CHAPTER 1

[Illustration]

The Works of Edgar Allan Poe

by Edgar Allan Poe

IN FIVE VOLUMES

The Raven Edition

Contents

VOLUME 1.

PREFACE

LIFE OF POE

DEATH OF POE

THE UNPARALLELED ADVENTURES OF ONE HANS PFAALL

THE GOLD-BUG

FOUR BEASTS IN ONE—THE HOMO-CAMELEOPARD

THE MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE

THE MYSTERY OF MARIE ROGET.(*1)

THE BALLOON-HOAX

MS. FOUND IN A BOTTLE

THE OVAL PORTRAIT

VOLUME 2.

THE PURLOINED LETTER

THE THOUSAND-AND-SECOND TALE OF SCHEHERAZADE

A DESCENT INTO THE MAELSTROM.

VON KEMPELEN AND HIS DISCOVERY

MESMERIC REVELATION

THE FACTS IN THE CASE OF M. VALDEMAR

THE BLACK CAT.

THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER

SILENCE—A FABLE

THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH.

THE CASK OF AMONTILLADO.

THE IMP OF THE PERVERSE

THE ISLAND OF THE FAY

THE ASSIGNATION

THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM

THE PREMATURE BURIAL

THE DOMAIN OF ARNHEIM

LANDOR’S COTTAGE

WILLIAM WILSO

THE TELL-TALE HEART.

BERENICE

ELEONORA

NOTES TO THE SECOND VOLUME

VOLUME 3.

NARRATIVE OF A. GORDON PYM

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

NOTES TO THE THIRD VOLUME

LIGEIA

MORELLA

A TALE OF THE RAGGED MOUNTAINS

THE SPECTACLES

KING PEST

THREE SUNDAYS IN A WEEK

VOLUME 4.

THE DEVIL IN THE BELFRY

LIONIZING

X-ING A PARAGRAPH

METZENGERSTEIN

THE SYSTEM OF DOCTOR TARR AND PROFESSOR FETHER

THE LITERARY LIFE OF THINGUM BOB, ESQ.

HOW TO WRITE A BLACKWOOD ARTICLE

A PREDICAMENT

MYSTIFICATION

DIDDLING

THE ANGEL OF THE ODD

MELLONTA TAUTA

THE DUC DE L’OMELETTE

THE OBLONG BOX

LOSS OF BREATH

THE MAN THAT WAS USED UP

THE BUSINESS MAN

THE LANDSCAPE GARDEN

MAELZEL’S CHESS-PLAYER

THE POWER OF WORDS

THE COLLOQUY OF MONOS AND UNA

THE CONVERSATION OF EIROS AND CHARMION

SHADOW—A PARABLE

VOLUME 5.

PHILOSOPHY OF FURNITURE

A TALE OF JERUSALEM

THE SPHINX

HOP-FROG

THE MAN OF THE CROWD

NEVER BET THE DEVIL YOUR HEAD

THOU ART THE MAN

WHY THE LITTLE FRENCHMAN WEARS HIS HAND IN A SLING

BON-BON

SOME WORDS WITH A MUMMY

THE POETIC PRINCIPLE

OLD ENGLISH POETRY

POEMS

PREFACE

POEMS OF LATER LIFE

THE RAVEN

THE BELLS

ULALUME

TO HELEN

ANNABEL LEE

A VALENTINE

AN ENIGMA

FOR ANNIE

TO F——

TO FRANCES S. OSGOOD

ELDORADO

TO MARIE LOUISE (SHEW)

O MARIE LOUISE (SHEW)

THE CITY IN THE SEA

THE SLEEPER

NOTES

POEMS OF MANHOOD

LENORE

TO ONE IN PARADISE

THE COLISEUM

THE HAUNTED PALACE

THE CONQUEROR WORM

SILENCE

DREAM-LAND

HYMN

TO ZANTE

SCENES FROM “POLITIAN”

POEMS OF YOUTH

INTRODUCTION TO POEMS—1831

_LETTER TO MR. B—._

SONNET—TO SCIENCE

AL AARAAF

TAMERLANE

TO HELEN

THE VALLEY OF UNREST

ISRAFEL

TO ——

TO ——

TO THE RIVER——

SONG

SPIRITS OF THE DEAD

A DREAM

ROMANCE

FAIRY-LAND

THE LAKE —— TO——

EVENING STAR

“THE HAPPIEST DAY.”

IMITATION

HYMN TO ARISTOGEITON AND HARMODIUS

DREAMS

“IN YOUTH I HAVE KNOWN ONE”

NOTES

DOUBTFUL POEMS

ALONE

TO ISADORE

THE VILLAGE STREET

THE FOREST REVERIE

NOTES

VOLUME 1.

EDGAR ALLAN POE

AN APPRECIATION

Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster

Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore—

Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore

Of “never—never more!”

This stanza from “The Raven” was recommended by James Russell

Lowell as an inscription upon the Baltimore monument which marks

the resting place of Edgar Allan Poe, the most interesting and

original figure in American letters. And, to signify that

peculiar musical quality of Poe’s genius which inthralls every

reader, Mr. Lowell suggested this additional verse, from the

“Haunted Palace”:

And all with pearl and ruby glowing

Was the fair palace door,

Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing,

And sparkling ever more,

A troop of Echoes, whose sweet duty

Was but to sing,

In voices of surpassing beauty,

The wit and wisdom of their king.

Born in poverty at Boston, January 19, 1809, dying under painful

circumstances at Baltimore, October 7, 1849, his whole literary

career of scarcely fifteen years a pitiful struggle for mere

subsistence, his memory malignantly misrepresented by his

earliest biographer, Griswold, how completely has truth at last

routed falsehood and how magnificently has Poe come into his own.

For “The Raven,” first published in 1845, and, within a few

months, read, recited and parodied wherever the English language

was spoken, the half-starved poet received $10! Less than a year

later his brother poet, N. P. Willis, issued this touching appeal

to the admirers of genius on behalf of the neglected author, his

dying wife and her devoted mother, then living under very

straitened circumstances in a little cottage at Fordham, N. Y.:

“Here is one of the finest scholars, one of the most original men

of genius, and one of the most industrious of the literary

profession of our country, whose temporary suspension of labor,

from bodily illness, drops him immediately to a level with the

common objects of public charity. There is no intermediate

stopping-place, no respectful shelter, where, with the delicacy

due to genius and culture, he might secure aid, till, with

returning health, he would resume his labors, and his unmortified

sense of independence.”

And this was the tribute paid by the American public to the

master who had given to it such tales of conjuring charm, of

witchery and mystery as “The Fall of the House of Usher” and

“Ligeia”; such fascinating hoaxes as “The Unparalleled Adventure

of Hans Pfaall,” “MSS. Found in a Bottle,” “A Descent Into a

Maelstrom” and “The Balloon-Hoax”; such tales of conscience as

“William Wilson,” “The Black Cat” and “The Tell-tale Heart,”

wherein the retributions of remorse are portrayed with an awful

fidelity; such tales of natural beauty as “The Island of the Fay”

and “The Domain of Arnheim”; such marvellous studies in

ratiocination as the “Gold-bug,” “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,”

“The Purloined Letter” and “The Mystery of Marie Roget,” the

latter, a recital of fact, demonstrating the author’s wonderful

capability of correctly analyzing the mysteries of the human

mind; such tales of illusion and banter as “The Premature Burial”

and “The System of Dr. Tarr and Professor Fether”; such bits of

extravaganza as “The Devil in the Belfry” and “The Angel of the

Odd”; such tales of adventure as “The Narrative of Arthur Gordon

Pym”; such papers of keen criticism and review as won for Poe the

enthusiastic admiration of Charles Dickens, although they made

him many enemies among the over-puffed minor American writers so

mercilessly exposed by him; such poems of beauty and melody as

“The Bells,” “The Haunted Palace,” “Tamerlane,” “The City in the

Sea” and “The Raven.” What delight for the jaded senses of the

reader is this enchanted domain of wonder-pieces! What an

atmosphere of beauty, music, color! What resources of

imagination, construction, analysis and absolute art! One might

almost sympathize with Sarah Helen Whitman, who, confessing to a

half faith in the old superstition of the significance of

anagrams, found, in the transposed letters of Edgar Poe’s name,

the words “a God-peer.” His mind, she says, was indeed a “Haunted

Palace,” echoing to the footfalls of angels and demons.

“No man,” Poe himself wrote, “has recorded, no man has dared to

record, the wonders of his inner life.”

In these twentieth century days—of lavish recognition—artistic,

popular and material—of genius, what rewards might not a Poe

claim!

Edgar’s father, a son of General David Poe, the American

revolutionary patriot and friend of Lafayette, had married Mrs.

Hopkins, an English actress, and, the match meeting with parental

disapproval, had himself taken to the stage as a profession.

Notwithstanding Mrs. Poe’s beauty and talent the young couple had

a sorry struggle for existence. When Edgar, at the age of two

years, was orphaned, the family was in the utmost destitution.

Apparently the future poet was to be cast upon the world homeless

and friendless. But fate decreed that a few glimmers of sunshine

were to illumine his life, for the little fellow was adopted by

John Allan, a wealthy merchant of Richmond, Va. A brother and

sister, the remaining children, were cared for by others.

In his new home Edgar found all the luxury and advantages money

could provide. He was petted, spoiled and shown off to strangers.

In Mrs. Allan he found all the affection a childless wife could

bestow. Mr. Allan took much pride in the captivating, precocious

lad. At the age of five the boy recited, with fine effect,

passages of English poetry to the visitors at the Allan house.

From his eighth to his thirteenth year he attended the Manor

House school, at Stoke-Newington, a suburb of London. It was the

Rev. Dr. Bransby, head of the school, whom Poe so quaintly

portrayed in “William Wilson.” Returning to Richmond in 1820

Edgar was sent to the school of Professor Joseph H. Clarke. He

proved an apt pupil. Years afterward Professor Clarke thus wrote:

“While the other boys wrote mere mechanical verses, Poe wrote

genuine poetry; the boy was a born poet. As a scholar he was

ambitious to excel. He was remarkable for self-respect, without

haughtiness. He had a sensitive and tender heart and would do

anything for a friend. His nature was entirely free from

selfishness.”

At the age of seventeen Poe entered the University of Virginia at

Charlottesville. He left that institution after one session.

Official records prove that he was not expelled. On the contrary,

he gained a creditable record as a student, although it is

admitted that he contracted debts and had “an ungovernable

passion for card-playing.” These debts may have led to his

quarrel with Mr. Allan which eventually compelled him to make his

own way in the world.

Early in 1827 Poe made his first literary venture. He induced

Calvin Thomas, a poor and youthful printer, to publish a small

volume of his verses under the title “Tamerlane and Other Poems.”

In 1829 we find Poe in Baltimore with another manuscript volume

of verses, which was soon published. Its title was “Al Aaraaf,

Tamerlane and Other Poems.” Neither of these ventures seems to

have attracted much attention.

Soon after Mrs. Allan’s death, which occurred in 1829, Poe,

through the aid of Mr. Allan, secured admission to the United

States Military Academy at West Point. Any glamour which may have

attached to cadet life in Poe’s eyes was speedily lost, for

discipline at West Point was never so severe nor were the

accommodations ever so poor. Poe’s bent was more and more toward

literature. Life at the academy daily became increasingly

distasteful. Soon he began to purposely neglect his studies and

to disregard his duties, his aim being to secure his dismissal

from the United States service. In this he succeeded. On March 7,

1831, Poe found himself free. Mr. Allan’s second marriage had

thrown the lad on his own resources. His literary career was to

begin.

Poe’s first genuine victory was won in 1833, when he was the

successful competitor for a prize of $100 offered by a Baltimore

periodical for the best prose story. “A MSS. Found in a Bottle”

was the winning tale. Poe had submitted six stories in a volume.

“Our only difficulty,” says Mr. Latrobe, one of the judges, “was

in selecting from the rich contents of the volume.”

During the fifteen years of his literary life Poe was connected

with various newspapers and magazines in Richmond, Philadelphia

and New York. He was faithful, punctual, industrious, thorough.

N. P. Willis, who for some time employed Poe as critic and

sub-editor on the “Evening Mirror,” wrote thus:

“With the highest admiration for Poe’s genius, and a willingness

to let it alone for more than ordinary irregularity, we were led

by common report to expect a very capricious attention to his

duties, and occasionally a scene of violence and difficulty. Time

went on, however, and he was invariably punctual and industrious.

We saw but one presentiment of the man—a quiet, patient,

industrious and most gentlemanly person.

“We heard, from one who knew him well (what should be stated in

all mention of his lamentable irregularities), that with a single

glass of wine his whole nature was reversed, the demon became

uppermost, and, though none of the usual signs of intoxication

were visible, his will was palpably insane. In this reversed

character, we repeat, it was never our chance to meet him.”

On September 22, 1835, Poe married his cousin, Virginia Clemm, in

Baltimore. She had barely turned thirteen years, Poe himself was

but twenty-six. He then was a resident of Richmond and a regular

contributor to the “Southern Literary Messenger.” It was not

until a year later that the bride and her widowed mother followed

him thither.

Poe’s devotion to his child-wife was one of the most beautiful

features of his life. Many of his famous poetic productions were

inspired by her beauty and charm. Consumption had marked her for

its victim, and the constant efforts of husband and mother were

to secure for her all the comfort and happiness their slender

means permitted. Virginia died January 30, 1847, when but

twenty-five years of age. A friend of the family pictures the

death-bed scene—mother and husband trying to impart warmth to her

by chafing her hands and her feet, while her pet cat was suffered

to nestle upon her bosom for the sake of added warmth.

These verses from “Annabel Lee,” written by Poe in 1849, the last

year of his life, tell of his sorrow at the loss of his

child-wife:

_I_ was a child and _she_ was a child,

In a kingdom by the sea;

But we loved with a love that was more than love—

I and my Annabel Lee;

With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven

Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,

In this kingdom by the sea.

A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling

My beautiful Annabel Lee;

So that her high-born kinsmen came

And bore her away from me,

To shut her up in a sepulchre

In this kingdom by the sea.

Poe was connected at various times and in various capacities with

the “Southern Literary Messenger” in Richmond, Va.; “Graham’s

Magazine” and the “Gentleman’s Magazine” in Philadelphia; the

“Evening Mirror,” the “Broadway Journal,” and “Godey’s Lady’s

Book” in New York. Everywhere Poe’s life was one of unremitting

toil. No tales and poems were ever produced at a greater cost of

brain and spirit.

Poe’s initial salary with the “Southern Literary Messenger,” to

which he contributed the first drafts of a number of his

best-known tales, was $10 a week! Two years later his salary was

but $600 a year. Even in 1844, when his literary reputation was

established securely, he wrote to a friend expressing his

pleasure because a magazine to which he was to contribute had

agreed to pay him $20 monthly for two pages of criticism.

Those were discouraging times in American literature, but Poe

never lost faith. He was finally to triumph wherever pre-eminent

talents win admirers. His genius has had no better description

than in this stanza from William Winter’s poem, read at the

dedication exercises of the Actors’ Monument to Poe, May 4, 1885,

in New York:

He was the voice of beauty and of woe,

Passion and mystery and the dread unknown;

Pure as the mountains of perpetual snow,

Cold as the icy winds that round them moan,

Dark as the caves wherein earth’s thunders groan,

Wild as the tempests of the upper sky,

Sweet as the faint, far-off celestial tone of angel whispers,

fluttering from on high,

And tender as love’s tear when youth and beauty die.

In the two and a half score years that have elapsed since Poe’s

death he has come fully into his own. For a while Griswold’s

malignant misrepresentations colored the public estimate of Poe

as man and as writer. But, thanks to J. H. Ingram, W. F. Gill,

Eugene Didier, Sarah Helen Whitman and others these scandals have

been dispelled and Poe is seen as he actually was—not as a man

without failings, it is true, but as the finest and most original

genius in American letters. As the years go on his fame

increases. His works have been translated into many foreign

languages. His is a household name in France and England—in fact,

the latter nation has often uttered the reproach that Poe’s own

country has been slow to appreciate him. But that reproach, if it

ever was warranted, certainly is untrue.

W. H. R.

EDGAR ALLAN POE

By James Russell Lowell

The situation of American literature is anomalous. It has no

centre, or, if it have, it is like that of the sphere of Hermes.

It is divided into many systems, each revolving round its several

suns, and often presenting to the rest only the faint glimmer of

a milk-and-water way. Our capital city, unlike London or Paris,

is not a great central heart from which life and vigor radiate to

the extremities, but resembles more an isolated umbilicus stuck

down as near as may be to the centre of the land, and seeming

rather to tell a legend of former usefulness than to serve any

present need. Boston, New York, Philadelphia, each has its

literature almost more distinct than those of the different

dialects of Germany; and the Young Queen of the West has also one

of her own, of which some articulate rumor barely has reached us

dwellers by the Atlantic.

Perhaps there is no task more difficult than the just criticism

of contemporary literature. It is even more grateful to give

praise where it is needed than where it is deserved, and

friendship so often seduces the iron stylus of justice into a

vague flourish, that she writes what seems rather like an epitaph

than a criticism. Yet if praise be given as an alms, we could not

drop so poisonous a one into any man’s hat. The critic’s ink may

suffer equally from too large an infusion of nutgalls or of

sugar. But it is easier to be generous than to be just, and we

might readily put faith in that fabulous direction to the hiding

place of truth, did we judge from the amount of water which we

usually find mixed with it.

Remarkable experiences are usually confined to the inner life of

imaginative men, but Mr. Poe’s biography displays a vicissitude

and peculiarity of interest such as is rarely met with. The

offspring of a romantic marriage, and left an orphan at an early

age, he was adopted by Mr. Allan, a wealthy Virginian, whose

barren marriage-bed seemed the warranty of a large estate to the

young poet.

Having received a classical education in England, he returned

home and entered the University of Virginia, where, after an

extravagant course, followed by reformation at the last

extremity, he was graduated with the highest honors of his class.

Then came a boyish attempt to join the fortunes of the insurgent

Greeks, which ended at St. Petersburg, where he got into

difficulties through want of a passport, from which he was

rescued by the American consul and sent home. He now entered the

military academy at West Point, from which he obtained a

dismissal on hearing of the birth of a son to his adopted father,

by a second marriage, an event which cut off his expectations as

an heir. The death of Mr. Allan, in whose will his name was not

mentioned, soon after relieved him of all doubt in this regard,

and he committed himself at once to authorship for a support.

Previously to this, however, he had published (in 1827) a small

volume of poems, which soon ran through three editions, and

excited high expectations of its author’s future distinction in

the minds of many competent judges.

That no certain augury can be drawn from a poet’s earliest

lispings there are instances enough to prove. Shakespeare’s first

poems, though brimful of vigor and youth and picturesqueness,

give but a very faint promise of the directness, condensation and

overflowing moral of his maturer works. Perhaps, however,

Shakespeare is hardly a case in point, his “Venus and Adonis”

having been published, we believe, in his twenty-sixth year.

Milton’s Latin verses show tenderness, a fine eye for nature, and

a delicate appreciation of classic models, but give no hint of

the author of a new style in poetry. Pope’s youthful pieces have

all the sing-song, wholly unrelieved by the glittering malignity

and eloquent irreligion of his later productions. Collins’ callow

namby-pamby died and gave no sign of the vigorous and original

genius which he afterward displayed. We have never thought that

the world lost more in the “marvellous boy,” Chatterton, than a

very ingenious imitator of obscure and antiquated dulness. Where

he becomes original (as it is called), the interest of ingenuity

ceases and he becomes stupid. Kirke White’s promises were

indorsed by the respectable name of Mr. Southey, but surely with

no authority from Apollo. They have the merit of a traditional

piety, which to our mind, if uttered at all, had been less

objectionable in the retired closet of a diary, and in the sober

raiment of prose. They do not clutch hold of the memory with the

drowning pertinacity of Watts; neither have they the interest of

his occasional simple, lucky beauty. Burns having fortunately

been rescued by his humble station from the contaminating society

of the “Best models,” wrote well and naturally from the first.

Had he been unfortunate enough to have had an educated taste, we

should have had a series of poems from which, as from his

letters, we could sift here and there a kernel from the mass of

chaff. Coleridge’s youthful efforts give no promise whatever of

that poetical genius which produced at once the wildest,

tenderest, most original and most purely imaginative poems of

modern times. Byron’s “Hours of Idleness” would never find a

reader except from an intrepid and indefatigable curiosity. In

Wordsworth’s first preludings there is but a dim foreboding of

the creator of an era. From Southey’s early poems, a safer augury

might have been drawn. They show the patient investigator, the

close student of history, and the unwearied explorer of the

beauties of predecessors, but they give no assurances of a man

who should add aught to stock of household words, or to the rarer

and more sacred delights of the fireside or the arbor. The

earliest specimens of Shelley’s poetic mind already, also, give

tokens of that ethereal sublimation in which the spirit seems to

soar above the regions of words, but leaves its body, the verse,

to be entombed, without hope of resurrection, in a mass of them.

Cowley is generally instanced as a wonder of precocity. But his

early insipidities show only a capacity for rhyming and for the

metrical arrangement of certain conventional combinations of

words, a capacity wholly dependent on a delicate physical

organization, and an unhappy memory. An early poem is only

remarkable when it displays an effort of _reason,_ and the rudest

verses in which we can trace some conception of the ends of

poetry, are worth all the miracles of smooth juvenile

versification. A school-boy, one would say, might acquire the

regular see-saw of Pope merely by an association with the motion

of the play-ground tilt.

Mr. Poe’s early productions show that he could see through the

verse to the spirit beneath, and that he already had a feeling

that all the life and grace of the one must depend on and be

modulated by the will of the other. We call them the most

remarkable boyish poems that we have ever read. We know of none

that can compare with them for maturity of purpose, and a nice

understanding of the effects of language and metre. Such pieces

are only valuable when they display what we can only express by

the contradictory phrase of _innate experience._ We copy one of

the shorter poems, written when the author was only fourteen.

There is a little dimness in the filling up, but the grace and

symmetry of the outline are such as few poets ever attain. There

is a smack of ambrosia about it.

TO HELEN

Helen, thy beauty is to me

Like those Nicean barks of yore,

That gently, o’er a perfumed sea,

The weary, way-worn wanderer bore

To his own native shore.

On desperate seas long wont to roam,

Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,

Thy Naiad airs have brought me home

To the glory that was Greece

And the grandeur that was Rome.

Lo! in yon brilliant window-niche

How statue-like I see thee stand!

The agate lamp within thy hand,

Ah! Psyche, from the regions which

Are Holy Land!

It is the tendency of the young poet that impresses us. Here is

no “withering scorn,” no heart “blighted” ere it has safely got

into its teens, none of the drawing-room sansculottism which

Byron had brought into vogue. All is limpid and serene, with a

pleasant dash of the Greek Helicon in it. The melody of the

whole, too, is remarkable. It is not of that kind which can be

demonstrated arithmetically upon the tips of the fingers. It is

of that finer sort which the inner ear alone _can_ estimate. It

seems simple, like a Greek column, because of its perfection. In

a poem named “Ligeia,” under which title he intended to personify

the music of nature, our boy-poet gives us the following

exquisite picture:

Ligeia! Ligeia!

My beautiful one,

Whose harshest idea

Will to melody run,

Say, is it thy will,

On the breezes to toss,

Or, capriciously still,

Like the lone albatross,

Incumbent on night,

As she on the air,

To keep watch with delight

On the harmony there?

John Neal, himself a man of genius, and whose lyre has been too

long capriciously silent, appreciated the high merit of these and

similar passages, and drew a proud horoscope for their author.

Mr. Poe had that indescribable something which men have agreed to

call _genius_. No man could ever tell us precisely what it is,

and yet there is none who is not inevitably aware of its presence

and its power. Let talent writhe and contort itself as it may, it

has no such magnetism. Larger of bone and sinew it may be, but

the wings are wanting. Talent sticks fast to earth, and its most

perfect works have still one foot of clay. Genius claims kindred

with the very workings of Nature herself, so that a sunset shall

seem like a quotation from Dante, and if Shakespeare be read in

the very presence of the sea itself, his verses shall but seem

nobler for the sublime criticism of ocean. Talent may make

friends for itself, but only genius can give to its creations the

divine power of winning love and veneration. Enthusiasm cannot

cling to what itself is unenthusiastic, nor will he ever have

disciples who has not himself impulsive zeal enough to be a

disciple. Great wits are allied to madness only inasmuch as they

are possessed and carried away by their demon, while talent keeps

him, as Paracelsus did, securely prisoned in the pommel of his

sword. To the eye of genius, the veil of the spiritual world is

ever rent asunder that it may perceive the ministers of good and

evil who throng continually around it. No man of mere talent ever

flung his inkstand at the devil.

When we say that Mr. Poe had genius, we do not mean to say that

he has produced evidence of the highest. But to say that he

possesses it at all is to say that he needs only zeal, industry,

and a reverence for the trust reposed in him, to achieve the

proudest triumphs and the greenest laurels. If we may believe the

Longinuses and Aristotles of our newspapers, we have quite too

many geniuses of the loftiest order to render a place among them

at all desirable, whether for its hardness of attainment or its

seclusion. The highest peak of our Parnassus is, according to

these gentlemen, by far the most thickly settled portion of the

country, a circumstance which must make it an uncomfortable

residence for individuals of a poetical temperament, if love of

solitude be, as immemorial tradition asserts, a necessary part of

their idiosyncrasy.

Mr. Poe has two of the prime qualities of genius, a faculty of

vigorous yet minute analysis, and a wonderful fecundity of

imagination. The first of these faculties is as needful to the

artist in words, as a knowledge of anatomy is to the artist in

colors or in stone. This enables him to conceive truly, to

maintain a proper relation of parts, and to draw a correct

outline, while the second groups, fills up and colors. Both of

these Mr. Poe has displayed with singular distinctness in his

prose works, the last predominating in his earlier tales, and the

first in his later ones. In judging of the merit of an author,

and assigning him his niche among our household gods, we have a

right to regard him from our own point of view, and to measure

him by our own standard. But, in estimating the amount of power

displayed in his works, we must be governed by his own design,

and placing them by the side of his own ideal, find how much is

wanting. We differ from Mr. Poe in his opinions of the objects of

art. He esteems that object to be the creation of Beauty, and

perhaps it is only in the definition of that word that we

disagree with him. But in what we shall say of his writings, we

shall take his own standard as our guide. The temple of the god

of song is equally accessible from every side, and there is room

enough in it for all who bring offerings, or seek in oracle.

In his tales, Mr. Poe has chosen to exhibit his power chiefly in

that dim region which stretches from the very utmost limits of

the probable into the weird confines of superstition and

unreality. He combines in a very remarkable manner two faculties

which are seldom found united; a power of influencing the mind of

the reader by the impalpable shadows of mystery, and a minuteness

of detail which does not leave a pin or a button unnoticed. Both

are, in truth, the natural results of the predominating quality

of his mind, to which we have before alluded, analysis. It is

this which distinguishes the artist. His mind at once reaches

forward to the effect to be produced. Having resolved to bring

about certain emotions in the reader, he makes all subordinate

parts tend strictly to the common centre. Even his mystery is

mathematical to his own mind. To him X is a known quantity all

along. In any picture that he paints he understands the chemical

properties of all his colors. However vague some of his figures

may seem, however formless the shadows, to him the outline is as

clear and distinct as that of a geometrical diagram. For this

reason Mr. Poe has no sympathy with Mysticism. The Mystic dwells

in the mystery, is enveloped with it; it colors all his thoughts;

it affects his optic nerve especially, and the commonest things

get a rainbow edging from it. Mr. Poe, on the other hand, is a

spectator _ab extra_. He analyzes, he dissects, he watches

“with an eye serene,

The very pulse of the machine,”

for such it practically is to him, with wheels and cogs and

piston-rods, all working to produce a certain end.

This analyzing tendency of his mind balances the poetical, and by

giving him the patience to be minute, enables him to throw a

wonderful reality into his most unreal fancies. A monomania he

paints with great power. He loves to dissect one of these cancers

of the mind, and to trace all the subtle ramifications of its

roots. In raising images of horror, also, he has strange success,

conveying to us sometimes by a dusky hint some terrible _doubt_

which is the secret of all horror. He leaves to imagination the

task of finishing the picture, a task to which only she is

competent.

“For much imaginary work was there;

Conceit deceitful, so compact, so kind,

That for Achilles’ image stood his spear

Grasped in an armed hand; himself behind

Was left unseen, save to the eye of mind.”

Besides the merit of conception, Mr. Poe’s writings have also

that of form.

His style is highly finished, graceful and truly classical. It

would be hard to find a living author who had displayed such

varied powers. As an example of his style we would refer to one

of his tales, “The House of Usher,” in the first volume of his

“Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque.” It has a singular charm

for us, and we think that no one could read it without being

strongly moved by its serene and sombre beauty. Had its author

written nothing else, it would alone have been enough to stamp

him as a man of genius, and the master of a classic style. In

this tale occurs, perhaps, the most beautiful of his poems.

The great masters of imagination have seldom resorted to the

vague and the unreal as sources of effect. They have not used

dread and horror alone, but only in combination with other

qualities, as means of subjugating the fancies of their readers.

The loftiest muse has ever a household and fireside charm about

her. Mr. Poe’s secret lies mainly in the skill with which he has

employed the strange fascination of mystery and terror. In this

his success is so great and striking as to deserve the name of

art, not artifice. We cannot call his materials the noblest or

purest, but we must concede to him the highest merit of

construction.

As a critic, Mr. Poe was aesthetically deficient. Unerring in his

analysis of dictions, metres and plots, he seemed wanting in the

faculty of perceiving the profounder ethics of art. His

criticisms are, however, distinguished for scientific precision

and coherence of logic. They have the exactness, and at the same

time, the coldness of mathematical demonstrations. Yet they stand

in strikingly refreshing contrast with the vague generalisms and

sharp personalities of the day. If deficient in warmth, they are

also without the heat of partisanship. They are especially

valuable as illustrating the great truth, too generally

overlooked, that analytic power is a subordinate quality of the

critic.

On the whole, it may be considered certain that Mr. Poe has

attained an individual eminence in our literature which he will

keep. He has given proof of power and originality. He has done

that which could only be done once with success or safety, and

the imitation or repetition of which would produce weariness.

DEATH OF EDGAR A. POE

By N. P. Willis

The ancient fable of two antagonistic spirits imprisoned in one

body, equally powerful and having the complete mastery by

turns-of one man, that is to say, inhabited by both a devil and

an angel seems to have been realized, if all we hear is true, in

the character of the extraordinary man whose name we have written

above. Our own impression of the nature of Edgar A. Poe, differs

in some important degree, however, from that which has been

generally conveyed in the notices of his death. Let us, before

telling what we personally know of him, copy a graphic and highly

finished portraiture, from the pen of Dr. Rufus W. Griswold,

which appeared in a recent number of the “Tribune”:

“Edgar Allen Poe is dead. He died in Baltimore on Sunday, October

7th. This announcement will startle many, but few will be grieved

by it. The poet was known, personally or by reputation, in all

this country; he had readers in England and in several of the

states of Continental Europe; but he had few or no friends; and

the regrets for his death will be suggested principally by the

consideration that in him literary art has lost one of its most

brilliant but erratic stars.

“His conversation was at times almost supramortal in its

eloquence. His voice was modulated with astonishing skill, and

his large and variably expressive eyes looked repose or shot

fiery tumult into theirs who listened, while his own face glowed,

or was changeless in pallor, as his imagination quickened his

blood or drew it back frozen to his heart. His imagery was from

the worlds which no mortals can see but with the vision of

genius. Suddenly starting from a proposition, exactly and sharply

defined, in terms of utmost simplicity and clearness, he rejected

the forms of customary logic, and by a crystalline process of

accretion, built up his ocular demonstrations in forms of

gloomiest and ghastliest grandeur, or in those of the most airy

and delicious beauty, so minutely and distinctly, yet so rapidly,

that the attention which was yielded to him was chained till it

stood among his wonderful creations, till he himself dissolved

the spell, and brought his hearers back to common and base

existence, by vulgar fancies or exhibitions of the ignoblest

passion.

“He was at all times a dreamer dwelling in ideal realms in heaven

or hell peopled with the creatures and the accidents of his

brain. He walked the streets, in madness or melancholy, with lips

moving in indistinct curses, or with eyes upturned in passionate

prayer (never for himself, for he felt, or professed to feel,

that he was already damned, but) for their happiness who at the

moment were objects of his idolatry; or with his glances

introverted to a heart gnawed with anguish, and with a face

shrouded in gloom, he would brave the wildest storms, and all

night, with drenched garments and arms beating the winds and

rains, would speak as if the spirits that at such times only

could be evoked by him from the Aidenn, close by whose portals

his disturbed soul sought to forget the ills to which his

constitution subjected him—close by the Aidenn where were those

he loved—the Aidenn which he might never see, but in fitful

glimpses, as its gates opened to receive the less fiery and more

happy natures whose destiny to sin did not involve the doom of

death.

“He seemed, except when some fitful pursuit subjugated his will

and engrossed his faculties, always to bear the memory of some

controlling sorrow. The remarkable poem of ‘The Raven’ was

probably much more nearly than has been supposed, even by those

who were very intimate with him, a reflection and an echo of his

own history. _He_ was that bird’s

“‘Unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster

Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore—

Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore

Of ‘Never—never more.’

“Every genuine author in a greater or less degree leaves in his

works, whatever their design, traces of his personal character:

elements of his immortal being, in which the individual survives

the person. While we read the pages of the ‘Fall of the House of

Usher,’ or of ‘Mesmeric Revelations,’ we see in the solemn and

stately gloom which invests one, and in the subtle metaphysical

analysis of both, indications of the idiosyncrasies of what was

most remarkable and peculiar in the author’s intellectual nature.

But we see here only the better phases of his nature, only the

symbols of his juster action, for his harsh experience had

deprived him of all faith in man or woman. He had made up his

mind upon the numberless complexities of the social world, and

the whole system with him was an imposture. This conviction gave

a direction to his shrewd and naturally unamiable character.

Still, though he regarded society as composed altogether of

villains, the sharpness of his intellect was not of that kind

which enabled him to cope with villany, while it continually

caused him by overshots to fail of the success of honesty. He was

in many respects like Francis Vivian in Bulwer’s novel of ‘The

Caxtons.’ Passion, in him, comprehended many of the worst

emotions which militate against human happiness. You could not

contradict him, but you raised quick choler; you could not speak

of wealth, but his cheek paled with gnawing envy. The astonishing

natural advantages of this poor boy—his beauty, his readiness,

the daring spirit that breathed around him like a fiery

atmosphere—had raised his constitutional self-confidence into an

arrogance that turned his very claims to admiration into

prejudices against him. Irascible, envious—bad enough, but not

the worst, for these salient angles were all varnished over with

a cold, repellant cynicism, his passions vented themselves in

sneers. There seemed to him no moral susceptibility; and, what

was more remarkable in a proud nature, little or nothing of the

true point of honor. He had, to a morbid excess, that, desire to

rise which is vulgarly called ambition, but no wish for the

esteem or the love of his species; only the hard wish to

succeed—not shine, not serve—succeed, that he might have the

right to despise a world which galled his self-conceit.

“We have suggested the influence of his aims and vicissitudes

upon his literature. It was more conspicuous in his later than in

his earlier writings. Nearly all that he wrote in the last two or

three years—including much of his best poetry—was in some sense

biographical; in draperies of his imagination, those who had

taken the trouble to trace his steps, could perceive, but

slightly concealed, the figure of himself.”

Apropos of the disparaging portion of the above well-written

sketch, let us truthfully say:

Some four or five years since, when editing a daily paper in this

city, Mr. Poe was employed by us, for several months, as critic

and sub-editor. This was our first personal acquaintance with

him. He resided with his wife and mother at Fordham, a few miles

out of town, but was at his desk in the office, from nine in the

morning till the evening paper went to press. With the highest

admiration for his genius, and a willingness to let it atone for

more than ordinary irregularity, we were led by common report to

expect a very capricious attention to his duties, and

occasionally a scene of violence and difficulty. Time went on,

however, and he was invariably punctual and industrious. With his

pale, beautiful, and intellectual face, as a reminder of what

genius was in him, it was impossible, of course, not to treat him

always with deferential courtesy, and, to our occasional request

that he would not probe too deep in a criticism, or that he would

erase a passage colored too highly with his resentments against

society and mankind, he readily and courteously assented—far more

yielding than most men, we thought, on points so excusably

sensitive. With a prospect of taking the lead in another

periodical, he, at last, voluntarily gave up his employment with

us, and, through all this considerable period, we had seen but

one presentment of the man—a quiet, patient, industrious, and

most gentlemanly person, commanding the utmost respect and good

feeling by his unvarying deportment and ability.

Residing as he did in the country, we never met Mr. Poe in hours

of leisure; but he frequently called on us afterward at our place

of business, and we met him often in the street—invariably the

same sad mannered, winning and refined gentleman, such as we had

always known him. It was by rumor only, up to the day of his

death, that we knew of any other development of manner or

character. We heard, from one who knew him well (what should be

stated in all mention of his lamentable irregularities), that,

with a single glass of wine, his whole nature was reversed, the

demon became uppermost, and, though none of the usual signs of

intoxication were visible, his will was palpably insane.

Possessing his reasoning faculties in excited activity, at such

times, and seeking his acquaintances with his wonted look and

memory, he easily seemed personating only another phase of his

natural character, and was accused, accordingly, of insulting

arrogance and bad-heartedness. In this reversed character, we

repeat, it was never our chance to see him. We know it from

hearsay, and we mention it in connection with this sad infirmity

of physical constitution; which puts it upon very nearly the

ground of a temporary and almost irresponsible insanity.

The arrogance, vanity, and depravity of heart, of which Mr. Poe

was generally accused, seem to us referable altogether to this

reversed phase of his character. Under that degree of

intoxication which only acted upon him by demonizing his sense of

truth and right, he doubtless said and did much that was wholly

irreconcilable with his better nature; but, when himself, and as

we knew him only, his modesty and unaffected humility, as to his

own deservings, were a constant charm to his character. His

letters, of which the constant application for autographs has

taken from us, we are sorry to confess, the greater portion,

exhibited this quality very strongly. In one of the carelessly

written notes of which we chance still to retain possession, for

instance, he speaks of “The Raven”—that extraordinary poem which

electrified the world of imaginative readers, and has become the

type of a school of poetry of its own—and, in evident earnest,

attributes its success to the few words of commendation with

which we had prefaced it in this paper. It will throw light on

his sane character to give a literal copy of the note:

“FORDHAM, _April_ 20, 1849

“MY DEAR WILLIS—The poem which I inclose, and which I am so vain

as to hope you will like, in some respects, has been just

published in a paper for which sheer necessity compels me to

write, now and then. It pays well as times go-but unquestionably

it ought to pay ten prices; for whatever I send it I feel I am

consigning to the tomb of the Capulets. The verses accompanying

this, may I beg you to take out of the tomb, and bring them to

light in the ‘Home Journal?’ If you can oblige me so far as to

copy them, I do not think it will be necessary to say ‘From the

——,’ that would be too bad; and, perhaps, ‘From a late —— paper,’

would do.

“I have not forgotten how a ‘good word in season’ from you made

‘The Raven,’ and made ‘Ulalume’ (which by-the-way, people have

done me the honor of attributing to you), therefore, I _would_

ask you (if I dared) to say something of these lines if they

please you.

“Truly yours ever,

“EDGAR A. POE.”

In double proof of his earnest disposition to do the best for

himself, and of the trustful and grateful nature which has been

denied him, we give another of the only three of his notes which

we chance to retain:

“FORDHAM, _January_ 22, 1848.

“MY DEAR MR. WILLIS—I am about to make an effort at

re-establishing myself in the literary world, and _feel_ that I

may depend upon your aid.

“My general aim is to start a Magazine, to be called ‘The

Stylus,’ but it would be useless to me, even when established, if

not entirely out of the control of a publisher. I mean,

therefore, to get up a journal which shall be _my own_ at all

points. With this end in view, I must get a list of at least five

hundred subscribers to begin with; nearly two hundred I have

already. I propose, however, to go South and West, among my

personal and literary friends—old college and West Point

acquaintances—and see what I can do. In order to get the means of

taking the first step, I propose to lecture at the Society

Library, on Thursday, the 3d of February, and, that there may be

no cause of _squabbling_, my subject shall _not be literary_ at

all. I have chosen a broad text: ‘The Universe.’

“Having thus given you _the facts_ of the case, I leave all the

rest to the suggestions of your own tact and generosity.

Gratefully, _most gratefully,_

“Your friend always,

“EDGAR A. POE.”

Brief and chance-taken as these letters are, we think they

sufficiently prove the existence of the very qualities denied to

Mr. Poe-humility, willingness to persevere, belief in another’s

friendship, and capability of cordial and grateful friendship!

Such he assuredly was when sane. Such only he has invariably

seemed to us, in all we have happened personally to know of him,

through a friendship of five or six years. And so much easier is

it to believe what we have seen and known, than what we hear of

only, that we remember him but with admiration and respect; these

descriptions of him, when morally insane, seeming to us like

portraits, painted in sickness, of a man we have only known in

health.

But there is another, more touching, and far more forcible

evidence that there was _goodness_ in Edgar A. Poe. To reveal it

we are obliged to venture upon the lifting of the veil which

sacredly covers grief and refinement in poverty; but we think it

may be excused, if so we can brighten the memory of the poet,

even were there not a more needed and immediate service which it

may render to the nearest link broken by his death.

Our first knowledge of Mr. Poe’s removal to this city was by a

call which we received from a lady who introduced herself to us

as the mother of his wife. She was in search of employment for

him, and she excused her errand by mentioning that he was ill,

that her daughter was a confirmed invalid, and that their

circumstances were such as compelled her taking it upon herself.

The countenance of this lady, made beautiful and saintly with an

evidently complete giving up of her life to privation and

sorrowful tenderness, her gentle and mournful voice urging its

plea, her long-forgotten but habitually and unconsciously refined

manners, and her appealing and yet appreciative mention of the

claims and abilities of her son, disclosed at once the presence

of one of those angels upon earth that women in adversity can be.

It was a hard fate that she was watching over. Mr. Poe wrote with

fastidious difficulty, and in a style too much above the popular

level to be well paid. He was always in pecuniary difficulty,

and, with his sick wife, frequently in want of the merest

necessaries of life. Winter after winter, for years, the most

touching sight to us, in this whole city, has been that tireless

minister to genius, thinly and insufficiently clad, going from

office to office with a poem, or an article on some literary

subject, to sell, sometimes simply pleading in a broken voice

that he was ill, and begging for him, mentioning nothing but that

“he was ill,” whatever might be the reason for his writing

nothing, and never, amid all her tears and recitals of distress,

suffering one syllable to escape her lips that could convey a

doubt of him, or a complaint, or a lessening of pride in his

genius and good intentions. Her daughter died a year and a half

since, but she did not desert him. She continued his ministering

angel—living with him, caring for him, guarding him against

exposure, and when he was carried away by temptation, amid grief

and the loneliness of feelings unreplied to, and awoke from his

self abandonment prostrated in destitution and suffering,

_begging_ for him still. If woman’s devotion, born with a first

love, and fed with human passion, hallow its object, as it is

allowed to do, what does not a devotion like this—pure,

disinterested and holy as the watch of an invisible spirit—say

for him who inspired it?

