social influences into which they may be thrown. This was
probably the case even where that influence tended to degrade him from
the plane he would have occupied, if left to himself. His spiritual life
seemed to lack that vigor and buoyancy so infinitely important to
contemplative men. He appeared to be ever yearning for something which
should add robustness to his convictions. After a pause of some moments,
Clifton again addressed me.
"Recollections of moments, months of excitement, of intense power, have
returned! They may not fade again unspoken. You shall know my
long-cherished secret. Younger in years, you may scarcely advise; but,
at least, you may give sympathy that shall confirm my decision. I have
engaged rooms at the neighboring hotel. Come and pass the evening--nay,
the night--with me; for much must be read and thought and spoken before
the black veil of personality can be lifted between us."
It has already been observed that my family were at the seaside. This
circumstance left me sole disposer of my time and localities. How, then,
resist the inclination to see out the adventure upon which I had
stumbled? Let me credit myself also with a worthier motive: I saw that
my companion was in no state to be left to himself,--and, really, there
was no mutual friend to whom I could consign him. Accordingly I offered
my arm in a manner to imply acquiescence in his proposal.
We soon reached the hotel, and ascended to a room in the remote corner
of a spacious wing. Clifton at once turned the key, placed his package
upon the table, and proceeded to employ a stray bit of carpet in
stopping a ventilator which communicated with the entry. Having
satisfied himself that this passage was rendered impervious to sound, he
drew two chairs up to the table, motioned me into one, and planted
himself in the other with the air of a man, in popular phrase, about to
make a night of it.
"Did you ever hear of Herbert Vannelle?" he asked, abruptly.
It can hardly be necessary to say that a substitute is here placed for
the name really mentioned.