We have a letter before us, written by this lady, Mrs. Clemm, on

the morning in which she heard of the death of this object of her

untiring care. It is merely a request that we would call upon

her, but we will copy a few of its words—sacred as its privacy

is—to warrant the truth of the picture we have drawn above, and

add force to the appeal we wish to make for her:

“I have this morning heard of the death of my darling Eddie....

Can you give me any circumstances or particulars?... Oh! do not

desert your poor friend in his bitter affliction!... Ask Mr. ——

to come, as I must deliver a message to him from my poor

Eddie.... I need not ask you to notice his death and to speak

well of him. I know you will. But say what an affectionate son he

was to me, his poor desolate mother...”

To hedge round a grave with respect, what choice is there,

between the relinquished wealth and honors of the world, and the

story of such a woman’s unrewarded devotion! Risking what we do,

in delicacy, by making it public, we feel—other reasons

aside—that it betters the world to make known that there are such

ministrations to its erring and gifted. What we have said will

speak to some hearts. There are those who will be glad to know

how the lamp, whose light of poetry has beamed on their far-away

recognition, was watched over with care and pain, that they may

send to her, who is more darkened than they by its extinction,

some token of their sympathy. She is destitute and alone. If any,

far or near, will send to us what may aid and cheer her through

the remainder of her life, we will joyfully place it in her

hands.

THE UNPARALLELED ADVENTURES OF ONE HANS PFAAL (*1)

By late accounts from Rotterdam, that city seems to be in a high

state of philosophical excitement. Indeed, phenomena have there

occurred of a nature so completely unexpected—so entirely

novel—so utterly at variance with preconceived opinions—as to

leave no doubt on my mind that long ere this all Europe is in an

uproar, all physics in a ferment, all reason and astronomy

together by the ears.

It appears that on the—— day of—— (I am not positive about the

date), a vast crowd of people, for purposes not specifically

mentioned, were assembled in the great square of the Exchange in

the well-conditioned city of Rotterdam. The day was

warm—unusually so for the season—there was hardly a breath of air

stirring; and the multitude were in no bad humor at being now and

then besprinkled with friendly showers of momentary duration,

that fell from large white masses of cloud which chequered in a

fitful manner the blue vault of the firmament. Nevertheless,

about noon, a slight but remarkable agitation became apparent in

the assembly: the clattering of ten thousand tongues succeeded;

and, in an instant afterward, ten thousand faces were upturned

toward the heavens, ten thousand pipes descended simultaneously

from the corners of ten thousand mouths, and a shout, which could

be compared to nothing but the roaring of Niagara, resounded

long, loudly, and furiously, through all the environs of

Rotterdam.

The origin of this hubbub soon became sufficiently evident. From

behind the huge bulk of one of those sharply-defined masses of

cloud already mentioned, was seen slowly to emerge into an open

area of blue space, a queer, heterogeneous, but apparently solid

substance, so oddly shaped, so whimsically put together, as not

to be in any manner comprehended, and never to be sufficiently

admired, by the host of sturdy burghers who stood open-mouthed

below. What could it be? In the name of all the vrows and devils

in Rotterdam, what could it possibly portend? No one knew, no one

could imagine; no one—not even the burgomaster Mynheer Superbus

Von Underduk—had the slightest clew by which to unravel the

mystery; so, as nothing more reasonable could be done, every one

to a man replaced his pipe carefully in the corner of his mouth,

and cocking up his right eye towards the phenomenon, puffed,

paused, waddled about, and grunted significantly—then waddled

back, grunted, paused, and finally—puffed again.

In the meantime, however, lower and still lower toward the goodly

city, came the object of so much curiosity, and the cause of so

much smoke. In a very few minutes it arrived near enough to be

accurately discerned. It appeared to be—yes! it was undoubtedly a

species of balloon; but surely no such balloon had ever been seen

in Rotterdam before. For who, let me ask, ever heard of a balloon

manufactured entirely of dirty newspapers? No man in Holland

certainly; yet here, under the very noses of the people, or

rather at some distance above their noses was the identical thing

in question, and composed, I have it on the best authority, of

the precise material which no one had ever before known to be

used for a similar purpose. It was an egregious insult to the

good sense of the burghers of Rotterdam. As to the shape of the

phenomenon, it was even still more reprehensible. Being little or

nothing better than a huge foolscap turned upside down. And this

similitude was regarded as by no means lessened when, upon nearer

inspection, there was perceived a large tassel depending from its

apex, and, around the upper rim or base of the cone, a circle of

little instruments, resembling sheep-bells, which kept up a

continual tinkling to the tune of Betty Martin. But still worse.

Suspended by blue ribbons to the end of this fantastic machine,

there hung, by way of car, an enormous drab beaver hat, with a

brim superlatively broad, and a hemispherical crown with a black

band and a silver buckle. It is, however, somewhat remarkable

that many citizens of Rotterdam swore to having seen the same hat

repeatedly before; and indeed the whole assembly seemed to regard

it with eyes of familiarity; while the vrow Grettel Pfaall, upon

sight of it, uttered an exclamation of joyful surprise, and

declared it to be the identical hat of her good man himself. Now

this was a circumstance the more to be observed, as Pfaall, with

three companions, had actually disappeared from Rotterdam about

five years before, in a very sudden and unaccountable manner, and

up to the date of this narrative all attempts had failed of

obtaining any intelligence concerning them whatsoever. To be

sure, some bones which were thought to be human, mixed up with a

quantity of odd-looking rubbish, had been lately discovered in a

retired situation to the east of Rotterdam, and some people went

so far as to imagine that in this spot a foul murder had been

committed, and that the sufferers were in all probability Hans

Pfaall and his associates. But to return.

The balloon (for such no doubt it was) had now descended to

within a hundred feet of the earth, allowing the crowd below a

sufficiently distinct view of the person of its occupant. This

was in truth a very droll little somebody. He could not have been

more than two feet in height; but this altitude, little as it

was, would have been sufficient to destroy his equilibrium, and

tilt him over the edge of his tiny car, but for the intervention

of a circular rim reaching as high as the breast, and rigged on

to the cords of the balloon. The body of the little man was more

than proportionately broad, giving to his entire figure a

rotundity highly absurd. His feet, of course, could not be seen

at all, although a horny substance of suspicious nature was

occasionally protruded through a rent in the bottom of the car,

or to speak more properly, in the top of the hat. His hands were

enormously large. His hair was extremely gray, and collected into

a queue behind. His nose was prodigiously long, crooked, and

inflammatory; his eyes full, brilliant, and acute; his chin and

cheeks, although wrinkled with age, were broad, puffy, and

double; but of ears of any kind or character there was not a

semblance to be discovered upon any portion of his head. This odd

little gentleman was dressed in a loose surtout of sky-blue

satin, with tight breeches to match, fastened with silver buckles

at the knees. His vest was of some bright yellow material; a

white taffety cap was set jauntily on one side of his head; and,

to complete his equipment, a blood-red silk handkerchief

enveloped his throat, and fell down, in a dainty manner, upon his

bosom, in a fantastic bow-knot of super-eminent dimensions.

Having descended, as I said before, to about one hundred feet

from the surface of the earth, the little old gentleman was

suddenly seized with a fit of trepidation, and appeared

disinclined to make any nearer approach to terra firma. Throwing

out, therefore, a quantity of sand from a canvas bag, which, he

lifted with great difficulty, he became stationary in an instant.

He then proceeded, in a hurried and agitated manner, to extract

from a side-pocket in his surtout a large morocco pocket-book.

This he poised suspiciously in his hand, then eyed it with an air

of extreme surprise, and was evidently astonished at its weight.

He at length opened it, and drawing there from a huge letter

sealed with red sealing-wax and tied carefully with red tape, let

it fall precisely at the feet of the burgomaster, Superbus Von

Underduk. His Excellency stooped to take it up. But the aeronaut,

still greatly discomposed, and having apparently no farther

business to detain him in Rotterdam, began at this moment to make

busy preparations for departure; and it being necessary to

discharge a portion of ballast to enable him to reascend, the

half dozen bags which he threw out, one after another, without

taking the trouble to empty their contents, tumbled, every one of

them, most unfortunately upon the back of the burgomaster, and

rolled him over and over no less than one-and-twenty times, in

the face of every man in Rotterdam. It is not to be supposed,

however, that the great Underduk suffered this impertinence on

the part of the little old man to pass off with impunity. It is

said, on the contrary, that during each and every one of his

one-and twenty circumvolutions he emitted no less than

one-and-twenty distinct and furious whiffs from his pipe, to

which he held fast the whole time with all his might, and to

which he intends holding fast until the day of his death.

In the meantime the balloon arose like a lark, and, soaring far

away above the city, at length drifted quietly behind a cloud

similar to that from which it had so oddly emerged, and was thus

lost forever to the wondering eyes of the good citizens of

Rotterdam. All attention was now directed to the letter, the

descent of which, and the consequences attending thereupon, had

proved so fatally subversive of both person and personal dignity

to his Excellency, the illustrious Burgomaster Mynheer Superbus

Von Underduk. That functionary, however, had not failed, during

his circumgyratory movements, to bestow a thought upon the

important subject of securing the packet in question, which was

seen, upon inspection, to have fallen into the most proper hands,

being actually addressed to himself and Professor Rub-a-dub, in

their official capacities of President and Vice-President of the

Rotterdam College of Astronomy. It was accordingly opened by

those dignitaries upon the spot, and found to contain the

following extraordinary, and indeed very serious, communication:

“To their Excellencies Von Underduk and Rub-a-dub, President and

Vice-President of the States’ College of Astronomers, in the city

of Rotterdam.

“Your Excellencies may perhaps be able to remember an humble

artizan, by name Hans Pfaall, and by occupation a mender of

bellows, who, with three others, disappeared from Rotterdam,

about five years ago, in a manner which must have been considered

by all parties at once sudden, and extremely unaccountable. If,

however, it so please your Excellencies, I, the writer of this

communication, am the identical Hans Pfaall himself. It is well

known to most of my fellow citizens, that for the period of forty

years I continued to occupy the little square brick building, at

the head of the alley called Sauerkraut, in which I resided at

the time of my disappearance. My ancestors have also resided

therein time out of mind—they, as well as myself, steadily

following the respectable and indeed lucrative profession of

mending of bellows. For, to speak the truth, until of late years,

that the heads of all the people have been set agog with

politics, no better business than my own could an honest citizen

of Rotterdam either desire or deserve. Credit was good,

employment was never wanting, and on all hands there was no lack

of either money or good-will. But, as I was saying, we soon began

to feel the effects of liberty and long speeches, and radicalism,

and all that sort of thing. People who were formerly, the very

best customers in the world, had now not a moment of time to

think of us at all. They had, so they said, as much as they could

do to read about the revolutions, and keep up with the march of

intellect and the spirit of the age. If a fire wanted fanning, it

could readily be fanned with a newspaper, and as the government

grew weaker, I have no doubt that leather and iron acquired

durability in proportion, for, in a very short time, there was

not a pair of bellows in all Rotterdam that ever stood in need of

a stitch or required the assistance of a hammer. This was a state

of things not to be endured. I soon grew as poor as a rat, and,

having a wife and children to provide for, my burdens at length

became intolerable, and I spent hour after hour in reflecting

upon the most convenient method of putting an end to my life.

Duns, in the meantime, left me little leisure for contemplation.

My house was literally besieged from morning till night, so that

I began to rave, and foam, and fret like a caged tiger against

the bars of his enclosure. There were three fellows in particular

who worried me beyond endurance, keeping watch continually about

my door, and threatening me with the law. Upon these three I

internally vowed the bitterest revenge, if ever I should be so

happy as to get them within my clutches; and I believe nothing in

the world but the pleasure of this anticipation prevented me from

putting my plan of suicide into immediate execution, by blowing

my brains out with a blunderbuss. I thought it best, however, to

dissemble my wrath, and to treat them with promises and fair

words, until, by some good turn of fate, an opportunity of

vengeance should be afforded me.

“One day, having given my creditors the slip, and feeling more

than usually dejected, I continued for a long time to wander

about the most obscure streets without object whatever, until at

length I chanced to stumble against the corner of a bookseller’s

stall. Seeing a chair close at hand, for the use of customers, I

threw myself doggedly into it, and, hardly knowing why, opened

the pages of the first volume which came within my reach. It

proved to be a small pamphlet treatise on Speculative Astronomy,

written either by Professor Encke of Berlin or by a Frenchman of

somewhat similar name. I had some little tincture of information

on matters of this nature, and soon became more and more absorbed

in the contents of the book, reading it actually through twice

before I awoke to a recollection of what was passing around me.

By this time it began to grow dark, and I directed my steps

toward home. But the treatise had made an indelible impression on

my mind, and, as I sauntered along the dusky streets, I revolved

carefully over in my memory the wild and sometimes unintelligible

reasonings of the writer. There are some particular passages

which affected my imagination in a powerful and extraordinary

manner. The longer I meditated upon these the more intense grew

the interest which had been excited within me. The limited nature

of my education in general, and more especially my ignorance on

subjects connected with natural philosophy, so far from rendering

me diffident of my own ability to comprehend what I had read, or

inducing me to mistrust the many vague notions which had arisen

in consequence, merely served as a farther stimulus to

imagination; and I was vain enough, or perhaps reasonable enough,

to doubt whether those crude ideas which, arising in

ill-regulated minds, have all the appearance, may not often in

effect possess all the force, the reality, and other inherent

properties, of instinct or intuition; whether, to proceed a step

farther, profundity itself might not, in matters of a purely

speculative nature, be detected as a legitimate source of falsity

and error. In other words, I believed, and still do believe, that

truth, is frequently of its own essence, superficial, and that,

in many cases, the depth lies more in the abysses where we seek

her, than in the actual situations wherein she may be found.

Nature herself seemed to afford me corroboration of these ideas.

In the contemplation of the heavenly bodies it struck me forcibly

that I could not distinguish a star with nearly as much

precision, when I gazed on it with earnest, direct and

undeviating attention, as when I suffered my eye only to glance

in its vicinity alone. I was not, of course, at that time aware

that this apparent paradox was occasioned by the center of the

visual area being less susceptible of feeble impressions of light

than the exterior portions of the retina. This knowledge, and

some of another kind, came afterwards in the course of an

eventful five years, during which I have dropped the prejudices

of my former humble situation in life, and forgotten the

bellows-mender in far different occupations. But at the epoch of

which I speak, the analogy which a casual observation of a star

offered to the conclusions I had already drawn, struck me with

the force of positive conformation, and I then finally made up my

mind to the course which I afterwards pursued.

“It was late when I reached home, and I went immediately to bed.

My mind, however, was too much occupied to sleep, and I lay the

whole night buried in meditation. Arising early in the morning,

and contriving again to escape the vigilance of my creditors, I

repaired eagerly to the bookseller’s stall, and laid out what

little ready money I possessed, in the purchase of some volumes

of Mechanics and Practical Astronomy. Having arrived at home

safely with these, I devoted every spare moment to their perusal,

and soon made such proficiency in studies of this nature as I

thought sufficient for the execution of my plan. In the intervals

of this period, I made every endeavor to conciliate the three

creditors who had given me so much annoyance. In this I finally

succeeded—partly by selling enough of my household furniture to

satisfy a moiety of their claim, and partly by a promise of

paying the balance upon completion of a little project which I

told them I had in view, and for assistance in which I solicited

their services. By these means—for they were ignorant men—I found

little difficulty in gaining them over to my purpose.

“Matters being thus arranged, I contrived, by the aid of my wife

and with the greatest secrecy and caution, to dispose of what

property I had remaining, and to borrow, in small sums, under

various pretences, and without paying any attention to my future

means of repayment, no inconsiderable quantity of ready money.

With the means thus accruing I proceeded to procure at intervals,

cambric muslin, very fine, in pieces of twelve yards each; twine;

a lot of the varnish of caoutchouc; a large and deep basket of

wicker-work, made to order; and several other articles necessary

in the construction and equipment of a balloon of extraordinary

dimensions. This I directed my wife to make up as soon as

possible, and gave her all requisite information as to the

particular method of proceeding. In the meantime I worked up the

twine into a net-work of sufficient dimensions; rigged it with a

hoop and the necessary cords; bought a quadrant, a compass, a

spy-glass, a common barometer with some important modifications,

and two astronomical instruments not so generally known. I then

took opportunities of conveying by night, to a retired situation

east of Rotterdam, five iron-bound casks, to contain about fifty

gallons each, and one of a larger size; six tinned ware tubes,

three inches in diameter, properly shaped, and ten feet in

length; a quantity of a particular metallic substance, or

semi-metal, which I shall not name, and a dozen demijohns of a

very common acid. The gas to be formed from these latter

materials is a gas never yet generated by any other person than

myself—or at least never applied to any similar purpose. The

secret I would make no difficulty in disclosing, but that it of

right belongs to a citizen of Nantz, in France, by whom it was

conditionally communicated to myself. The same individual

submitted to me, without being at all aware of my intentions, a

method of constructing balloons from the membrane of a certain

animal, through which substance any escape of gas was nearly an

impossibility. I found it, however, altogether too expensive, and

was not sure, upon the whole, whether cambric muslin with a

coating of gum caoutchouc, was not equally as good. I mention

this circumstance, because I think it probable that hereafter the

individual in question may attempt a balloon ascension with the

novel gas and material I have spoken of, and I do not wish to

deprive him of the honor of a very singular invention.

“On the spot which I intended each of the smaller casks to occupy

respectively during the inflation of the balloon, I privately dug

a hole two feet deep; the holes forming in this manner a circle

twenty-five feet in diameter. In the centre of this circle, being

the station designed for the large cask, I also dug a hole three

feet in depth. In each of the five smaller holes, I deposited a

canister containing fifty pounds, and in the larger one a keg

holding one hundred and fifty pounds, of cannon powder. These—the

keg and canisters—I connected in a proper manner with covered

trains; and having let into one of the canisters the end of about

four feet of slow match, I covered up the hole, and placed the

cask over it, leaving the other end of the match protruding about

an inch, and barely visible beyond the cask. I then filled up the

remaining holes, and placed the barrels over them in their

destined situation.

“Besides the articles above enumerated, I conveyed to the depot,

and there secreted, one of M. Grimm’s improvements upon the

apparatus for condensation of the atmospheric air. I found this

machine, however, to require considerable alteration before it

could be adapted to the purposes to which I intended making it

applicable. But, with severe labor and unremitting perseverance,

I at length met with entire success in all my preparations. My

balloon was soon completed. It would contain more than forty

thousand cubic feet of gas; would take me up easily, I

calculated, with all my implements, and, if I managed rightly,

with one hundred and seventy-five pounds of ballast into the

bargain. It had received three coats of varnish, and I found the

cambric muslin to answer all the purposes of silk itself, quite

as strong and a good deal less expensive.

“Everything being now ready, I exacted from my wife an oath of

secrecy in relation to all my actions from the day of my first

visit to the bookseller’s stall; and promising, on my part, to

return as soon as circumstances would permit, I gave her what

little money I had left, and bade her farewell. Indeed I had no

fear on her account. She was what people call a notable woman,

and could manage matters in the world without my assistance. I

believe, to tell the truth, she always looked upon me as an idle

boy, a mere make-weight, good for nothing but building castles in

the air, and was rather glad to get rid of me. It was a dark

night when I bade her good-bye, and taking with me, as

aides-de-camp, the three creditors who had given me so much

trouble, we carried the balloon, with the car and accoutrements,

by a roundabout way, to the station where the other articles were

deposited. We there found them all unmolested, and I proceeded

immediately to business.

“It was the first of April. The night, as I said before, was

dark; there was not a star to be seen; and a drizzling rain,

falling at intervals, rendered us very uncomfortable. But my

chief anxiety was concerning the balloon, which, in spite of the

varnish with which it was defended, began to grow rather heavy

with the moisture; the powder also was liable to damage. I

therefore kept my three duns working with great diligence,

pounding down ice around the central cask, and stirring the acid

in the others. They did not cease, however, importuning me with

questions as to what I intended to do with all this apparatus,

and expressed much dissatisfaction at the terrible labor I made

them undergo. They could not perceive, so they said, what good

was likely to result from their getting wet to the skin, merely

to take a part in such horrible incantations. I began to get

uneasy, and worked away with all my might, for I verily believe

the idiots supposed that I had entered into a compact with the

devil, and that, in short, what I was now doing was nothing

better than it should be. I was, therefore, in great fear of

their leaving me altogether. I contrived, however, to pacify them

by promises of payment of all scores in full, as soon as I could

bring the present business to a termination. To these speeches

they gave, of course, their own interpretation; fancying, no

doubt, that at all events I should come into possession of vast

quantities of ready money; and provided I paid them all I owed,

and a trifle more, in consideration of their services, I dare say

they cared very little what became of either my soul or my

carcass.

“In about four hours and a half I found the balloon sufficiently

inflated. I attached the car, therefore, and put all my

implements in it—not forgetting the condensing apparatus, a

copious supply of water, and a large quantity of provisions, such

as pemmican, in which much nutriment is contained in

comparatively little bulk. I also secured in the car a pair of

pigeons and a cat. It was now nearly daybreak, and I thought it

high time to take my departure. Dropping a lighted cigar on the

ground, as if by accident, I took the opportunity, in stooping to

pick it up, of igniting privately the piece of slow match, whose

end, as I said before, protruded a very little beyond the lower

rim of one of the smaller casks. This manoeuvre was totally

unperceived on the part of the three duns; and, jumping into the

car, I immediately cut the single cord which held me to the

earth, and was pleased to find that I shot upward, carrying with

all ease one hundred and seventy-five pounds of leaden ballast,

and able to have carried up as many more.

“Scarcely, however, had I attained the height of fifty yards,

when, roaring and rumbling up after me in the most horrible and

tumultuous manner, came so dense a hurricane of fire, and smoke,

and sulphur, and legs and arms, and gravel, and burning wood, and

blazing metal, that my very heart sunk within me, and I fell down

in the bottom of the car, trembling with unmitigated terror.

Indeed, I now perceived that I had entirely overdone the

business, and that the main consequences of the shock were yet to

be experienced. Accordingly, in less than a second, I felt all

the blood in my body rushing to my temples, and immediately

thereupon, a concussion, which I shall never forget, burst

abruptly through the night and seemed to rip the very firmament

asunder. When I afterward had time for reflection, I did not fail

to attribute the extreme violence of the explosion, as regarded

myself, to its proper cause—my situation directly above it, and

in the line of its greatest power. But at the time, I thought

only of preserving my life. The balloon at first collapsed, then

furiously expanded, then whirled round and round with horrible

velocity, and finally, reeling and staggering like a drunken man,

hurled me with great force over the rim of the car, and left me

dangling, at a terrific height, with my head downward, and my

face outwards, by a piece of slender cord about three feet in

length, which hung accidentally through a crevice near the bottom

of the wicker-work, and in which, as I fell, my left foot became

most providentially entangled. It is impossible—utterly

impossible—to form any adequate idea of the horror of my

situation. I gasped convulsively for breath—a shudder resembling

a fit of the ague agitated every nerve and muscle of my frame—I

felt my eyes starting from their sockets—a horrible nausea

overwhelmed me—and at length I fainted away.

“How long I remained in this state it is impossible to say. It

must, however, have been no inconsiderable time, for when I

partially recovered the sense of existence, I found the day

breaking, the balloon at a prodigious height over a wilderness of

ocean, and not a trace of land to be discovered far and wide

within the limits of the vast horizon. My sensations, however,

upon thus recovering, were by no means so rife with agony as

might have been anticipated. Indeed, there was much of incipient

madness in the calm survey which I began to take of my situation.

I drew up to my eyes each of my hands, one after the other, and

wondered what occurrence could have given rise to the swelling of

the veins, and the horrible blackness of the fingernails. I

afterward carefully examined my head, shaking it repeatedly, and

feeling it with minute attention, until I succeeded in satisfying

myself that it was not, as I had more than half suspected, larger

than my balloon. Then, in a knowing manner, I felt in both my

breeches pockets, and, missing therefrom a set of tablets and a

toothpick case, endeavored to account for their disappearance,

and not being able to do so, felt inexpressibly chagrined. It now

occurred to me that I suffered great uneasiness in the joint of

my left ankle, and a dim consciousness of my situation began to

glimmer through my mind. But, strange to say! I was neither

astonished nor horror-stricken. If I felt any emotion at all, it

was a kind of chuckling satisfaction at the cleverness I was

about to display in extricating myself from this dilemma; and I

never, for a moment, looked upon my ultimate safety as a question

susceptible of doubt. For a few minutes I remained wrapped in the

profoundest meditation. I have a distinct recollection of

frequently compressing my lips, putting my forefinger to the side

of my nose, and making use of other gesticulations and grimaces

common to men who, at ease in their arm-chairs, meditate upon

matters of intricacy or importance. Having, as I thought,

sufficiently collected my ideas, I now, with great caution and

deliberation, put my hands behind my back, and unfastened the

large iron buckle which belonged to the waistband of my

inexpressibles. This buckle had three teeth, which, being

somewhat rusty, turned with great difficulty on their axis. I

brought them, however, after some trouble, at right angles to the

body of the buckle, and was glad to find them remain firm in that

position. Holding the instrument thus obtained within my teeth, I

now proceeded to untie the knot of my cravat. I had to rest

several times before I could accomplish this manoeuvre, but it

was at length accomplished. To one end of the cravat I then made

fast the buckle, and the other end I tied, for greater security,

tightly around my wrist. Drawing now my body upwards, with a

prodigious exertion of muscular force, I succeeded, at the very

first trial, in throwing the buckle over the car, and entangling

it, as I had anticipated, in the circular rim of the wicker-work.

“My body was now inclined towards the side of the car, at an

angle of about forty-five degrees; but it must not be understood

that I was therefore only forty-five degrees below the

perpendicular. So far from it, I still lay nearly level with the

plane of the horizon; for the change of situation which I had

acquired, had forced the bottom of the car considerably outwards

from my position, which was accordingly one of the most imminent

and deadly peril. It should be remembered, however, that when I

fell in the first instance, from the car, if I had fallen with my

face turned toward the balloon, instead of turned outwardly from

it, as it actually was; or if, in the second place, the cord by

which I was suspended had chanced to hang over the upper edge,

instead of through a crevice near the bottom of the car,—I say it

may be readily conceived that, in either of these supposed cases,

I should have been unable to accomplish even as much as I had now

accomplished, and the wonderful adventures of Hans Pfaall would

have been utterly lost to posterity, I had therefore every reason

to be grateful; although, in point of fact, I was still too

stupid to be anything at all, and hung for, perhaps, a quarter of

an hour in that extraordinary manner, without making the

slightest farther exertion whatsoever, and in a singularly

tranquil state of idiotic enjoyment. But this feeling did not

fail to die rapidly away, and thereunto succeeded horror, and

dismay, and a chilling sense of utter helplessness and ruin. In

fact, the blood so long accumulating in the vessels of my head

and throat, and which had hitherto buoyed up my spirits with

madness and delirium, had now begun to retire within their proper

channels, and the distinctness which was thus added to my

perception of the danger, merely served to deprive me of the

self-possession and courage to encounter it. But this weakness

was, luckily for me, of no very long duration. In good time came

to my rescue the spirit of despair, and, with frantic cries and

struggles, I jerked my way bodily upwards, till at length,

clutching with a vise-like grip the long-desired rim, I writhed

my person over it, and fell headlong and shuddering within the

car.

“It was not until some time afterward that I recovered myself

sufficiently to attend to the ordinary cares of the balloon. I

then, however, examined it with attention, and found it, to my

great relief, uninjured. My implements were all safe, and,

fortunately, I had lost neither ballast nor provisions. Indeed, I

had so well secured them in their places, that such an accident

was entirely out of the question. Looking at my watch, I found it

six o’clock. I was still rapidly ascending, and my barometer gave

a present altitude of three and three-quarter miles. Immediately

beneath me in the ocean, lay a small black object, slightly

oblong in shape, seemingly about the size, and in every way

bearing a great resemblance to one of those childish toys called

a domino. Bringing my telescope to bear upon it, I plainly

discerned it to be a British ninety four-gun ship, close-hauled,

and pitching heavily in the sea with her head to the W.S.W.

Besides this ship, I saw nothing but the ocean and the sky, and

the sun, which had long arisen.

“It is now high time that I should explain to your Excellencies

the object of my perilous voyage. Your Excellencies will bear in

mind that distressed circumstances in Rotterdam had at length

driven me to the resolution of committing suicide. It was not,

however, that to life itself I had any positive disgust, but that

I was harassed beyond endurance by the adventitious miseries

attending my situation. In this state of mind, wishing to live,

yet wearied with life, the treatise at the stall of the

bookseller opened a resource to my imagination. I then finally

made up my mind. I determined to depart, yet live—to leave the

world, yet continue to exist—in short, to drop enigmas, I

resolved, let what would ensue, to force a passage, if I could,

to the moon. Now, lest I should be supposed more of a madman than

I actually am, I will detail, as well as I am able, the

considerations which led me to believe that an achievement of

this nature, although without doubt difficult, and incontestably

full of danger, was not absolutely, to a bold spirit, beyond the

confines of the possible.

“The moon’s actual distance from the earth was the first thing to

be attended to. Now, the mean or average interval between the

centres of the two planets is 59.9643 of the earth’s equatorial

radii, or only about 237,000 miles. I say the mean or average

interval, but it must be borne in mind that the form of the

moon’s orbit being an ellipse of eccentricity amounting to no

less than 0.05484 of the major semi-axis of the ellipse itself,

and the earth’s centre being situated in its focus, if I could,

in any manner, contrive to meet the moon, as it were, in its

perigee, the above mentioned distance would be materially

diminished. But, to say nothing at present of this possibility,

it was very certain that, at all events, from the 237,000 miles I

would have to deduct the radius of the earth, say 4,000, and the

radius of the moon, say 1,080, in all 5,080, leaving an actual

interval to be traversed, under average circumstances, of 231,920

miles. Now this, I reflected, was no very extraordinary distance.

Travelling on land has been repeatedly accomplished at the rate

of thirty miles per hour, and indeed a much greater speed may be

anticipated. But even at this velocity, it would take me no more

than 322 days to reach the surface of the moon. There were,

however, many particulars inducing me to believe that my average

rate of travelling might possibly very much exceed that of thirty

miles per hour, and, as these considerations did not fail to make

a deep impression upon my mind, I will mention them more fully

hereafter.

“The next point to be regarded was a matter of far greater

importance. From indications afforded by the barometer, we find

that, in ascensions from the surface of the earth we have, at the

height of 1,000 feet, left below us about one-thirtieth of the

entire mass of atmospheric air, that at 10,600 we have ascended

through nearly one-third; and that at 18,000, which is not far

from the elevation of Cotopaxi, we have surmounted one-half the

material, or, at all events, one-half the ponderable, body of air

incumbent upon our globe. It is also calculated that at an

altitude not exceeding the hundredth part of the earth’s

diameter—that is, not exceeding eighty miles—the rarefaction

would be so excessive that animal life could in no manner be

sustained, and, moreover, that the most delicate means we possess

of ascertaining the presence of the atmosphere would be

inadequate to assure us of its existence. But I did not fail to

perceive that these latter calculations are founded altogether on

our experimental knowledge of the properties of air, and the

mechanical laws regulating its dilation and compression, in what

may be called, comparatively speaking, the immediate vicinity of

the earth itself; and, at the same time, it is taken for granted

that animal life is and must be essentially incapable of

modification at any given unattainable distance from the surface.

Now, all such reasoning and from such data must, of course, be

simply analogical. The greatest height ever reached by man was

that of 25,000 feet, attained in the aeronautic expedition of

Messieurs Gay-Lussac and Biot. This is a moderate altitude, even

when compared with the eighty miles in question; and I could not

help thinking that the subject admitted room for doubt and great

latitude for speculation.

“But, in point of fact, an ascension being made to any given

altitude, the ponderable quantity of air surmounted in any

farther ascension is by no means in proportion to the additional

height ascended (as may be plainly seen from what has been stated

before), but in a ratio constantly decreasing. It is therefore

evident that, ascend as high as we may, we cannot, literally

speaking, arrive at a limit beyond which no atmosphere is to be

found. It must exist, I argued; although it may exist in a state

of infinite rarefaction.

“On the other hand, I was aware that arguments have not been

wanting to prove the existence of a real and definite limit to

the atmosphere, beyond which there is absolutely no air

whatsoever. But a circumstance which has been left out of view by

those who contend for such a limit seemed to me, although no

positive refutation of their creed, still a point worthy very

serious investigation. On comparing the intervals between the

successive arrivals of Encke’s comet at its perihelion, after

giving credit, in the most exact manner, for all the disturbances

due to the attractions of the planets, it appears that the

periods are gradually diminishing; that is to say, the major axis

of the comet’s ellipse is growing shorter, in a slow but

perfectly regular decrease. Now, this is precisely what ought to

be the case, if we suppose a resistance experienced from the

comet from an extremely rare ethereal medium pervading the

regions of its orbit. For it is evident that such a medium must,

in retarding the comet’s velocity, increase its centripetal, by

weakening its centrifugal force. In other words, the sun’s

attraction would be constantly attaining greater power, and the

comet would be drawn nearer at every revolution. Indeed, there is

no other way of accounting for the variation in question. But

again:—The real diameter of the same comet’s nebulosity is

observed to contract rapidly as it approaches the sun, and dilate

with equal rapidity in its departure towards its aphelion. Was I

not justifiable in supposing with M. Valz, that this apparent

condensation of volume has its origin in the compression of the

same ethereal medium I have spoken of before, and which is only

denser in proportion to its solar vicinity? The lenticular-shaped

phenomenon, also called the zodiacal light, was a matter worthy

of attention. This radiance, so apparent in the tropics, and

which cannot be mistaken for any meteoric lustre, extends from

the horizon obliquely upward, and follows generally the direction

of the sun’s equator. It appeared to me evidently in the nature

of a rare atmosphere extending from the sun outward, beyond the

orbit of Venus at least, and I believed indefinitely farther.(*2)

Indeed, this medium I could not suppose confined to the path of

the comet’s ellipse, or to the immediate neighborhood of the sun.

It was easy, on the contrary, to imagine it pervading the entire

regions of our planetary system, condensed into what we call

atmosphere at the planets themselves, and perhaps at some of them

modified by considerations, so to speak, purely geological.

“Having adopted this view of the subject, I had little further

hesitation. Granting that on my passage I should meet with

atmosphere essentially the same as at the surface of the earth, I

conceived that, by means of the very ingenious apparatus of M.

Grimm, I should readily be enabled to condense it in sufficient

quantity for the purposes of respiration. This would remove the

chief obstacle in a journey to the moon. I had indeed spent some

money and great labor in adapting the apparatus to the object

intended, and confidently looked forward to its successful

application, if I could manage to complete the voyage within any

reasonable period. This brings me back to the rate at which it

might be possible to travel.

“It is true that balloons, in the first stage of their ascensions

from the earth, are known to rise with a velocity comparatively

moderate. Now, the power of elevation lies altogether in the

superior lightness of the gas in the balloon compared with the

atmospheric air; and, at first sight, it does not appear probable

that, as the balloon acquires altitude, and consequently arrives

successively in atmospheric strata of densities rapidly

diminishing—I say, it does not appear at all reasonable that, in

this its progress upwards, the original velocity should be

accelerated. On the other hand, I was not aware that, in any

recorded ascension, a diminution was apparent in the absolute

rate of ascent; although such should have been the case, if on

account of nothing else, on account of the escape of gas through

balloons ill-constructed, and varnished with no better material

than the ordinary varnish. It seemed, therefore, that the effect

of such escape was only sufficient to counterbalance the effect

of some accelerating power. I now considered that, provided in my

passage I found the medium I had imagined, and provided that it

should prove to be actually and essentially what we denominate

atmospheric air, it could make comparatively little difference at

what extreme state of rarefaction I should discover it—that is to

say, in regard to my power of ascending—for the gas in the

balloon would not only be itself subject to rarefaction partially

similar (in proportion to the occurrence of which, I could suffer

an escape of so much as would be requisite to prevent explosion),

but, being what it was, would, at all events, continue

specifically lighter than any compound whatever of mere nitrogen

and oxygen. In the meantime, the force of gravitation would be

constantly diminishing, in proportion to the squares of the

distances, and thus, with a velocity prodigiously accelerating, I

should at length arrive in those distant regions where the force

of the earth’s attraction would be superseded by that of the

moon. In accordance with these ideas, I did not think it worth

while to encumber myself with more provisions than would be

sufficient for a period of forty days.

“There was still, however, another difficulty, which occasioned

me some little disquietude. It has been observed, that, in

balloon ascensions to any considerable height, besides the pain

attending respiration, great uneasiness is experienced about the

head and body, often accompanied with bleeding at the nose, and

other symptoms of an alarming kind, and growing more and more

inconvenient in proportion to the altitude attained.(*3) This was

a reflection of a nature somewhat startling. Was it not probable

that these symptoms would increase indefinitely, or at least

until terminated by death itself? I finally thought not. Their

origin was to be looked for in the progressive removal of the

customary atmospheric pressure upon the surface of the body, and

consequent distention of the superficial blood-vessels—not in any

positive disorganization of the animal system, as in the case of

difficulty in breathing, where the atmospheric density is

chemically insufficient for the due renovation of blood in a

ventricle of the heart. Unless for default of this renovation, I

could see no reason, therefore, why life could not be sustained

even in a vacuum; for the expansion and compression of chest,

commonly called breathing, is action purely muscular, and the

cause, not the effect, of respiration. In a word, I conceived

that, as the body should become habituated to the want of

atmospheric pressure, the sensations of pain would gradually

diminish—and to endure them while they continued, I relied with

confidence upon the iron hardihood of my constitution.

“Thus, may it please your Excellencies, I have detailed some,

though by no means all, the considerations which led me to form

the project of a lunar voyage. I shall now proceed to lay before

you the result of an attempt so apparently audacious in

conception, and, at all events, so utterly unparalleled in the

annals of mankind.

“Having attained the altitude before mentioned, that is to say

three miles and three-quarters, I threw out from the car a

quantity of feathers, and found that I still ascended with

sufficient rapidity; there was, therefore, no necessity for

discharging any ballast. I was glad of this, for I wished to

retain with me as much weight as I could carry, for reasons which

will be explained in the sequel. I as yet suffered no bodily

inconvenience, breathing with great freedom, and feeling no pain

whatever in the head. The cat was lying very demurely upon my

coat, which I had taken off, and eyeing the pigeons with an air

of nonchalance. These latter being tied by the leg, to prevent

their escape, were busily employed in picking up some grains of

rice scattered for them in the bottom of the car.

“At twenty minutes past six o’clock, the barometer showed an

elevation of 26,400 feet, or five miles to a fraction. The

prospect seemed unbounded. Indeed, it is very easily calculated

by means of spherical geometry, what a great extent of the

earth’s area I beheld. The convex surface of any segment of a

sphere is, to the entire surface of the sphere itself, as the

versed sine of the segment to the diameter of the sphere. Now, in

my case, the versed sine—that is to say, the thickness of the

segment beneath me—was about equal to my elevation, or the

elevation of the point of sight above the surface. ‘As five

miles, then, to eight thousand,’ would express the proportion of

the earth’s area seen by me. In other words, I beheld as much as

a sixteen-hundredth part of the whole surface of the globe. The

sea appeared unruffled as a mirror, although, by means of the

spy-glass, I could perceive it to be in a state of violent

agitation. The ship was no longer visible, having drifted away,

apparently to the eastward. I now began to experience, at

intervals, severe pain in the head, especially about the

ears—still, however, breathing with tolerable freedom. The cat

and pigeons seemed to suffer no inconvenience whatsoever.

“At twenty minutes before seven, the balloon entered a long

series of dense cloud, which put me to great trouble, by damaging

my condensing apparatus and wetting me to the skin. This was, to

be sure, a singular recontre, for I had not believed it possible

that a cloud of this nature could be sustained at so great an

elevation. I thought it best, however, to throw out two

five-pound pieces of ballast, reserving still a weight of one

hundred and sixty-five pounds. Upon so doing, I soon rose above

the difficulty, and perceived immediately, that I had obtained a

great increase in my rate of ascent. In a few seconds after my

leaving the cloud, a flash of vivid lightning shot from one end

of it to the other, and caused it to kindle up, throughout its

vast extent, like a mass of ignited and glowing charcoal. This,

it must be remembered, was in the broad light of day. No fancy

may picture the sublimity which might have been exhibited by a

similar phenomenon taking place amid the darkness of the night.

Hell itself might have been found a fitting image. Even as it

was, my hair stood on end, while I gazed afar down within the

yawning abysses, letting imagination descend, as it were, and

stalk about in the strange vaulted halls, and ruddy gulfs, and

red ghastly chasms of the hideous and unfathomable fire. I had

indeed made a narrow escape. Had the balloon remained a very

short while longer within the cloud—that is to say—had not the

inconvenience of getting wet, determined me to discharge the

ballast, inevitable ruin would have been the consequence. Such

perils, although little considered, are perhaps the greatest

which must be encountered in balloons. I had by this time,

however, attained too great an elevation to be any longer uneasy

on this head.

“I was now rising rapidly, and by seven o’clock the barometer

indicated an altitude of no less than nine miles and a half. I

began to find great difficulty in drawing my breath. My head,

too, was excessively painful; and, having felt for some time a

moisture about my cheeks, I at length discovered it to be blood,

which was oozing quite fast from the drums of my ears. My eyes,

also, gave me great uneasiness. Upon passing the hand over them

they seemed to have protruded from their sockets in no

inconsiderable degree; and all objects in the car, and even the

balloon itself, appeared distorted to my vision. These symptoms

were more than I had expected, and occasioned me some alarm. At

this juncture, very imprudently, and without consideration, I

threw out from the car three five-pound pieces of ballast. The

accelerated rate of ascent thus obtained, carried me too rapidly,

and without sufficient gradation, into a highly rarefied stratum

of the atmosphere, and the result had nearly proved fatal to my

expedition and to myself. I was suddenly seized with a spasm

which lasted for more than five minutes, and even when this, in a

measure, ceased, I could catch my breath only at long intervals,

and in a gasping manner—bleeding all the while copiously at the

nose and ears, and even slightly at the eyes. The pigeons

appeared distressed in the extreme, and struggled to escape;

while the cat mewed piteously, and, with her tongue hanging out

of her mouth, staggered to and fro in the car as if under the

influence of poison. I now too late discovered the great rashness

of which I had been guilty in discharging the ballast, and my

agitation was excessive. I anticipated nothing less than death,

and death in a few minutes. The physical suffering I underwent

contributed also to render me nearly incapable of making any

exertion for the preservation of my life. I had, indeed, little

power of reflection left, and the violence of the pain in my head

seemed to be greatly on the increase. Thus I found that my senses

would shortly give way altogether, and I had already clutched one

of the valve ropes with the view of attempting a descent, when

the recollection of the trick I had played the three creditors,

and the possible consequences to myself, should I return,

operated to deter me for the moment. I lay down in the bottom of

the car, and endeavored to collect my faculties. In this I so far

succeeded as to determine upon the experiment of losing blood.

Having no lancet, however, I was constrained to perform the

operation in the best manner I was able, and finally succeeded in

opening a vein in my right arm, with the blade of my penknife.

The blood had hardly commenced flowing when I experienced a

sensible relief, and by the time I had lost about half a moderate

basin full, most of the worst symptoms had abandoned me entirely.

I nevertheless did not think it expedient to attempt getting on

my feet immediately; but, having tied up my arm as well as I

could, I lay still for about a quarter of an hour. At the end of

this time I arose, and found myself freer from absolute pain of

any kind than I had been during the last hour and a quarter of my

ascension. The difficulty of breathing, however, was diminished

in a very slight degree, and I found that it would soon be

positively necessary to make use of my condenser. In the

meantime, looking toward the cat, who was again snugly stowed

away upon my coat, I discovered to my infinite surprise, that she

had taken the opportunity of my indisposition to bring into light

a litter of three little kittens. This was an addition to the

number of passengers on my part altogether unexpected; but I was

pleased at the occurrence. It would afford me a chance of

bringing to a kind of test the truth of a surmise, which, more

than anything else, had influenced me in attempting this

ascension. I had imagined that the habitual endurance of the

atmospheric pressure at the surface of the earth was the cause,

or nearly so, of the pain attending animal existence at a

distance above the surface. Should the kittens be found to suffer

uneasiness in an equal degree with their mother, I must consider

my theory in fault, but a failure to do so I should look upon as

a strong confirmation of my idea.

“By eight o’clock I had actually attained an elevation of

seventeen miles above the surface of the earth. Thus it seemed to

me evident that my rate of ascent was not only on the increase,

but that the progression would have been apparent in a slight

degree even had I not discharged the ballast which I did. The

pains in my head and ears returned, at intervals, with violence,

and I still continued to bleed occasionally at the nose; but,

upon the whole, I suffered much less than might have been

expected. I breathed, however, at every moment, with more and

more difficulty, and each inhalation was attended with a

troublesome spasmodic action of the chest. I now unpacked the

condensing apparatus, and got it ready for immediate use.

“The view of the earth, at this period of my ascension, was

beautiful indeed. To the westward, the northward, and the

southward, as far as I could see, lay a boundless sheet of

apparently unruffled ocean, which every moment gained a deeper

and a deeper tint of blue and began already to assume a slight

appearance of convexity. At a vast distance to the eastward,

although perfectly discernible, extended the islands of Great

Britain, the entire Atlantic coasts of France and Spain, with a

small portion of the northern part of the continent of Africa. Of

individual edifices not a trace could be discovered, and the

proudest cities of mankind had utterly faded away from the face

of the earth. From the rock of Gibraltar, now dwindled into a dim

speck, the dark Mediterranean sea, dotted with shining islands as

the heaven is dotted with stars, spread itself out to the

eastward as far as my vision extended, until its entire mass of

waters seemed at length to tumble headlong over the abyss of the

horizon, and I found myself listening on tiptoe for the echoes of

the mighty cataract. Overhead, the sky was of a jetty black, and

the stars were brilliantly visible.

“The pigeons about this time seeming to undergo much suffering, I

determined upon giving them their liberty. I first untied one of

them, a beautiful gray-mottled pigeon, and placed him upon the

rim of the wicker-work. He appeared extremely uneasy, looking

anxiously around him, fluttering his wings, and making a loud

cooing noise, but could not be persuaded to trust himself from

off the car. I took him up at last, and threw him to about half a

dozen yards from the balloon. He made, however, no attempt to

descend as I had expected, but struggled with great vehemence to

get back, uttering at the same time very shrill and piercing

cries. He at length succeeded in regaining his former station on

the rim, but had hardly done so when his head dropped upon his

breast, and he fell dead within the car. The other one did not

prove so unfortunate. To prevent his following the example of his

companion, and accomplishing a return, I threw him downward with

all my force, and was pleased to find him continue his descent,

with great velocity, making use of his wings with ease, and in a

perfectly natural manner. In a very short time he was out of

sight, and I have no doubt he reached home in safety. Puss, who

seemed in a great measure recovered from her illness, now made a

hearty meal of the dead bird and then went to sleep with much

apparent satisfaction. Her kittens were quite lively, and so far

evinced not the slightest sign of any uneasiness whatever.

“At a quarter-past eight, being no longer able to draw breath

without the most intolerable pain, I proceeded forthwith to

adjust around the car the apparatus belonging to the condenser.

This apparatus will require some little explanation, and your

Excellencies will please to bear in mind that my object, in the

first place, was to surround myself and cat entirely with a

barricade against the highly rarefied atmosphere in which I was

existing, with the intention of introducing within this

barricade, by means of my condenser, a quantity of this same

atmosphere sufficiently condensed for the purposes of

respiration. With this object in view I had prepared a very

strong perfectly air-tight, but flexible gum-elastic bag. In this

bag, which was of sufficient dimensions, the entire car was in a

manner placed. That is to say, it (the bag) was drawn over the

whole bottom of the car, up its sides, and so on, along the

outside of the ropes, to the upper rim or hoop where the net-work

is attached. Having pulled the bag up in this way, and formed a

complete enclosure on all sides, and at bottom, it was now

necessary to fasten up its top or mouth, by passing its material

over the hoop of the net-work—in other words, between the

net-work and the hoop. But if the net-work were separated from

the hoop to admit this passage, what was to sustain the car in

the meantime? Now the net-work was not permanently fastened to

the hoop, but attached by a series of running loops or nooses. I

therefore undid only a few of these loops at one time, leaving

the car suspended by the remainder. Having thus inserted a

portion of the cloth forming the upper part of the bag, I

refastened the loops—not to the hoop, for that would have been

impossible, since the cloth now intervened—but to a series of

large buttons, affixed to the cloth itself, about three feet

below the mouth of the bag, the intervals between the buttons

having been made to correspond to the intervals between the

loops. This done, a few more of the loops were unfastened from

the rim, a farther portion of the cloth introduced, and the

disengaged loops then connected with their proper buttons. In

this way it was possible to insert the whole upper part of the

bag between the net-work and the hoop. It is evident that the

hoop would now drop down within the car, while the whole weight

of the car itself, with all its contents, would be held up merely

by the strength of the buttons. This, at first sight, would seem

an inadequate dependence; but it was by no means so, for the

buttons were not only very strong in themselves, but so close

together that a very slight portion of the whole weight was

supported by any one of them. Indeed, had the car and contents

been three times heavier than they were, I should not have been

at all uneasy. I now raised up the hoop again within the covering

of gum-elastic, and propped it at nearly its former height by

means of three light poles prepared for the occasion. This was

done, of course, to keep the bag distended at the top, and to

preserve the lower part of the net-work in its proper situation.

All that now remained was to fasten up the mouth of the

enclosure; and this was readily accomplished by gathering the

folds of the material together, and twisting them up very tightly

on the inside by means of a kind of stationary tourniquet.

“In the sides of the covering thus adjusted round the car, had

been inserted three circular panes of thick but clear glass,

through which I could see without difficulty around me in every

horizontal direction. In that portion of the cloth forming the

bottom, was likewise, a fourth window, of the same kind, and

corresponding with a small aperture in the floor of the car

itself. This enabled me to see perpendicularly down, but having

found it impossible to place any similar contrivance overhead, on

account of the peculiar manner of closing up the opening there,

and the consequent wrinkles in the cloth, I could expect to see

no objects situated directly in my zenith. This, of course, was a

matter of little consequence; for had I even been able to place a

window at top, the balloon itself would have prevented my making

any use of it.

“About a foot below one of the side windows was a circular

opening, eight inches in diameter, and fitted with a brass rim

adapted in its inner edge to the windings of a screw. In this rim

was screwed the large tube of the condenser, the body of the

machine being, of course, within the chamber of gum-elastic.

Through this tube a quantity of the rare atmosphere circumjacent

being drawn by means of a vacuum created in the body of the

machine, was thence discharged, in a state of condensation, to

mingle with the thin air already in the chamber. This operation

being repeated several times, at length filled the chamber with

atmosphere proper for all the purposes of respiration. But in so

confined a space it would, in a short time, necessarily become

foul, and unfit for use from frequent contact with the lungs. It

was then ejected by a small valve at the bottom of the car—the

dense air readily sinking into the thinner atmosphere below. To

avoid the inconvenience of making a total vacuum at any moment

within the chamber, this purification was never accomplished all

at once, but in a gradual manner—the valve being opened only for

a few seconds, then closed again, until one or two strokes from

the pump of the condenser had supplied the place of the

atmosphere ejected. For the sake of experiment I had put the cat

and kittens in a small basket, and suspended it outside the car

to a button at the bottom, close by the valve, through which I

could feed them at any moment when necessary. I did this at some

little risk, and before closing the mouth of the chamber, by

reaching under the car with one of the poles before mentioned to

which a hook had been attached.

“By the time I had fully completed these arrangements and filled

the chamber as explained, it wanted only ten minutes of nine

o’clock. During the whole period of my being thus employed, I

endured the most terrible distress from difficulty of

respiration, and bitterly did I repent the negligence or rather

fool-hardiness, of which I had been guilty, of putting off to the

last moment a matter of so much importance. But having at length

accomplished it, I soon began to reap the benefit of my

invention. Once again I breathed with perfect freedom and

ease—and indeed why should I not? I was also agreeably surprised

to find myself, in a great measure, relieved from the violent

pains which had hitherto tormented me. A slight headache,

accompanied with a sensation of fulness or distention about the

wrists, the ankles, and the throat, was nearly all of which I had

now to complain. Thus it seemed evident that a greater part of

the uneasiness attending the removal of atmospheric pressure had

actually worn off, as I had expected, and that much of the pain

endured for the last two hours should have been attributed

altogether to the effects of a deficient respiration.

“At twenty minutes before nine o’clock—that is to say, a short

time prior to my closing up the mouth of the chamber, the mercury

attained its limit, or ran down, in the barometer, which, as I

mentioned before, was one of an extended construction. It then

indicated an altitude on my part of 132,000 feet, or

five-and-twenty miles, and I consequently surveyed at that time

an extent of the earth’s area amounting to no less than the three

hundred-and-twentieth part of its entire superficies. At nine

o’clock I had again lost sight of land to the eastward, but not

before I became aware that the balloon was drifting rapidly to

the N. N. W. The convexity of the ocean beneath me was very

evident indeed, although my view was often interrupted by the

masses of cloud which floated to and fro. I observed now that

even the lightest vapors never rose to more than ten miles above

the level of the sea.

“At half past nine I tried the experiment of throwing out a

handful of feathers through the valve. They did not float as I

had expected; but dropped down perpendicularly, like a bullet, en

masse, and with the greatest velocity—being out of sight in a

very few seconds. I did not at first know what to make of this

extraordinary phenomenon; not being able to believe that my rate

of ascent had, of a sudden, met with so prodigious an

acceleration. But it soon occurred to me that the atmosphere was

now far too rare to sustain even the feathers; that they actually

fell, as they appeared to do, with great rapidity; and that I had

been surprised by the united velocities of their descent and my

own elevation.

“By ten o’clock I found that I had very little to occupy my

immediate attention. Affairs went swimmingly, and I believed the

balloon to be going upward with a speed increasing momently

although I had no longer any means of ascertaining the

progression of the increase. I suffered no pain or uneasiness of

any kind, and enjoyed better spirits than I had at any period

since my departure from Rotterdam, busying myself now in

examining the state of my various apparatus, and now in

regenerating the atmosphere within the chamber. This latter point

I determined to attend to at regular intervals of forty minutes,

more on account of the preservation of my health, than from so

frequent a renovation being absolutely necessary. In the

meanwhile I could not help making anticipations. Fancy revelled

in the wild and dreamy regions of the moon. Imagination, feeling

herself for once unshackled, roamed at will among the

ever-changing wonders of a shadowy and unstable land. Now there

were hoary and time-honored forests, and craggy precipices, and

waterfalls tumbling with a loud noise into abysses without a

bottom. Then I came suddenly into still noonday solitudes, where

no wind of heaven ever intruded, and where vast meadows of

poppies, and slender, lily-looking flowers spread themselves out

a weary distance, all silent and motionless forever. Then again I

journeyed far down away into another country where it was all one

dim and vague lake, with a boundary line of clouds. And out of

this melancholy water arose a forest of tall eastern trees, like

a wilderness of dreams. And I have in mind that the shadows of

the trees which fell upon the lake remained not on the surface

where they fell, but sunk slowly and steadily down, and

commingled with the waves, while from the trunks of the trees

other shadows were continually coming out, and taking the place

of their brothers thus entombed. “This then,” I said

thoughtfully, “is the very reason why the waters of this lake

grow blacker with age, and more melancholy as the hours run on.”

But fancies such as these were not the sole possessors of my

brain. Horrors of a nature most stern and most appalling would

too frequently obtrude themselves upon my mind, and shake the

innermost depths of my soul with the bare supposition of their

possibility. Yet I would not suffer my thoughts for any length of

time to dwell upon these latter speculations, rightly judging the

real and palpable dangers of the voyage sufficient for my

undivided attention.

“At five o’clock, p.m., being engaged in regenerating the

atmosphere within the chamber, I took that opportunity of

observing the cat and kittens through the valve. The cat herself

appeared to suffer again very much, and I had no hesitation in

attributing her uneasiness chiefly to a difficulty in breathing;

but my experiment with the kittens had resulted very strangely. I

had expected, of course, to see them betray a sense of pain,

although in a less degree than their mother, and this would have

been sufficient to confirm my opinion concerning the habitual

endurance of atmospheric pressure. But I was not prepared to find

them, upon close examination, evidently enjoying a high degree of

health, breathing with the greatest ease and perfect regularity,

and evincing not the slightest sign of any uneasiness whatever. I

could only account for all this by extending my theory, and

supposing that the highly rarefied atmosphere around might

perhaps not be, as I had taken for granted, chemically

insufficient for the purposes of life, and that a person born in

such a medium might, possibly, be unaware of any inconvenience

attending its inhalation, while, upon removal to the denser

strata near the earth, he might endure tortures of a similar

nature to those I had so lately experienced. It has since been to

me a matter of deep regret that an awkward accident, at this

time, occasioned me the loss of my little family of cats, and

deprived me of the insight into this matter which a continued

experiment might have afforded. In passing my hand through the

valve, with a cup of water for the old puss, the sleeves of my

shirt became entangled in the loop which sustained the basket,

and thus, in a moment, loosened it from the bottom. Had the whole

actually vanished into air, it could not have shot from my sight

in a more abrupt and instantaneous manner. Positively, there

could not have intervened the tenth part of a second between the

disengagement of the basket and its absolute and total

disappearance with all that it contained. My good wishes followed

it to the earth, but of course, I had no hope that either cat or

kittens would ever live to tell the tale of their misfortune.

“At six o’clock, I perceived a great portion of the earth’s

visible area to the eastward involved in thick shadow, which

continued to advance with great rapidity, until, at five minutes

before seven, the whole surface in view was enveloped in the

darkness of night. It was not, however, until long after this

time that the rays of the setting sun ceased to illumine the

balloon; and this circumstance, although of course fully

anticipated, did not fail to give me an infinite deal of

pleasure. It was evident that, in the morning, I should behold

the rising luminary many hours at least before the citizens of

Rotterdam, in spite of their situation so much farther to the

eastward, and thus, day after day, in proportion to the height

ascended, would I enjoy the light of the sun for a longer and a

longer period. I now determined to keep a journal of my passage,

reckoning the days from one to twenty-four hours continuously,

without taking into consideration the intervals of darkness.

“At ten o’clock, feeling sleepy, I determined to lie down for the

rest of the night; but here a difficulty presented itself, which,

obvious as it may appear, had escaped my attention up to the very

moment of which I am now speaking. If I went to sleep as I

proposed, how could the atmosphere in the chamber be regenerated

in the interim? To breathe it for more than an hour, at the

farthest, would be a matter of impossibility, or, if even this

term could be extended to an hour and a quarter, the most ruinous

consequences might ensue. The consideration of this dilemma gave

me no little disquietude; and it will hardly be believed, that,

after the dangers I had undergone, I should look upon this

business in so serious a light, as to give up all hope of

accomplishing my ultimate design, and finally make up my mind to

the necessity of a descent. But this hesitation was only

momentary. I reflected that man is the veriest slave of custom,

and that many points in the routine of his existence are deemed

essentially important, which are only so at all by his having

rendered them habitual. It was very certain that I could not do

without sleep; but I might easily bring myself to feel no

inconvenience from being awakened at intervals of an hour during

the whole period of my repose. It would require but five minutes

at most to regenerate the atmosphere in the fullest manner, and

the only real difficulty was to contrive a method of arousing

myself at the proper moment for so doing. But this was a question

which, I am willing to confess, occasioned me no little trouble

in its solution. To be sure, I had heard of the student who, to

prevent his falling asleep over his books, held in one hand a

ball of copper, the din of whose descent into a basin of the same

metal on the floor beside his chair, served effectually to

startle him up, if, at any moment, he should be overcome with

drowsiness. My own case, however, was very different indeed, and

left me no room for any similar idea; for I did not wish to keep

awake, but to be aroused from slumber at regular intervals of

time. I at length hit upon the following expedient, which, simple

as it may seem, was hailed by me, at the moment of discovery, as

an invention fully equal to that of the telescope, the

steam-engine, or the art of printing itself.

“It is necessary to premise, that the balloon, at the elevation

now attained, continued its course upward with an even and

undeviating ascent, and the car consequently followed with a

steadiness so perfect that it would have been impossible to

detect in it the slightest vacillation whatever. This

circumstance favored me greatly in the project I now determined

to adopt. My supply of water had been put on board in kegs

containing five gallons each, and ranged very securely around the

interior of the car. I unfastened one of these, and taking two

ropes tied them tightly across the rim of the wicker-work from

one side to the other; placing them about a foot apart and

parallel so as to form a kind of shelf, upon which I placed the

keg, and steadied it in a horizontal position. About eight inches

immediately below these ropes, and four feet from the bottom of

the car I fastened another shelf—but made of thin plank, being

the only similar piece of wood I had. Upon this latter shelf, and

exactly beneath one of the rims of the keg, a small earthern

pitcher was deposited. I now bored a hole in the end of the keg

over the pitcher, and fitted in a plug of soft wood, cut in a

tapering or conical shape. This plug I pushed in or pulled out,

as might happen, until, after a few experiments, it arrived at

that exact degree of tightness, at which the water, oozing from

the hole, and falling into the pitcher below, would fill the

latter to the brim in the period of sixty minutes. This, of

course, was a matter briefly and easily ascertained, by noticing

the proportion of the pitcher filled in any given time. Having

arranged all this, the rest of the plan is obvious. My bed was so

contrived upon the floor of the car, as to bring my head, in

lying down, immediately below the mouth of the pitcher. It was

evident, that, at the expiration of an hour, the pitcher, getting

full, would be forced to run over, and to run over at the mouth,

which was somewhat lower than the rim. It was also evident, that

the water thus falling from a height of more than four feet,

could not do otherwise than fall upon my face, and that the sure

consequences would be, to waken me up instantaneously, even from

the soundest slumber in the world.

“It was fully eleven by the time I had completed these

arrangements, and I immediately betook myself to bed, with full

confidence in the efficiency of my invention. Nor in this matter

was I disappointed. Punctually every sixty minutes was I aroused

by my trusty chronometer, when, having emptied the pitcher into

the bung-hole of the keg, and performed the duties of the

condenser, I retired again to bed. These regular interruptions to

my slumber caused me even less discomfort than I had anticipated;

and when I finally arose for the day, it was seven o’clock, and

the sun had attained many degrees above the line of my horizon.

“April 3d. I found the balloon at an immense height indeed, and

the earth’s apparent convexity increased in a material degree.

Below me in the ocean lay a cluster of black specks, which

undoubtedly were islands. Far away to the northward I perceived a

thin, white, and exceedingly brilliant line, or streak, on the

edge of the horizon, and I had no hesitation in supposing it to

be the southern disk of the ices of the Polar Sea. My curiosity

was greatly excited, for I had hopes of passing on much farther

to the north, and might possibly, at some period, find myself

placed directly above the Pole itself. I now lamented that my

great elevation would, in this case, prevent my taking as

accurate a survey as I could wish. Much, however, might be

ascertained. Nothing else of an extraordinary nature occurred

during the day. My apparatus all continued in good order, and the

balloon still ascended without any perceptible vacillation. The

cold was intense, and obliged me to wrap up closely in an

overcoat. When darkness came over the earth, I betook myself to

bed, although it was for many hours afterward broad daylight all

around my immediate situation. The water-clock was punctual in

its duty, and I slept until next morning soundly, with the

exception of the periodical interruption.

“April 4th. Arose in good health and spirits, and was astonished

at the singular change which had taken place in the appearance of

the sea. It had lost, in a great measure, the deep tint of blue

it had hitherto worn, being now of a grayish-white, and of a

lustre dazzling to the eye. The islands were no longer visible;

whether they had passed down the horizon to the southeast, or

whether my increasing elevation had left them out of sight, it is

impossible to say. I was inclined, however, to the latter

opinion. The rim of ice to the northward was growing more and

more apparent. Cold by no means so intense. Nothing of importance

occurred, and I passed the day in reading, having taken care to

supply myself with books.

“April 5th. Beheld the singular phenomenon of the sun rising

while nearly the whole visible surface of the earth continued to

be involved in darkness. In time, however, the light spread

itself over all, and I again saw the line of ice to the

northward. It was now very distinct, and appeared of a much

darker hue than the waters of the ocean. I was evidently

approaching it, and with great rapidity. Fancied I could again

distinguish a strip of land to the eastward, and one also to the

westward, but could not be certain. Weather moderate. Nothing of

any consequence happened during the day. Went early to bed.

“April 6th. Was surprised at finding the rim of ice at a very

moderate distance, and an immense field of the same material

stretching away off to the horizon in the north. It was evident

that if the balloon held its present course, it would soon arrive

above the Frozen Ocean, and I had now little doubt of ultimately

seeing the Pole. During the whole of the day I continued to near

the ice. Toward night the limits of my horizon very suddenly and

materially increased, owing undoubtedly to the earth’s form being

that of an oblate spheroid, and my arriving above the flattened

regions in the vicinity of the Arctic circle. When darkness at

length overtook me, I went to bed in great anxiety, fearing to

pass over the object of so much curiosity when I should have no

opportunity of observing it.

“April 7th. Arose early, and, to my great joy, at length beheld

what there could be no hesitation in supposing the northern Pole

itself. It was there, beyond a doubt, and immediately beneath my

feet; but, alas! I had now ascended to so vast a distance, that

nothing could with accuracy be discerned. Indeed, to judge from

the progression of the numbers indicating my various altitudes,

respectively, at different periods, between six A.M. on the

second of April, and twenty minutes before nine A.M. of the same

day (at which time the barometer ran down), it might be fairly

inferred that the balloon had now, at four o’clock in the morning

of April the seventh, reached a height of not less, certainly,

than 7,254 miles above the surface of the sea. This elevation may

appear immense, but the estimate upon which it is calculated gave

a result in all probability far inferior to the truth. At all

events I undoubtedly beheld the whole of the earth’s major

diameter; the entire northern hemisphere lay beneath me like a

chart orthographically projected: and the great circle of the

equator itself formed the boundary line of my horizon. Your

Excellencies may, however, readily imagine that the confined

regions hitherto unexplored within the limits of the Arctic

circle, although situated directly beneath me, and therefore seen

without any appearance of being foreshortened, were still, in

themselves, comparatively too diminutive, and at too great a

distance from the point of sight, to admit of any very accurate

examination. Nevertheless, what could be seen was of a nature

singular and exciting. Northwardly from that huge rim before

mentioned, and which, with slight qualification, may be called

the limit of human discovery in these regions, one unbroken, or

nearly unbroken, sheet of ice continues to extend. In the first

few degrees of this its progress, its surface is very sensibly

flattened, farther on depressed into a plane, and finally,

becoming not a little concave, it terminates, at the Pole itself,

in a circular centre, sharply defined, whose apparent diameter

subtended at the balloon an angle of about sixty-five seconds,

and whose dusky hue, varying in intensity, was, at all times,

darker than any other spot upon the visible hemisphere, and

occasionally deepened into the most absolute and impenetrable

blackness. Farther than this, little could be ascertained. By

twelve o’clock the circular centre had materially decreased in

circumference, and by seven P.M. I lost sight of it entirely; the

balloon passing over the western limb of the ice, and floating

away rapidly in the direction of the equator.

“April 8th. Found a sensible diminution in the earth’s apparent

diameter, besides a material alteration in its general color and

appearance. The whole visible area partook in different degrees

of a tint of pale yellow, and in some portions had acquired a

brilliancy even painful to the eye. My view downward was also

considerably impeded by the dense atmosphere in the vicinity of

the surface being loaded with clouds, between whose masses I

could only now and then obtain a glimpse of the earth itself.

This difficulty of direct vision had troubled me more or less for

the last forty-eight hours; but my present enormous elevation

brought closer together, as it were, the floating bodies of

vapor, and the inconvenience became, of course, more and more

palpable in proportion to my ascent. Nevertheless, I could easily

perceive that the balloon now hovered above the range of great

lakes in the continent of North America, and was holding a

course, due south, which would bring me to the tropics. This

circumstance did not fail to give me the most heartful

satisfaction, and I hailed it as a happy omen of ultimate

success. Indeed, the direction I had hitherto taken, had filled

me with uneasiness; for it was evident that, had I continued it

much longer, there would have been no possibility of my arriving

at the moon at all, whose orbit is inclined to the ecliptic at

only the small angle of 5° 8′ 48″.

“April 9th. To-day the earth’s diameter was greatly diminished,

and the color of the surface assumed hourly a deeper tint of

yellow. The balloon kept steadily on her course to the southward,

and arrived, at nine P.M., over the northern edge of the Mexican

Gulf.

“April 10th. I was suddenly aroused from slumber, about five

o’clock this morning, by a loud, crackling, and terrific sound,

for which I could in no manner account. It was of very brief

duration, but, while it lasted resembled nothing in the world of

which I had any previous experience. It is needless to say that I

became excessively alarmed, having, in the first instance,

attributed the noise to the bursting of the balloon. I examined

all my apparatus, however, with great attention, and could

discover nothing out of order. Spent a great part of the day in

meditating upon an occurrence so extraordinary, but could find no

means whatever of accounting for it. Went to bed dissatisfied,

and in a state of great anxiety and agitation.

“April 11th. Found a startling diminution in the apparent

diameter of the earth, and a considerable increase, now

observable for the first time, in that of the moon itself, which

wanted only a few days of being full. It now required long and

excessive labor to condense within the chamber sufficient

atmospheric air for the sustenance of life.

“April 12th. A singular alteration took place in regard to the

direction of the balloon, and although fully anticipated,

afforded me the most unequivocal delight. Having reached, in its

former course, about the twentieth parallel of southern latitude,

it turned off suddenly, at an acute angle, to the eastward, and

thus proceeded throughout the day, keeping nearly, if not

altogether, in the exact plane of the lunar ellipse. What was

worthy of remark, a very perceptible vacillation in the car was a

consequence of this change of route—a vacillation which

prevailed, in a more or less degree, for a period of many hours.

“April 13th. Was again very much alarmed by a repetition of the

loud, crackling noise which terrified me on the tenth. Thought

long upon the subject, but was unable to form any satisfactory

conclusion. Great decrease in the earth’s apparent diameter,

which now subtended from the balloon an angle of very little more

than twenty-five degrees. The moon could not be seen at all,

being nearly in my zenith. I still continued in the plane of the

ellipse, but made little progress to the eastward.

“April 14th. Extremely rapid decrease in the diameter of the

earth. To-day I became strongly impressed with the idea, that the

balloon was now actually running up the line of apsides to the

point of perigee—in other words, holding the direct course which

would bring it immediately to the moon in that part of its orbit

the nearest to the earth. The moon itself was directly overhead,

and consequently hidden from my view. Great and long-continued

labor necessary for the condensation of the atmosphere.

“April 15th. Not even the outlines of continents and seas could

now be traced upon the earth with anything approaching

distinctness. About twelve o’clock I became aware, for the third

time, of that appalling sound which had so astonished me before.

It now, however, continued for some moments, and gathered

intensity as it continued. At length, while, stupefied and

terror-stricken, I stood in expectation of I knew not what

hideous destruction, the car vibrated with excessive violence,

and a gigantic and flaming mass of some material which I could

not distinguish, came with a voice of a thousand thunders,

roaring and booming by the balloon. When my fears and

astonishment had in some degree subsided, I had little difficulty

in supposing it to be some mighty volcanic fragment ejected from

that world to which I was so rapidly approaching, and, in all

probability, one of that singular class of substances

occasionally picked up on the earth, and termed meteoric stones

for want of a better appellation.

“April 16th. To-day, looking upward as well as I could, through

each of the side windows alternately, I beheld, to my great

delight, a very small portion of the moon’s disk protruding, as

it were, on all sides beyond the huge circumference of the

balloon. My agitation was extreme; for I had now little doubt of

soon reaching the end of my perilous voyage. Indeed, the labor

now required by the condenser had increased to a most oppressive

degree, and allowed me scarcely any respite from exertion. Sleep

was a matter nearly out of the question. I became quite ill, and

my frame trembled with exhaustion. It was impossible that human

nature could endure this state of intense suffering much longer.

During the now brief interval of darkness a meteoric stone again

passed in my vicinity, and the frequency of these phenomena began

to occasion me much apprehension.

“April 17th. This morning proved an epoch in my voyage. It will

be remembered that, on the thirteenth, the earth subtended an

angular breadth of twenty-five degrees. On the fourteenth this

had greatly diminished; on the fifteenth a still more remarkable

decrease was observable; and, on retiring on the night of the

sixteenth, I had noticed an angle of no more than about seven

degrees and fifteen minutes. What, therefore, must have been my

amazement, on awakening from a brief and disturbed slumber, on

the morning of this day, the seventeenth, at finding the surface

beneath me so suddenly and wonderfully augmented in volume, as to

subtend no less than thirty-nine degrees in apparent angular

diameter! I was thunderstruck! No words can give any adequate

idea of the extreme, the absolute horror and astonishment, with

which I was seized possessed, and altogether overwhelmed. My

knees tottered beneath me—my teeth chattered—my hair started up

on end. ‘The balloon, then, had actually burst!’ These were the

first tumultuous ideas that hurried through my mind: ‘The balloon

had positively burst!—I was falling—falling with the most

impetuous, the most unparalleled velocity! To judge by the

immense distance already so quickly passed over, it could not be

more than ten minutes, at the farthest, before I should meet the

surface of the earth, and be hurled into annihilation!’ But at

length reflection came to my relief. I paused; I considered; and

I began to doubt. The matter was impossible. I could not in any

reason have so rapidly come down. Besides, although I was

evidently approaching the surface below me, it was with a speed

by no means commensurate with the velocity I had at first so

horribly conceived. This consideration served to calm the

perturbation of my mind, and I finally succeeded in regarding the

phenomenon in its proper point of view. In fact, amazement must

have fairly deprived me of my senses, when I could not see the

vast difference, in appearance, between the surface below me, and

the surface of my mother earth. The latter was indeed over my

head, and completely hidden by the balloon, while the moon—the

moon itself in all its glory—lay beneath me, and at my feet.

“The stupor and surprise produced in my mind by this

extraordinary change in the posture of affairs was perhaps, after

all, that part of the adventure least susceptible of explanation.

For the bouleversement in itself was not only natural and

inevitable, but had been long actually anticipated as a

circumstance to be expected whenever I should arrive at that

exact point of my voyage where the attraction of the planet

should be superseded by the attraction of the satellite—or, more

precisely, where the gravitation of the balloon toward the earth

should be less powerful than its gravitation toward the moon. To

be sure I arose from a sound slumber, with all my senses in

confusion, to the contemplation of a very startling phenomenon,

and one which, although expected, was not expected at the moment.

The revolution itself must, of course, have taken place in an

easy and gradual manner, and it is by no means clear that, had I

even been awake at the time of the occurrence, I should have been

made aware of it by any internal evidence of an inversion—that is

to say, by any inconvenience or disarrangement, either about my

person or about my apparatus.

“It is almost needless to say that, upon coming to a due sense of

my situation, and emerging from the terror which had absorbed

every faculty of my soul, my attention was, in the first place,

wholly directed to the contemplation of the general physical

appearance of the moon. It lay beneath me like a chart—and

although I judged it to be still at no inconsiderable distance,

the indentures of its surface were defined to my vision with a

most striking and altogether unaccountable distinctness. The

entire absence of ocean or sea, and indeed of any lake or river,

or body of water whatsoever, struck me, at first glance, as the

most extraordinary feature in its geological condition. Yet,

strange to say, I beheld vast level regions of a character

decidedly alluvial, although by far the greater portion of the

hemisphere in sight was covered with innumerable volcanic

mountains, conical in shape, and having more the appearance of

artificial than of natural protuberance. The highest among them

does not exceed three and three-quarter miles in perpendicular

elevation; but a map of the volcanic districts of the Campi

Phlegraei would afford to your Excellencies a better idea of

their general surface than any unworthy description I might think

proper to attempt. The greater part of them were in a state of

evident eruption, and gave me fearfully to understand their fury

and their power, by the repeated thunders of the miscalled

meteoric stones, which now rushed upward by the balloon with a

frequency more and more appalling.

“April 18th. To-day I found an enormous increase in the moon’s

apparent bulk—and the evidently accelerated velocity of my

descent began to fill me with alarm. It will be remembered, that,

in the earliest stage of my speculations upon the possibility of

a passage to the moon, the existence, in its vicinity, of an

atmosphere, dense in proportion to the bulk of the planet, had

entered largely into my calculations; this too in spite of many

theories to the contrary, and, it may be added, in spite of a

general disbelief in the existence of any lunar atmosphere at

all. But, in addition to what I have already urged in regard to

Encke’s comet and the zodiacal light, I had been strengthened in

my opinion by certain observations of Mr. Schroeter, of

Lilienthal. He observed the moon when two days and a half old, in

the evening soon after sunset, before the dark part was visible,

and continued to watch it until it became visible. The two cusps

appeared tapering in a very sharp faint prolongation, each

exhibiting its farthest extremity faintly illuminated by the

solar rays, before any part of the dark hemisphere was visible.

Soon afterward, the whole dark limb became illuminated. This

prolongation of the cusps beyond the semicircle, I thought, must

have arisen from the refraction of the sun’s rays by the moon’s

atmosphere. I computed, also, the height of the atmosphere (which

could refract light enough into its dark hemisphere to produce a

twilight more luminous than the light reflected from the earth

when the moon is about 32° from the new) to be 1,356 Paris feet;

in this view, I supposed the greatest height capable of

refracting the solar ray, to be 5,376 feet. My ideas on this

topic had also received confirmation by a passage in the

eighty-second volume of the Philosophical Transactions, in which

it is stated that at an occultation of Jupiter’s satellites, the

third disappeared after having been about 1″ or 2″ of time

indistinct, and the fourth became indiscernible near the

limb.(*4)

“Upon the resistance or, more properly, upon the support of an

atmosphere, existing in the state of density imagined, I had, of

course, entirely depended for the safety of my ultimate descent.

Should I then, after all, prove to have been mistaken, I had in

consequence nothing better to expect, as a finale to my

adventure, than being dashed into atoms against the rugged

surface of the satellite. And, indeed, I had now every reason to

be terrified. My distance from the moon was comparatively

trifling, while the labor required by the condenser was

diminished not at all, and I could discover no indication

whatever of a decreasing rarity in the air.

“April 19th. This morning, to my great joy, about nine o’clock,

the surface of the moon being frightfully near, and my

apprehensions excited to the utmost, the pump of my condenser at

length gave evident tokens of an alteration in the atmosphere. By

ten, I had reason to believe its density considerably increased.

By eleven, very little labor was necessary at the apparatus; and

at twelve o’clock, with some hesitation, I ventured to unscrew

the tourniquet, when, finding no inconvenience from having done

so, I finally threw open the gum-elastic chamber, and unrigged it

from around the car. As might have been expected, spasms and

violent headache were the immediate consequences of an experiment

so precipitate and full of danger. But these and other

difficulties attending respiration, as they were by no means so

great as to put me in peril of my life, I determined to endure as

I best could, in consideration of my leaving them behind me

momently in my approach to the denser strata near the moon. This

approach, however, was still impetuous in the extreme; and it

soon became alarmingly certain that, although I had probably not

been deceived in the expectation of an atmosphere dense in

proportion to the mass of the satellite, still I had been wrong

in supposing this density, even at the surface, at all adequate

to the support of the great weight contained in the car of my

balloon. Yet this should have been the case, and in an equal

degree as at the surface of the earth, the actual gravity of

bodies at either planet supposed in the ratio of the atmospheric

condensation. That it was not the case, however, my precipitous

downfall gave testimony enough; why it was not so, can only be

explained by a reference to those possible geological

disturbances to which I have formerly alluded. At all events I

was now close upon the planet, and coming down with the most

terrible impetuosity. I lost not a moment, accordingly, in

throwing overboard first my ballast, then my water-kegs, then my

condensing apparatus and gum-elastic chamber, and finally every

article within the car. But it was all to no purpose. I still

fell with horrible rapidity, and was now not more than half a

mile from the surface. As a last resource, therefore, having got

rid of my coat, hat, and boots, I cut loose from the balloon the

car itself, which was of no inconsiderable weight, and thus,

clinging with both hands to the net-work, I had barely time to

observe that the whole country, as far as the eye could reach,

was thickly interspersed with diminutive habitations, ere I

tumbled headlong into the very heart of a fantastical-looking

city, and into the middle of a vast crowd of ugly little people,

who none of them uttered a single syllable, or gave themselves

the least trouble to render me assistance, but stood, like a

parcel of idiots, grinning in a ludicrous manner, and eyeing me

and my balloon askant, with their arms set a-kimbo. I turned from

them in contempt, and, gazing upward at the earth so lately left,

and left perhaps for ever, beheld it like a huge, dull, copper

shield, about two degrees in diameter, fixed immovably in the

heavens overhead, and tipped on one of its edges with a crescent

border of the most brilliant gold. No traces of land or water

could be discovered, and the whole was clouded with variable

spots, and belted with tropical and equatorial zones.

“Thus, may it please your Excellencies, after a series of great

anxieties, unheard of dangers, and unparalleled escapes, I had,

at length, on the nineteenth day of my departure from Rotterdam,

arrived in safety at the conclusion of a voyage undoubtedly the

most extraordinary, and the most momentous, ever accomplished,

undertaken, or conceived by any denizen of earth. But my

adventures yet remain to be related. And indeed your Excellencies

may well imagine that, after a residence of five years upon a

planet not only deeply interesting in its own peculiar character,

but rendered doubly so by its intimate connection, in capacity of

satellite, with the world inhabited by man, I may have

intelligence for the private ear of the States’ College of

Astronomers of far more importance than the details, however

wonderful, of the mere voyage which so happily concluded. This

is, in fact, the case. I have much—very much which it would give

me the greatest pleasure to communicate. I have much to say of

the climate of the planet; of its wonderful alternations of heat

and cold, of unmitigated and burning sunshine for one fortnight,

and more than polar frigidity for the next; of a constant

transfer of moisture, by distillation like that in vacuo, from

the point beneath the sun to the point the farthest from it; of a

variable zone of running water; of the people themselves; of

their manners, customs, and political institutions; of their

peculiar physical construction; of their ugliness; of their want

of ears, those useless appendages in an atmosphere so peculiarly

modified; of their consequent ignorance of the use and properties

of speech; of their substitute for speech in a singular method of

inter-communication; of the incomprehensible connection between

each particular individual in the moon with some particular

individual on the earth—a connection analogous with, and

depending upon, that of the orbs of the planet and the

satellites, and by means of which the lives and destinies of the

inhabitants of the one are interwoven with the lives and

destinies of the inhabitants of the other; and above all, if it

so please your Excellencies—above all, of those dark and hideous

mysteries which lie in the outer regions of the moon—regions

which, owing to the almost miraculous accordance of the

satellite’s rotation on its own axis with its sidereal revolution

about the earth, have never yet been turned, and, by God’s mercy,

never shall be turned, to the scrutiny of the telescopes of man.

All this, and more—much more—would I most willingly detail. But,

to be brief, I must have my reward. I am pining for a return to

my family and to my home; and as the price of any farther

communication on my part—in consideration of the light which I

have it in my power to throw upon many very important branches of

physical and metaphysical science—I must solicit, through the

influence of your honorable body, a pardon for the crime of which

I have been guilty in the death of the creditors upon my

departure from Rotterdam. This, then, is the object of the

present paper. Its bearer, an inhabitant of the moon, whom I have

prevailed upon, and properly instructed, to be my messenger to

the earth, will await your Excellencies’ pleasure, and return to

me with the pardon in question, if it can, in any manner, be

obtained.

“I have the honor to be, etc., your Excellencies’ very humble

servant,

“HANS PFAALL.”

Upon finishing the perusal of this very extraordinary document,

Professor Rub-a-dub, it is said, dropped his pipe upon the ground

in the extremity of his surprise, and Mynheer Superbus Von

Underduk having taken off his spectacles, wiped them, and

deposited them in his pocket, so far forgot both himself and his

dignity, as to turn round three times upon his heel in the

quintessence of astonishment and admiration. There was no doubt

about the matter—the pardon should be obtained. So at least

swore, with a round oath, Professor Rub-a-dub, and so finally

thought the illustrious Von Underduk, as he took the arm of his

brother in science, and without saying a word, began to make the

best of his way home to deliberate upon the measures to be

adopted. Having reached the door, however, of the burgomaster’s

dwelling, the professor ventured to suggest that as the messenger

had thought proper to disappear—no doubt frightened to death by

the savage appearance of the burghers of Rotterdam—the pardon

would be of little use, as no one but a man of the moon would

undertake a voyage to so vast a distance. To the truth of this

observation the burgomaster assented, and the matter was

therefore at an end. Not so, however, rumors and speculations.

The letter, having been published, gave rise to a variety of

gossip and opinion. Some of the over-wise even made themselves

ridiculous by decrying the whole business; as nothing better than

a hoax. But hoax, with these sort of people, is, I believe, a

general term for all matters above their comprehension. For my

part, I cannot conceive upon what data they have founded such an

accusation. Let us see what they say:

Imprimus. That certain wags in Rotterdam have certain especial

antipathies to certain burgomasters and astronomers.

Don’t understand at all.

Secondly. That an odd little dwarf and bottle conjurer, both of

whose ears, for some misdemeanor, have been cut off close to his

head, has been missing for several days from the neighboring city

of Bruges.

Well—what of that?

Thirdly. That the newspapers which were stuck all over the little

balloon were newspapers of Holland, and therefore could not have

been made in the moon. They were dirty papers—very dirty—and

Gluck, the printer, would take his Bible oath to their having

been printed in Rotterdam.

He was mistaken—undoubtedly—mistaken.

Fourthly, That Hans Pfaall himself, the drunken villain, and the

three very idle gentlemen styled his creditors, were all seen, no

longer than two or three days ago, in a tippling house in the

suburbs, having just returned, with money in their pockets, from

a trip beyond the sea.

Don’t believe it—don’t believe a word of it.

Lastly. That it is an opinion very generally received, or which

ought to be generally received, that the College of Astronomers

in the city of Rotterdam, as well as other colleges in all other

parts of the world,—not to mention colleges and astronomers in

general,—are, to say the least of the matter, not a whit better,

nor greater, nor wiser than they ought to be.

~~~ End of Text ~~~

Notes to Hans Pfaal

(*1) NOTE—Strictly speaking, there is but little similarity

between the above sketchy trifle and the celebrated “Moon-Story”

of Mr. Locke; but as both have the character of _hoaxes_

(although the one is in a tone of banter, the other of downright

earnest), and as both hoaxes are on the same subject, the

moon—moreover, as both attempt to give plausibility by scientific

detail—the author of “Hans Pfaall” thinks it necessary to say, in

_self-defence,_ that his own _jeu d’esprit_ was published in the

“Southern Literary Messenger” about three weeks before the

commencement of Mr. L’s in the “New York Sun.” Fancying a

likeness which, perhaps, does not exist, some of the New York

papers copied “Hans Pfaall,” and collated it with the

“Moon-Hoax,” by way of detecting the writer of the one in the

writer of the other.

As many more persons were actually gulled by the “Moon-Hoax” than

would be willing to acknowledge the fact, it may here afford some

little amusement to show why no one should have been deceived-to

point out those particulars of the story which should have been

sufficient to establish its real character. Indeed, however rich

the imagination displayed in this ingenious fiction, it wanted

much of the force which might have been given it by a more

scrupulous attention to facts and to general analogy. That the

public were misled, even for an instant, merely proves the gross

ignorance which is so generally prevalent upon subjects of an

astronomical nature.

The moon’s distance from the earth is, in round numbers, 240,000

miles. If we desire to ascertain how near, apparently, a lens

would bring the satellite (or any distant object), we, of course,

have but to divide the distance by the magnifying or, more

strictly, by the space-penetrating power of the glass. Mr. L.

makes his lens have a power of 42,000 times. By this divide

240,000 (the moon’s real distance), and we have five miles and

five sevenths, as the apparent distance. No animal at all could

be seen so far; much less the minute points particularized in the

story. Mr. L. speaks about Sir John Herschel’s perceiving flowers

(the Papaver rheas, etc.), and even detecting the color and the

shape of the eyes of small birds. Shortly before, too, he has

himself observed that the lens would not render perceptible

objects of less than eighteen inches in diameter; but even this,

as I have said, is giving the glass by far too great power. It

may be observed, in passing, that this prodigious glass is said

to have been molded at the glasshouse of Messrs. Hartley and

Grant, in Dumbarton; but Messrs. H. and G.‘s establishment had

ceased operations for many years previous to the publication of

the hoax.

On page 13, pamphlet edition, speaking of “a hairy veil” over the

eyes of a species of bison, the author says: “It immediately

occurred to the acute mind of Dr. Herschel that this was a

providential contrivance to protect the eyes of the animal from

the great extremes of light and darkness to which all the

inhabitants of our side of the moon are periodically subjected.”

But this cannot be thought a very “acute” observation of the

Doctor’s. The inhabitants of our side of the moon have,

evidently, no darkness at all, so there can be nothing of the

“extremes” mentioned. In the absence of the sun they have a light

from the earth equal to that of thirteen full unclouded moons.

The topography throughout, even when professing to accord with

Blunt’s Lunar Chart, is entirely at variance with that or any

other lunar chart, and even grossly at variance with itself. The

points of the compass, too, are in inextricable confusion; the

writer appearing to be ignorant that, on a lunar map, these are

not in accordance with terrestrial points; the east being to the

left, etc.

Deceived, perhaps, by the vague titles, Mare Nubium, Mare

Tranquillitatis, Mare Faecunditatis, etc., given to the dark

spots by former astronomers, Mr. L. has entered into details

regarding oceans and other large bodies of water in the moon;

whereas there is no astronomical point more positively

ascertained than that no such bodies exist there. In examining

the boundary between light and darkness (in the crescent or

gibbous moon) where this boundary crosses any of the dark places,

the line of division is found to be rough and jagged; but, were

these dark places liquid, it would evidently be even.

The description of the wings of the man-bat, on page 21, is but a

literal copy of Peter Wilkins’ account of the wings of his flying

islanders. This simple fact should have induced suspicion, at

least, it might be thought.

On page 23, we have the following: “What a prodigious influence

must our thirteen times larger globe have exercised upon this

satellite when an embryo in the womb of time, the passive subject

of chemical affinity!” This is very fine; but it should be

observed that no astronomer would have made such remark,

especially to any journal of Science; for the earth, in the sense

intended, is not only thirteen, but forty-nine times larger than

the moon. A similar objection applies to the whole of the

concluding pages, where, by way of introduction to some

discoveries in Saturn, the philosophical correspondent enters

into a minute schoolboy account of that planet—this to the

“Edinburgh Journal of Science!”

But there is one point, in particular, which should have betrayed

the fiction. Let us imagine the power actually possessed of

seeing animals upon the moon’s surface—what would first arrest

the attention of an observer from the earth? Certainly neither

their shape, size, nor any other such peculiarity, so soon as

their remarkable _situation_. They would appear to be walking,

with heels up and head down, in the manner of flies on a ceiling.

The _real_ observer would have uttered an instant ejaculation of

surprise (however prepared by previous knowledge) at the

singularity of their position; the _fictitious_ observer has not

even mentioned the subject, but speaks of seeing the entire

bodies of such creatures, when it is demonstrable that he could

have seen only the diameter of their heads!

It might as well be remarked, in conclusion, that the size, and

particularly the powers of the man-bats (for example, their

ability to fly in so rare an atmosphere—if, indeed, the moon have

any), with most of the other fancies in regard to animal and

vegetable existence, are at variance, generally, with all

analogical reasoning on these themes; and that analogy here will

often amount to conclusive demonstration. It is, perhaps,

scarcely necessary to add, that all the suggestions attributed to

Brewster and Herschel, in the beginning of the article, about “a

transfusion of artificial light through the focal object of

vision,” etc., etc., belong to that species of figurative writing

which comes, most properly, under the denomination of rigmarole.

There is a real and very definite limit to optical discovery

among the stars—a limit whose nature need only be stated to be

understood. If, indeed, the casting of large lenses were all that

is required, man’s ingenuity would ultimately prove equal to the

task, and we might have them of any size demanded. But,

unhappily, in proportion to the increase of size in the lens, and

consequently of space-penetrating power, is the diminution of

light from the object, by diffusion of its rays. And for this

evil there is no remedy within human ability; for an object is

seen by means of that light alone which proceeds from itself,

whether direct or reflected. Thus the only “artificial” light

which could avail Mr. Locke, would be some artificial light which

he should be able to throw—not upon the “focal object of vision,”

but upon the real object to be viewed—to wit: upon the moon. It

has been easily calculated that, when the light proceeding from a

star becomes so diffused as to be as weak as the natural light

proceeding from the whole of the stars, in a clear and moonless

night, then the star is no longer visible for any practical

purpose.

The Earl of Ross’s telescope, lately constructed in England, has

a _speculum_ with a reflecting surface of 4,071 square inches;

the Herschel telescope having one of only 1,811. The metal of the

Earl of Ross’s is 6 feet diameter; it is 5 1/2 inches thick at

the edges, and 5 at the centre. The weight is 3 tons. The focal

length is 50 feet.

I have lately read a singular and somewhat ingenious little book,

whose title-page runs thus: “L’Homme dans la lvne ou le Voyage

Chimerique fait au Monde de la Lvne, nouellement decouvert par

Dominique Gonzales, Aduanturier Espagnol, autrem?t dit le Courier

volant. Mis en notre langve par J. B. D. A. Paris, chez Francois

Piot, pres la Fontaine de Saint Benoist. Et chez J. Goignard, au

premier pilier de la grand’salle du Palais, proche les

Consultations, MDCXLVII.” Pp. 76.

The writer professes to have translated his work from the English

of one Mr. D’Avisson (Davidson?) although there is a terrible

ambiguity in the statement. “J’ en ai eu,” says he “l’original de

Monsieur D’Avisson, medecin des mieux versez qui soient

aujourd’huy dans la cõnoissance des Belles Lettres, et sur tout

de la Philosophic Naturelle. Je lui ai cette obligation entre les

autres, de m’ auoir non seulement mis en main ce Livre en

anglois, mais encore le Manuscrit du Sieur Thomas D’Anan,

gentilhomme Eccossois, recommandable pour sa vertu, sur la

version duquel j’ advoue que j’ ay tiré le plan de la mienne.”

After some irrelevant adventures, much in the manner of Gil Blas,

and which occupy the first thirty pages, the author relates that,

being ill during a sea voyage, the crew abandoned him, together

with a negro servant, on the island of St. Helena. To increase

the chances of obtaining food, the two separate, and live as far

apart as possible. This brings about a training of birds, to

serve the purpose of carrier-pigeons between them. By and by

these are taught to carry parcels of some weight—and this weight

is gradually increased. At length the idea is entertained of

uniting the force of a great number of the birds, with a view to

raising the author himself. A machine is contrived for the

purpose, and we have a minute description of it, which is

materially helped out by a steel engraving. Here we perceive the

Signor Gonzales, with point ruffles and a huge periwig, seated

astride something which resembles very closely a broomstick, and

borne aloft by a multitude of wild swans _(ganzas)_ who had

strings reaching from their tails to the machine.

The main event detailed in the Signor’s narrative depends upon a

very important fact, of which the reader is kept in ignorance

until near the end of the book. The _ganzas,_ with whom he had

become so familiar, were not really denizens of St. Helena, but

of the moon. Thence it had been their custom, time out of mind,

to migrate annually to some portion of the earth. In proper

season, of course, they would return home; and the author,

happening, one day, to require their services for a short voyage,

is unexpectedly carried straight tip, and in a very brief period

arrives at the satellite. Here he finds, among other odd things,

that the people enjoy extreme happiness; that they have no _law;_

that they die without pain; that they are from ten to thirty feet

in height; that they live five thousand years; that they have an

emperor called Irdonozur; and that they can jump sixty feet high,

when, being out of the gravitating influence, they fly about with

fans.

I cannot forbear giving a specimen of the general _philosophy_ of

the volume.

“I must not forget here, that the stars appeared only on that side of

the globe turned toward the moon, and that the closer they were to it

the larger they seemed. I have also me and the earth. As to the stars,

_since there was no night where I was, they always had the same

appearance; not brilliant, as usual, but pale, and very nearly like the

moon of a morning. _But few of them were visible, and these ten times

larger (as well as I could judge) than they seem to the inhabitants of

the earth. The moon, which wanted two days of being full, was of a

terrible bigness.

“I must not forget here, that the stars appeared only on that side of

the globe turned toward the moon, and that the closer they were to it

the larger they seemed. I have also to inform you that, whether it was

calm weather or stormy, I found myself _always immediately between the

moon and the earth._ I_ _was convinced of this for two reasons-because

my birds always flew in a straight line; and because whenever we

attempted to rest, _we were carried insensibly around the globe of the

earth. _For I admit the opinion of Copernicus, who maintains that it

never ceases to revolve _from the east to the west, _not upon the poles

of the Equinoctial, commonly called the poles of the world, but upon

those of the Zodiac, a question of which I propose to speak more at

length here-after, when I shall have leisure to refresh my memory in

regard to the astrology which I learned at Salamanca when young, and

have since forgotten.”

Notwithstanding the blunders italicized, the book is not without

some claim to attention, as affording a naive specimen of the

current astronomical notions of the time. One of these assumed,

that the “gravitating power” extended but a short distance from

the earth’s surface, and, accordingly, we find our voyager

“carried insensibly around the globe,” etc.

There have been other “voyages to the moon,” but none of higher

merit than the one just mentioned. That of Bergerac is utterly

meaningless. In the third volume of the “American Quarterly

Review” will be found quite an elaborate criticism upon a certain

“journey” of the kind in question—a criticism in which it is

difficult to say whether the critic most exposes the stupidity of

the book, or his own absurd ignorance of astronomy. I forget the

title of the work; but the _means_ of the voyage are more

deplorably ill conceived than are even the _ganzas_ of our friend

the Signor Gonzales. The adventurer, in digging the earth,

happens to discover a peculiar metal for which the moon has a

strong attraction, and straightway constructs of it a box, which,

when cast loose from its terrestrial fastenings, flies with him,

forthwith, to the satellite. The “Flight of Thomas O’Rourke,” is

a _jeu d’ esprit_ not altogether contemptible, and has been

translated into German. Thomas, the hero, was, in fact, the

gamekeeper of an Irish peer, whose eccentricities gave rise to

the tale. The “flight” is made on an eagle’s back, from Hungry

Hill, a lofty mountain at the end of Bantry Bay.

In these various _brochures_ the aim is always satirical; the

theme being a description of Lunarian customs as compared with

ours. In none is there any effort at _plausibility_ in the

details of the voyage itself. The writers seem, in each instance,

to be utterly uninformed in respect to astronomy. In “Hans

Pfaall” the design is original, inasmuch as regards an attempt at

_verisimilitude,_ in the application of scientific principles (so

far as the whimsical nature of the subject would permit), to the

actual passage between the earth and the moon.

(*2) The zodiacal light is probably what the ancients called

Trabes. Emicant Trabes quos docos vocant.—Pliny, lib. 2, p. 26.

(*3) Since the original publication of Hans Pfaall, I find that

Mr. Green, of Nassau balloon notoriety, and other late aeronauts,

deny the assertions of Humboldt, in this respect, and speak of a

decreasing inconvenience,—precisely in accordance with the theory

here urged in a mere spirit of banter.

(*4) Hevelius writes that he has several times found, in skies

perfectly clear, when even stars of the sixth and seventh

magnitude were conspicuous, that, at the same altitude of the

moon, at the same elongation from the earth, and with one and the

same excellent telescope, the moon and its maculae did not appear

equally lucid at all times. From the circumstances of the

observation, it is evident that the cause of this phenomenon is

not either in our air, in the tube, in the moon, or in the eye of

the spectator, but must be looked for in something (an

atmosphere?) existing about the moon.

Cassini frequently observed Saturn, Jupiter, and the fixed stars,

when approaching the moon to occultation, to have their circular

figure changed into an oval one; and, in other occultations, he

found no alteration of figure at all. Hence it might be supposed,

that at some times and not at others, there is a dense matter

encompassing the moon wherein the rays of the stars are

refracted.

THE GOLD-BUG

What ho! what ho! this fellow is dancing mad!

He hath been bitten by the Tarantula.

_—All in the Wrong._

Many years ago, I contracted an intimacy with a Mr. William

Legrand. He was of an ancient Huguenot family, and had once been

wealthy; but a series of misfortunes had reduced him to want. To

avoid the mortification consequent upon his disasters, he left

New Orleans, the city of his forefathers, and took up his

residence at Sullivan’s Island, near Charleston, South Carolina.

This Island is a very singular one. It consists of little else

than the sea sand, and is about three miles long. Its breadth at

no point exceeds a quarter of a mile. It is separated from the

main land by a scarcely perceptible creek, oozing its way through

a wilderness of reeds and slime, a favorite resort of the marsh

hen. The vegetation, as might be supposed, is scant, or at least

dwarfish. No trees of any magnitude are to be seen. Near the

western extremity, where Fort Moultrie stands, and where are some

miserable frame buildings, tenanted, during summer, by the

fugitives from Charleston dust and fever, may be found, indeed,

the bristly palmetto; but the whole island, with the exception of

this western point, and a line of hard, white beach on the

seacoast, is covered with a dense undergrowth of the sweet

myrtle, so much prized by the horticulturists of England. The

shrub here often attains the height of fifteen or twenty feet,

and forms an almost impenetrable coppice, burthening the air with

its fragrance.

In the inmost recesses of this coppice, not far from the eastern

or more remote end of the island, Legrand had built himself a

small hut, which he occupied when I first, by mere accident, made

his acquaintance. This soon ripened into friendship—for there was

much in the recluse to excite interest and esteem. I found him

well educated, with unusual powers of mind, but infected with

misanthropy, and subject to perverse moods of alternate

enthusiasm and melancholy. He had with him many books, but rarely

employed them. His chief amusements were gunning and fishing, or

sauntering along the beach and through the myrtles, in quest of

shells or entomological specimens—his collection of the latter

might have been envied by a Swammerdamm. In these excursions he

was usually accompanied by an old negro, called Jupiter, who had

been manumitted before the reverses of the family, but who could

be induced, neither by threats nor by promises, to abandon what

he considered his right of attendance upon the footsteps of his

young “Massa Will.” It is not improbable that the relatives of

Legrand, conceiving him to be somewhat unsettled in intellect,

had contrived to instil this obstinacy into Jupiter, with a view

to the supervision and guardianship of the wanderer.

The winters in the latitude of Sullivan’s Island are seldom very

severe, and in the fall of the year it is a rare event indeed

when a fire is considered necessary. About the middle of October,

18—, there occurred, however, a day of remarkable chilliness.

Just before sunset I scrambled my way through the evergreens to

the hut of my friend, whom I had not visited for several weeks—my

residence being, at that time, in Charleston, a distance of nine

miles from the island, while the facilities of passage and

re-passage were very far behind those of the present day. Upon

reaching the hut I rapped, as was my custom, and getting no

reply, sought for the key where I knew it was secreted, unlocked

the door and went in. A fine fire was blazing upon the hearth. It

was a novelty, and by no means an ungrateful one. I threw off an

overcoat, took an arm-chair by the crackling logs, and awaited

patiently the arrival of my hosts.

Soon after dark they arrived, and gave me a most cordial welcome.

Jupiter, grinning from ear to ear, bustled about to prepare some

marsh-hens for supper. Legrand was in one of his fits—how else

shall I term them?—of enthusiasm. He had found an unknown

bivalve, forming a new genus, and, more than this, he had hunted

down and secured, with Jupiter’s assistance, a _scarabæus_ which

he believed to be totally new, but in respect to which he wished

to have my opinion on the morrow.

“And why not to-night?” I asked, rubbing my hands over the blaze,

and wishing the whole tribe of _scarabæi_ at the devil.

“Ah, if I had only known you were here!” said Legrand, “but it’s

so long since I saw you; and how could I foresee that you would

pay me a visit this very night of all others? As I was coming

home I met Lieutenant G——, from the fort, and, very foolishly, I

lent him the bug; so it will be impossible for you to see it

until the morning. Stay here to-night, and I will send Jup down

for it at sunrise. It is the loveliest thing in creation!”

“What?—sunrise?”

“Nonsense! no!—the bug. It is of a brilliant gold color—about the

size of a large hickory-nut—with two jet black spots near one

extremity of the back, and another, somewhat longer, at the

other. The _antennæ_ are—”

“Dey aint no tin in him, Massa Will, I keep a tellin on you,”

here interrupted Jupiter; “de bug is a goole bug, solid, ebery

bit of him, inside and all, sep him wing—neber feel half so hebby

a bug in my life.”

“Well, suppose it is, Jup,” replied Legrand, somewhat more

earnestly, it seemed to me, than the case demanded, “is that any

reason for your letting the birds burn? The color”—here he turned

to me—“is really almost enough to warrant Jupiter’s idea. You

never saw a more brilliant metallic lustre than the scales

emit—but of this you cannot judge till tomorrow. In the mean time

I can give you some idea of the shape.” Saying this, he seated

himself at a small table, on which were a pen and ink, but no

paper. He looked for some in a drawer, but found none.

“Never mind,” said he at length, “this will answer;” and he drew

from his waistcoat pocket a scrap of what I took to be very dirty

foolscap, and made upon it a rough drawing with the pen. While he

did this, I retained my seat by the fire, for I was still chilly.

When the design was complete, he handed it to me without rising.

As I received it, a loud growl was heard, succeeded by a

scratching at the door. Jupiter opened it, and a large

Newfoundland, belonging to Legrand, rushed in, leaped upon my

shoulders, and loaded me with caresses; for I had shown him much

attention during previous visits. When his gambols were over, I

looked at the paper, and, to speak the truth, found myself not a

little puzzled at what my friend had depicted.

“Well!” I said, after contemplating it for some minutes, “this

_is_ a strange _scarabæus_, I must confess: new to me: never saw

anything like it before—unless it was a skull, or a

death’s-head—which it more nearly resembles than anything else

that has come under _my_ observation.”

“A death’s-head!” echoed Legrand. “Oh—yes—well, it has something

of that appearance upon paper, no doubt. The two upper black

spots look like eyes, eh? and the longer one at the bottom like a

mouth—and then the shape of the whole is oval.”

“Perhaps so,” said I; “but, Legrand, I fear you are no artist. I

must wait until I see the beetle itself, if I am to form any idea

of its personal appearance.”

“Well, I don’t know,” said he, a little nettled, “I draw

tolerably—_should_ do it at least—have had good masters, and

flatter myself that I am not quite a blockhead.”

“But, my dear fellow, you are joking then,” said I, “this is a

very passable _skull_—indeed, I may say that it is a very

_excellent_ skull, according to the vulgar notions about such

specimens of physiology—and your _scarabæus_ must be the queerest

_scarabæus_ in the world if it resembles it. Why, we may get up a

very thrilling bit of superstition upon this hint. I presume you

will call the bug _scarabæus caput hominis_, or something of that

kind—there are many similar titles in the Natural Histories. But

where are the _antennæ_ you spoke of?”

“The _antennæ!_” said Legrand, who seemed to be getting

unaccountably warm upon the subject; “I am sure you must see the

_antennæ_. I made them as distinct as they are in the original

insect, and I presume that is sufficient.”

“Well, well,” I said, “perhaps you have—still I don’t see them;”

and I handed him the paper without additional remark, not wishing

to ruffle his temper; but I was much surprised at the turn

affairs had taken; his ill humor puzzled me—and, as for the

drawing of the beetle, there were positively _no antennæ_

visible, and the whole _did_ bear a very close resemblance to the

ordinary cuts of a death’s-head.

He received the paper very peevishly, and was about to crumple

it, apparently to throw it in the fire, when a casual glance at

the design seemed suddenly to rivet his attention. In an instant

his face grew violently red—in another as excessively pale. For

some minutes he continued to scrutinize the drawing minutely

where he sat. At length he arose, took a candle from the table,

and proceeded to seat himself upon a sea-chest in the farthest

corner of the room. Here again he made an anxious examination of

the paper; turning it in all directions. He said nothing,

however, and his conduct greatly astonished me; yet I thought it

prudent not to exacerbate the growing moodiness of his temper by

any comment. Presently he took from his coat pocket a wallet,

placed the paper carefully in it, and deposited both in a

writing-desk, which he locked. He now grew more composed in his

demeanor; but his original air of enthusiasm had quite

disappeared. Yet he seemed not so much sulky as abstracted. As

the evening wore away he became more and more absorbed in

reverie, from which no sallies of mine could arouse him. It had

been my intention to pass the night at the hut, as I had

frequently done before, but, seeing my host in this mood, I

deemed it proper to take leave. He did not press me to remain,

but, as I departed, he shook my hand with even more than his

usual cordiality.

It was about a month after this (and during the interval I had

seen nothing of Legrand) when I received a visit, at Charleston,

from his man, Jupiter. I had never seen the good old negro look

so dispirited, and I feared that some serious disaster had

befallen my friend.

“Well, Jup,” said I, “what is the matter now?—how is your

master?”

“Why, to speak de troof, massa, him not so berry well as mought

be.”

“Not well! I am truly sorry to hear it. What does he complain

of?”

“Dar! dat’s it!—him neber ’plain of notin’—but him berry sick for

all dat.”

“_Very_ sick, Jupiter!—why didn’t you say so at once? Is he

confined to bed?”

“No, dat he aint!—he aint ’fin’d nowhar—dat’s just whar de shoe

pinch—my mind is got to be berry hebby ’bout poor Massa Will.”

“Jupiter, I should like to understand what it is you are talking

about. You say your master is sick. Hasn’t he told you what ails

him?”

“Why, massa, ’taint worf while for to git mad about de

matter—Massa Will say noffin at all aint de matter wid him—but

den what make him go about looking dis here way, wid he head down

and he soldiers up, and as white as a gose? And den he keep a

syphon all de time—”

“Keeps a what, Jupiter?”

“Keeps a syphon wid de figgurs on de slate—de queerest figgurs I

ebber did see. Ise gittin’ to be skeered, I tell you. Hab for to

keep mighty tight eye ’pon him ’noovers. Todder day he gib me

slip ’fore de sun up and was gone de whole ob de blessed day. I

had a big stick ready cut for to gib him deuced good beating when

he did come—but Ise sich a fool dat I hadn’t de heart arter

all—he look so berry poorly.”

“Eh?—what?—ah yes!—upon the whole I think you had better not be

too severe with the poor fellow—don’t flog him, Jupiter—he can’t

very well stand it—but can you form no idea of what has

occasioned this illness, or rather this change of conduct? Has

anything unpleasant happened since I saw you?”

“No, massa, dey aint bin noffin onpleasant _since_ den—‘twas

_’fore_ den I’m feared—‘twas de berry day you was dare.”

“How? what do you mean?”

“Why, massa, I mean de bug—dare now.”

“The what?”

“De bug,—I’m berry sartain dat Massa Will bin bit somewhere ’bout

de head by dat goole-bug.”

“And what cause have you, Jupiter, for such a supposition?”

“Claws enuff, massa, and mouff too. I nebber did see sick a

deuced bug—he kick and he bite ebery ting what cum near him.

Massa Will cotch him fuss, but had for to let him go ’gin mighty

quick, I tell you—den was de time he must ha’ got de bite. I did

n’t like de look oh de bug mouff, myself, no how, so I would n’t

take hold ob him wid my finger, but I cotch him wid a piece ob

paper dat I found. I rap him up in de paper and stuff piece ob it

in he mouff—dat was de way.”

“And you think, then, that your master was really bitten by the

beetle, and that the bite made him sick?”

“I do n’t tink noffin about it—I nose it. What make him dream

’bout de goole so much, if ’taint cause he bit by de goole-bug?

Ise heerd ’bout dem goole-bugs fore dis.”

“But how do you know he dreams about gold?”

“How I know? why ’cause he talk about it in he sleep—dat’s how I

nose.”

“Well, Jup, perhaps you are right; but to what fortunate

circumstance am I to attribute the honor of a visit from you

to-day?”

“What de matter, massa?”

“Did you bring any message from Mr. Legrand?”

“No, massa, I bring dis here pissel;” and here Jupiter handed me

a note which ran thus:

“MY DEAR ——Why have I not seen you for so long a time? I hope you

have not been so foolish as to take offence at any little

_brusquerie_ of mine; but no, that is improbable. Since I saw you

I have had great cause for anxiety. I have something to tell you,

yet scarcely know how to tell it, or whether I should tell it at

all.

“I have not been quite well for some days past, and poor old Jup

annoys me, almost beyond endurance, by his well-meant attentions.

Would you believe it?—he had prepared a huge stick, the other

day, with which to chastise me for giving him the slip, and

spending the day, _solus_, among the hills on the main land. I

verily believe that my ill looks alone saved me a flogging.

“I have made no addition to my cabinet since we met.

“If you can, in any way, make it convenient, come over with

Jupiter. _Do_ come. I wish to see you to-_night_, upon business

of importance. I assure you that it is of the _highest_

importance.

“Ever yours,

“WILLIAM LEGRAND”.

There was something in the tone of this note which gave me great

uneasiness. Its whole style differed materially from that of

Legrand. What could he be dreaming of? What new crotchet

possessed his excitable brain? What “business of the highest

importance” could he possibly have to transact? Jupiter’s account

of him boded no good. I dreaded lest the continued pressure of

misfortune had, at length, fairly unsettled the reason of my

friend. Without a moment’s hesitation, therefore, I prepared to

accompany the negro.

Upon reaching the wharf, I noticed a scythe and three spades, all

apparently new, lying in the bottom of the boat in which we were

to embark.

“What is the meaning of all this, Jup?” I inquired.

“Him syfe, massa, and spade.”

“Very true; but what are they doing here?”

“Him de syfe and de spade what Massa Will sis pon my buying for

him in de town, and de debbil’s own lot of money I had to gib for

’em.”

“But what, in the name of all that is mysterious, is your ‘Massa

Will’ going to do with scythes and spades?”

“Dat’s more dan _I_ know, and debbil take me if I don’t b’lieve

’tis more dan he know, too. But it’s all cum ob do bug.”

Finding that no satisfaction was to be obtained of Jupiter, whose

whole intellect seemed to be absorbed by “de bug,” I now stepped

into the boat and made sail. With a fair and strong breeze we

soon ran into the little cove to the northward of Fort Moultrie,

and a walk of some two miles brought us to the hut. It was about

three in the afternoon when we arrived. Legrand had been awaiting

us in eager expectation. He grasped my hand with a nervous

empressement which alarmed me and strengthened the suspicions

already entertained. His countenance was pale even to

ghastliness, and his deep-set eyes glared with unnatural lustre.

After some inquiries respecting his health, I asked him, not

knowing what better to say, if he had yet obtained the

_scarabæus_ from Lieutenant G——.

“Oh, yes,” he replied, coloring violently, “I got it from him the

next morning. Nothing should tempt me to part with that

_scarabæus_. Do you know that Jupiter is quite right about it?”

“In what way?” I asked, with a sad foreboding at heart.

“In supposing it to be a bug of _real gold_.” He said this with

an air of profound seriousness, and I felt inexpressibly shocked.

“This bug is to make my fortune,” he continued, with a triumphant

smile, “to reinstate me in my family possessions. Is it any

wonder, then, that I prize it? Since Fortune has thought fit to

bestow it upon me, I have only to use it properly and I shall

arrive at the gold of which it is the index. Jupiter; bring me

that _scarabæus!_”

“What! de bug, massa? I’d rudder not go fer trubble dat bug—you

mus’ git him for your own self.” Hereupon Legrand arose, with a

grave and stately air, and brought me the beetle from a glass

case in which it was enclosed. It was a beautiful scarabæus, and,

at that time, unknown to naturalists—of course a great prize in a

scientific point of view. There were two round, black spots near

one extremity of the back, and a long one near the other. The

scales were exceedingly hard and glossy, with all the appearance

of burnished gold. The weight of the insect was very remarkable,

and, taking all things into consideration, I could hardly blame

Jupiter for his opinion respecting it; but what to make of

Legrand’s concordance with that opinion, I could not, for the

life of me, tell.

“I sent for you,” said he, in a grandiloquent tone, when I had

completed my examination of the beetle, “I sent for you, that I

might have your counsel and assistance in furthering the views of

Fate and of the bug—”

“My dear Legrand,” I cried, interrupting him, “you are certainly

unwell, and had better use some little precautions. You shall go

to bed, and I will remain with you a few days, until you get over

this. You are feverish and—”

“Feel my pulse,” said he.

I felt it, and, to say the truth, found not the slightest

indication of fever.

“But you may be ill and yet have no fever. Allow me this once to

prescribe for you. In the first place, go to bed. In the next—”

“You are mistaken,” he interposed, “I am as well as I can expect

to be under the excitement which I suffer. If you really wish me

well, you will relieve this excitement.”

“And how is this to be done?”

“Very easily. Jupiter and myself are going upon an expedition

into the hills, upon the main land, and, in this expedition we

shall need the aid of some person in whom we can confide. You are

the only one we can trust. Whether we succeed or fail, the

excitement which you now perceive in me will be equally allayed.”

“I am anxious to oblige you in any way,” I replied; “but do you

mean to say that this infernal beetle has any connection with

your expedition into the hills?”

“It has.”

“Then, Legrand, I can become a party to no such absurd

proceeding.”

“I am sorry—very sorry—for we shall have to try it by ourselves.”

“Try it by yourselves! The man is surely mad!—but stay!—how long

do you propose to be absent?”

“Probably all night. We shall start immediately, and be back, at

all events, by sunrise.”

“And will you promise me, upon your honor, that when this freak

of yours is over, and the bug business (good God!) settled to

your satisfaction, you will then return home and follow my advice

implicitly, as that of your physician?”

“Yes; I promise; and now let us be off, for we have no time to

lose.”

With a heavy heart I accompanied my friend. We started about four

o’clock—Legrand, Jupiter, the dog, and myself. Jupiter had with

him the scythe and spades—the whole of which he insisted upon

carrying—more through fear, it seemed to me, of trusting either

of the implements within reach of his master, than from any

excess of industry or complaisance. His demeanor was dogged in

the extreme, and “dat deuced bug” were the sole words which

escaped his lips during the journey. For my own part, I had

charge of a couple of dark lanterns, while Legrand contented

himself with the _scarabæus_, which he carried attached to the

end of a bit of whip-cord; twirling it to and fro, with the air

of a conjuror, as he went. When I observed this last, plain

evidence of my friend’s aberration of mind, I could scarcely

refrain from tears. I thought it best, however, to humor his

fancy, at least for the present, or until I could adopt some more

energetic measures with a chance of success. In the mean time I

endeavored, but all in vain, to sound him in regard to the object

of the expedition. Having succeeded in inducing me to accompany

him, he seemed unwilling to hold conversation upon any topic of

minor importance, and to all my questions vouchsafed no other

reply than “we shall see!”

We crossed the creek at the head of the island by means of a

skiff, and, ascending the high grounds on the shore of the main

land, proceeded in a northwesterly direction, through a tract of

country excessively wild and desolate, where no trace of a human

footstep was to be seen. Legrand led the way with decision;

pausing only for an instant, here and there, to consult what

appeared to be certain landmarks of his own contrivance upon a

former occasion.

In this manner we journeyed for about two hours, and the sun was

just setting when we entered a region infinitely more dreary than

any yet seen. It was a species of table land, near the summit of

an almost inaccessible hill, densely wooded from base to

pinnacle, and interspersed with huge crags that appeared to lie

loosely upon the soil, and in many cases were prevented from

precipitating themselves into the valleys below, merely by the

support of the trees against which they reclined. Deep ravines,

in various directions, gave an air of still sterner solemnity to

the scene.

The natural platform to which we had clambered was thickly

overgrown with brambles, through which we soon discovered that it

would have been impossible to force our way but for the scythe;

and Jupiter, by direction of his master, proceeded to clear for

us a path to the foot of an enormously tall tulip-tree, which

stood, with some eight or ten oaks, upon the level, and far

surpassed them all, and all other trees which I had then ever

seen, in the beauty of its foliage and form, in the wide spread

of its branches, and in the general majesty of its appearance.

When we reached this tree, Legrand turned to Jupiter, and asked

him if he thought he could climb it. The old man seemed a little

staggered by the question, and for some moments made no reply. At

length he approached the huge trunk, walked slowly around it, and

examined it with minute attention. When he had completed his

scrutiny, he merely said,

“Yes, massa, Jup climb any tree he ebber see in he life.”

“Then up with you as soon as possible, for it will soon be too

dark to see what we are about.”

“How far mus go up, massa?” inquired Jupiter.

“Get up the main trunk first, and then I will tell you which way

to go—and here—stop! take this beetle with you.”

“De bug, Massa Will!—de goole-bug!” cried the negro, drawing back

in dismay—“what for mus tote de bug way up de tree?—d—n if I do!”

“If you are afraid, Jup, a great big negro like you, to take hold

of a harmless little dead beetle, why you can carry it up by this

string—but, if you do not take it up with you in some way, I

shall be under the necessity of breaking your head with this

shovel.”

“What de matter now, massa?” said Jup, evidently shamed into

compliance; “always want for to raise fuss wid old nigger. Was

only funnin any how. _Me_ feered de bug! what I keer for de bug?”

Here he took cautiously hold of the extreme end of the string,

and, maintaining the insect as far from his person as

circumstances would permit, prepared to ascend the tree.

In youth, the tulip-tree, or _Liriodendron Tulipferum_, the most

magnificent of American foresters, has a trunk peculiarly smooth,

and often rises to a great height without lateral branches; but,

in its riper age, the bark becomes gnarled and uneven, while many

short limbs make their appearance on the stem. Thus the

difficulty of ascension, in the present case, lay more in

semblance than in reality. Embracing the huge cylinder, as

closely as possible, with his arms and knees, seizing with his

hands some projections, and resting his naked toes upon others,

Jupiter, after one or two narrow escapes from falling, at length

wriggled himself into the first great fork, and seemed to

consider the whole business as virtually accomplished. The risk

of the achievement was, in fact, now over, although the climber

was some sixty or seventy feet from the ground.

“Which way mus go now, Massa Will?” he asked.

“Keep up the largest branch—the one on this side,” said Legrand.

The negro obeyed him promptly, and apparently with but little

trouble; ascending higher and higher, until no glimpse of his

squat figure could be obtained through the dense foliage which

enveloped it. Presently his voice was heard in a sort of halloo.

“How much fudder is got for go?”

“How high up are you?” asked Legrand.

“Ebber so fur,” replied the negro; “can see de sky fru de top ob

de tree.”

“Never mind the sky, but attend to what I say. Look down the

trunk and count the limbs below you on this side. How many limbs

have you passed?”

“One, two, tree, four, fibe—I done pass fibe big limb, massa, pon

dis side.”

“Then go one limb higher.”

In a few minutes the voice was heard again, announcing that the

seventh limb was attained.

“Now, Jup,” cried Legrand, evidently much excited, “I want you to

work your way out upon that limb as far as you can. If you see

anything strange, let me know.” By this time what little doubt I

might have entertained of my poor friend’s insanity, was put

finally at rest. I had no alternative but to conclude him

stricken with lunacy, and I became seriously anxious about

getting him home. While I was pondering upon what was best to be

done, Jupiter’s voice was again heard.

“Mos feerd for to ventur pon dis limb berry far—’tis dead limb

putty much all de way.”

“Did you say it was a dead limb, Jupiter?” cried Legrand in a

quavering voice.

“Yes, massa, him dead as de door-nail—done up for sartain—done

departed dis here life.”

“What in the name heaven shall I do?” asked Legrand, seemingly in

the greatest distress.

“Do!” said I, glad of an opportunity to interpose a word, “why

come home and go to bed. Come now!—that’s a fine fellow. It’s

getting late, and, besides, you remember your promise.”

“Jupiter,” cried he, without heeding me in the least, “do you

hear me?”

“Yes, Massa Will, hear you ebber so plain.”

“Try the wood well, then, with your knife, and see if you think

it very rotten.”

“Him rotten, massa, sure nuff,” replied the negro in a few

moments, “but not so berry rotten as mought be. Mought ventur out

leetle way pon de limb by myself, dat’s true.”

“By yourself!—what do you mean?”

“Why I mean de bug. ’Tis _berry_ hebby bug. Spose I drop him down

fuss, and den de limb won’t break wid just de weight ob one

nigger.”

“You infernal scoundrel!” cried Legrand, apparently much

relieved, “what do you mean by telling me such nonsense as that?

As sure as you drop that beetle I’ll break your neck. Look here,

Jupiter, do you hear me?”

“Yes, massa, needn’t hollo at poor nigger dat style.”

“Well! now listen!—if you will venture out on the limb as far as

you think safe, and not let go the beetle, I’ll make you a

present of a silver dollar as soon as you get down.”

“I’m gwine, Massa Will—deed I is,” replied the negro very

promptly—“mos out to the eend now.”

“_Out to the end!_” here fairly screamed Legrand, “do you say you

are out to the end of that limb?”

“Soon be to de eend, massa,—o-o-o-o-oh! Lor-gol-a-marcy! what is

dis here pon de tree?”

“Well!” cried Legrand, highly delighted, “what is it?”

“Why taint noffin but a skull—somebody bin lef him head up de

tree, and de crows done gobble ebery bit ob de meat off.”

“A skull, you say!—very well—how is it fastened to the limb?—what

holds it on?”

“Sure nuff, massa; mus look. Why dis berry curous sarcumstance,

pon my word—dare’s a great big nail in de skull, what fastens ob

it on to de tree.”

“Well now, Jupiter, do exactly as I tell you—do you hear?”

“Yes, massa.”

“Pay attention, then—find the left eye of the skull.”

“Hum! hoo! dat’s good! why dare aint no eye lef at all.”

“Curse your stupidity! do you know your right hand from your

left?”

“Yes, I knows dat—knows all about dat—’tis my lef hand what I

chops de wood wid.”

“To be sure! you are left-handed; and your left eye is on the

same side as your left hand. Now, I suppose, you can find the

left eye of the skull, or the place where the left eye has been.

Have you found it?”

Here was a long pause. At length the negro asked,

“Is de lef eye of de skull pon de same side as de lef hand of de

skull, too?—cause de skull aint got not a bit ob a hand at

all—nebber mind! I got de lef eye now—here de lef eye! what mus

do wid it?”

“Let the beetle drop through it, as far as the string will

reach—but be careful and not let go your hold of the string.”

“All dat done, Massa Will; mighty easy ting for to put de bug fru

de hole—look out for him dare below!”

During this colloquy no portion of Jupiter’s person could be

seen; but the beetle, which he had suffered to descend, was now

visible at the end of the string, and glistened, like a globe of

burnished gold, in the last rays of the setting sun, some of

which still faintly illumined the eminence upon which we stood.

The _scarabæus_ hung quite clear of any branches, and, if allowed

to fall, would have fallen at our feet. Legrand immediately took

the scythe, and cleared with it a circular space, three or four

yards in diameter, just beneath the insect, and, having

accomplished this, ordered Jupiter to let go the string and come

down from the tree.

Driving a peg, with great nicety, into the ground, at the precise

spot where the beetle fell, my friend now produced from his

pocket a tape measure. Fastening one end of this at that point of

the trunk, of the tree which was nearest the peg, he unrolled it

till it reached the peg, and thence farther unrolled it, in the

direction already established by the two points of the tree and

the peg, for the distance of fifty feet—Jupiter clearing away the

brambles with the scythe. At the spot thus attained a second peg

was driven, and about this, as a centre, a rude circle, about

four feet in diameter, described. Taking now a spade himself, and

giving one to Jupiter and one to me, Legrand begged us to set

about digging as quickly as possible.

To speak the truth, I had no especial relish for such amusement

at any time, and, at that particular moment, would most willingly

have declined it; for the night was coming on, and I felt much

fatigued with the exercise already taken; but I saw no mode of

escape, and was fearful of disturbing my poor friend’s equanimity

by a refusal. Could I have depended, indeed, upon Jupiter’s aid,

I would have had no hesitation in attempting to get the lunatic

home by force; but I was too well assured of the old negro’s

disposition, to hope that he would assist me, under any

circumstances, in a personal contest with his master. I made no

doubt that the latter had been infected with some of the

innumerable Southern superstitions about money buried, and that

his phantasy had received confirmation by the finding of the

_scarabæus_, or, perhaps, by Jupiter’s obstinacy in maintaining

it to be “a bug of real gold.” A mind disposed to lunacy would

readily be led away by such suggestions—especially if chiming in

with favorite preconceived ideas—and then I called to mind the

poor fellow’s speech about the beetle’s being “the index of his

fortune.” Upon the whole, I was sadly vexed and puzzled, but, at

length, I concluded to make a virtue of necessity—to dig with a

good will, and thus the sooner to convince the visionary, by

ocular demonstration, of the fallacy of the opinions he

entertained.

The lanterns having been lit, we all fell to work with a zeal

worthy a more rational cause; and, as the glare fell upon our

persons and implements, I could not help thinking how picturesque

a group we composed, and how strange and suspicious our labors

must have appeared to any interloper who, by chance, might have

stumbled upon our whereabouts.

We dug very steadily for two hours. Little was said; and our

chief embarrassment lay in the yelpings of the dog, who took

exceeding interest in our proceedings. He, at length, became so

obstreperous that we grew fearful of his giving the alarm to some

stragglers in the vicinity—or, rather, this was the apprehension

of Legrand;—for myself, I should have rejoiced at any

interruption which might have enabled me to get the wanderer

home. The noise was, at length, very effectually silenced by

Jupiter, who, getting out of the hole with a dogged air of

deliberation, tied the brute’s mouth up with one of his

suspenders, and then returned, with a grave chuckle, to his task.

When the time mentioned had expired, we had reached a depth of

five feet, and yet no signs of any treasure became manifest. A

general pause ensued, and I began to hope that the farce was at

an end. Legrand, however, although evidently much disconcerted,

wiped his brow thoughtfully and recommenced. We had excavated the

entire circle of four feet diameter, and now we slightly enlarged

the limit, and went to the farther depth of two feet. Still

nothing appeared. The gold-seeker, whom I sincerely pitied, at

length clambered from the pit, with the bitterest disappointment

imprinted upon every feature, and proceeded, slowly and

reluctantly, to put on his coat, which he had thrown off at the

beginning of his labor. In the mean time I made no remark.

Jupiter, at a signal from his master, began to gather up his

tools. This done, and the dog having been unmuzzled, we turned in

profound silence towards home.

We had taken, perhaps, a dozen steps in this direction, when,

with a loud oath, Legrand strode up to Jupiter, and seized him by

the collar. The astonished negro opened his eyes and mouth to the

fullest extent, let fall the spades, and fell upon his knees.

“You scoundrel,” said Legrand, hissing out the syllables from

between his clenched teeth—“you infernal black villain!—speak, I

tell you!—answer me this instant, without

prevarication!—which—which is your left eye?”

“Oh, my golly, Massa Will! aint dis here my lef eye for sartain?”

roared the terrified Jupiter, placing his hand upon his right

organ of vision, and holding it there with a desperate

pertinacity, as if in immediate dread of his master’s attempt at

a gouge.

“I thought so!—I knew it! hurrah!” vociferated Legrand, letting

the negro go, and executing a series of curvets and caracols,

much to the astonishment of his valet, who, arising from his

knees, looked, mutely, from his master to myself, and then from

myself to his master.

“Come! we must go back,” said the latter, “the game’s not up

yet;” and he again led the way to the tulip-tree.

“Jupiter,” said he, when we reached its foot, “come here! was the

skull nailed to the limb with the face outwards, or with the face

to the limb?”

“De face was out, massa, so dat de crows could get at de eyes

good, widout any trouble.”

“Well, then, was it this eye or that through which you dropped

the beetle?”—here Legrand touched each of Jupiter’s eyes.

“’Twas dis eye, massa—de lef eye—jis as you tell me,” and here it

was his right eye that the negro indicated.

“That will do—we must try it again.”

Here my friend, about whose madness I now saw, or fancied that I

saw, certain indications of method, removed the peg which marked

the spot where the beetle fell, to a spot about three inches to

the westward of its former position. Taking, now, the tape

measure from the nearest point of the trunk to the peg, as

before, and continuing the extension in a straight line to the

distance of fifty feet, a spot was indicated, removed, by several

yards, from the point at which we had been digging.

Around the new position a circle, somewhat larger than in the

former instance, was now described, and we again set to work with

the spades. I was dreadfully weary, but, scarcely understanding

what had occasioned the change in my thoughts, I felt no longer

any great aversion from the labor imposed. I had become most

unaccountably interested—nay, even excited. Perhaps there was

something, amid all the extravagant demeanor of Legrand—some air

of forethought, or of deliberation, which impressed me. I dug

eagerly, and now and then caught myself actually looking, with

something that very much resembled expectation, for the fancied

treasure, the vision of which had demented my unfortunate

companion. At a period when such vagaries of thought most fully

possessed me, and when we had been at work perhaps an hour and a

half, we were again interrupted by the violent howlings of the

dog. His uneasiness, in the first instance, had been, evidently,

but the result of playfulness or caprice, but he now assumed a

bitter and serious tone. Upon Jupiter’s again attempting to

muzzle him, he made furious resistance, and, leaping into the

hole, tore up the mould frantically with his claws. In a few

seconds he had uncovered a mass of human bones, forming two

complete skeletons, intermingled with several buttons of metal,

and what appeared to be the dust of decayed woollen. One or two

strokes of a spade upturned the blade of a large Spanish knife,

and, as we dug farther, three or four loose pieces of gold and

silver coin came to light.

At sight of these the joy of Jupiter could scarcely be

restrained, but the countenance of his master wore an air of

extreme disappointment. He urged us, however, to continue our

exertions, and the words were hardly uttered when I stumbled and

fell forward, having caught the toe of my boot in a large ring of

iron that lay half buried in the loose earth.

We now worked in earnest, and never did I pass ten minutes of

more intense excitement. During this interval we had fairly

unearthed an oblong chest of wood, which, from its perfect

preservation and wonderful hardness, had plainly been subjected

to some mineralizing process—perhaps that of the bi-chloride of

mercury. This box was three feet and a half long, three feet

broad, and two and a half feet deep. It was firmly secured by

bands of wrought iron, riveted, and forming a kind of open

trelliswork over the whole. On each side of the chest, near the

top, were three rings of iron—six in all—by means of which a firm

hold could be obtained by six persons. Our utmost united

endeavors served only to disturb the coffer very slightly in its

bed. We at once saw the impossibility of removing so great a

weight. Luckily, the sole fastenings of the lid consisted of two

sliding bolts. These we drew back—trembling and panting with

anxiety. In an instant, a treasure of incalculable value lay

gleaming before us. As the rays of the lanterns fell within the

pit, there flashed upwards a glow and a glare, from a confused

heap of gold and of jewels, that absolutely dazzled our eyes.

I shall not pretend to describe the feelings with which I gazed.

Amazement was, of course, predominant. Legrand appeared exhausted

with excitement, and spoke very few words. Jupiter’s countenance

wore, for some minutes, as deadly a pallor as it is possible, in

nature of things, for any negro’s visage to assume. He seemed

stupefied—thunderstricken. Presently he fell upon his knees in

the pit, and, burying his naked arms up to the elbows in gold,

let them there remain, as if enjoying the luxury of a bath. At

length, with a deep sigh, he exclaimed, as if in a soliloquy:

“And dis all cum ob de goole-bug! de putty goole-bug! de poor

little goole-bug, what I boosed in dat sabage kind ob style! Aint

you shamed ob yourself, nigger?—answer me dat!”

It became necessary, at last, that I should arouse both master

and valet to the expediency of removing the treasure. It was

growing late, and it behooved us to make exertion, that we might

get every thing housed before daylight. It was difficult to say

what should be done, and much time was spent in deliberation—so

confused were the ideas of all. We, finally, lightened the box by

removing two thirds of its contents, when we were enabled, with

some trouble, to raise it from the hole. The articles taken out

were deposited among the brambles, and the dog left to guard

them, with strict orders from Jupiter neither, upon any pretence,

to stir from the spot, nor to open his mouth until our return. We

then hurriedly made for home with the chest; reaching the hut in

safety, but after excessive toil, at one o’clock in the morning.

Worn out as we were, it was not in human nature to do more

immediately. We rested until two, and had supper; starting for

the hills immediately afterwards, armed with three stout sacks,

which, by good luck, were upon the premises. A little before four

we arrived at the pit, divided the remainder of the booty, as

equally as might be, among us, and, leaving the holes unfilled,

again set out for the hut, at which, for the second time, we

deposited our golden burthens, just as the first faint streaks of

the dawn gleamed from over the tree-tops in the East.

We were now thoroughly broken down; but the intense excitement of

the time denied us repose. After an unquiet slumber of some three

or four hours’ duration, we arose, as if by preconcert, to make

examination of our treasure.

The chest had been full to the brim, and we spent the whole day,

and the greater part of the next night, in a scrutiny of its

contents. There had been nothing like order or arrangement. Every

thing had been heaped in promiscuously. Having assorted all with

care, we found ourselves possessed of even vaster wealth than we

had at first supposed. In coin there was rather more than four

hundred and fifty thousand dollars—estimating the value of the

pieces, as accurately as we could, by the tables of the period.

There was not a particle of silver. All was gold of antique date

and of great variety—French, Spanish, and German money, with a

few English guineas, and some counters, of which we had never

seen specimens before. There were several very large and heavy

coins, so worn that we could make nothing of their inscriptions.

There was no American money. The value of the jewels we found

more difficulty in estimating. There were diamonds—some of them

exceedingly large and fine—a hundred and ten in all, and not one

of them small; eighteen rubies of remarkable brilliancy;—three

hundred and ten emeralds, all very beautiful; and twenty-one

sapphires, with an opal. These stones had all been broken from

their settings and thrown loose in the chest. The settings

themselves, which we picked out from among the other gold,

appeared to have been beaten up with hammers, as if to prevent

identification. Besides all this, there was a vast quantity of

solid gold ornaments; nearly two hundred massive finger and

earrings; rich chains—thirty of these, if I remember;

eighty-three very large and heavy crucifixes; five gold censers

of great value; a prodigious golden punch bowl, ornamented with

richly chased vine-leaves and Bacchanalian figures; with two

sword-handles exquisitely embossed, and many other smaller

articles which I cannot recollect. The weight of these valuables

exceeded three hundred and fifty pounds avoirdupois; and in this

estimate I have not included one hundred and ninety-seven superb

gold watches; three of the number being worth each five hundred

dollars, if one. Many of them were very old, and as timekeepers

valueless; the works having suffered, more or less, from

corrosion—but all were richly jewelled and in cases of great

worth. We estimated the entire contents of the chest, that night,

at a million and a half of dollars; and upon the subsequent

disposal of the trinkets and jewels (a few being retained for our

own use), it was found that we had greatly undervalued the

treasure.

When, at length, we had concluded our examination, and the

intense excitement of the time had, in some measure, subsided,

Legrand, who saw that I was dying with impatience for a solution

of this most extraordinary riddle, entered into a full detail of

all the circumstances connected with it.

“You remember;” said he, “the night when I handed you the rough

sketch I had made of the _scarabæus_. You recollect also, that I

became quite vexed at you for insisting that my drawing resembled

a death’s-head. When you first made this assertion I thought you

were jesting; but afterwards I called to mind the peculiar spots

on the back of the insect, and admitted to myself that your

remark had some little foundation in fact. Still, the sneer at my

graphic powers irritated me—for I am considered a good

artist—and, therefore, when you handed me the scrap of parchment,

I was about to crumple it up and throw it angrily into the fire.”

“The scrap of paper, you mean,” said I.

“No; it had much of the appearance of paper, and at first I

supposed it to be such, but when I came to draw upon it, I

discovered it, at once, to be a piece of very thin parchment. It

was quite dirty, you remember. Well, as I was in the very act of

crumpling it up, my glance fell upon the sketch at which you had

been looking, and you may imagine my astonishment when I

perceived, in fact, the figure of a death’s-head just where, it

seemed to me, I had made the drawing of the beetle. For a moment

I was too much amazed to think with accuracy. I knew that my

design was very different in detail from this—although there was

a certain similarity in general outline. Presently I took a

candle, and seating myself at the other end of the room,

proceeded to scrutinize the parchment more closely. Upon turning

it over, I saw my own sketch upon the reverse, just as I had made

it. My first idea, now, was mere surprise at the really

remarkable similarity of outline—at the singular coincidence

involved in the fact, that unknown to me, there should have been

a skull upon the other side of the parchment, immediately beneath

my figure of the _scarabæus_, and that this skull, not only in

outline, but in size, should so closely resemble my drawing. I

say the singularity of this coincidence absolutely stupefied me

for a time. This is the usual effect of such coincidences. The

mind struggles to establish a connexion—a sequence of cause and

effect—and, being unable to do so, suffers a species of temporary

paralysis. But, when I recovered from this stupor, there dawned

upon me gradually a conviction which startled me even far more

than the coincidence. I began distinctly, positively, to remember

that there had been no drawing upon the parchment when I made my

sketch of the _scarabæus_. I became perfectly certain of this;

for I recollected turning up first one side and then the other,

in search of the cleanest spot. Had the skull been then there, of

course I could not have failed to notice it. Here was indeed a

mystery which I felt it impossible to explain; but, even at that

early moment, there seemed to glimmer, faintly, within the most

remote and secret chambers of my intellect, a glow-worm-like

conception of that truth which last night’s adventure brought to

so magnificent a demonstration. I arose at once, and putting the

parchment securely away, dismissed all farther reflection until I

should be alone.

“When you had gone, and when Jupiter was fast asleep, I betook

myself to a more methodical investigation of the affair. In the

first place I considered the manner in which the parchment had

come into my possession. The spot where we discovered the

_scarabæus_ was on the coast of the main land, about a mile

eastward of the island, and but a short distance above high water

mark. Upon my taking hold of it, it gave me a sharp bite, which

caused me to let it drop. Jupiter, with his accustomed caution,

before seizing the insect, which had flown towards him, looked

about him for a leaf, or something of that nature, by which to

take hold of it. It was at this moment that his eyes, and mine

also, fell upon the scrap of parchment, which I then supposed to

be paper. It was lying half buried in the sand, a corner sticking

up. Near the spot where we found it, I observed the remnants of

the hull of what appeared to have been a ship’s long boat. The

wreck seemed to have been there for a very great while; for the

resemblance to boat timbers could scarcely be traced.

“Well, Jupiter picked up the parchment, wrapped the beetle in it,

and gave it to me. Soon afterwards we turned to go home, and on

the way met Lieutenant G——. I showed him the insect, and he

begged me to let him take it to the fort. Upon my consenting, he

thrust it forthwith into his waistcoat pocket, without the

parchment in which it had been wrapped, and which I had continued

to hold in my hand during his inspection. Perhaps he dreaded my

changing my mind, and thought it best to make sure of the prize

at once—you know how enthusiastic he is on all subjects connected

with Natural History. At the same time, without being conscious

of it, I must have deposited the parchment in my own pocket.

“You remember that when I went to the table, for the purpose of

making a sketch of the beetle, I found no paper where it was

usually kept. I looked in the drawer, and found none there. I

searched my pockets, hoping to find an old letter, when my hand

fell upon the parchment. I thus detail the precise mode in which

it came into my possession; for the circumstances impressed me

with peculiar force.

“No doubt you will think me fanciful—but I had already

established a kind of connexion. I had put together two links of

a great chain. There was a boat lying upon a sea-coast, and not

far from the boat was a parchment—not a paper—with a skull

depicted upon it. You will, of course, ask ‘where is the

connexion?’ I reply that the skull, or death’s-head, is the

well-known emblem of the pirate. The flag of the death’s head is

hoisted in all engagements.

“I have said that the scrap was parchment, and not paper.

Parchment is durable—almost imperishable. Matters of little

moment are rarely consigned to parchment; since, for the mere

ordinary purposes of drawing or writing, it is not nearly so well

adapted as paper. This reflection suggested some meaning—some

relevancy—in the death’s-head. I did not fail to observe, also,

the form of the parchment. Although one of its corners had been,

by some accident, destroyed, it could be seen that the original

form was oblong. It was just such a slip, indeed, as might have

been chosen for a memorandum—for a record of something to be long

remembered and carefully preserved.”

“But,” I interposed, “you say that the skull was not upon the

parchment when you made the drawing of the beetle. How then do

you trace any connexion between the boat and the skull—since this

latter, according to your own admission, must have been designed

(God only knows how or by whom) at some period subsequent to your

sketching the _scarabæus?_”

“Ah, hereupon turns the whole mystery; although the secret, at

this point, I had comparatively little difficulty in solving. My

steps were sure, and could afford but a single result. I

reasoned, for example, thus: When I drew the _scarabæus_, there

was no skull apparent upon the parchment. When I had completed

the drawing I gave it to you, and observed you narrowly until you

returned it. You, therefore, did not design the skull, and no one

else was present to do it. Then it was not done by human agency.

And nevertheless it was done.

“At this stage of my reflections I endeavored to remember, and

did remember, with entire distinctness, every incident which

occurred about the period in question. The weather was chilly (oh

rare and happy accident!), and a fire was blazing upon the

hearth. I was heated with exercise and sat near the table. You,

however, had drawn a chair close to the chimney. Just as I placed

the parchment in your hand, and as you were in the act of

inspecting it, Wolf, the Newfoundland, entered, and leaped upon

your shoulders. With your left hand you caressed him and kept him

off, while your right, holding the parchment, was permitted to

fall listlessly between your knees, and in close proximity to the

fire. At one moment I thought the blaze had caught it, and was

about to caution you, but, before I could speak, you had

withdrawn it, and were engaged in its examination. When I

considered all these particulars, I doubted not for a moment that

heat had been the agent in bringing to light, upon the parchment,

the skull which I saw designed upon it. You are well aware that

chemical preparations exist, and have existed time out of mind,

by means of which it is possible to write upon either paper or

vellum, so that the characters shall become visible only when

subjected to the action of fire. Zaffre, digested in aqua regia,

and diluted with four times its weight of water, is sometimes

employed; a green tint results. The regulus of cobalt, dissolved

in spirit of nitre, gives a red. These colors disappear at longer

or shorter intervals after the material written upon cools, but

again become apparent upon the re-application of heat.

“I now scrutinized the death’s-head with care. Its outer

edges—the edges of the drawing nearest the edge of the

vellum—were far more distinct than the others. It was clear that

the action of the caloric had been imperfect or unequal. I

immediately kindled a fire, and subjected every portion of the

parchment to a glowing heat. At first, the only effect was the

strengthening of the faint lines in the skull; but, upon

persevering in the experiment, there became visible, at the

corner of the slip, diagonally opposite to the spot in which the

death’s-head was delineated, the figure of what I at first

supposed to be a goat. A closer scrutiny, however, satisfied me

that it was intended for a kid.”

“Ha! ha!” said I, “to be sure I have no right to laugh at you—a

million and a half of money is too serious a matter for mirth—but

you are not about to establish a third link in your chain—you

will not find any especial connexion between your pirates and a

goat—pirates, you know, have nothing to do with goats; they

appertain to the farming interest.”

“But I have just said that the figure was not that of a goat.”

“Well, a kid then—pretty much the same thing.”

“Pretty much, but not altogether,” said Legrand. “You may have

heard of one Captain Kidd. I at once looked upon the figure of

the animal as a kind of punning or hieroglyphical signature. I

say signature; because its position upon the vellum suggested

this idea. The death’s-head at the corner diagonally opposite,

had, in the same manner, the air of a stamp, or seal. But I was

sorely put out by the absence of all else—of the body to my

imagined instrument—of the text for my context.”

“I presume you expected to find a letter between the stamp and

the signature.”

“Something of that kind. The fact is, I felt irresistibly

impressed with a presentiment of some vast good fortune

impending. I can scarcely say why. Perhaps, after all, it was

rather a desire than an actual belief;—but do you know that

Jupiter’s silly words, about the bug being of solid gold, had a

remarkable effect upon my fancy? And then the series of accidents

and coincidences—these were so very extraordinary. Do you observe

how mere an accident it was that these events should have

occurred upon the sole day of all the year in which it has been,

or may be, sufficiently cool for fire, and that without the fire,

or without the intervention of the dog at the precise moment in

which he appeared, I should never have become aware of the

death’s-head, and so never the possessor of the treasure?”

“But proceed—I am all impatience.”

“Well; you have heard, of course, the many stories current—the

thousand vague rumors afloat about money buried, somewhere upon

the Atlantic coast, by Kidd and his associates. These rumors must

have had some foundation in fact. And that the rumors have

existed so long and so continuous, could have resulted, it

appeared to me, only from the circumstance of the buried treasure

still remaining entombed. Had Kidd concealed his plunder for a

time, and afterwards reclaimed it, the rumors would scarcely have

reached us in their present unvarying form. You will observe that

the stories told are all about money-seekers, not about

money-finders. Had the pirate recovered his money, there the

affair would have dropped. It seemed to me that some accident—say

the loss of a memorandum indicating its locality—had deprived him

of the means of recovering it, and that this accident had become

known to his followers, who otherwise might never have heard that

treasure had been concealed at all, and who, busying themselves

in vain, because unguided attempts, to regain it, had given first

birth, and then universal currency, to the reports which are now

so common. Have you ever heard of any important treasure being

unearthed along the coast?”

“Never.”

“But that Kidd’s accumulations were immense, is well known. I

took it for granted, therefore, that the earth still held them;

and you will scarcely be surprised when I tell you that I felt a

hope, nearly amounting to certainty, that the parchment so

strangely found, involved a lost record of the place of deposit.”

“But how did you proceed?”

“I held the vellum again to the fire, after increasing the heat;

but nothing appeared. I now thought it possible that the coating

of dirt might have something to do with the failure; so I

carefully rinsed the parchment by pouring warm water over it,

and, having done this, I placed it in a tin pan, with the skull

downwards, and put the pan upon a furnace of lighted charcoal. In

a few minutes, the pan having become thoroughly heated, I removed

the slip, and, to my inexpressible joy, found it spotted, in

several places, with what appeared to be figures arranged in

lines. Again I placed it in the pan, and suffered it to remain

another minute. Upon taking it off, the whole was just as you see

it now.”

Here Legrand, having re-heated the parchment, submitted it to my

inspection. The following characters were rudely traced, in a red

tint, between the death’s-head and the goat:

“53‡‡†305))6*;4826)4‡.)4‡);806*;48†8¶60))85;1‡(;:‡*8†83(88)5*†

;46(;88*96*?;8)*‡(;485);5*†2:*‡(;4956*2(5*—4)8¶8*;4069285);)

6†8)4‡‡;1(‡9;48081;8:8‡1;48†85;4)485†528806*81(‡9;48;(88;4(‡?3

4;48)4‡;161;:188;‡?;”

“But,” said I, returning him the slip, “I am as much in the dark

as ever. Were all the jewels of Golconda awaiting me upon my

solution of this enigma, I am quite sure that I should be unable

to earn them.”

“And yet,” said Legrand, “the solution is by no means so

difficult as you might be lead to imagine from the first hasty

inspection of the characters. These characters, as any one might

readily guess, form a cipher—that is to say, they convey a

meaning; but then, from what is known of Kidd, I could not

suppose him capable of constructing any of the more abstruse

cryptographs. I made up my mind, at once, that this was of a

simple species—such, however, as would appear, to the crude

intellect of the sailor, absolutely insoluble without the key.”

“And you really solved it?”

“Readily; I have solved others of an abstruseness ten thousand

times greater. Circumstances, and a certain bias of mind, have

led me to take interest in such riddles, and it may well be

doubted whether human ingenuity can construct an enigma of the

kind which human ingenuity may not, by proper application,

resolve. In fact, having once established connected and legible

characters, I scarcely gave a thought to the mere difficulty of

developing their import.

“In the present case—indeed in all cases of secret writing—the

first question regards the language of the cipher; for the

principles of solution, so far, especially, as the more simple

ciphers are concerned, depend upon, and are varied by, the genius

of the particular idiom. In general, there is no alternative but

experiment (directed by probabilities) of every tongue known to

him who attempts the solution, until the true one be attained.

But, with the cipher now before us, all difficulty was removed by

the signature. The pun upon the word ‘Kidd’ is appreciable in no

other language than the English. But for this consideration I

should have begun my attempts with the Spanish and French, as the

tongues in which a secret of this kind would most naturally have

been written by a pirate of the Spanish main. As it was, I

assumed the cryptograph to be English.

“You observe there are no divisions between the words. Had there

been divisions, the task would have been comparatively easy. In

such case I should have commenced with a collation and analysis

of the shorter words, and, had a word of a single letter

occurred, as is most likely, (a or I, for example,) I should have

considered the solution as assured. But, there being no division,

my first step was to ascertain the predominant letters, as well

as the least frequent. Counting all, I constructed a table, thus:

Of the character 8 there are 33.

; “ 26.

4 “ 19.

‡ ) “ 16.

* “ 13.

5 “ 12.

6 “ 11.

† 1 “ 8.

0 “ 6.

9 2 “ 5.

: 3 “ 4.

? “ 3.

¶ “ 2.

-. “ 1.

“Now, in English, the letter which most frequently occurs is e.

Afterwards, succession runs thus: _a o i d h n r s t u y c f g l

m w b k p q x z_. _E_ predominates so remarkably that an

individual sentence of any length is rarely seen, in which it is

not the prevailing character.

“Here, then, we leave, in the very beginning, the groundwork for

something more than a mere guess. The general use which may be

made of the table is obvious—but, in this particular cipher, we

shall only very partially require its aid. As our predominant

character is 8, we will commence by assuming it as the _e_ of the

natural alphabet. To verify the supposition, let us observe if

the 8 be seen often in couples—for _e_ is doubled with great

frequency in English—in such words, for example, as ‘meet,’

‘.fleet,’ ‘speed,’ ‘seen,’ been,’ ‘agree,’ &c. In the present

instance we see it doubled no less than five times, although the

cryptograph is brief.

“Let us assume 8, then, as _e_. Now, of all _words_ in the

language, ‘the’ is most usual; let us see, therefore, whether

there are not repetitions of any three characters, in the same

order of collocation, the last of them being 8. If we discover

repetitions of such letters, so arranged, they will most probably

represent the word ‘the.’ Upon inspection, we find no less than

seven such arrangements, the characters being ;48. We may,

therefore, assume that ; represents _t_, 4 represents _h_, and 8

represents _e_—the last being now well confirmed. Thus a great

step has been taken.

“But, having established a single word, we are enabled to

establish a vastly important point; that is to say, several

commencements and terminations of other words. Let us refer, for

example, to the last instance but one, in which the combination

;48 occurs—not far from the end of the cipher. We know that the ;

immediately ensuing is the commencement of a word, and, of the

six characters succeeding this ‘the,’ we are cognizant of no less

than five. Let us set these characters down, thus, by the letters

we know them to represent, leaving a space for the unknown—

t eeth.

“Here we are enabled, at once, to discard the ‘th,’ as forming no

portion of the word commencing with the first t; since, by

experiment of the entire alphabet for a letter adapted to the

vacancy, we perceive that no word can be formed of which this

_th_ can be a part. We are thus narrowed into

t ee,

and, going through the alphabet, if necessary, as before, we

arrive at the word ‘tree,’ as the sole possible reading. We thus

gain another letter, _r_, represented by (, with the words ‘the

tree’ in juxtaposition.

“Looking beyond these words, for a short distance, we again see

the combination ;48, and employ it by way of termination to what

immediately precedes. We have thus this arrangement:

the tree ;4(‡?34 the,

or, substituting the natural letters, where known, it reads thus:

the tree thr‡?3h the.

“Now, if, in place of the unknown characters, we leave blank

spaces, or substitute dots, we read thus:

the tree thr...h the,

when the word ‘_through_’ makes itself evident at once. But this

discovery gives us three new letters, _o_, _u_ and _g_,

represented by ‡, ? and 3.

“Looking now, narrowly, through the cipher for combinations of

known characters, we find, not very far from the beginning, this

arrangement,

83(88, or egree,

which, plainly, is the conclusion of the word ‘degree,’ and gives

us another letter, _d_, represented by †.

“Four letters beyond the word ‘degree,’ we perceive the

combination

;46(;88.

“Translating the known characters, and representing the unknown

by dots, as before, we read thus:

th.rtee,

an arrangement immediately suggestive of the word ‘thirteen,’ and

again furnishing us with two new characters, _i_ and _n_,

represented by 6 and *.

“Referring, now, to the beginning of the cryptograph, we find the

combination,

53‡‡†.

“Translating as before, we obtain

good,

which assures us that the first letter is _A_, and that the first

two words are ‘A good.’

“It is now time that we arrange our key, as far as discovered, in

a tabular form, to avoid confusion. It will stand thus:

5 represents a

† “ d

8 “ e

3 “ g

4 “ h

6 “ i

* “ n

‡ “ o

( “ r

; “ t

? “ u

“We have, therefore, no less than eleven of the most important

letters represented, and it will be unnecessary to proceed with

the details of the solution. I have said enough to convince you

that ciphers of this nature are readily soluble, and to give you

some insight into the rationale of their development. But be

assured that the specimen before us appertains to the very

simplest species of cryptograph. It now only remains to give you

the full translation of the characters upon the parchment, as

unriddled. Here it is:

“‘_A good glass in the bishop’s hostel in the devil’s seat

forty-one degrees and thirteen minutes northeast and by north

main branch seventh limb east side shoot from the left eye of the

death’s-head a bee line from the tree through the shot fifty feet

out_.’”

“But,” said I, “the enigma seems still in as bad a condition as

ever. How is it possible to extort a meaning from all this jargon

about ‘devil’s seats,’ ‘death’s heads,’ and ‘bishop’s hotels?’”

“I confess,” replied Legrand, “that the matter still wears a

serious aspect, when regarded with a casual glance. My first

endeavor was to divide the sentence into the natural division

intended by the cryptographist.”

“You mean, to punctuate it?”

“Something of that kind.”

“But how was it possible to effect this?”

“I reflected that it had been a point with the writer to run his

words together without division, so as to increase the difficulty

of solution. Now, a not over-acute man, in pursuing such an

object, would be nearly certain to overdo the matter. When, in

the course of his composition, he arrived at a break in his

subject which would naturally require a pause, or a point, he

would be exceedingly apt to run his characters, at this place,

more than usually close together. If you will observe the MS., in

the present instance, you will easily detect five such cases of

unusual crowding. Acting upon this hint, I made the division

thus: ‘A good glass in the Bishop’s hostel in the Devil’s

seat—forty-one degrees and thirteen minutes—northeast and by

north—main branch seventh limb east side—shoot from the left eye

of the death’s-head—a bee-line from the tree through the shot

fifty feet out.’”

“Even this division,” said I, “leaves me still in the dark.”

“It left me also in the dark,” replied Legrand, “for a few days;

during which I made diligent inquiry, in the neighborhood of

Sullivan’s Island, for any building which went by the name of the

‘Bishop’s Hotel;’ for, of course, I dropped the obsolete word

‘hostel.’ Gaining no information on the subject, I was on the

point of extending my sphere of search, and proceeding in a more

systematic manner, when, one morning, it entered into my head,

quite suddenly, that this ‘Bishop’s Hostel’ might have some

reference to an old family, of the name of Bessop, which, time

out of mind, had held possession of an ancient manor-house, about

four miles to the northward of the island. I accordingly went

over to the plantation, and re-instituted my inquiries among the

older negroes of the place. At length one of the most aged of the

women said that she had heard of such a place as Bessop’s Castle,

and thought that she could guide me to it, but that it was not a

castle nor a tavern, but a high rock.

“I offered to pay her well for her trouble, and, after some

demur, she consented to accompany me to the spot. We found it

without much difficulty, when, dismissing her, I proceeded to

examine the place. The ‘castle’ consisted of an irregular

assemblage of cliffs and rocks—one of the latter being quite

remarkable for its height as well as for its insulated and

artificial appearance. I clambered to its apex, and then felt

much at a loss as to what should be next done.

“While I was busied in reflection, my eyes fell upon a narrow

ledge in the eastern face of the rock, perhaps a yard below the

summit upon which I stood. This ledge projected about eighteen

inches, and was not more than a foot wide, while a niche in the

cliff just above it gave it a rude resemblance to one of the

hollow-backed chairs used by our ancestors. I made no doubt that

here was the ‘devil’s seat’ alluded to in the MS., and now I

seemed to grasp the full secret of the riddle.

“The ‘good glass,’ I knew, could have reference to nothing but a

telescope; for the word ‘glass’ is rarely employed in any other

sense by seamen. Now here, I at once saw, was a telescope to be

used, and a definite point of view, admitting no variation, from

which to use it. Nor did I hesitate to believe that the phrases,

‘forty-one degrees and thirteen minutes,’ and ‘northeast and by

north,’ were intended as directions for the levelling of the

glass. Greatly excited by these discoveries, I hurried home,

procured a telescope, and returned to the rock.

“I let myself down to the ledge, and found that it was impossible

to retain a seat upon it except in one particular position. This

fact confirmed my preconceived idea. I proceeded to use the

glass. Of course, the ‘forty-one degrees and thirteen minutes’

could allude to nothing but elevation above the visible horizon,

since the horizontal direction was clearly indicated by the

words, ‘northeast and by north.’ This latter direction I at once

established by means of a pocket-compass; then, pointing the

glass as nearly at an angle of forty-one degrees of elevation as

I could do it by guess, I moved it cautiously up or down, until

my attention was arrested by a circular rift or opening in the

foliage of a large tree that overtopped its fellows in the

distance. In the centre of this rift I perceived a white spot,

but could not, at first, distinguish what it was. Adjusting the

focus of the telescope, I again looked, and now made it out to be

a human skull.

“Upon this discovery I was so sanguine as to consider the enigma

solved; for the phrase ‘main branch, seventh limb, east side,’

could refer only to the position of the skull upon the tree,

while ‘shoot from the left eye of the death’s head’ admitted,

also, of but one interpretation, in regard to a search for buried

treasure. I perceived that the design was to drop a bullet from

the left eye of the skull, and that a bee-line, or, in other

words, a straight line, drawn from the nearest point of the trunk

through ‘the shot,’ (or the spot where the bullet fell,) and

thence extended to a distance of fifty feet, would indicate a

definite point—and beneath this point I thought it at least

possible that a deposit of value lay concealed.”

“All this,” I said, “is exceedingly clear, and, although

ingenious, still simple and explicit. When you left the Bishop’s

Hotel, what then?”

“Why, having carefully taken the bearings of the tree, I turned

homewards. The instant that I left ‘the devil’s seat,’ however,

the circular rift vanished; nor could I get a glimpse of it

afterwards, turn as I would. What seems to me the chief ingenuity

in this whole business, is the fact (for repeated experiment has

convinced me it is a fact) that the circular opening in question

is visible from no other attainable point of view than that

afforded by the narrow ledge upon the face of the rock.

“In this expedition to the ‘Bishop’s Hotel’ I had been attended

by Jupiter, who had, no doubt, observed, for some weeks past, the

abstraction of my demeanor, and took especial care not to leave

me alone. But, on the next day, getting up very early, I

contrived to give him the slip, and went into the hills in search

of the tree. After much toil I found it. When I came home at

night my valet proposed to give me a flogging. With the rest of

the adventure I believe you are as well acquainted as myself.”

“I suppose,” said I, “you missed the spot, in the first attempt

at digging, through Jupiter’s stupidity in letting the bug fall

through the right instead of through the left eye of the skull.”

“Precisely. This mistake made a difference of about two inches

and a half in the ‘shot’—that is to say, in the position of the

peg nearest the tree; and had the treasure been beneath the

‘shot,’ the error would have been of little moment; but ‘the

shot,’ together with the nearest point of the tree, were merely

two points for the establishment of a line of direction; of

course the error, however trivial in the beginning, increased as

we proceeded with the line, and by the time we had gone fifty

feet, threw us quite off the scent. But for my deep-seated

impressions that treasure was here somewhere actually buried, we

might have had all our labor in vain.”

“But your grandiloquence, and your conduct in swinging the

beetle—how excessively odd! I was sure you were mad. And why did

you insist upon letting fall the bug, instead of a bullet, from

the skull?”

“Why, to be frank, I felt somewhat annoyed by your evident

suspicions touching my sanity, and so resolved to punish you

quietly, in my own way, by a little bit of sober mystification.

For this reason I swung the beetle, and for this reason I let it

fall it from the tree. An observation of yours about its great

weight suggested the latter idea.”

“Yes, I perceive; and now there is only one point which puzzles

me. What are we to make of the skeletons found in the hole?”

“That is a question I am no more able to answer than yourself.

There seems, however, only one plausible way of accounting for

them—and yet it is dreadful to believe in such atrocity as my

suggestion would imply. It is clear that Kidd—if Kidd indeed

secreted this treasure, which I doubt not—it is clear that he

must have had assistance in the labor. But this labor concluded,

he may have thought it expedient to remove all participants in

his secret. Perhaps a couple of blows with a mattock were

sufficient, while his coadjutors were busy in the pit; perhaps it

required a dozen—who shall tell?”

FOUR BEASTS IN ONE—THE HOMO-CAMELEOPARD

Chacun a ses vertus.

—_Crébillon’s Xerxes._

Antiochus Epiphanes is very generally looked upon as the Gog of

the prophet Ezekiel. This honor is, however, more properly

attributable to Cambyses, the son of Cyrus. And, indeed, the

character of the Syrian monarch does by no means stand in need of

any adventitious embellishment. His accession to the throne, or

rather his usurpation of the sovereignty, a hundred and

seventy-one years before the coming of Christ; his attempt to

plunder the temple of Diana at Ephesus; his implacable hostility

to the Jews; his pollution of the Holy of Holies; and his

miserable death at Taba, after a tumultuous reign of eleven

years, are circumstances of a prominent kind, and therefore more

generally noticed by the historians of his time than the impious,

dastardly, cruel, silly, and whimsical achievements which make up

the sum total of his private life and reputation.

Let us suppose, gentle reader, that it is now the year of the

world three thousand eight hundred and thirty, and let us, for a

few minutes, imagine ourselves at that most grotesque habitation

of man, the remarkable city of Antioch. To be sure there were, in

Syria and other countries, sixteen cities of that appellation,

besides the one to which I more particularly allude. But ours is

that which went by the name of Antiochia Epidaphne, from its

vicinity to the little village of Daphne, where stood a temple to

that divinity. It was built (although about this matter there is

some dispute) by Seleucus Nicanor, the first king of the country

after Alexander the Great, in memory of his father Antiochus, and

became immediately the residence of the Syrian monarchy. In the

flourishing times of the Roman Empire, it was the ordinary

station of the prefect of the eastern provinces; and many of the

emperors of the queen city (among whom may be mentioned,

especially, Verus and Valens) spent here the greater part of

their time. But I perceive we have arrived at the city itself.

Let us ascend this battlement, and throw our eyes upon the town

and neighboring country.

“What broad and rapid river is that which forces its way, with

innumerable falls, through the mountainous wilderness, and

finally through the wilderness of buildings?”

That is the Orontes, and it is the only water in sight, with the

exception of the Mediterranean, which stretches, like a broad

mirror, about twelve miles off to the southward. Every one has

seen the Mediterranean; but let me tell you, there are few who

have had a peep at Antioch. By few, I mean, few who, like you and

me, have had, at the same time, the advantages of a modern

education. Therefore cease to regard that sea, and give your

whole attention to the mass of houses that lie beneath us. You

will remember that it is now the year of the world three thousand

eight hundred and thirty. Were it later—for example, were it the

year of our Lord eighteen hundred and forty-five, we should be

deprived of this extraordinary spectacle. In the nineteenth

century Antioch is—that is to say, Antioch will be—in a

lamentable state of decay. It will have been, by that time,

totally destroyed, at three different periods, by three

successive earthquakes. Indeed, to say the truth, what little of

its former self may then remain, will be found in so desolate and

ruinous a state that the patriarch shall have removed his

residence to Damascus. This is well. I see you profit by my

advice, and are making the most of your time in inspecting the

premises—in

—satisfying your eyes

With the memorials and the things of fame

That most renown this city.—

I beg pardon; I had forgotten that Shakespeare will not flourish

for seventeen hundred and fifty years to come. But does not the

appearance of Epidaphne justify me in calling it grotesque?

“It is well fortified; and in this respect is as much indebted to

nature as to art.”

Very true.

“There are a prodigious number of stately palaces.”

There are.

“And the numerous temples, sumptuous and magnificent, may bear

comparison with the most lauded of antiquity.”

All this I must acknowledge. Still there is an infinity of mud

huts, and abominable hovels. We cannot help perceiving abundance

of filth in every kennel, and, were it not for the over-powering

fumes of idolatrous incense, I have no doubt we should find a

most intolerable stench. Did you ever behold streets so

insufferably narrow, or houses so miraculously tall? What gloom

their shadows cast upon the ground! It is well the swinging lamps

in those endless colonnades are kept burning throughout the day;

we should otherwise have the darkness of Egypt in the time of her

desolation.

“It is certainly a strange place! What is the meaning of yonder

singular building? See! it towers above all others, and lies to

the eastward of what I take to be the royal palace!”

That is the new Temple of the Sun, who is adored in Syria under

the title of Elah Gabalah. Hereafter a very notorious Roman

Emperor will institute this worship in Rome, and thence derive a

cognomen, Heliogabalus. I dare say you would like to take a peep

at the divinity of the temple. You need not look up at the

heavens; his Sunship is not there—at least not the Sunship adored

by the Syrians. That deity will be found in the interior of

yonder building. He is worshipped under the figure of a large

stone pillar terminating at the summit in a cone or pyramid,

whereby is denoted Fire.

“Hark—behold!—who can those ridiculous beings be, half naked,

with their faces painted, shouting and gesticulating to the

rabble?”

Some few are mountebanks. Others more particularly belong to the

race of philosophers. The greatest portion, however—those

especially who belabor the populace with clubs—are the principal

courtiers of the palace, executing as in duty bound, some

laudable comicality of the king’s.

“But what have we here? Heavens! the town is swarming with wild

beasts! How terrible a spectacle!—how dangerous a peculiarity!”

Terrible, if you please; but not in the least degree dangerous.

Each animal if you will take the pains to observe, is following,

very quietly, in the wake of its master. Some few, to be sure,

are led with a rope about the neck, but these are chiefly the

lesser or timid species. The lion, the tiger, and the leopard are

entirely without restraint. They have been trained without

difficulty to their present profession, and attend upon their

respective owners in the capacity of valets-de-chambre. It is

true, there are occasions when Nature asserts her violated

dominions;—but then the devouring of a man-at-arms, or the

throttling of a consecrated bull, is a circumstance of too little

moment to be more than hinted at in Epidaphne.

“But what extraordinary tumult do I hear? Surely this is a loud

noise even for Antioch! It argues some commotion of unusual

interest.”

Yes—undoubtedly. The king has ordered some novel spectacle—some

gladiatorial exhibition at the hippodrome—or perhaps the massacre

of the Scythian prisoners—or the conflagration of his new

palace—or the tearing down of a handsome temple—or, indeed, a

bonfire of a few Jews. The uproar increases. Shouts of laughter

ascend the skies. The air becomes dissonant with wind

instruments, and horrible with clamor of a million throats. Let

us descend, for the love of fun, and see what is going on! This

way—be careful! Here we are in the principal street, which is

called the street of Timarchus. The sea of people is coming this

way, and we shall find a difficulty in stemming the tide. They

are pouring through the alley of Heraclides, which leads directly

from the palace;—therefore the king is most probably among the

rioters. Yes—I hear the shouts of the herald proclaiming his

approach in the pompous phraseology of the East. We shall have a

glimpse of his person as he passes by the temple of Ashimah. Let

us ensconce ourselves in the vestibule of the sanctuary; he will

be here anon. In the meantime let us survey this image. What is

it? Oh! it is the god Ashimah in proper person. You perceive,

however, that he is neither a lamb, nor a goat, nor a satyr,

neither has he much resemblance to the Pan of the Arcadians. Yet

all these appearances have been given—I beg pardon—will be

given—by the learned of future ages, to the Ashimah of the

Syrians. Put on your spectacles, and tell me what it is. What is

it?

“Bless me! it is an ape!”

True—a baboon; but by no means the less a deity. His name is a

derivation of the Greek Simia—what great fools are antiquarians!

But see!—see!—yonder scampers a ragged little urchin. Where is he

going? What is he bawling about? What does he say? Oh! he says

the king is coming in triumph; that he is dressed in state; that

he has just finished putting to death, with his own hand, a

thousand chained Israelitish prisoners! For this exploit the

ragamuffin is lauding him to the skies! Hark! here comes a troop

of a similar description. They have made a Latin hymn upon the

valor of the king, and are singing it as they go:

Mille, mille, mille,

Mille, mille, mille,

Decollavimus, unus homo!

Mille, mille, mille, mille, decollavimus!

Mille, mille, mille,

Vivat qui mille mille occidit!

Tantum vini habet nemo

Quantum sanguinis effudit!(*1)

Which may be thus paraphrased:

A thousand, a thousand, a thousand,

A thousand, a thousand, a thousand,

We, with one warrior, have slain!

A thousand, a thousand, a thousand, a thousand.

Sing a thousand over again!

Soho!—let us sing

Long life to our king,

Who knocked over a thousand so fine!

Soho!—let us roar,

He has given us more

Red gallons of gore

Than all Syria can furnish of wine!

“Do you hear that flourish of trumpets?”

Yes—the king is coming! See! the people are aghast with

admiration, and lift up their eyes to the heavens in reverence.

He comes!—he is coming!—there he is!

“Who?—where?—the king?—do not behold him—cannot say that I

perceive him.”

Then you must be blind.

“Very possible. Still I see nothing but a tumultuous mob of

idiots and madmen, who are busy in prostrating themselves before

a gigantic cameleopard, and endeavoring to obtain a kiss of the

animal’s hoofs. See! the beast has very justly kicked one of the

rabble over—and another—and another—and another. Indeed, I cannot

help admiring the animal for the excellent use he is making of

his feet.”

Rabble, indeed!—why these are the noble and free citizens of

Epidaphne! Beasts, did you say?—take care that you are not

overheard. Do you not perceive that the animal has the visage of

a man? Why, my dear sir, that cameleopard is no other than

Antiochus Epiphanes, Antiochus the Illustrious, King of Syria,

and the most potent of all the autocrats of the East! It is true,

that he is entitled, at times, Antiochus Epimanes—Antiochus the

madman—but that is because all people have not the capacity to

appreciate his merits. It is also certain that he is at present

ensconced in the hide of a beast, and is doing his best to play

the part of a cameleopard; but this is done for the better

sustaining his dignity as king. Besides, the monarch is of

gigantic stature, and the dress is therefore neither unbecoming

nor over large. We may, however, presume he would not have

adopted it but for some occasion of especial state. Such, you

will allow, is the massacre of a thousand Jews. With how superior

a dignity the monarch perambulates on all fours! His tail, you

perceive, is held aloft by his two principal concubines, Elline

and Argelais; and his whole appearance would be infinitely

prepossessing, were it not for the protuberance of his eyes,

which will certainly start out of his head, and the queer color

of his face, which has become nondescript from the quantity of

wine he has swallowed. Let us follow him to the hippodrome,

whither he is proceeding, and listen to the song of triumph which

he is commencing:

Who is king but Epiphanes?

Say—do you know?

Who is king but Epiphanes?

Bravo!—bravo!

There is none but Epiphanes,

No—there is none:

So tear down the temples,

And put out the sun!

Well and strenuously sung! The populace are hailing him ‘Prince

of Poets,’ as well as ‘Glory of the East,’ ‘Delight of the

Universe,’ and ‘Most Remarkable of Cameleopards.’ They have

encored his effusion, and do you hear?—he is singing it over

again. When he arrives at the hippodrome, he will be crowned with

the poetic wreath, in anticipation of his victory at the

approaching Olympics.

“But, good Jupiter! what is the matter in the crowd behind us?”

Behind us, did you say?—oh! ah!—I perceive. My friend, it is well

that you spoke in time. Let us get into a place of safety as soon

as possible. Here!—let us conceal ourselves in the arch of this

aqueduct, and I will inform you presently of the origin of the

commotion. It has turned out as I have been anticipating. The

singular appearance of the cameleopard and the head of a man,

has, it seems, given offence to the notions of propriety

entertained, in general, by the wild animals domesticated in the

city. A mutiny has been the result; and, as is usual upon such

occasions, all human efforts will be of no avail in quelling the

mob. Several of the Syrians have already been devoured; but the

general voice of the four-footed patriots seems to be for eating

up the cameleopard. ‘The Prince of Poets,’ therefore, is upon his

hinder legs, running for his life. His courtiers have left him in

the lurch, and his concubines have followed so excellent an

example. ‘Delight of the Universe,’ thou art in a sad

predicament! ‘Glory of the East,’ thou art in danger of

mastication! Therefore never regard so piteously thy tail; it

will undoubtedly be draggled in the mud, and for this there is no

help. Look not behind thee, then, at its unavoidable degradation;

but take courage, ply thy legs with vigor, and scud for the

hippodrome! Remember that thou art Antiochus Epiphanes. Antiochus

the Illustrious!—also ‘Prince of Poets,’ ‘Glory of the East,’

‘Delight of the Universe,’ and ‘Most Remarkable of Cameleopards!’

Heavens! what a power of speed thou art displaying! What a

capacity for leg-bail thou art developing! Run, Prince!—Bravo,

Epiphanes! Well done, Cameleopard!—Glorious Antiochus!—He

runs!—he leaps!—he flies! Like an arrow from a catapult he

approaches the hippodrome! He leaps!—he shrieks!—he is there!

This is well; for hadst thou, ‘Glory of the East,’ been half a

second longer in reaching the gates of the Amphitheatre, there is

not a bear’s cub in Epidaphne that would not have had a nibble at

thy carcase. Let us be off—let us take our departure!—for we

shall find our delicate modern ears unable to endure the vast

uproar which is about to commence in celebration of the king’s

escape! Listen! it has already commenced. See!—the whole town is

topsy-turvy.

“Surely this is the most populous city of the East! What a

wilderness of people! what a jumble of all ranks and ages! what a

multiplicity of sects and nations! what a variety of costumes!

what a Babel of languages! what a screaming of beasts! what a

tinkling of instruments! what a parcel of philosophers!”

Come let us be off.

“Stay a moment! I see a vast hubbub in the hippodrome; what is

the meaning of it, I beseech you?”

That?—oh, nothing! The noble and free citizens of Epidaphne

being, as they declare, well satisfied of the faith, valor,

wisdom, and divinity of their king, and having, moreover, been

eye-witnesses of his late superhuman agility, do think it no more

than their duty to invest his brows (in addition to the poetic

crown) with the wreath of victory in the footrace—a wreath which

it is evident he must obtain at the celebration of the next

Olympiad, and which, therefore, they now give him in advance.

Footnotes—Four Beasts

(*1) Flavius Vospicus says, that the hymn here introduced was

sung by the rabble upon the occasion of Aurelian, in the Sarmatic

war, having slain, with his own hand, nine hundred and fifty of

the enemy.

THE MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE

What song the Syrens sang, or what name Achilles assumed when he hid

himself among women, although puzzling questions, are not beyond

_all_ conjecture.

—_Sir Thomas Browne._

The mental features discoursed of as the analytical, are, in

themselves, but little susceptible of analysis. We appreciate

them only in their effects. We know of them, among other things,

that they are always to their possessor, when inordinately

possessed, a source of the liveliest enjoyment. As the strong man

exults in his physical ability, delighting in such exercises as

call his muscles into action, so glories the analyst in that

moral activity which _disentangles._ He derives pleasure from

even the most trivial occupations bringing his talent into play.

He is fond of enigmas, of conundrums, of hieroglyphics;

exhibiting in his solutions of each a degree of _acumen_ which

appears to the ordinary apprehension præternatural. His results,

brought about by the very soul and essence of method, have, in

truth, the whole air of intuition.

The faculty of re-solution is possibly much invigorated by

mathematical study, and especially by that highest branch of it

which, unjustly, and merely on account of its retrograde

operations, has been called, as if _par excellence_, analysis.

Yet to calculate is not in itself to analyse. A chess-player, for

example, does the one without effort at the other. It follows

that the game of chess, in its effects upon mental character, is

greatly misunderstood. I am not now writing a treatise, but

simply prefacing a somewhat peculiar narrative by observations

very much at random; I will, therefore, take occasion to assert

that the higher powers of the reflective intellect are more

decidedly and more usefully tasked by the unostentatious game of

draughts than by all the elaborate frivolity of chess. In this

latter, where the pieces have different and _bizarre_ motions,

with various and variable values, what is only complex is

mistaken (a not unusual error) for what is profound. The

_attention_ is here called powerfully into play. If it flag for

an instant, an oversight is committed resulting in injury or

defeat. The possible moves being not only manifold but involute,

the chances of such oversights are multiplied; and in nine cases

out of ten it is the more concentrative rather than the more

acute player who conquers. In draughts, on the contrary, where

the moves are _unique_ and have but little variation, the

probabilities of inadvertence are diminished, and the mere

attention being left comparatively unemployed, what advantages

are obtained by either party are obtained by superior _acumen_.

To be less abstract, let us suppose a game of draughts where the

pieces are reduced to four kings, and where, of course, no

oversight is to be expected. It is obvious that here the victory

can be decided (the players being at all equal) only by some

_recherché_ movement, the result of some strong exertion of the

intellect. Deprived of ordinary resources, the analyst throws

himself into the spirit of his opponent, identifies himself

therewith, and not unfrequently sees thus, at a glance, the sole

methods (sometime indeed absurdly simple ones) by which he may

seduce into error or hurry into miscalculation.

Whist has long been noted for its influence upon what is termed

the calculating power; and men of the highest order of intellect

have been known to take an apparently unaccountable delight in

it, while eschewing chess as frivolous. Beyond doubt there is

nothing of a similar nature so greatly tasking the faculty of

analysis. The best chess-player in Christendom _may_ be little

more than the best player of chess; but proficiency in whist

implies capacity for success in all those more important

undertakings where mind struggles with mind. When I say

proficiency, I mean that perfection in the game which includes a

comprehension of _all_ the sources whence legitimate advantage

may be derived. These are not only manifold but multiform, and

lie frequently among recesses of thought altogether inaccessible

to the ordinary understanding. To observe attentively is to

remember distinctly; and, so far, the concentrative chess-player

will do very well at whist; while the rules of Hoyle (themselves

based upon the mere mechanism of the game) are sufficiently and

generally comprehensible. Thus to have a retentive memory, and to

proceed by “the book,” are points commonly regarded as the sum

total of good playing. But it is in matters beyond the limits of

mere rule that the skill of the analyst is evinced. He makes, in

silence, a host of observations and inferences. So, perhaps, do

his companions; and the difference in the extent of the

information obtained, lies not so much in the validity of the

inference as in the quality of the observation. The necessary

knowledge is that of _what_ to observe. Our player confines

himself not at all; nor, because the game is the object, does he

reject deductions from things external to the game. He examines

the countenance of his partner, comparing it carefully with that

of each of his opponents. He considers the mode of assorting the

cards in each hand; often counting trump by trump, and honor by

honor, through the glances bestowed by their holders upon each.

He notes every variation of face as the play progresses,

gathering a fund of thought from the differences in the

expression of certainty, of surprise, of triumph, or of chagrin.

From the manner of gathering up a trick he judges whether the

person taking it can make another in the suit. He recognises what

is played through feint, by the manner with which it is thrown

upon the table. A casual or inadvertent word; the accidental

dropping or turning of a card, with the accompanying anxiety or

carelessness in regard to its concealment; the counting of the

tricks, with the order of their arrangement; embarrassment,

hesitation, eagerness or trepidation—all afford, to his

apparently intuitive perception, indications of the true state of

affairs. The first two or three rounds having been played, he is

in full possession of the contents of each hand, and

thenceforward puts down his cards with as absolute a precision of

purpose as if the rest of the party had turned outward the faces

of their own.

The analytical power should not be confounded with ample

ingenuity; for while the analyst is necessarily ingenious, the

ingenious man is often remarkably incapable of analysis. The

constructive or combining power, by which ingenuity is usually

manifested, and to which the phrenologists (I believe

erroneously) have assigned a separate organ, supposing it a

primitive faculty, has been so frequently seen in those whose

intellect bordered otherwise upon idiocy, as to have attracted

general observation among writers on morals. Between ingenuity

and the analytic ability there exists a difference far greater,

indeed, than that between the fancy and the imagination, but of a

character very strictly analogous. It will be found, in fact,

that the ingenious are always fanciful, and the _truly_

imaginative never otherwise than analytic.

The narrative which follows will appear to the reader somewhat in

the light of a commentary upon the propositions just advanced.

Residing in Paris during the spring and part of the summer of

18—, I there became acquainted with a Monsieur C. Auguste Dupin.

This young gentleman was of an excellent, indeed of an

illustrious family, but, by a variety of untoward events, had

been reduced to such poverty that the energy of his character

succumbed beneath it, and he ceased to bestir himself in the

world, or to care for the retrieval of his fortunes. By courtesy

of his creditors, there still remained in his possession a small

remnant of his patrimony; and, upon the income arising from this,

he managed, by means of a rigorous economy, to procure the

necessaries of life, without troubling himself about its

superfluities. Books, indeed, were his sole luxuries, and in

Paris these are easily obtained.

Our first meeting was at an obscure library in the Rue

Montmartre, where the accident of our both being in search of the

same very rare and very remarkable volume, brought us into closer

communion. We saw each other again and again. I was deeply

interested in the little family history which he detailed to me

with all that candor which a Frenchman indulges whenever mere

self is his theme. I was astonished, too, at the vast extent of

his reading; and, above all, I felt my soul enkindled within me

by the wild fervor, and the vivid freshness of his imagination.

Seeking in Paris the objects I then sought, I felt that the

society of such a man would be to me a treasure beyond price; and

this feeling I frankly confided to him. It was at length arranged

that we should live together during my stay in the city; and as

my worldly circumstances were somewhat less embarrassed than his

own, I was permitted to be at the expense of renting, and

furnishing in a style which suited the rather fantastic gloom of

our common temper, a time-eaten and grotesque mansion, long

deserted through superstitions into which we did not inquire, and

tottering to its fall in a retired and desolate portion of the

Faubourg St. Germain.

Had the routine of our life at this place been known to the

world, we should have been regarded as madmen—although, perhaps,

as madmen of a harmless nature. Our seclusion was perfect. We

admitted no visitors. Indeed the locality of our retirement had

been carefully kept a secret from my own former associates; and

it had been many years since Dupin had ceased to know or be known

in Paris. We existed within ourselves alone.

It was a freak of fancy in my friend (for what else shall I call

it?) to be enamored of the night for her own sake; and into this

_bizarrerie_, as into all his others, I quietly fell; giving

myself up to his wild whims with a perfect _abandon_. The sable

divinity would not herself dwell with us always; but we could

counterfeit her presence. At the first dawn of the morning we

closed all the messy shutters of our old building; lighting a

couple of tapers which, strongly perfumed, threw out only the

ghastliest and feeblest of rays. By the aid of these we then

busied our souls in dreams—reading, writing, or conversing, until

warned by the clock of the advent of the true Darkness. Then we

sallied forth into the streets arm in arm, continuing the topics

of the day, or roaming far and wide until a late hour, seeking,

amid the wild lights and shadows of the populous city, that

infinity of mental excitement which quiet observation can afford.

At such times I could not help remarking and admiring (although

from his rich ideality I had been prepared to expect it) a

peculiar analytic ability in Dupin. He seemed, too, to take an

eager delight in its exercise—if not exactly in its display—and

did not hesitate to confess the pleasure thus derived. He boasted

to me, with a low chuckling laugh, that most men, in respect to

himself, wore windows in their bosoms, and was wont to follow up

such assertions by direct and very startling proofs of his

intimate knowledge of my own. His manner at these moments was

frigid and abstract; his eyes were vacant in expression; while

his voice, usually a rich tenor, rose into a treble which would

have sounded petulantly but for the deliberateness and entire

distinctness of the enunciation. Observing him in these moods, I

often dwelt meditatively upon the old philosophy of the Bi-Part

Soul, and amused myself with the fancy of a double Dupin—the

creative and the resolvent.

Let it not be supposed, from what I have just said, that I am

detailing any mystery, or penning any romance. What I have

described in the Frenchman, was merely the result of an excited,

or perhaps of a diseased intelligence. But of the character of

his remarks at the periods in question an example will best

convey the idea.

We were strolling one night down a long dirty street in the

vicinity of the Palais Royal. Being both, apparently, occupied

with thought, neither of us had spoken a syllable for fifteen

minutes at least. All at once Dupin broke forth with these words:

“He is a very little fellow, that’s true, and would do better for

the _Théâtre des Variétés_.”

“There can be no doubt of that,” I replied unwittingly, and not

at first observing (so much had I been absorbed in reflection)

the extraordinary manner in which the speaker had chimed in with

my meditations. In an instant afterward I recollected myself, and

my astonishment was profound.

“Dupin,” said I, gravely, “this is beyond my comprehension. I do

not hesitate to say that I am amazed, and can scarcely credit my

senses. How was it possible you should know I was thinking of

——?” Here I paused, to ascertain beyond a doubt whether he really

knew of whom I thought.

“—— of Chantilly,” said he, “why do you pause? You were remarking

to yourself that his diminutive figure unfitted him for tragedy.”

This was precisely what had formed the subject of my reflections.

Chantilly was a _quondam_ cobbler of the Rue St. Denis, who,

becoming stage-mad, had attempted the _rôle_ of Xerxes, in

Crébillon’s tragedy so called, and been notoriously Pasquinaded

for his pains.

“Tell me, for Heaven’s sake,” I exclaimed, “the method—if method

there is—by which you have been enabled to fathom my soul in this

matter.” In fact I was even more startled than I would have been

willing to express.

“It was the fruiterer,” replied my friend, “who brought you to

the conclusion that the mender of soles was not of sufficient

height for Xerxes _et id genus omne_.”

“The fruiterer!—you astonish me—I know no fruiterer whomsoever.”

“The man who ran up against you as we entered the street—it may

have been fifteen minutes ago.”

I now remembered that, in fact, a fruiterer, carrying upon his

head a large basket of apples, had nearly thrown me down, by

accident, as we passed from the Rue C—— into the thoroughfare

where we stood; but what this had to do with Chantilly I could

not possibly understand.

There was not a particle of _charlatânerie_ about Dupin. “I will

explain,” he said, “and that you may comprehend all clearly, we

will first retrace the course of your meditations, from the

moment in which I spoke to you until that of the _rencontre_ with

the fruiterer in question. The larger links of the chain run

thus—Chantilly, Orion, Dr. Nichols, Epicurus, Stereotomy, the

street stones, the fruiterer.”

There are few persons who have not, at some period of their

lives, amused themselves in retracing the steps by which

particular conclusions of their own minds have been attained. The

occupation is often full of interest; and he who attempts it for

the first time is astonished by the apparently illimitable

distance and incoherence between the starting-point and the goal.

What, then, must have been my amazement when I heard the

Frenchman speak what he had just spoken, and when I could not

help acknowledging that he had spoken the truth. He continued:

“We had been talking of horses, if I remember aright, just before

leaving the Rue C——. This was the last subject we discussed. As

we crossed into this street, a fruiterer, with a large basket

upon his head, brushing quickly past us, thrust you upon a pile

of paving stones collected at a spot where the causeway is

undergoing repair. You stepped upon one of the loose fragments,

slipped, slightly strained your ankle, appeared vexed or sulky,

muttered a few words, turned to look at the pile, and then

proceeded in silence. I was not particularly attentive to what

you did; but observation has become with me, of late, a species

of necessity.

“You kept your eyes upon the ground—glancing, with a petulant

expression, at the holes and ruts in the pavement, (so that I saw

you were still thinking of the stones,) until we reached the

little alley called Lamartine, which has been paved, by way of

experiment, with the overlapping and riveted blocks. Here your

countenance brightened up, and, perceiving your lips move, I

could not doubt that you murmured the word ‘stereotomy,’ a term

very affectedly applied to this species of pavement. I knew that

you could not say to yourself ‘stereotomy’ without being brought

to think of atomies, and thus of the theories of Epicurus; and

since, when we discussed this subject not very long ago, I

mentioned to you how singularly, yet with how little notice, the

vague guesses of that noble Greek had met with confirmation in

the late nebular cosmogony, I felt that you could not avoid

casting your eyes upward to the great _nebula_ in Orion, and I

certainly expected that you would do so. You did look up; and I

was now assured that I had correctly followed your steps. But in

that bitter _tirade_ upon Chantilly, which appeared in

yesterday’s ‘_Musée_,’ the satirist, making some disgraceful

allusions to the cobbler’s change of name upon assuming the

buskin, quoted a Latin line about which we have often conversed.

I mean the line

Perdidit antiquum litera prima sonum.

“I had told you that this was in reference to Orion, formerly

written Urion; and, from certain pungencies connected with this

explanation, I was aware that you could not have forgotten it. It

was clear, therefore, that you would not fail to combine the two

ideas of Orion and Chantilly. That you did combine them I saw by

the character of the smile which passed over your lips. You

thought of the poor cobbler’s immolation. So far, you had been

stooping in your gait; but now I saw you draw yourself up to your

full height. I was then sure that you reflected upon the

diminutive figure of Chantilly. At this point I interrupted your

meditations to remark that as, in fact, he was a very little

fellow—that Chantilly—he would do better at the _Théâtre des

Variétés_.”

Not long after this, we were looking over an evening edition of

the “Gazette des Tribunaux,” when the following paragraphs

arrested our attention.

“_Extraordinary Murders_.—This morning, about three o’clock, the

inhabitants of the Quartier St. Roch were aroused from sleep by a

succession of terrific shrieks, issuing, apparently, from the

fourth story of a house in the Rue Morgue, known to be in the

sole occupancy of one Madame L’Espanaye, and her daughter,

Mademoiselle Camille L’Espanaye. After some delay, occasioned by

a fruitless attempt to procure admission in the usual manner, the

gateway was broken in with a crowbar, and eight or ten of the

neighbors entered accompanied by two _gendarmes_. By this time

the cries had ceased; but, as the party rushed up the first

flight of stairs, two or more rough voices in angry contention

were distinguished and seemed to proceed from the upper part of

the house. As the second landing was reached, these sounds, also,

had ceased and everything remained perfectly quiet. The party

spread themselves and hurried from room to room. Upon arriving at

a large back chamber in the fourth story, (the door of which,

being found locked, with the key inside, was forced open,) a

spectacle presented itself which struck every one present not

less with horror than with astonishment.

“The apartment was in the wildest disorder—the furniture broken

and thrown about in all directions. There was only one bedstead;

and from this the bed had been removed, and thrown into the

middle of the floor. On a chair lay a razor, besmeared with

blood. On the hearth were two or three long and thick tresses of

grey human hair, also dabbled in blood, and seeming to have been

pulled out by the roots. Upon the floor were found four

Napoleons, an ear-ring of topaz, three large silver spoons, three

smaller of _métal d’Alger_, and two bags, containing nearly four

thousand francs in gold. The drawers of a _bureau_, which stood

in one corner were open, and had been, apparently, rifled,

although many articles still remained in them. A small iron safe

was discovered under the _bed_ (not under the bedstead). It was

open, with the key still in the door. It had no contents beyond a

few old letters, and other papers of little consequence.

“Of Madame L’Espanaye no traces were here seen; but an unusual

quantity of soot being observed in the fire-place, a search was

made in the chimney, and (horrible to relate!) the corpse of the

daughter, head downward, was dragged therefrom; it having been

thus forced up the narrow aperture for a considerable distance.

The body was quite warm. Upon examining it, many excoriations

were perceived, no doubt occasioned by the violence with which it

had been thrust up and disengaged. Upon the face were many severe

scratches, and, upon the throat, dark bruises, and deep

indentations of finger nails, as if the deceased had been

throttled to death.

“After a thorough investigation of every portion of the house,

without farther discovery, the party made its way into a small

paved yard in the rear of the building, where lay the corpse of

the old lady, with her throat so entirely cut that, upon an

attempt to raise her, the head fell off. The body, as well as the

head, was fearfully mutilated—the former so much so as scarcely

to retain any semblance of humanity.

“To this horrible mystery there is not as yet, we believe, the

slightest clew.”

The next day’s paper had these additional particulars.

“_The Tragedy in the Rue Morgue._—Many individuals have been

examined in relation to this most extraordinary and frightful

affair” [The word ‘affaire’ has not yet, in France, that levity

of import which it conveys with us], “but nothing whatever has

transpired to throw light upon it. We give below all the material

testimony elicited.

“_Pauline Dubourg_, laundress, deposes that she has known both

the deceased for three years, having washed for them during that

period. The old lady and her daughter seemed on good terms—very

affectionate towards each other. They were excellent pay. Could

not speak in regard to their mode or means of living. Believed

that Madame L. told fortunes for a living. Was reputed to have

money put by. Never met any persons in the house when she called

for the clothes or took them home. Was sure that they had no

servant in employ. There appeared to be no furniture in any part

of the building except in the fourth story.

“_Pierre Moreau_, tobacconist, deposes that he has been in the

habit of selling small quantities of tobacco and snuff to Madame

L’Espanaye for nearly four years. Was born in the neighborhood,

and has always resided there. The deceased and her daughter had

occupied the house in which the corpses were found, for more than

six years. It was formerly occupied by a jeweller, who under-let

the upper rooms to various persons. The house was the property of

Madame L. She became dissatisfied with the abuse of the premises

by her tenant, and moved into them herself, refusing to let any

portion. The old lady was childish. Witness had seen the daughter

some five or six times during the six years. The two lived an

exceedingly retired life—were reputed to have money. Had heard it

said among the neighbors that Madame L. told fortunes—did not

believe it. Had never seen any person enter the door except the

old lady and her daughter, a porter once or twice, and a

physician some eight or ten times.

“Many other persons, neighbors, gave evidence to the same effect.

No one was spoken of as frequenting the house. It was not known

whether there were any living connexions of Madame L. and her

daughter. The shutters of the front windows were seldom opened.

Those in the rear were always closed, with the exception of the

large back room, fourth story. The house was a good house—not

very old.

“_Isidore Musèt_, _gendarme_, deposes that he was called to the

house about three o’clock in the morning, and found some twenty

or thirty persons at the gateway, endeavoring to gain admittance.

Forced it open, at length, with a bayonet—not with a crowbar. Had

but little difficulty in getting it open, on account of its being

a double or folding gate, and bolted neither at bottom not top.

The shrieks were continued until the gate was forced—and then

suddenly ceased. They seemed to be screams of some person (or

persons) in great agony—were loud and drawn out, not short and

quick. Witness led the way up stairs. Upon reaching the first

landing, heard two voices in loud and angry contention—the one a

gruff voice, the other much shriller—a very strange voice. Could

distinguish some words of the former, which was that of a

Frenchman. Was positive that it was not a woman’s voice. Could

distinguish the words ‘_sacré_’ and ‘_diable._’ The shrill voice

was that of a foreigner. Could not be sure whether it was the

voice of a man or of a woman. Could not make out what was said,

but believed the language to be Spanish. The state of the room

and of the bodies was described by this witness as we described

them yesterday.

“_Henri Duval_, a neighbor, and by trade a silver-smith, deposes

that he was one of the party who first entered the house.

Corroborates the testimony of Musèt in general. As soon as they

forced an entrance, they reclosed the door, to keep out the

crowd, which collected very fast, notwithstanding the lateness of

the hour. The shrill voice, this witness thinks, was that of an

Italian. Was certain it was not French. Could not be sure that it

was a man’s voice. It might have been a woman’s. Was not

acquainted with the Italian language. Could not distinguish the

words, but was convinced by the intonation that the speaker was

an Italian. Knew Madame L. and her daughter. Had conversed with

both frequently. Was sure that the shrill voice was not that of

either of the deceased.

“——_Odenheimer, restaurateur._ This witness volunteered his

testimony. Not speaking French, was examined through an

interpreter. Is a native of Amsterdam. Was passing the house at

the time of the shrieks. They lasted for several minutes—probably

ten. They were long and loud—very awful and distressing. Was one

of those who entered the building. Corroborated the previous

evidence in every respect but one. Was sure that the shrill voice

was that of a man—of a Frenchman. Could not distinguish the words

uttered. They were loud and quick—unequal—spoken apparently in

fear as well as in anger. The voice was harsh—not so much shrill

as harsh. Could not call it a shrill voice. The gruff voice said

repeatedly ‘_sacré_,’ ‘_diable_,’ and once ‘_mon Dieu._’

“_Jules Mignaud_, banker, of the firm of Mignaud et Fils, Rue

Deloraine. Is the elder Mignaud. Madame L’Espanaye had some

property. Had opened an account with his banking house in the

spring of the year—(eight years previously). Made frequent

deposits in small sums. Had checked for nothing until the third

day before her death, when she took out in person the sum of 4000

francs. This sum was paid in gold, and a clerk went home with the

money.

“_Adolphe Le Bon_, clerk to Mignaud et Fils, deposes that on the

day in question, about noon, he accompanied Madame L’Espanaye to

her residence with the 4000 francs, put up in two bags. Upon the

door being opened, Mademoiselle L. appeared and took from his

hands one of the bags, while the old lady relieved him of the

other. He then bowed and departed. Did not see any person in the

street at the time. It is a by-street—very lonely.

“_William Bird_, tailor deposes that he was one of the party who

entered the house. Is an Englishman. Has lived in Paris two

years. Was one of the first to ascend the stairs. Heard the

voices in contention. The gruff voice was that of a Frenchman.

Could make out several words, but cannot now remember all. Heard

distinctly ‘_sacré_’ and ‘_mon Dieu._’ There was a sound at the

moment as if of several persons struggling—a scraping and

scuffling sound. The shrill voice was very loud—louder than the

gruff one. Is sure that it was not the voice of an Englishman.

Appeared to be that of a German. Might have been a woman’s voice.

Does not understand German.

“Four of the above-named witnesses, being recalled, deposed that

the door of the chamber in which was found the body of

Mademoiselle L. was locked on the inside when the party reached

it. Every thing was perfectly silent—no groans or noises of any

kind. Upon forcing the door no person was seen. The windows, both

of the back and front room, were down and firmly fastened from

within. A door between the two rooms was closed, but not locked.

The door leading from the front room into the passage was locked,

with the key on the inside. A small room in the front of the

house, on the fourth story, at the head of the passage was open,

the door being ajar. This room was crowded with old beds, boxes,

and so forth. These were carefully removed and searched. There

was not an inch of any portion of the house which was not

carefully searched. Sweeps were sent up and down the chimneys.

The house was a four story one, with garrets (_mansardes._) A

trap-door on the roof was nailed down very securely—did not

appear to have been opened for years. The time elapsing between

the hearing of the voices in contention and the breaking open of

the room door, was variously stated by the witnesses. Some made

it as short as three minutes—some as long as five. The door was

opened with difficulty.

“_Alfonzo Garcio_, undertaker, deposes that he resides in the Rue

Morgue. Is a native of Spain. Was one of the party who entered

the house. Did not proceed up stairs. Is nervous, and was

apprehensive of the consequences of agitation. Heard the voices

in contention. The gruff voice was that of a Frenchman. Could not

distinguish what was said. The shrill voice was that of an

Englishman—is sure of this. Does not understand the English

language, but judges by the intonation.

“_Alberto Montani_, confectioner, deposes that he was among the

first to ascend the stairs. Heard the voices in question. The

gruff voice was that of a Frenchman. Distinguished several words.

The speaker appeared to be expostulating. Could not make out the

words of the shrill voice. Spoke quick and unevenly. Thinks it

the voice of a Russian. Corroborates the general testimony. Is an

Italian. Never conversed with a native of Russia.

“Several witnesses, recalled, here testified that the chimneys of

all the rooms on the fourth story were too narrow to admit the

passage of a human being. By ‘sweeps’ were meant cylindrical

sweeping brushes, such as are employed by those who clean

chimneys. These brushes were passed up and down every flue in the

house. There is no back passage by which any one could have

descended while the party proceeded up stairs. The body of

Mademoiselle L’Espanaye was so firmly wedged in the chimney that

it could not be got down until four or five of the party united

their strength.

“_Paul Dumas_, physician, deposes that he was called to view the

bodies about day-break. They were both then lying on the sacking

of the bedstead in the chamber where Mademoiselle L. was found.

The corpse of the young lady was much bruised and excoriated. The

fact that it had been thrust up the chimney would sufficiently

account for these appearances. The throat was greatly chafed.

There were several deep scratches just below the chin, together

with a series of livid spots which were evidently the impression

of fingers. The face was fearfully discolored, and the eye-balls

protruded. The tongue had been partially bitten through. A large

bruise was discovered upon the pit of the stomach, produced,

apparently, by the pressure of a knee. In the opinion of M.

Dumas, Mademoiselle L’Espanaye had been throttled to death by

some person or persons unknown. The corpse of the mother was

horribly mutilated. All the bones of the right leg and arm were

more or less shattered. The left _tibia_ much splintered, as well

as all the ribs of the left side. Whole body dreadfully bruised

and discolored. It was not possible to say how the injuries had

been inflicted. A heavy club of wood, or a broad bar of iron—a

chair—any large, heavy, and obtuse weapon would have produced

such results, if wielded by the hands of a very powerful man. No

woman could have inflicted the blows with any weapon. The head of

the deceased, when seen by witness, was entirely separated from

the body, and was also greatly shattered. The throat had

evidently been cut with some very sharp instrument—probably with

a razor.

“_Alexandre Etienne_, surgeon, was called with M. Dumas to view

the bodies. Corroborated the testimony, and the opinions of M.

Dumas.

“Nothing farther of importance was elicited, although several

other persons were examined. A murder so mysterious, and so

perplexing in all its particulars, was never before committed in

Paris—if indeed a murder has been committed at all. The police

are entirely at fault—an unusual occurrence in affairs of this

nature. There is not, however, the shadow of a clew apparent.”

The evening edition of the paper stated that the greatest

excitement still continued in the Quartier St. Roch—that the

premises in question had been carefully re-searched, and fresh

examinations of witnesses instituted, but all to no purpose. A

postscript, however, mentioned that Adolphe Le Bon had been

arrested and imprisoned—although nothing appeared to criminate

him, beyond the facts already detailed.

Dupin seemed singularly interested in the progress of this

affair—at least so I judged from his manner, for he made no

comments. It was only after the announcement that Le Bon had been

imprisoned, that he asked me my opinion respecting the murders.

I could merely agree with all Paris in considering them an

insoluble mystery. I saw no means by which it would be possible

to trace the murderer.

“We must not judge of the means,” said Dupin, “by this shell of

an examination. The Parisian police, so much extolled for

_acumen_, are cunning, but no more. There is no method in their

proceedings, beyond the method of the moment. They make a vast

parade of measures; but, not unfrequently, these are so ill

adapted to the objects proposed, as to put us in mind of Monsieur

Jourdain’s calling for his _robe-de-chambre—pour mieux entendre

la musique._ The results attained by them are not unfrequently

surprising, but, for the most part, are brought about by simple

diligence and activity. When these qualities are unavailing,

their schemes fail. Vidocq, for example, was a good guesser and a

persevering man. But, without educated thought, he erred

continually by the very intensity of his investigations. He

impaired his vision by holding the object too close. He might

see, perhaps, one or two points with unusual clearness, but in so

doing he, necessarily, lost sight of the matter as a whole. Thus

there is such a thing as being too profound. Truth is not always

in a well. In fact, as regards the more important knowledge, I do

believe that she is invariably superficial. The depth lies in the

valleys where we seek her, and not upon the mountain-tops where

she is found. The modes and sources of this kind of error are

well typified in the contemplation of the heavenly bodies. To

look at a star by glances—to view it in a side-long way, by

turning toward it the exterior portions of the _retina_ (more

susceptible of feeble impressions of light than the interior), is

to behold the star distinctly—is to have the best appreciation of

its lustre—a lustre which grows dim just in proportion as we turn

our vision _fully_ upon it. A greater number of rays actually

fall upon the eye in the latter case, but, in the former, there

is the more refined capacity for comprehension. By undue

profundity we perplex and enfeeble thought; and it is possible to

make even Venus herself vanish from the firmament by a scrutiny

too sustained, too concentrated, or too direct.

“As for these murders, let us enter into some examinations for

ourselves, before we make up an opinion respecting them. An

inquiry will afford us amusement,” [I thought this an odd term,

so applied, but said nothing] “and, besides, Le Bon once rendered

me a service for which I am not ungrateful. We will go and see

the premises with our own eyes. I know G——, the Prefect of

Police, and shall have no difficulty in obtaining the necessary

permission.”

The permission was obtained, and we proceeded at once to the Rue

Morgue. This is one of those miserable thoroughfares which

intervene between the Rue Richelieu and the Rue St. Roch. It was

late in the afternoon when we reached it, as this quarter is at a

great distance from that in which we resided. The house was

readily found; for there were still many persons gazing up at the

closed shutters, with an objectless curiosity, from the opposite

side of the way. It was an ordinary Parisian house, with a

gateway, on one side of which was a glazed watch-box, with a

sliding panel in the window, indicating a _loge de concierge._

Before going in we walked up the street, turned down an alley,

and then, again turning, passed in the rear of the

building—Dupin, meanwhile examining the whole neighborhood, as

well as the house, with a minuteness of attention for which I

could see no possible object.

Retracing our steps, we came again to the front of the dwelling,

rang, and, having shown our credentials, were admitted by the

agents in charge. We went up stairs—into the chamber where the

body of Mademoiselle L’Espanaye had been found, and where both

the deceased still lay. The disorders of the room had, as usual,

been suffered to exist. I saw nothing beyond what had been stated

in the “Gazette des Tribunaux.” Dupin scrutinized every thing—not

excepting the bodies of the victims. We then went into the other

rooms, and into the yard; a _gendarme_ accompanying us

throughout. The examination occupied us until dark, when we took

our departure. On our way home my companion stepped in for a

moment at the office of one of the daily papers.

I have said that the whims of my friend were manifold, and that

_Je les ménageais_:—for this phrase there is no English

equivalent. It was his humor, now, to decline all conversation on

the subject of the murder, until about noon the next day. He then

asked me, suddenly, if I had observed any thing _peculiar_ at the

scene of the atrocity.

There was something in his manner of emphasizing the word

“peculiar,” which caused me to shudder, without knowing why.

“No, nothing _peculiar_,” I said; “nothing more, at least, than

we both saw stated in the paper.”

“The ‘Gazette,’” he replied, “has not entered, I fear, into the

unusual horror of the thing. But dismiss the idle opinions of

this print. It appears to me that this mystery is considered

insoluble, for the very reason which should cause it to be

regarded as easy of solution—I mean for the _outré_ character of

its features. The police are confounded by the seeming absence of

motive—not for the murder itself—but for the atrocity of the

murder. They are puzzled, too, by the seeming impossibility of

reconciling the voices heard in contention, with the facts that

no one was discovered up stairs but the assassinated Mademoiselle

L’Espanaye, and that there were no means of egress without the

notice of the party ascending. The wild disorder of the room; the

corpse thrust, with the head downward, up the chimney; the

frightful mutilation of the body of the old lady; these

considerations, with those just mentioned, and others which I

need not mention, have sufficed to paralyze the powers, by

putting completely at fault the boasted _acumen_, of the

government agents. They have fallen into the gross but common

error of confounding the unusual with the abstruse. But it is by

these deviations from the plane of the ordinary, that reason

feels its way, if at all, in its search for the true. In

investigations such as we are now pursuing, it should not be so

much asked ‘what has occurred,’ as ‘what has occurred that has

never occurred before.’ In fact, the facility with which I shall

arrive, or have arrived, at the solution of this mystery, is in

the direct ratio of its apparent insolubility in the eyes of the

police.”

I stared at the speaker in mute astonishment.

“I am now awaiting,” continued he, looking toward the door of our

apartment—“I am now awaiting a person who, although perhaps not

the perpetrator of these butcheries, must have been in some

measure implicated in their perpetration. Of the worst portion of

the crimes committed, it is probable that he is innocent. I hope

that I am right in this supposition; for upon it I build my

expectation of reading the entire riddle. I look for the man

here—in this room—every moment. It is true that he may not

arrive; but the probability is that he will. Should he come, it

will be necessary to detain him. Here are pistols; and we both

know how to use them when occasion demands their use.”

I took the pistols, scarcely knowing what I did, or believing

what I heard, while Dupin went on, very much as if in a

soliloquy. I have already spoken of his abstract manner at such

times. His discourse was addressed to myself; but his voice,

although by no means loud, had that intonation which is commonly

employed in speaking to some one at a great distance. His eyes,

vacant in expression, regarded only the wall.

“That the voices heard in contention,” he said, “by the party

upon the stairs, were not the voices of the women themselves, was

fully proved by the evidence. This relieves us of all doubt upon

the question whether the old lady could have first destroyed the

daughter and afterward have committed suicide. I speak of this

point chiefly for the sake of method; for the strength of Madame

L’Espanaye would have been utterly unequal to the task of

thrusting her daughter’s corpse up the chimney as it was found;

and the nature of the wounds upon her own person entirely

preclude the idea of self-destruction. Murder, then, has been

committed by some third party; and the voices of this third party

were those heard in contention. Let me now advert—not to the

whole testimony respecting these voices—but to what was

_peculiar_ in that testimony. Did you observe any thing peculiar

about it?”

I remarked that, while all the witnesses agreed in supposing the

gruff voice to be that of a Frenchman, there was much

disagreement in regard to the shrill, or, as one individual

termed it, the harsh voice.

“That was the evidence itself,” said Dupin, “but it was not the

peculiarity of the evidence. You have observed nothing

distinctive. Yet there _was_ something to be observed. The

witnesses, as you remark, agreed about the gruff voice; they were

here unanimous. But in regard to the shrill voice, the

peculiarity is—not that they disagreed—but that, while an

Italian, an Englishman, a Spaniard, a Hollander, and a Frenchman

attempted to describe it, each one spoke of it as that _of a

foreigner_. Each is sure that it was not the voice of one of his

own countrymen. Each likens it—not to the voice of an individual

of any nation with whose language he is conversant—but the

converse. The Frenchman supposes it the voice of a Spaniard, and

‘might have distinguished some words _had he been acquainted with

the Spanish._’ The Dutchman maintains it to have been that of a

Frenchman; but we find it stated that ‘_not understanding French

this witness was examined through an interpreter._’ The

Englishman thinks it the voice of a German, and ‘_does not

understand German._’ The Spaniard ‘is sure’ that it was that of

an Englishman, but ‘judges by the intonation’ altogether, ‘_as he

has no knowledge of the English._’ The Italian believes it the

voice of a Russian, but ‘_has never conversed with a native of

Russia._’ A second Frenchman differs, moreover, with the first,

and is positive that the voice was that of an Italian; but, _not

being cognizant of that tongue_, is, like the Spaniard,

‘convinced by the intonation.’ Now, how strangely unusual must

that voice have really been, about which such testimony as this

_could_ have been elicited!—in whose _tones_, even, denizens of

the five great divisions of Europe could recognise nothing

familiar! You will say that it might have been the voice of an

Asiatic—of an African. Neither Asiatics nor Africans abound in

Paris; but, without denying the inference, I will now merely call

your attention to three points. The voice is termed by one

witness ‘harsh rather than shrill.’ It is represented by two

others to have been ‘quick and _unequal._’ No words—no sounds

resembling words—were by any witness mentioned as

distinguishable.

“I know not,” continued Dupin, “what impression I may have made,

so far, upon your own understanding; but I do not hesitate to say

that legitimate deductions even from this portion of the

testimony—the portion respecting the gruff and shrill voices—are

in themselves sufficient to engender a suspicion which should

give direction to all farther progress in the investigation of

the mystery. I said ‘legitimate deductions;’ but my meaning is

not thus fully expressed. I designed to imply that the deductions

are the _sole_ proper ones, and that the suspicion arises

_inevitably_ from them as the single result. What the suspicion

is, however, I will not say just yet. I merely wish you to bear

in mind that, with myself, it was sufficiently forcible to give a

definite form—a certain tendency—to my inquiries in the chamber.

“Let us now transport ourselves, in fancy, to this chamber. What

shall we first seek here? The means of egress employed by the

murderers. It is not too much to say that neither of us believe

in præternatural events. Madame and Mademoiselle L’Espanaye were

not destroyed by spirits. The doers of the deed were material,

and escaped materially. Then how? Fortunately, there is but one

mode of reasoning upon the point, and that mode _must_ lead us to

a definite decision. Let us examine, each by each, the possible

means of egress. It is clear that the assassins were in the room

where Mademoiselle L’Espanaye was found, or at least in the room

adjoining, when the party ascended the stairs. It is then only

from these two apartments that we have to seek issues. The police

have laid bare the floors, the ceilings, and the masonry of the

walls, in every direction. No _secret_ issues could have escaped

their vigilance. But, not trusting to _their_ eyes, I examined

with my own. There were, then, no secret issues. Both doors

leading from the rooms into the passage were securely locked,

with the keys inside. Let us turn to the chimneys. These,

although of ordinary width for some eight or ten feet above the

hearths, will not admit, throughout their extent, the body of a

large cat. The impossibility of egress, by means already stated,

being thus absolute, we are reduced to the windows. Through those

of the front room no one could have escaped without notice from

the crowd in the street. The murderers _must_ have passed, then,

through those of the back room. Now, brought to this conclusion

in so unequivocal a manner as we are, it is not our part, as

reasoners, to reject it on account of apparent impossibilities.

It is only left for us to prove that these apparent

‘impossibilities’ are, in reality, not such.

“There are two windows in the chamber. One of them is

unobstructed by furniture, and is wholly visible. The lower

portion of the other is hidden from view by the head of the

unwieldy bedstead which is thrust close up against it. The former

was found securely fastened from within. It resisted the utmost

force of those who endeavored to raise it. A large gimlet-hole

had been pierced in its frame to the left, and a very stout nail

was found fitted therein, nearly to the head. Upon examining the

other window, a similar nail was seen similarly fitted in it; and

a vigorous attempt to raise this sash, failed also. The police

were now entirely satisfied that egress had not been in these

directions. And, _therefore_, it was thought a matter of

supererogation to withdraw the nails and open the windows.

“My own examination was somewhat more particular, and was so for

the reason I have just given—because here it was, I knew, that

all apparent impossibilities _must_ be proved to be not such in

reality.

“I proceeded to think thus—_a posteriori_. The murderers did

escape from one of these windows. This being so, they could not

have refastened the sashes from the inside, as they were found

fastened;—the consideration which put a stop, through its

obviousness, to the scrutiny of the police in this quarter. Yet

the sashes _were_ fastened. They _must_, then, have the power of

fastening themselves. There was no escape from this conclusion. I

stepped to the unobstructed casement, withdrew the nail with some

difficulty and attempted to raise the sash. It resisted all my

efforts, as I had anticipated. A concealed spring must, I now

know, exist; and this corroboration of my idea convinced me that

my premises at least, were correct, however mysterious still

appeared the circumstances attending the nails. A careful search

soon brought to light the hidden spring. I pressed it, and,

satisfied with the discovery, forbore to upraise the sash.

“I now replaced the nail and regarded it attentively. A person

passing out through this window might have reclosed it, and the

spring would have caught—but the nail could not have been

replaced. The conclusion was plain, and again narrowed in the

field of my investigations. The assassins _must_ have escaped

through the other window. Supposing, then, the springs upon each

sash to be the same, as was probable, there _must_ be found a

difference between the nails, or at least between the modes of

their fixture. Getting upon the sacking of the bedstead, I looked

over the head-board minutely at the second casement. Passing my

hand down behind the board, I readily discovered and pressed the

spring, which was, as I had supposed, identical in character with

its neighbor. I now looked at the nail. It was as stout as the

other, and apparently fitted in the same manner—driven in nearly

up to the head.

“You will say that I was puzzled; but, if you think so, you must

have misunderstood the nature of the inductions. To use a

sporting phrase, I had not been once ‘at fault.’ The scent had

never for an instant been lost. There was no flaw in any link of

the chain. I had traced the secret to its ultimate result,—and

that result was _the nail._ It had, I say, in every respect, the

appearance of its fellow in the other window; but this fact was

an absolute nullity (conclusive us it might seem to be) when

compared with the consideration that here, at this point,

terminated the clew. ‘There _must_ be something wrong,’ I said,

‘about the nail.’ I touched it; and the head, with about a

quarter of an inch of the shank, came off in my fingers. The rest

of the shank was in the gimlet-hole where it had been broken off.

The fracture was an old one (for its edges were incrusted with

rust), and had apparently been accomplished by the blow of a

hammer, which had partially imbedded, in the top of the bottom

sash, the head portion of the nail. I now carefully replaced this

head portion in the indentation whence I had taken it, and the

resemblance to a perfect nail was complete—the fissure was

invisible. Pressing the spring, I gently raised the sash for a

few inches; the head went up with it, remaining firm in its bed.

I closed the window, and the semblance of the whole nail was

again perfect.

“The riddle, so far, was now unriddled. The assassin had escaped

through the window which looked upon the bed. Dropping of its own

accord upon his exit (or perhaps purposely closed), it had become

fastened by the spring; and it was the retention of this spring

which had been mistaken by the police for that of the

nail,—farther inquiry being thus considered unnecessary.

“The next question is that of the mode of descent. Upon this

point I had been satisfied in my walk with you around the

building. About five feet and a half from the casement in

question there runs a lightning-rod. From this rod it would have

been impossible for any one to reach the window itself, to say

nothing of entering it. I observed, however, that the shutters of

the fourth story were of the peculiar kind called by Parisian

carpenters _ferrades_—a kind rarely employed at the present day,

but frequently seen upon very old mansions at Lyons and Bordeaux.

They are in the form of an ordinary door (a single, not a folding

door), except that the lower half is latticed or worked in open

trellis—thus affording an excellent hold for the hands. In the

present instance these shutters are fully three feet and a half

broad. When we saw them from the rear of the house, they were

both about half open—that is to say, they stood off at right

angles from the wall. It is probable that the police, as well as

myself, examined the back of the tenement; but, if so, in looking

at these _ferrades_ in the line of their breadth (as they must

have done), they did not perceive this great breadth itself, or,

at all events, failed to take it into due consideration. In fact,

having once satisfied themselves that no egress could have been

made in this quarter, they would naturally bestow here a very

cursory examination. It was clear to me, however, that the

shutter belonging to the window at the head of the bed, would, if

swung fully back to the wall, reach to within two feet of the

lightning-rod. It was also evident that, by exertion of a very

unusual degree of activity and courage, an entrance into the

window, from the rod, might have been thus effected. By reaching

to the distance of two feet and a half (we now suppose the

shutter open to its whole extent) a robber might have taken a

firm grasp upon the trellis-work. Letting go, then, his hold upon

the rod, placing his feet securely against the wall, and

springing boldly from it, he might have swung the shutter so as

to close it, and, if we imagine the window open at the time,

might even have swung himself into the room.

“I wish you to bear especially in mind that I have spoken of a

_very_ unusual degree of activity as requisite to success in so

hazardous and so difficult a feat. It is my design to show you,

first, that the thing might possibly have been accomplished:—but,

secondly and _chiefly_, I wish to impress upon your understanding

the _very extraordinary_—the almost præternatural character of

that agility which could have accomplished it.

“You will say, no doubt, using the language of the law, that ‘to

make out my case,’ I should rather undervalue, than insist upon a

full estimation of the activity required in this matter. This may

be the practice in law, but it is not the usage of reason. My

ultimate object is only the truth. My immediate purpose is to

lead you to place in juxtaposition, that _very unusual_ activity

of which I have just spoken with that _very peculiar_ shrill (or

harsh) and _unequal_ voice, about whose nationality no two

persons could be found to agree, and in whose utterance no

syllabification could be detected.”

At these words a vague and half-formed conception of the meaning

of Dupin flitted over my mind. I seemed to be upon the verge of

comprehension without power to comprehend—as men, at times, find

themselves upon the brink of remembrance without being able, in

the end, to remember. My friend went on with his discourse.

“You will see,” he said, “that I have shifted the question from

the mode of egress to that of ingress. It was my design to convey

the idea that both were effected in the same manner, at the same

point. Let us now revert to the interior of the room. Let us

survey the appearances here. The drawers of the bureau, it is

said, had been rifled, although many articles of apparel still

remained within them. The conclusion here is absurd. It is a mere

guess—a very silly one—and no more. How are we to know that the

articles found in the drawers were not all these drawers had

originally contained? Madame L’Espanaye and her daughter lived an

exceedingly retired life—saw no company—seldom went out—had

little use for numerous changes of habiliment. Those found were

at least of as good quality as any likely to be possessed by

these ladies. If a thief had taken any, why did he not take the

best—why did he not take all? In a word, why did he abandon four

thousand francs in gold to encumber himself with a bundle of

linen? The gold _was_ abandoned. Nearly the whole sum mentioned

by Monsieur Mignaud, the banker, was discovered, in bags, upon

the floor. I wish you, therefore, to discard from your thoughts

the blundering idea of _motive_, engendered in the brains of the

police by that portion of the evidence which speaks of money

delivered at the door of the house. Coincidences ten times as

remarkable as this (the delivery of the money, and murder

committed within three days upon the party receiving it), happen

to all of us every hour of our lives, without attracting even

momentary notice. Coincidences, in general, are great

stumbling-blocks in the way of that class of thinkers who have

been educated to know nothing of the theory of probabilities—that

theory to which the most glorious objects of human research are

indebted for the most glorious of illustration. In the present

instance, had the gold been gone, the fact of its delivery three

days before would have formed something more than a coincidence.

It would have been corroborative of this idea of motive. But,

under the real circumstances of the case, if we are to suppose

gold the motive of this outrage, we must also imagine the

perpetrator so vacillating an idiot as to have abandoned his gold

and his motive together.

“Keeping now steadily in mind the points to which I have drawn

your attention—that peculiar voice, that unusual agility, and

that startling absence of motive in a murder so singularly

atrocious as this—let us glance at the butchery itself. Here is a

woman strangled to death by manual strength, and thrust up a

chimney, head downward. Ordinary assassins employ no such modes

of murder as this. Least of all, do they thus dispose of the

murdered. In the manner of thrusting the corpse up the chimney,

you will admit that there was something _excessively

outré_—something altogether irreconcilable with our common

notions of human action, even when we suppose the actors the most

depraved of men. Think, too, how great must have been that

strength which could have thrust the body _up_ such an aperture

so forcibly that the united vigor of several persons was found

barely sufficient to drag it _down!_

“Turn, now, to other indications of the employment of a vigor

most marvellous. On the hearth were thick tresses—very thick

tresses—of grey human hair. These had been torn out by the roots.

You are aware of the great force necessary in tearing thus from

the head even twenty or thirty hairs together. You saw the locks

in question as well as myself. Their roots (a hideous sight!)

were clotted with fragments of the flesh of the scalp—sure token

of the prodigious power which had been exerted in uprooting

perhaps half a million of hairs at a time. The throat of the old

lady was not merely cut, but the head absolutely severed from the

body: the instrument was a mere razor. I wish you also to look at

the _brutal_ ferocity of these deeds. Of the bruises upon the

body of Madame L’Espanaye I do not speak. Monsieur Dumas, and his

worthy coadjutor Monsieur Etienne, have pronounced that they were

inflicted by some obtuse instrument; and so far these gentlemen

are very correct. The obtuse instrument was clearly the stone

pavement in the yard, upon which the victim had fallen from the

window which looked in upon the bed. This idea, however simple it

may now seem, escaped the police for the same reason that the

breadth of the shutters escaped them—because, by the affair of

the nails, their perceptions had been hermetically sealed against

the possibility of the windows having ever been opened at all.

“If now, in addition to all these things, you have properly

reflected upon the odd disorder of the chamber, we have gone so

far as to combine the ideas of an agility astounding, a strength

superhuman, a ferocity brutal, a butchery without motive, a

_grotesquerie_ in horror absolutely alien from humanity, and a

voice foreign in tone to the ears of men of many nations, and

devoid of all distinct or intelligible syllabification. What

result, then, has ensued? What impression have I made upon your

fancy?”

I felt a creeping of the flesh as Dupin asked me the question. “A

madman,” I said, “has done this deed—some raving maniac, escaped

from a neighboring _Maison de Santé._”

“In some respects,” he replied, “your idea is not irrelevant. But

the voices of madmen, even in their wildest paroxysms, are never

found to tally with that peculiar voice heard upon the stairs.

Madmen are of some nation, and their language, however incoherent

in its words, has always the coherence of syllabification.

Besides, the hair of a madman is not such as I now hold in my

hand. I disentangled this little tuft from the rigidly clutched

fingers of Madame L’Espanaye. Tell me what you can make of it.”

“Dupin!” I said, completely unnerved; “this hair is most

unusual—this is no _human_ hair.”

“I have not asserted that it is,” said he; “but, before we decide

this point, I wish you to glance at the little sketch I have here

traced upon this paper. It is a _fac-simile_ drawing of what has

been described in one portion of the testimony as ‘dark bruises,

and deep indentations of finger nails,’ upon the throat of

Mademoiselle L’Espanaye, and in another (by Messrs. Dumas and

Etienne,) as a ‘series of livid spots, evidently the impression

of fingers.’

“You will perceive,” continued my friend, spreading out the paper

upon the table before us, “that this drawing gives the idea of a

firm and fixed hold. There is no _slipping_ apparent. Each finger

has retained—possibly until the death of the victim—the fearful

grasp by which it originally imbedded itself. Attempt, now, to

place all your fingers, at the same time, in the respective

impressions as you see them.”

I made the attempt in vain.

“We are possibly not giving this matter a fair trial,” he said.

“The paper is spread out upon a plane surface; but the human

throat is cylindrical. Here is a billet of wood, the

circumference of which is about that of the throat. Wrap the

drawing around it, and try the experiment again.”

I did so; but the difficulty was even more obvious than before.

“This,” I said, “is the mark of no human hand.”

“Read now,” replied Dupin, “this passage from Cuvier.”

It was a minute anatomical and generally descriptive account of

the large fulvous Ourang-Outang of the East Indian Islands. The

gigantic stature, the prodigious strength and activity, the wild

ferocity, and the imitative propensities of these mammalia are

sufficiently well known to all. I understood the full horrors of

the murder at once.

“The description of the digits,” said I, as I made an end of

reading, “is in exact accordance with this drawing. I see that no

animal but an Ourang-Outang, of the species here mentioned, could

have impressed the indentations as you have traced them. This

tuft of tawny hair, too, is identical in character with that of

the beast of Cuvier. But I cannot possibly comprehend the

particulars of this frightful mystery. Besides, there were _two_

voices heard in contention, and one of them was unquestionably

the voice of a Frenchman.”

“True; and you will remember an expression attributed almost

unanimously, by the evidence, to this voice,—the expression,

‘_mon Dieu!_’ This, under the circumstances, has been justly

characterized by one of the witnesses (Montani, the

confectioner,) as an expression of remonstrance or expostulation.

Upon these two words, therefore, I have mainly built my hopes of

a full solution of the riddle. A Frenchman was cognizant of the

murder. It is possible—indeed it is far more than probable—that

he was innocent of all participation in the bloody transactions

which took place. The Ourang-Outang may have escaped from him. He

may have traced it to the chamber; but, under the agitating

circumstances which ensued, he could never have re-captured it.

It is still at large. I will not pursue these guesses—for I have

no right to call them more—since the shades of reflection upon

which they are based are scarcely of sufficient depth to be

appreciable by my own intellect, and since I could not pretend to

make them intelligible to the understanding of another. We will

call them guesses then, and speak of them as such. If the

Frenchman in question is indeed, as I suppose, innocent of this

atrocity, this advertisement which I left last night, upon our

return home, at the office of ‘Le Monde’ (a paper devoted to the

shipping interest, and much sought by sailors), will bring him to

our residence.”

He handed me a paper, and I read thus:

CAUGHT—_In the Bois de Boulogne, early in the morning of the

——inst.,_ (the morning of the murder),owner _a very large, tawny

Ourang-Outang of the Bornese species. The owner (who is

ascertained to be a sailor, belonging to a Maltese vessel) may

have the animal again, upon identifying it satisfactorily, and

paying a few charges arising from its capture and keeping. Call

at No. ——, Rue ——, Faubourg St. Germain—au troisième._

“How was it possible,” I asked, “that you should know the man to

be a sailor, and belonging to a Maltese vessel?”

“I do _not_ know it,” said Dupin. “I am not _sure_ of it. Here,

however, is a small piece of ribbon, which from its form, and

from its greasy appearance, has evidently been used in tying the

hair in one of those long _queues_ of which sailors are so fond.

Moreover, this knot is one which few besides sailors can tie, and

is peculiar to the Maltese. I picked the ribbon up at the foot of

the lightning-rod. It could not have belonged to either of the

deceased. Now if, after all, I am wrong in my induction from this

ribbon, that the Frenchman was a sailor belonging to a Maltese

vessel, still I can have done no harm in saying what I did in the

advertisement. If I am in error, he will merely suppose that I

have been misled by some circumstance into which he will not take

the trouble to inquire. But if I am right, a great point is

gained. Cognizant although innocent of the murder, the Frenchman

will naturally hesitate about replying to the advertisement—about

demanding the Ourang-Outang. He will reason thus:—‘I am innocent;

I am poor; my Ourang-Outang is of great value—to one in my

circumstances a fortune of itself—why should I lose it through

idle apprehensions of danger? Here it is, within my grasp. It was

found in the Bois de Boulogne—at a vast distance from the scene

of that butchery. How can it ever be suspected that a brute beast

should have done the deed? The police are at fault—they have

failed to procure the slightest clew. Should they even trace the

animal, it would be impossible to prove me cognizant of the

murder, or to implicate me in guilt on account of that

cognizance. Above all, _I am known._ The advertiser designates me

as the possessor of the beast. I am not sure to what limit his

knowledge may extend. Should I avoid claiming a property of so

great value, which it is known that I possess, I will render the

animal at least, liable to suspicion. It is not my policy to

attract attention either to myself or to the beast. I will answer

the advertisement, get the Ourang-Outang, and keep it close until

this matter has blown over.’”

At this moment we heard a step upon the stairs.

“Be ready,” said Dupin, “with your pistols, but neither use them

nor show them until at a signal from myself.”

The front door of the house had been left open, and the visitor

had entered, without ringing, and advanced several steps upon the

staircase. Now, however, he seemed to hesitate. Presently we

heard him descending. Dupin was moving quickly to the door, when

we again heard him coming up. He did not turn back a second time,

but stepped up with decision, and rapped at the door of our

chamber.

“Come in,” said Dupin, in a cheerful and hearty tone.

A man entered. He was a sailor, evidently,—a tall, stout, and

muscular-looking person, with a certain dare-devil expression of

countenance, not altogether unprepossessing. His face, greatly

sunburnt, was more than half hidden by whisker and _mustachio._

He had with him a huge oaken cudgel, but appeared to be otherwise

unarmed. He bowed awkwardly, and bade us “good evening,” in

French accents, which, although somewhat Neufchatelish, were

still sufficiently indicative of a Parisian origin.

“Sit down, my friend,” said Dupin. “I suppose you have called

about the Ourang-Outang. Upon my word, I almost envy you the

possession of him; a remarkably fine, and no doubt a very

valuable animal. How old do you suppose him to be?”

The sailor drew a long breath, with the air of a man relieved of

some intolerable burden, and then replied, in an assured tone:

“I have no way of telling—but he can’t be more than four or five

years old. Have you got him here?”

“Oh no, we had no conveniences for keeping him here. He is at a

livery stable in the Rue Dubourg, just by. You can get him in the

morning. Of course you are prepared to identify the property?”

“To be sure I am, sir.”

“I shall be sorry to part with him,” said Dupin.

“I don’t mean that you should be at all this trouble for nothing,

sir,” said the man. “Couldn’t expect it. Am very willing to pay a

reward for the finding of the animal—that is to say, any thing in

reason.”

“Well,” replied my friend, “that is all very fair, to be sure.

Let me think!—what should I have? Oh! I will tell you. My reward

shall be this. You shall give me all the information in your

power about these murders in the Rue Morgue.”

Dupin said the last words in a very low tone, and very quietly.

Just as quietly, too, he walked toward the door, locked it and

put the key in his pocket. He then drew a pistol from his bosom

and placed it, without the least flurry, upon the table.

The sailor’s face flushed up as if he were struggling with

suffocation. He started to his feet and grasped his cudgel, but

the next moment he fell back into his seat, trembling violently,

and with the countenance of death itself. He spoke not a word. I

pitied him from the bottom of my heart.

“My friend,” said Dupin, in a kind tone, “you are alarming

yourself unnecessarily—you are indeed. We mean you no harm

whatever. I pledge you the honor of a gentleman, and of a

Frenchman, that we intend you no injury. I perfectly well know

that you are innocent of the atrocities in the Rue Morgue. It

will not do, however, to deny that you are in some measure

implicated in them. From what I have already said, you must know

that I have had means of information about this matter—means of

which you could never have dreamed. Now the thing stands thus.

You have done nothing which you could have avoided—nothing,

certainly, which renders you culpable. You were not even guilty

of robbery, when you might have robbed with impunity. You have

nothing to conceal. You have no reason for concealment. On the

other hand, you are bound by every principle of honor to confess

all you know. An innocent man is now imprisoned, charged with

that crime of which you can point out the perpetrator.”

The sailor had recovered his presence of mind, in a great

measure, while Dupin uttered these words; but his original

boldness of bearing was all gone.

“So help me God!” said he, after a brief pause, “I _will_ tell

you all I know about this affair;—but I do not expect you to

believe one half I say—I would be a fool indeed if I did. Still,

I _am_ innocent, and I will make a clean breast if I die for it.”

What he stated was, in substance, this. He had lately made a

voyage to the Indian Archipelago. A party, of which he formed

one, landed at Borneo, and passed into the interior on an

excursion of pleasure. Himself and a companion had captured the

Ourang-Outang. This companion dying, the animal fell into his own

exclusive possession. After great trouble, occasioned by the

intractable ferocity of his captive during the home voyage, he at

length succeeded in lodging it safely at his own residence in

Paris, where, not to attract toward himself the unpleasant

curiosity of his neighbors, he kept it carefully secluded, until

such time as it should recover from a wound in the foot, received

from a splinter on board ship. His ultimate design was to sell

it.

Returning home from some sailors’ frolic the night, or rather in

the morning of the murder, he found the beast occupying his own

bed-room, into which it had broken from a closet adjoining, where

it had been, as was thought, securely confined. Razor in hand,

and fully lathered, it was sitting before a looking-glass,

attempting the operation of shaving, in which it had no doubt

previously watched its master through the key-hole of the closet.

Terrified at the sight of so dangerous a weapon in the possession

of an animal so ferocious, and so well able to use it, the man,

for some moments, was at a loss what to do. He had been

accustomed, however, to quiet the creature, even in its fiercest

moods, by the use of a whip, and to this he now resorted. Upon

sight of it, the Ourang-Outang sprang at once through the door of

the chamber, down the stairs, and thence, through a window,

unfortunately open, into the street.

The Frenchman followed in despair; the ape, razor still in hand,

occasionally stopping to look back and gesticulate at its

pursuer, until the latter had nearly come up with it. It then

again made off. In this manner the chase continued for a long

time. The streets were profoundly quiet, as it was nearly three

o’clock in the morning. In passing down an alley in the rear of

the Rue Morgue, the fugitive’s attention was arrested by a light

gleaming from the open window of Madame L’Espanaye’s chamber, in

the fourth story of her house. Rushing to the building, it

perceived the lightning rod, clambered up with inconceivable

agility, grasped the shutter, which was thrown fully back against

the wall, and, by its means, swung itself directly upon the

headboard of the bed. The whole feat did not occupy a minute. The

shutter was kicked open again by the Ourang-Outang as it entered

the room.

The sailor, in the meantime, was both rejoiced and perplexed. He

had strong hopes of now recapturing the brute, as it could

scarcely escape from the trap into which it had ventured, except

by the rod, where it might be intercepted as it came down. On the

other hand, there was much cause for anxiety as to what it might

do in the house. This latter reflection urged the man still to

follow the fugitive. A lightning rod is ascended without

difficulty, especially by a sailor; but, when he had arrived as

high as the window, which lay far to his left, his career was

stopped; the most that he could accomplish was to reach over so

as to obtain a glimpse of the interior of the room. At this

glimpse he nearly fell from his hold through excess of horror.

Now it was that those hideous shrieks arose upon the night, which

had startled from slumber the inmates of the Rue Morgue. Madame

L’Espanaye and her daughter, habited in their night clothes, had

apparently been occupied in arranging some papers in the iron

chest already mentioned, which had been wheeled into the middle

of the room. It was open, and its contents lay beside it on the

floor. The victims must have been sitting with their backs toward

the window; and, from the time elapsing between the ingress of

the beast and the screams, it seems probable that it was not

immediately perceived. The flapping-to of the shutter would

naturally have been attributed to the wind.

As the sailor looked in, the gigantic animal had seized Madame

L’Espanaye by the hair, (which was loose, as she had been combing

it,) and was flourishing the razor about her face, in imitation

of the motions of a barber. The daughter lay prostrate and

motionless; she had swooned. The screams and struggles of the old

lady (during which the hair was torn from her head) had the

effect of changing the probably pacific purposes of the

Ourang-Outang into those of wrath. With one determined sweep of

its muscular arm it nearly severed her head from her body. The

sight of blood inflamed its anger into phrenzy. Gnashing its

teeth, and flashing fire from its eyes, it flew upon the body of

the girl, and imbedded its fearful talons in her throat,

retaining its grasp until she expired. Its wandering and wild

glances fell at this moment upon the head of the bed, over which

the face of its master, rigid with horror, was just discernible.

The fury of the beast, who no doubt bore still in mind the

dreaded whip, was instantly converted into fear. Conscious of

having deserved punishment, it seemed desirous of concealing its

bloody deeds, and skipped about the chamber in an agony of

nervous agitation; throwing down and breaking the furniture as it

moved, and dragging the bed from the bedstead. In conclusion, it

seized first the corpse of the daughter, and thrust it up the

chimney, as it was found; then that of the old lady, which it

immediately hurled through the window headlong.

As the ape approached the casement with its mutilated burden, the

sailor shrank aghast to the rod, and, rather gliding than

clambering down it, hurried at once home—dreading the

consequences of the butchery, and gladly abandoning, in his

terror, all solicitude about the fate of the Ourang-Outang. The

words heard by the party upon the staircase were the Frenchman’s

exclamations of horror and affright, commingled with the fiendish

jabberings of the brute.

I have scarcely anything to add. The Ourang-Outang must have

escaped from the chamber, by the rod, just before the breaking of

the door. It must have closed the window as it passed through it.

It was subsequently caught by the owner himself, who obtained for

it a very large sum at the _Jardin des Plantes._ Le Don was

instantly released, upon our narration of the circumstances (with

some comments from Dupin) at the bureau of the Prefect of Police.

This functionary, however well disposed to my friend, could not

altogether conceal his chagrin at the turn which affairs had

taken, and was fain to indulge in a sarcasm or two, about the

propriety of every person minding his own business.

“Let him talk,” said Dupin, who had not thought it necessary to

reply. “Let him discourse; it will ease his conscience, I am

satisfied with having defeated him in his own castle.

Nevertheless, that he failed in the solution of this mystery, is

by no means that matter for wonder which he supposes it; for, in

truth, our friend the Prefect is somewhat too cunning to be

profound. In his wisdom is no _stamen._ It is all head and no

body, like the pictures of the Goddess Laverna,—or, at best, all

head and shoulders, like a codfish. But he is a good creature

after all. I like him especially for one master stroke of cant,

by which he has attained his reputation for ingenuity. I mean the

way he has ‘_de nier ce qui est, et d’expliquer ce qui n’est

pas._’” (*)

(*) Rousseau—Nouvelle Heloïse.

THE MYSTERY OF MARIE ROGET.(*1)

A SEQUEL TO “THE MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE.”

Es giebt eine Reihe idealischer Begebenheiten, die der Wirklichkeit

parallel lauft. Selten fallen sie zusammen. Menschen und zufalle

modificiren gewohulich die idealische Begebenheit, so dass sie

unvollkommen erscheint, und ihre Folgen gleichfalls unvollkommen

sind. So bei der Reformation; statt des Protestantismus kam das

Lutherthum hervor.

There are ideal series of events which run parallel with the real

ones. They rarely coincide. Men and circumstances generally

modify the ideal train of events, so that it seems imperfect, and

its consequences are equally imperfect. Thus with the

Reformation; instead of Protestantism came

Lutheranism.—_Novalis_.(*2) _Moral Ansichten_.

There are few persons, even among the calmest thinkers, who have

not occasionally been startled into a vague yet thrilling

half-credence in the supernatural, by coincidences of so

seemingly marvellous a character that, as mere coincidences, the

intellect has been unable to receive them. Such sentiments—for

the half-credences of which I speak have never the full force of

thought—such sentiments are seldom thoroughly stifled unless by

reference to the doctrine of chance, or, as it is technically

termed, the Calculus of Probabilities. Now this Calculus is, in

its essence, purely mathematical; and thus we have the anomaly of

the most rigidly exact in science applied to the shadow and

spirituality of the most intangible in speculation.

The extraordinary details which I am now called upon to make

public, will be found to form, as regards sequence of time, the

primary branch of a series of scarcely intelligible coincidences,

whose secondary or concluding branch will be recognized by all

readers in the late murder of Mary Cecila Rogers, at New York.

When, in an article entitled “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” I

endeavored, about a year ago, to depict some very remarkable

features in the mental character of my friend, the Chevalier C.

Auguste Dupin, it did not occur to me that I should ever resume

the subject. This depicting of character constituted my design;

and this design was thoroughly fulfilled in the wild train of

circumstances brought to instance Dupin’s idiosyncrasy. I might

have adduced other examples, but I should have proven no more.

Late events, however, in their surprising development, have

startled me into some farther details, which will carry with them

the air of extorted confession. Hearing what I have lately heard,

it would be indeed strange should I remain silent in regard to

what I both heard and saw so long ago.

Upon the winding up of the tragedy involved in the deaths of

Madame L’Espanaye and her daughter, the Chevalier dismissed the

affair at once from his attention, and relapsed into his old

habits of moody reverie. Prone, at all times, to abstraction, I

readily fell in with his humor; and, continuing to occupy our

chambers in the Faubourg Saint Germain, we gave the Future to the

winds, and slumbered tranquilly in the Present, weaving the dull

world around us into dreams.

But these dreams were not altogether uninterrupted. It may

readily be supposed that the part played by my friend, in the

drama at the Rue Morgue, had not failed of its impression upon

the fancies of the Parisian police. With its emissaries, the name

of Dupin had grown into a household word. The simple character of

those inductions by which he had disentangled the mystery never

having been explained even to the Prefect, or to any other

individual than myself, of course it is not surprising that the

affair was regarded as little less than miraculous, or that the

Chevalier’s analytical abilities acquired for him the credit of

intuition. His frankness would have led him to disabuse every

inquirer of such prejudice; but his indolent humor forbade all

farther agitation of a topic whose interest to himself had long

ceased. It thus happened that he found himself the cynosure of

the political eyes; and the cases were not few in which attempt

was made to engage his services at the Prefecture. One of the

most remarkable instances was that of the murder of a young girl

named Marie Rogêt.

This event occurred about two years after the atrocity in the Rue

Morgue. Marie, whose Christian and family name will at once

arrest attention from their resemblance to those of the

unfortunate “cigar girl,” was the only daughter of the widow

Estelle Rogêt. The father had died during the child’s infancy,

and from the period of his death, until within eighteen months

before the assassination which forms the subject of our

narrative, the mother and daughter had dwelt together in the Rue

Pavée Saint Andrée; (*3) Madame there keeping a pension, assisted

by Marie. Affairs went on thus until the latter had attained her

twenty-second year, when her great beauty attracted the notice of

a perfumer, who occupied one of the shops in the basement of the

Palais Royal, and whose custom lay chiefly among the desperate

adventurers infesting that neighborhood. Monsieur Le Blanc (*4)

was not unaware of the advantages to be derived from the

attendance of the fair Marie in his perfumery; and his liberal

proposals were accepted eagerly by the girl, although with

somewhat more of hesitation by Madame.

The anticipations of the shopkeeper were realized, and his rooms

soon became notorious through the charms of the sprightly

grisette. She had been in his employ about a year, when her

admirers were thrown info confusion by her sudden disappearance

from the shop. Monsieur Le Blanc was unable to account for her

absence, and Madame Rogêt was distracted with anxiety and terror.

The public papers immediately took up the theme, and the police

were upon the point of making serious investigations, when, one

fine morning, after the lapse of a week, Marie, in good health,

but with a somewhat saddened air, made her re-appearance at her

usual counter in the perfumery. All inquiry, except that of a

private character, was of course immediately hushed. Monsieur Le

Blanc professed total ignorance, as before. Marie, with Madame,

replied to all questions, that the last week had been spent at

the house of a relation in the country. Thus the affair died

away, and was generally forgotten; for the girl, ostensibly to

relieve herself from the impertinence of curiosity, soon bade a

final adieu to the perfumer, and sought the shelter of her

mother’s residence in the Rue Pavée Saint Andrée.

It was about five months after this return home, that her friends

were alarmed by her sudden disappearance for the second time.

Three days elapsed, and nothing was heard of her. On the fourth

her corpse was found floating in the Seine, * near the shore

which is opposite the Quartier of the Rue Saint Andrée, and at a

point not very far distant from the secluded neighborhood of the

Barrière du Roule. (*6)

The atrocity of this murder, (for it was at once evident that

murder had been committed,) the youth and beauty of the victim,

and, above all, her previous notoriety, conspired to produce

intense excitement in the minds of the sensitive Parisians. I can

call to mind no similar occurrence producing so general and so

intense an effect. For several weeks, in the discussion of this

one absorbing theme, even the momentous political topics of the

day were forgotten. The Prefect made unusual exertions; and the

powers of the whole Parisian police were, of course, tasked to

the utmost extent.

Upon the first discovery of the corpse, it was not supposed that

the murderer would be able to elude, for more than a very brief

period, the inquisition which was immediately set on foot. It was

not until the expiration of a week that it was deemed necessary

to offer a reward; and even then this reward was limited to a

thousand francs. In the mean time the investigation proceeded

with vigor, if not always with judgment, and numerous individuals

were examined to no purpose; while, owing to the continual

absence of all clue to the mystery, the popular excitement

greatly increased. At the end of the tenth day it was thought

advisable to double the sum originally proposed; and, at length,

the second week having elapsed without leading to any

discoveries, and the prejudice which always exists in Paris

against the Police having given vent to itself in several serious

émeutes, the Prefect took it upon himself to offer the sum of

twenty thousand francs “for the conviction of the assassin,” or,

if more than one should prove to have been implicated, “for the

conviction of any one of the assassins.” In the proclamation

setting forth this reward, a full pardon was promised to any

accomplice who should come forward in evidence against his

fellow; and to the whole was appended, wherever it appeared, the

private placard of a committee of citizens, offering ten thousand

francs, in addition to the amount proposed by the Prefecture. The

entire reward thus stood at no less than thirty thousand francs,

which will be regarded as an extraordinary sum when we consider

the humble condition of the girl, and the great frequency, in

large cities, of such atrocities as the one described.

No one doubted now that the mystery of this murder would be

immediately brought to light. But although, in one or two

instances, arrests were made which promised elucidation, yet

nothing was elicited which could implicate the parties suspected;

and they were discharged forthwith. Strange as it may appear, the

third week from the discovery of the body had passed, and passed

without any light being thrown upon the subject, before even a

rumor of the events which had so agitated the public mind,

reached the ears of Dupin and myself. Engaged in researches which

absorbed our whole attention, it had been nearly a month since

either of us had gone abroad, or received a visitor, or more than

glanced at the leading political articles in one of the daily

papers. The first intelligence of the murder was brought us by

G——, in person. He called upon us early in the afternoon of the

thirteenth of July, 18—, and remained with us until late in the

night. He had been piqued by the failure of all his endeavors to

ferret out the assassins. His reputation—so he said with a

peculiarly Parisian air—was at stake. Even his honor was

concerned. The eyes of the public were upon him; and there was

really no sacrifice which he would not be willing to make for the

development of the mystery. He concluded a somewhat droll speech

with a compliment upon what he was pleased to term the tact of

Dupin, and made him a direct, and certainly a liberal

proposition, the precise nature of which I do not feel myself at

liberty to disclose, but which has no bearing upon the proper

subject of my narrative.

The compliment my friend rebutted as best he could, but the

proposition he accepted at once, although its advantages were

altogether provisional. This point being settled, the Prefect

broke forth at once into explanations of his own views,

interspersing them with long comments upon the evidence; of which

latter we were not yet in possession. He discoursed much, and

beyond doubt, learnedly; while I hazarded an occasional

suggestion as the night wore drowsily away. Dupin, sitting

steadily in his accustomed arm-chair, was the embodiment of

respectful attention. He wore spectacles, during the whole

interview; and an occasional signal glance beneath their green

glasses, sufficed to convince me that he slept not the less

soundly, because silently, throughout the seven or eight

leaden-footed hours which immediately preceded the departure of

the Prefect.

In the morning, I procured, at the Prefecture, a full report of

all the evidence elicited, and, at the various newspaper offices,

a copy of every paper in which, from first to last, had been

published any decisive information in regard to this sad affair.

Freed from all that was positively disproved, this mass of

information stood thus:

Marie Rogêt left the residence of her mother, in the Rue Pavée

St. Andrée, about nine o’clock in the morning of Sunday, June the

twenty-second, 18—. In going out, she gave notice to a Monsieur

Jacques St. Eustache, (*7) and to him only, of her intent

intention to spend the day with an aunt who resided in the Rue

des Drômes. The Rue des Drômes is a short and narrow but populous

thoroughfare, not far from the banks of the river, and at a

distance of some two miles, in the most direct course possible,

from the pension of Madame Rogêt. St. Eustache was the accepted

suitor of Marie, and lodged, as well as took his meals, at the

pension. He was to have gone for his betrothed at dusk, and to

have escorted her home. In the afternoon, however, it came on to

rain heavily; and, supposing that she would remain all night at

her aunt’s, (as she had done under similar circumstances before,)

he did not think it necessary to keep his promise. As night drew

on, Madame Rogêt (who was an infirm old lady, seventy years of

age,) was heard to express a fear “that she should never see

Marie again;” but this observation attracted little attention at

the time.

On Monday, it was ascertained that the girl had not been to the

Rue des Drômes; and when the day elapsed without tidings of her,

a tardy search was instituted at several points in the city, and

its environs. It was not, however until the fourth day from the

period of disappearance that any thing satisfactory was

ascertained respecting her. On this day, (Wednesday, the

twenty-fifth of June,) a Monsieur Beauvais, (*8) who, with a

friend, had been making inquiries for Marie near the Barrière du

Roule, on the shore of the Seine which is opposite the Rue Pavée

St. Andrée, was informed that a corpse had just been towed ashore

by some fishermen, who had found it floating in the river. Upon

seeing the body, Beauvais, after some hesitation, identified it

as that of the perfumery-girl. His friend recognized it more

promptly.

The face was suffused with dark blood, some of which issued from

the mouth. No foam was seen, as in the case of the merely

drowned. There was no discoloration in the cellular tissue. About

the throat were bruises and impressions of fingers. The arms were

bent over on the chest and were rigid. The right hand was

clenched; the left partially open. On the left wrist were two

circular excoriations, apparently the effect of ropes, or of a

rope in more than one volution. A part of the right wrist, also,

was much chafed, as well as the back throughout its extent, but

more especially at the shoulder-blades. In bringing the body to

the shore the fishermen had attached to it a rope; but none of

the excoriations had been effected by this. The flesh of the neck

was much swollen. There were no cuts apparent, or bruises which

appeared the effect of blows. A piece of lace was found tied so

tightly around the neck as to be hidden from sight; it was

completely buried in the flesh, and was fastened by a knot which

lay just under the left ear. This alone would have sufficed to

produce death. The medical testimony spoke confidently of the

virtuous character of the deceased. She had been subjected, it

said, to brutal violence. The corpse was in such condition when

found, that there could have been no difficulty in its

recognition by friends.

The dress was much torn and otherwise disordered. In the outer

garment, a slip, about a foot wide, had been torn upward from the

bottom hem to the waist, but not torn off. It was wound three

times around the waist, and secured by a sort of hitch in the

back. The dress immediately beneath the frock was of fine muslin;

and from this a slip eighteen inches wide had been torn entirely

out—torn very evenly and with great care. It was found around her

neck, fitting loosely, and secured with a hard knot. Over this

muslin slip and the slip of lace, the strings of a bonnet were

attached; the bonnet being appended. The knot by which the

strings of the bonnet were fastened, was not a lady’s, but a slip

or sailor’s knot.

After the recognition of the corpse, it was not, as usual, taken

to the Morgue, (this formality being superfluous,) but hastily

interred not far from the spot at which it was brought ashore.

Through the exertions of Beauvais, the matter was industriously

hushed up, as far as possible; and several days had elapsed

before any public emotion resulted. A weekly paper, (*9) however,

at length took up the theme; the corpse was disinterred, and a

re-examination instituted; but nothing was elicited beyond what

has been already noted. The clothes, however, were now submitted

to the mother and friends of the deceased, and fully identified

as those worn by the girl upon leaving home.

Meantime, the excitement increased hourly. Several individuals

were arrested and discharged. St. Eustache fell especially under

suspicion; and he failed, at first, to give an intelligible

account of his whereabouts during the Sunday on which Marie left

home. Subsequently, however, he submitted to Monsieur G——,

affidavits, accounting satisfactorily for every hour of the day

in question. As time passed and no discovery ensued, a thousand

contradictory rumors were circulated, and journalists busied

themselves in suggestions. Among these, the one which attracted

the most notice, was the idea that Marie Rogêt still lived—that

the corpse found in the Seine was that of some other unfortunate.

It will be proper that I submit to the reader some passages which

embody the suggestion alluded to. These passages are literal

translations from L’Etoile, (*10) a paper conducted, in general,

with much ability.

“Mademoiselle Rogêt left her mother’s house on Sunday morning,

June the twenty-second, 18—, with the ostensible purpose of going

to see her aunt, or some other connexion, in the Rue des Drômes.

From that hour, nobody is proved to have seen her. There is no

trace or tidings of her at all.... There has no person, whatever,

come forward, so far, who saw her at all, on that day, after she

left her mother’s door.... Now, though we have no evidence that

Marie Rogêt was in the land of the living after nine o’clock on

Sunday, June the twenty-second, we have proof that, up to that

hour, she was alive. On Wednesday noon, at twelve, a female body

was discovered afloat on the shore of the Barrière de Roule. This

was, even if we presume that Marie Rogêt was thrown into the

river within three hours after she left her mother’s house, only

three days from the time she left her home—three days to an hour.

But it is folly to suppose that the murder, if murder was

committed on her body, could have been consummated soon enough to

have enabled her murderers to throw the body into the river

before midnight. Those who are guilty of such horrid crimes

choose darkness rather the light.... Thus we see that if the body

found in the river was that of Marie Rogêt, it could only have

been in the water two and a half days, or three at the outside.

All experience has shown that drowned bodies, or bodies thrown

into the water immediately after death by violence, require from

six to ten days for decomposition to take place to bring them to

the top of the water. Even where a cannon is fired over a corpse,

and it rises before at least five or six days’ immersion, it

sinks again, if let alone. Now, we ask, what was there in this

case to cause a departure from the ordinary course of nature?...

If the body had been kept in its mangled state on shore until

Tuesday night, some trace would be found on shore of the

murderers. It is a doubtful point, also, whether the body would

be so soon afloat, even were it thrown in after having been dead

two days. And, furthermore, it is exceedingly improbable that any

villains who had committed such a murder as is here supposed,

would have thrown the body in without weight to sink it, when

such a precaution could have so easily been taken.”

The editor here proceeds to argue that the body must have been in

the water “not three days merely, but, at least, five times three

days,” because it was so far decomposed that Beauvais had great

difficulty in recognizing it. This latter point, however, was

fully disproved. I continue the translation:

“What, then, are the facts on which M. Beauvais says that he has

no doubt the body was that of Marie Rogêt? He ripped up the gown

sleeve, and says he found marks which satisfied him of the

identity. The public generally supposed those marks to have

consisted of some description of scars. He rubbed the arm and

found hair upon it—something as indefinite, we think, as can

readily be imagined—as little conclusive as finding an arm in the

sleeve. M. Beauvais did not return that night, but sent word to

Madame Rogêt, at seven o’clock, on Wednesday evening, that an

investigation was still in progress respecting her daughter. If

we allow that Madame Rogêt, from her age and grief, could not go

over, (which is allowing a great deal,) there certainly must have

been some one who would have thought it worth while to go over

and attend the investigation, if they thought the body was that

of Marie. Nobody went over. There was nothing said or heard about

the matter in the Rue Pavée St. Andrée, that reached even the

occupants of the same building. M. St. Eustache, the lover and

intended husband of Marie, who boarded in her mother’s house,

deposes that he did not hear of the discovery of the body of his

intended until the next morning, when M. Beauvais came into his

chamber and told him of it. For an item of news like this, it

strikes us it was very coolly received.”

In this way the journal endeavored to create the impression of an

apathy on the part of the relatives of Marie, inconsistent with

the supposition that these relatives believed the corpse to be

hers. Its insinuations amount to this: that Marie, with the

connivance of her friends, had absented herself from the city for

reasons involving a charge against her chastity; and that these

friends, upon the discovery of a corpse in the Seine, somewhat

resembling that of the girl, had availed themselves of the

opportunity to impress the public with the belief of her death.

But L’Etoile was again over-hasty. It was distinctly proved that

no apathy, such as was imagined, existed; that the old lady was

exceedingly feeble, and so agitated as to be unable to attend to

any duty; that St. Eustache, so far from receiving the news

coolly, was distracted with grief, and bore himself so

frantically, that M. Beauvais prevailed upon a friend and

relative to take charge of him, and prevent his attending the

examination at the disinterment. Moreover, although it was stated

by L’Etoile, that the corpse was re-interred at the public

expense—that an advantageous offer of private sculpture was

absolutely declined by the family—and that no member of the

family attended the ceremonial;—although, I say, all this was

asserted by L’Etoile in furtherance of the impression it designed

to convey—yet all this was satisfactorily disproved. In a

subsequent number of the paper, an attempt was made to throw

suspicion upon Beauvais himself. The editor says:

“Now, then, a change comes over the matter. We are told that on

one occasion, while a Madame B—— was at Madame Rogêt’s house, M.

Beauvais, who was going out, told her that a gendarme was

expected there, and she, Madame B., must not say anything to the

gendarme until he returned, but let the matter be for him.... In

the present posture of affairs, M. Beauvais appears to have the

whole matter locked up in his head. A single step cannot be taken

without M. Beauvais, for, go which way you will, you run against

him.... For some reason, he determined that nobody shall have any

thing to do with the proceedings but himself, and he has elbowed

the male relatives out of the way, according to their

representations, in a very singular manner. He seems to have been

very much averse to permitting the relatives to see the body.”

By the following fact, some color was given to the suspicion thus

thrown upon Beauvais. A visitor at his office, a few days prior

to the girl’s disappearance, and during the absence of its

occupant, had observed a rose in the key-hole of the door, and

the name “Marie” inscribed upon a slate which hung near at hand.

The general impression, so far as we were enabled to glean it

from the newspapers, seemed to be, that Marie had been the victim

of a gang of desperadoes—that by these she had been borne across

the river, maltreated and murdered. Le Commerciel, (*11) however,

a print of extensive influence, was earnest in combating this

popular idea. I quote a passage or two from its columns:

“We are persuaded that pursuit has hitherto been on a false

scent, so far as it has been directed to the Barrière du Roule.

It is impossible that a person so well known to thousands as this

young woman was, should have passed three blocks without some one

having seen her; and any one who saw her would have remembered

it, for she interested all who knew her. It was when the streets

were full of people, when she went out.... It is impossible that

she could have gone to the Barrière du Roule, or to the Rue des

Drômes, without being recognized by a dozen persons; yet no one

has come forward who saw her outside of her mother’s door, and

there is no evidence, except the testimony concerning her

expressed intentions, that she did go out at all. Her gown was

torn, bound round her, and tied; and by that the body was carried

as a bundle. If the murder had been committed at the Barrière du

Roule, there would have been no necessity for any such

arrangement. The fact that the body was found floating near the

Barrière, is no proof as to where it was thrown into the

water..... A piece of one of the unfortunate girl’s petticoats,

two feet long and one foot wide, was torn out and tied under her

chin around the back of her head, probably to prevent screams.

This was done by fellows who had no pocket-handkerchief.”

A day or two before the Prefect called upon us, however, some

important information reached the police, which seemed to

overthrow, at least, the chief portion of Le Commerciel’s

argument. Two small boys, sons of a Madame Deluc, while roaming

among the woods near the Barrière du Roule, chanced to penetrate

a close thicket, within which were three or four large stones,

forming a kind of seat, with a back and footstool. On the upper

stone lay a white petticoat; on the second a silk scarf. A

parasol, gloves, and a pocket-handkerchief were also here found.

The handkerchief bore the name “Marie Rogêt.” Fragments of dress

were discovered on the brambles around. The earth was trampled,

the bushes were broken, and there was every evidence of a

struggle. Between the thicket and the river, the fences were

found taken down, and the ground bore evidence of some heavy

burthen having been dragged along it.

A weekly paper, Le Soleil,(*12) had the following comments upon

this discovery—comments which merely echoed the sentiment of the

whole Parisian press:

“The things had all evidently been there at least three or four

weeks; they were all mildewed down hard with the action of the

rain and stuck together from mildew. The grass had grown around

and over some of them. The silk on the parasol was strong, but

the threads of it were run together within. The upper part, where

it had been doubled and folded, was all mildewed and rotten, and

tore on its being opened..... The pieces of her frock torn out by

the bushes were about three inches wide and six inches long. One

part was the hem of the frock, and it had been mended; the other

piece was part of the skirt, not the hem. They looked like strips

torn off, and were on the thorn bush, about a foot from the

ground..... There can be no doubt, therefore, that the spot of

this appalling outrage has been discovered.”

Consequent upon this discovery, new evidence appeared. Madame

Deluc testified that she keeps a roadside inn not far from the

bank of the river, opposite the Barrière du Roule. The

neighborhood is secluded—particularly so. It is the usual Sunday

resort of blackguards from the city, who cross the river in

boats. About three o’clock, in the afternoon of the Sunday in

question, a young girl arrived at the inn, accompanied by a young

man of dark complexion. The two remained here for some time. On

their departure, they took the road to some thick woods in the

vicinity. Madame Deluc’s attention was called to the dress worn

by the girl, on account of its resemblance to one worn by a

deceased relative. A scarf was particularly noticed. Soon after

the departure of the couple, a gang of miscreants made their

appearance, behaved boisterously, ate and drank without making

payment, followed in the route of the young man and girl,

returned to the inn about dusk, and re-crossed the river as if in

great haste.

It was soon after dark, upon this same evening, that Madame

Deluc, as well as her eldest son, heard the screams of a female

in the vicinity of the inn. The screams were violent but brief.

Madame D. recognized not only the scarf which was found in the

thicket, but the dress which was discovered upon the corpse. An

omnibus driver, Valence, (*13) now also testified that he saw

Marie Rogêt cross a ferry on the Seine, on the Sunday in

question, in company with a young man of dark complexion. He,

Valence, knew Marie, and could not be mistaken in her identity.

The articles found in the thicket were fully identified by the

relatives of Marie.

The items of evidence and information thus collected by myself,

from the newspapers, at the suggestion of Dupin, embraced only

one more point—but this was a point of seemingly vast

consequence. It appears that, immediately after the discovery of

the clothes as above described, the lifeless, or nearly lifeless

body of St. Eustache, Marie’s betrothed, was found in the

vicinity of what all now supposed the scene of the outrage. A

phial labelled “laudanum,” and emptied, was found near him. His

breath gave evidence of the poison. He died without speaking.

Upon his person was found a letter, briefly stating his love for

Marie, with his design of self-destruction.

“I need scarcely tell you,” said Dupin, as he finished the

perusal of my notes, “that this is a far more intricate case than

that of the Rue Morgue; from which it differs in one important

respect. This is an ordinary, although an atrocious instance of

crime. There is nothing peculiarly outré about it. You will

observe that, for this reason, the mystery has been considered

easy, when, for this reason, it should have been considered

difficult, of solution. Thus; at first, it was thought

unnecessary to offer a reward. The myrmidons of G—— were able at

once to comprehend how and why such an atrocity might have been

committed. They could picture to their imaginations a mode—many

modes—and a motive—many motives; and because it was not

impossible that either of these numerous modes and motives could

have been the actual one, they have taken it for granted that one

of them must. But the case with which these variable fancies were

entertained, and the very plausibility which each assumed, should

have been understood as indicative rather of the difficulties

than of the facilities which must attend elucidation. I have

before observed that it is by prominences above the plane of the

ordinary, that reason feels her way, if at all, in her search for

the true, and that the proper question in cases such as this, is

not so much ‘what has occurred?’ as ‘what has occurred that has

never occurred before?’ In the investigations at the house of

Madame L’Espanaye, (*14) the agents of G—— were discouraged and

confounded by that very unusualness which, to a properly

regulated intellect, would have afforded the surest omen of

success; while this same intellect might have been plunged in

despair at the ordinary character of all that met the eye in the

case of the perfumery-girl, and yet told of nothing but easy

triumph to the functionaries of the Prefecture.

“In the case of Madame L’Espanaye and her daughter there was,

even at the beginning of our investigation, no doubt that murder

had been committed. The idea of suicide was excluded at once.

Here, too, we are freed, at the commencement, from all

supposition of self-murder. The body found at the Barrière du

Roule, was found under such circumstances as to leave us no room

for embarrassment upon this important point. But it has been

suggested that the corpse discovered, is not that of the Marie

Rogêt for the conviction of whose assassin, or assassins, the

reward is offered, and respecting whom, solely, our agreement has

been arranged with the Prefect. We both know this gentleman well.

It will not do to trust him too far. If, dating our inquiries

from the body found, and thence tracing a murderer, we yet

discover this body to be that of some other individual than

Marie; or, if starting from the living Marie, we find her, yet

find her unassassinated—in either case we lose our labor; since

it is Monsieur G—— with whom we have to deal. For our own

purpose, therefore, if not for the purpose of justice, it is

indispensable that our first step should be the determination of

the identity of the corpse with the Marie Rogêt who is missing.

“With the public the arguments of L’Etoile have had weight; and

that the journal itself is convinced of their importance would

appear from the manner in which it commences one of its essays

upon the subject—‘Several of the morning papers of the day,’ it

says, ‘speak of the _conclusive_ article in Monday’s Etoile.’ To

me, this article appears conclusive of little beyond the zeal of

its inditer. We should bear in mind that, in general, it is the

object of our newspapers rather to create a sensation—to make a

point—than to further the cause of truth. The latter end is only

pursued when it seems coincident with the former. The print which

merely falls in with ordinary opinion (however well founded this

opinion may be) earns for itself no credit with the mob. The mass

of the people regard as profound only him who suggests _pungent

contradictions_ of the general idea. In ratiocination, not less

than in literature, it is the epigram which is the most

immediately and the most universally appreciated. In both, it is

of the lowest order of merit.

“What I mean to say is, that it is the mingled epigram and

melodrame of the idea, that Marie Rogêt still lives, rather than

any true plausibility in this idea, which have suggested it to

L’Etoile, and secured it a favorable reception with the public.

Let us examine the heads of this journal’s argument; endeavoring

to avoid the incoherence with which it is originally set forth.

“The first aim of the writer is to show, from the brevity of the

interval between Marie’s disappearance and the finding of the

floating corpse, that this corpse cannot be that of Marie. The

reduction of this interval to its smallest possible dimension,

becomes thus, at once, an object with the reasoner. In the rash

pursuit of this object, he rushes into mere assumption at the

outset. ‘It is folly to suppose,’ he says, ‘that the murder, if

murder was committed on her body, could have been consummated

soon enough to have enabled her murderers to throw the body into

the river before midnight.’ We demand at once, and very

naturally, why? Why is it folly to suppose that the murder was

committed _within five minutes_ after the girl’s quitting her

mother’s house? Why is it folly to suppose that the murder was

committed at any given period of the day? There have been

assassinations at all hours. But, had the murder taken place at

any moment between nine o’clock in the morning of Sunday, and a

quarter before midnight, there would still have been time enough

‘to throw the body into the river before midnight.’ This

assumption, then, amounts precisely to this—that the murder was

not committed on Sunday at all—and, if we allow L’Etoile to

assume this, we may permit it any liberties whatever. The

paragraph beginning ‘It is folly to suppose that the murder,

etc.,’ however it appears as printed in L’Etoile, may be imagined

to have existed actually thus in the brain of its inditer—‘It is

folly to suppose that the murder, if murder was committed on the

body, could have been committed soon enough to have enabled her

murderers to throw the body into the river before midnight; it is

folly, we say, to suppose all this, and to suppose at the same

time, (as we are resolved to suppose,) that the body was not

thrown in until after midnight’—a sentence sufficiently

inconsequential in itself, but not so utterly preposterous as the

one printed.

“Were it my purpose,” continued Dupin, “merely to _make out a

case_ against this passage of L’Etoile’s argument, I might safely

leave it where it is. It is not, however, with L’Etoile that we

have to do, but with the truth. The sentence in question has but

one meaning, as it stands; and this meaning I have fairly stated;

but it is material that we go behind the mere words, for an idea

which these words have obviously intended, and failed to convey.

It was the design of the journalist to say that, at whatever

period of the day or night of Sunday this murder was committed,

it was improbable that the assassins would have ventured to bear

the corpse to the river before midnight. And herein lies, really,

the assumption of which I complain. It is assumed that the murder

was committed at such a position, and under such circumstances,

that the bearing it to the river became necessary. Now, the

assassination might have taken place upon the river’s brink, or

on the river itself; and, thus, the throwing the corpse in the

water might have been resorted to, at any period of the day or

night, as the most obvious and most immediate mode of disposal.

You will understand that I suggest nothing here as probable, or

as cöincident with my own opinion. My design, so far, has no

reference to the facts of the case. I wish merely to caution you

against the whole tone of L’Etoile’s suggestion, by calling your

attention to its ex parte character at the outset.

“Having prescribed thus a limit to suit its own preconceived

notions; having assumed that, if this were the body of Marie, it

could have been in the water but a very brief time, the journal

goes on to say:

‘All experience has shown that drowned bodies, or bodies thrown

into the water immediately after death by violence, require from

six to ten days for sufficient decomposition to take place to

bring them to the top of the water. Even when a cannon is fired

over a corpse, and it rises before at least five or six days’

immersion, it sinks again if let alone.’

“These assertions have been tacitly received by every paper in

Paris, with the exception of Le Moniteur. (*15) This latter print

endeavors to combat that portion of the paragraph which has

reference to ‘drowned bodies’ only, by citing some five or six

instances in which the bodies of individuals known to be drowned

were found floating after the lapse of less time than is insisted

upon by L’Etoile. But there is something excessively

unphilosophical in the attempt on the part of Le Moniteur, to

rebut the general assertion of L’Etoile, by a citation of

particular instances militating against that assertion. Had it

been possible to adduce fifty instead of five examples of bodies

found floating at the end of two or three days, these fifty

examples could still have been properly regarded only as

exceptions to L’Etoile’s rule, until such time as the rule itself

should be confuted. Admitting the rule, (and this Le Moniteur

does not deny, insisting merely upon its exceptions,) the

argument of L’Etoile is suffered to remain in full force; for

this argument does not pretend to involve more than a question of

the probability of the body having risen to the surface in less

than three days; and this probability will be in favor of

L’Etoile’s position until the instances so childishly adduced

shall be sufficient in number to establish an antagonistical

rule.

“You will see at once that all argument upon this head should be

urged, if at all, against the rule itself; and for this end we

must examine the rationale of the rule. Now the human body, in

general, is neither much lighter nor much heavier than the water

of the Seine; that is to say, the specific gravity of the human

body, in its natural condition, is about equal to the bulk of

fresh water which it displaces. The bodies of fat and fleshy

persons, with small bones, and of women generally, are lighter

than those of the lean and large-boned, and of men; and the

specific gravity of the water of a river is somewhat influenced

by the presence of the tide from sea. But, leaving this tide out

of question, it may be said that very few human bodies will sink

at all, even in fresh water, of their own accord. Almost any one,

falling into a river, will be enabled to float, if he suffer the

specific gravity of the water fairly to be adduced in comparison

with his own—that is to say, if he suffer his whole person to be

immersed, with as little exception as possible. The proper

position for one who cannot swim, is the upright position of the

walker on land, with the head thrown fully back, and immersed;

the mouth and nostrils alone remaining above the surface. Thus

circumstanced, we shall find that we float without difficulty and

without exertion. It is evident, however, that the gravities of

the body, and of the bulk of water displaced, are very nicely

balanced, and that a trifle will cause either to preponderate. An

arm, for instance, uplifted from the water, and thus deprived of

its support, is an additional weight sufficient to immerse the

whole head, while the accidental aid of the smallest piece of

timber will enable us to elevate the head so as to look about.

Now, in the struggles of one unused to swimming, the arms are

invariably thrown upwards, while an attempt is made to keep the

head in its usual perpendicular position. The result is the

immersion of the mouth and nostrils, and the inception, during

efforts to breathe while beneath the surface, of water into the

lungs. Much is also received into the stomach, and the whole body

becomes heavier by the difference between the weight of the air

originally distending these cavities, and that of the fluid which

now fills them. This difference is sufficient to cause the body

to sink, as a general rule; but is insufficient in the cases of

individuals with small bones and an abnormal quantity of flaccid

or fatty matter. Such individuals float even after drowning.

“The corpse, being supposed at the bottom of the river, will

there remain until, by some means, its specific gravity again

becomes less than that of the bulk of water which it displaces.

This effect is brought about by decomposition, or otherwise. The

result of decomposition is the generation of gas, distending the

cellular tissues and all the cavities, and giving the puffed

appearance which is so horrible. When this distension has so far

progressed that the bulk of the corpse is materially increased

without a corresponding increase of mass or weight, its specific

gravity becomes less than that of the water displaced, and it

forthwith makes its appearance at the surface. But decomposition

is modified by innumerable circumstances—is hastened or retarded

by innumerable agencies; for example, by the heat or cold of the

season, by the mineral impregnation or purity of the water, by

its depth or shallowness, by its currency or stagnation, by the

temperament of the body, by its infection or freedom from disease

before death. Thus it is evident that we can assign no period,

with any thing like accuracy, at which the corpse shall rise

through decomposition. Under certain conditions this result would

be brought about within an hour; under others, it might not take

place at all. There are chemical infusions by which the animal

frame can be preserved forever from corruption; the bi-chloride

of mercury is one. But, apart from decomposition, there may be,

and very usually is, a generation of gas within the stomach, from

the acetous fermentation of vegetable matter (or within other

cavities from other causes), sufficient to induce a distension

which will bring the body to the surface. The effect produced by

the firing of a cannon is that of simple vibration. This may

either loosen the corpse from the soft mud or ooze in which it is

imbedded, thus permitting it to rise when other agencies have

already prepared it for so doing; or it may overcome the tenacity

of some putrescent portions of the cellular tissue; allowing the

cavities to distend under the influence of the gas.

“Having thus before us the whole philosophy of this subject, we

can easily test by it the assertions of L’Etoile. ‘All experience

shows,’ says this paper, ‘that drowned bodies, or bodies thrown

into the water immediately after death by violence, require from

six to ten days for sufficient decomposition to take place to

bring them to the top of the water. Even when a cannon is fired

over a corpse, and it rises before at least five or six days’

immersion, it sinks again if let alone.’

“The whole of this paragraph must now appear a tissue of

inconsequence and incoherence. All experience does not show that

‘drowned bodies’ require from six to ten days for sufficient

decomposition to take place to bring them to the surface. Both

science and experience show that the period of their rising is,

and necessarily must be, indeterminate. If, moreover, a body has

risen to the surface through firing of cannon, it will not ‘sink

again if let alone,’ until decomposition has so far progressed as

to permit the escape of the generated gas. But I wish to call

your attention to the distinction which is made between ‘drowned

bodies,’ and ‘bodies thrown into the water immediately after

death by violence.’ Although the writer admits the distinction,

he yet includes them all in the same category. I have shown how

it is that the body of a drowning man becomes specifically

heavier than its bulk of water, and that he would not sink at

all, except for the struggles by which he elevates his arms above

the surface, and his gasps for breath while beneath the

surface—gasps which supply by water the place of the original air

in the lungs. But these struggles and these gasps would not occur

in the body ‘thrown into the water immediately after death by

violence.’ Thus, in the latter instance, the body, as a general

rule, would not sink at all—a fact of which L’Etoile is evidently

ignorant. When decomposition had proceeded to a very great

extent—when the flesh had in a great measure left the bones—then,

indeed, but not till then, should we lose sight of the corpse.

“And now what are we to make of the argument, that the body found

could not be that of Marie Rogêt, because, three days only having

elapsed, this body was found floating? If drowned, being a woman,

she might never have sunk; or having sunk, might have reappeared

in twenty-four hours, or less. But no one supposes her to have

been drowned; and, dying before being thrown into the river, she

might have been found floating at any period afterwards whatever.

“‘But,’ says L’Etoile, ‘if the body had been kept in its mangled

state on shore until Tuesday night, some trace would be found on

shore of the murderers.’ Here it is at first difficult to

perceive the intention of the reasoner. He means to anticipate

what he imagines would be an objection to his theory—viz.: that

the body was kept on shore two days, suffering rapid

decomposition—more rapid than if immersed in water. He supposes

that, had this been the case, it might have appeared at the

surface on the Wednesday, and thinks that only under such

circumstances it could so have appeared. He is accordingly in

haste to show that it was not kept on shore; for, if so, ‘some

trace would be found on shore of the murderers.’ I presume you

smile at the sequitur. You cannot be made to see how the mere

duration of the corpse on the shore could operate to multiply

traces of the assassins. Nor can I.

“‘And furthermore it is exceedingly improbable,’ continues our

journal, ‘that any villains who had committed such a murder as is

here supposed, would have thrown the body in without weight to

sink it, when such a precaution could have so easily been taken.’

Observe, here, the laughable confusion of thought! No one—not

even L’Etoile—disputes the murder committed _on the body found_.

The marks of violence are too obvious. It is our reasoner’s

object merely to show that this body is not Marie’s. He wishes to

prove that Marie is not assassinated—not that the corpse was not.

Yet his observation proves only the latter point. Here is a

corpse without weight attached. Murderers, casting it in, would

not have failed to attach a weight. Therefore it was not thrown

in by murderers. This is all which is proved, if any thing is.

The question of identity is not even approached, and L’Etoile has

been at great pains merely to gainsay now what it has admitted

only a moment before. ‘We are perfectly convinced,’ it says,

‘that the body found was that of a murdered female.’

“Nor is this the sole instance, even in this division of his

subject, where our reasoner unwittingly reasons against himself.

His evident object, I have already said, is to reduce, as much as

possible, the interval between Marie’s disappearance and the

finding of the corpse. Yet we find him urging the point that no

person saw the girl from the moment of her leaving her mother’s

house. ‘We have no evidence,’ he says, ‘that Marie Rogêt was in

the land of the living after nine o’clock on Sunday, June the

twenty-second.’ As his argument is obviously an ex parte one, he

should, at least, have left this matter out of sight; for had any

one been known to see Marie, say on Monday, or on Tuesday, the

interval in question would have been much reduced, and, by his

own ratiocination, the probability much diminished of the corpse

being that of the grisette. It is, nevertheless, amusing to

observe that L’Etoile insists upon its point in the full belief

of its furthering its general argument.

“Reperuse now that portion of this argument which has reference

to the identification of the corpse by Beauvais. In regard to the

hair upon the arm, L’Etoile has been obviously disingenuous. M.

Beauvais, not being an idiot, could never have urged, in

identification of the corpse, simply hair upon its arm. No arm is

without hair. The generality of the expression of L’Etoile is a

mere perversion of the witness’ phraseology. He must have spoken

of some peculiarity in this hair. It must have been a peculiarity

of color, of quantity, of length, or of situation.

“‘Her foot,’ says the journal, ‘was small—so are thousands of

feet. Her garter is no proof whatever—nor is her shoe—for shoes

and garters are sold in packages. The same may be said of the

flowers in her hat. One thing upon which M. Beauvais strongly

insists is, that the clasp on the garter found, had been set back

to take it in. This amounts to nothing; for most women find it

proper to take a pair of garters home and fit them to the size of

the limbs they are to encircle, rather than to try them in the

store where they purchase.’ Here it is difficult to suppose the

reasoner in earnest. Had M. Beauvais, in his search for the body

of Marie, discovered a corpse corresponding in general size and

appearance to the missing girl, he would have been warranted

(without reference to the question of habiliment at all) in

forming an opinion that his search had been successful. If, in

addition to the point of general size and contour, he had found

upon the arm a peculiar hairy appearance which he had observed

upon the living Marie, his opinion might have been justly

strengthened; and the increase of positiveness might well have

been in the ratio of the peculiarity, or unusualness, of the

hairy mark. If, the feet of Marie being small, those of the

corpse were also small, the increase of probability that the body

was that of Marie would not be an increase in a ratio merely

arithmetical, but in one highly geometrical, or accumulative. Add

to all this shoes such as she had been known to wear upon the day

of her disappearance, and, although these shoes may be ‘sold in

packages,’ you so far augment the probability as to verge upon

the certain. What, of itself, would be no evidence of identity,

becomes through its corroborative position, proof most sure. Give

us, then, flowers in the hat corresponding to those worn by the

missing girl, and we seek for nothing farther. If only one

flower, we seek for nothing farther—what then if two or three, or

more? Each successive one is multiple evidence—proof not _added_

to proof, but multiplied by hundreds or thousands. Let us now

discover, upon the deceased, garters such as the living used, and

it is almost folly to proceed. But these garters are found to be

tightened, by the setting back of a clasp, in just such a manner

as her own had been tightened by Marie, shortly previous to her

leaving home. It is now madness or hypocrisy to doubt. What

L’Etoile says in respect to this abbreviation of the garters

being an usual occurrence, shows nothing beyond its own

pertinacity in error. The elastic nature of the clasp-garter is

self-demonstration of the unusualness of the abbreviation. What

is made to adjust itself, must of necessity require foreign

adjustment but rarely. It must have been by an accident, in its

strictest sense, that these garters of Marie needed the

tightening described. They alone would have amply established her

identity. But it is not that the corpse was found to have the

garters of the missing girl, or found to have her shoes, or her

bonnet, or the flowers of her bonnet, or her feet, or a peculiar

mark upon the arm, or her general size and appearance—it is that

the corpse had each, and _all collectively_. Could it be proved

that the editor of L’Etoile _really_ entertained a doubt, under

the circumstances, there would be no need, in his case, of a

commission de lunatico inquirendo. He has thought it sagacious to

echo the small talk of the lawyers, who, for the most part,

content themselves with echoing the rectangular precepts of the

courts. I would here observe that very much of what is rejected

as evidence by a court, is the best of evidence to the intellect.

For the court, guiding itself by the general principles of

evidence—the recognized and _booked_ principles—is averse from

swerving at particular instances. And this steadfast adherence to

principle, with rigorous disregard of the conflicting exception,

is a sure mode of attaining the maximum of attainable truth, in

any long sequence of time. The practice, in mass, is therefore

philosophical; but it is not the less certain that it engenders

vast individual error. (*16)

“In respect to the insinuations levelled at Beauvais, you will be

willing to dismiss them in a breath. You have already fathomed

the true character of this good gentleman. He is a busy-body,

with much of romance and little of wit. Any one so constituted

will readily so conduct himself, upon occasion of real

excitement, as to render himself liable to suspicion on the part

of the over acute, or the ill-disposed. M. Beauvais (as it

appears from your notes) had some personal interviews with the

editor of L’Etoile, and offended him by venturing an opinion that

the corpse, notwithstanding the theory of the editor, was, in

sober fact, that of Marie. ‘He persists,’ says the paper, ‘in

asserting the corpse to be that of Marie, but cannot give a

circumstance, in addition to those which we have commented upon,

to make others believe.’ Now, without re-adverting to the fact

that stronger evidence ‘to make others believe,’ could never have

been adduced, it may be remarked that a man may very well be

understood to believe, in a case of this kind, without the

ability to advance a single reason for the belief of a second

party. Nothing is more vague than impressions of individual

identity. Each man recognizes his neighbor, yet there are few

instances in which any one is prepared to give a reason for his

recognition. The editor of L’Etoile had no right to be offended

at M. Beauvais’ unreasoning belief.

“The suspicious circumstances which invest him, will be found to

tally much better with my hypothesis of romantic busy-bodyism,

than with the reasoner’s suggestion of guilt. Once adopting the

more charitable interpretation, we shall find no difficulty in

comprehending the rose in the key-hole; the ‘Marie’ upon the

slate; the ‘elbowing the male relatives out of the way;’ the

‘aversion to permitting them to see the body;’ the caution given

to Madame B——, that she must hold no conversation with the

gendarme until his return (Beauvais’); and, lastly, his apparent

determination ‘that nobody should have anything to do with the

proceedings except himself.’ It seems to me unquestionable that

Beauvais was a suitor of Marie’s; that she coquetted with him;

and that he was ambitious of being thought to enjoy her fullest

intimacy and confidence. I shall say nothing more upon this

point; and, as the evidence fully rebuts the assertion of

L’Etoile, touching the matter of apathy on the part of the mother

and other relatives—an apathy inconsistent with the supposition

of their believing the corpse to be that of the perfumery-girl—we

shall now proceed as if the question of identity were settled to

our perfect satisfaction.”

“And what,” I here demanded, “do you think of the opinions of Le

Commerciel?”

“That, in spirit, they are far more worthy of attention than any

which have been promulgated upon the subject. The deductions from

the premises are philosophical and acute; but the premises, in

two instances, at least, are founded in imperfect observation. Le

Commerciel wishes to intimate that Marie was seized by some gang

of low ruffians not far from her mother’s door. ‘It is

impossible,’ it urges, ‘that a person so well known to thousands

as this young woman was, should have passed three blocks without

some one having seen her.’ This is the idea of a man long

resident in Paris—a public man—and one whose walks to and fro in

the city, have been mostly limited to the vicinity of the public

offices. He is aware that he seldom passes so far as a dozen

blocks from his own bureau, without being recognized and

accosted. And, knowing the extent of his personal acquaintance

with others, and of others with him, he compares his notoriety

with that of the perfumery-girl, finds no great difference

between them, and reaches at once the conclusion that she, in her

walks, would be equally liable to recognition with himself in

his. This could only be the case were her walks of the same

unvarying, methodical character, and within the same species of

limited region as are his own. He passes to and fro, at regular

intervals, within a confined periphery, abounding in individuals

who are led to observation of his person through interest in the

kindred nature of his occupation with their own. But the walks of

Marie may, in general, be supposed discursive. In this particular

instance, it will be understood as most probable, that she

proceeded upon a route of more than average diversity from her

accustomed ones. The parallel which we imagine to have existed in

the mind of Le Commerciel would only be sustained in the event of

the two individuals traversing the whole city. In this case,

granting the personal acquaintances to be equal, the chances

would be also equal that an equal number of personal rencounters

would be made. For my own part, I should hold it not only as

possible, but as very far more than probable, that Marie might

have proceeded, at any given period, by any one of the many

routes between her own residence and that of her aunt, without

meeting a single individual whom she knew, or by whom she was

known. In viewing this question in its full and proper light, we

must hold steadily in mind the great disproportion between the

personal acquaintances of even the most noted individual in

Paris, and the entire population of Paris itself.

“But whatever force there may still appear to be in the

suggestion of Le Commerciel, will be much diminished when we take

into consideration the hour at which the girl went abroad. ‘It

was when the streets were full of people,’ says Le Commerciel,

‘that she went out.’ But not so. It was at nine o’clock in the

morning. Now at nine o’clock of every morning in the week, _with

the exception of Sunday_, the streets of the city are, it is

true, thronged with people. At nine on Sunday, the populace are

chiefly within doors _preparing for church_. No observing person

can have failed to notice the peculiarly deserted air of the

town, from about eight until ten on the morning of every Sabbath.

Between ten and eleven the streets are thronged, but not at so

early a period as that designated.

“There is another point at which there seems a deficiency of

observation on the part of Le Commerciel. ‘A piece,’ it says, ‘of

one of the unfortunate girl’s petticoats, two feet long, and one

foot wide, was torn out and tied under her chin, and around the

back of her head, probably to prevent screams. This was done, by

fellows who had no pocket-handkerchiefs.’ Whether this idea is,

or is not well founded, we will endeavor to see hereafter; but by

‘fellows who have no pocket-handkerchiefs’ the editor intends the

lowest class of ruffians. These, however, are the very

description of people who will always be found to have

handkerchiefs even when destitute of shirts. You must have had

occasion to observe how absolutely indispensable, of late years,

to the thorough blackguard, has become the pocket-handkerchief.”

“And what are we to think,” I asked, “of the article in Le

Soleil?”

“That it is a vast pity its inditer was not born a parrot—in

which case he would have been the most illustrious parrot of his

race. He has merely repeated the individual items of the already

published opinion; collecting them, with a laudable industry,

from this paper and from that. ‘The things had all evidently been

there,’ he says, ‘at least, three or four weeks, and there can be

_no doubt_ that the spot of this appalling outrage has been

discovered.’ The facts here re-stated by Le Soleil, are very far

indeed from removing my own doubts upon this subject, and we will

examine them more particularly hereafter in connexion with

another division of the theme.

“At present we must occupy ourselves with other investigations.

You cannot fail to have remarked the extreme laxity of the

examination of the corpse. To be sure, the question of identity

was readily determined, or should have been; but there were other

points to be ascertained. Had the body been in any respect

despoiled? Had the deceased any articles of jewelry about her

person upon leaving home? if so, had she any when found? These

are important questions utterly untouched by the evidence; and

there are others of equal moment, which have met with no

attention. We must endeavor to satisfy ourselves by personal

inquiry. The case of St. Eustache must be re-examined. I have no

suspicion of this person; but let us proceed methodically. We

will ascertain beyond a doubt the validity of the affidavits in

regard to his whereabouts on the Sunday. Affidavits of this

character are readily made matter of mystification. Should there

be nothing wrong here, however, we will dismiss St. Eustache from

our investigations. His suicide, however corroborative of

suspicion, were there found to be deceit in the affidavits, is,

without such deceit, in no respect an unaccountable circumstance,

or one which need cause us to deflect from the line of ordinary

analysis.

“In that which I now propose, we will discard the interior points

of this tragedy, and concentrate our attention upon its

outskirts. Not the least usual error, in investigations such as

this, is the limiting of inquiry to the immediate, with total

disregard of the collateral or circumstantial events. It is the

mal-practice of the courts to confine evidence and discussion to

the bounds of apparent relevancy. Yet experience has shown, and a

true philosophy will always show, that a vast, perhaps the larger

portion of truth, arises from the seemingly irrelevant. It is

through the spirit of this principle, if not precisely through

its letter, that modern science has resolved to calculate upon

the unforeseen. But perhaps you do not comprehend me. The history

of human knowledge has so uninterruptedly shown that to

collateral, or incidental, or accidental events we are indebted

for the most numerous and most valuable discoveries, that it has

at length become necessary, in any prospective view of

improvement, to make not only large, but the largest allowances

for inventions that shall arise by chance, and quite out of the

range of ordinary expectation. It is no longer philosophical to

base, upon what has been, a vision of what is to be. Accident is

admitted as a portion of the substructure. We make chance a

matter of absolute calculation. We subject the unlooked for and

unimagined to the mathematical _formulae_ of the schools.

“I repeat that it is no more than fact, that the larger portion

of all truth has sprung from the collateral; and it is but in

accordance with the spirit of the principle involved in this

fact, that I would divert inquiry, in the present case, from the

trodden and hitherto unfruitful ground of the event itself, to

the contemporary circumstances which surround it. While you

ascertain the validity of the affidavits, I will examine the

newspapers more generally than you have as yet done. So far, we

have only reconnoitred the field of investigation; but it will be

strange indeed if a comprehensive survey, such as I propose, of

the public prints, will not afford us some minute points which

shall establish a direction for inquiry.”

In pursuance of Dupin’s suggestion, I made scrupulous examination

of the affair of the affidavits. The result was a firm conviction

of their validity, and of the consequent innocence of St.

Eustache. In the mean time my friend occupied himself, with what

seemed to me a minuteness altogether objectless, in a scrutiny of

the various newspaper files. At the end of a week he placed

before me the following extracts:

“About three years and a half ago, a disturbance very similar to

the present, was caused by the disappearance of this same Marie

Rogêt, from the parfumerie of Monsieur Le Blanc, in the Palais

Royal. At the end of a week, however, she re-appeared at her

customary comptoir, as well as ever, with the exception of a

slight paleness not altogether usual. It was given out by

Monsieur Le Blanc and her mother, that she had merely been on a

visit to some friend in the country; and the affair was speedily

hushed up. We presume that the present absence is a freak of the

same nature, and that, at the expiration of a week, or perhaps of

a month, we shall have her among us again.”—Evening Paper—Monday,

June 23. (*17)

“An evening journal of yesterday, refers to a former mysterious

disappearance of Mademoiselle Rogêt. It is well known that,

during the week of her absence from Le Blanc’s parfumerie, she

was in the company of a young naval officer, much noted for his

debaucheries. A quarrel, it is supposed, providentially led to

her return home. We have the name of the Lothario in question,

who is, at present, stationed in Paris, but, for obvious reasons,

forbear to make it public.”—Le Mercurie—Tuesday Morning, June 24.

(*18)

“An outrage of the most atrocious character was perpetrated near

this city the day before yesterday. A gentleman, with his wife

and daughter, engaged, about dusk, the services of six young men,

who were idly rowing a boat to and fro near the banks of the

Seine, to convey him across the river. Upon reaching the opposite

shore, the three passengers stepped out, and had proceeded so far

as to be beyond the view of the boat, when the daughter

discovered that she had left in it her parasol. She returned for

it, was seized by the gang, carried out into the stream, gagged,

brutally treated, and finally taken to the shore at a point not

far from that at which she had originally entered the boat with

her parents. The villains have escaped for the time, but the

police are upon their trail, and some of them will soon be

taken.”—Morning Paper—June 25. (*19)

“We have received one or two communications, the object of which

is to fasten the crime of the late atrocity upon Mennais; (*20)

but as this gentleman has been fully exonerated by a loyal

inquiry, and as the arguments of our several correspondents

appear to be more zealous than profound, we do not think it

advisable to make them public.”—Morning Paper—June 28. (*21)

“We have received several forcibly written communications,

apparently from various sources, and which go far to render it a

matter of certainty that the unfortunate Marie Rogêt has become a

victim of one of the numerous bands of blackguards which infest

the vicinity of the city upon Sunday. Our own opinion is

decidedly in favor of this supposition. We shall endeavor to make

room for some of these arguments hereafter.”—Evening

Paper—Tuesday, June 31. (*22)

“On Monday, one of the bargemen connected with the revenue

service, saw a empty boat floating down the Seine. Sails were

lying in the bottom of the boat. The bargeman towed it under the

barge office. The next morning it was taken from thence, without

the knowledge of any of the officers. The rudder is now at the

barge office.”—Le Diligence—Thursday, June 26.

Upon reading these various extracts, they not only seemed to me

irrelevant, but I could perceive no mode in which any one of them

could be brought to bear upon the matter in hand. I waited for

some explanation from Dupin.

“It is not my present design,” he said, “to dwell upon the first

and second of those extracts. I have copied them chiefly to show

you the extreme remissness of the police, who, as far as I can

understand from the Prefect, have not troubled themselves, in any

respect, with an examination of the naval officer alluded to. Yet

it is mere folly to say that between the first and second

disappearance of Marie there is no _supposable_ connection. Let

us admit the first elopement to have resulted in a quarrel

between the lovers, and the return home of the betrayed. We are

now prepared to view a second elopement (if we know that an

elopement has again taken place) as indicating a renewal of the

betrayer’s advances, rather than as the result of new proposals

by a second individual—we are prepared to regard it as a ‘making

up’ of the old amour, rather than as the commencement of a new

one. The chances are ten to one, that he who had once eloped with

Marie, would again propose an elopement, rather than that she to

whom proposals of elopement had been made by one individual,

should have them made to her by another. And here let me call

your attention to the fact, that the time elapsing between the

first ascertained, and the second supposed elopement, is a few

months more than the general period of the cruises of our

men-of-war. Had the lover been interrupted in his first villany

by the necessity of departure to sea, and had he seized the first

moment of his return to renew the base designs not yet altogether

accomplished—or not yet altogether accomplished by _him?_ Of all

these things we know nothing.

“You will say, however, that, in the second instance, there was

no elopement as imagined. Certainly not—but are we prepared to

say that there was not the frustrated design? Beyond St.

Eustache, and perhaps Beauvais, we find no recognized, no open,

no honorable suitors of Marie. Of none other is there any thing

said. Who, then, is the secret lover, of whom the relatives (at

least most of them) know nothing, but whom Marie meets upon the

morning of Sunday, and who is so deeply in her confidence, that

she hesitates not to remain with him until the shades of the

evening descend, amid the solitary groves of the Barrière du

Roule? Who is that secret lover, I ask, of whom, at least, most

of the relatives know nothing? And what means the singular

prophecy of Madame Rogêt on the morning of Marie’s departure?—‘I

fear that I shall never see Marie again.’

“But if we cannot imagine Madame Rogêt privy to the design of

elopement, may we not at least suppose this design entertained by

the girl? Upon quitting home, she gave it to be understood that

she was about to visit her aunt in the Rue des Drômes and St.

Eustache was requested to call for her at dark. Now, at first

glance, this fact strongly militates against my suggestion;—but

let us reflect. That she did meet some companion, and proceed

with him across the river, reaching the Barrière du Roule at so

late an hour as three o’clock in the afternoon, is known. But in

consenting so to accompany this individual, (_for whatever

purpose—to her mother known or unknown,_) she must have thought

of her expressed intention when leaving home, and of the surprise

and suspicion aroused in the bosom of her affianced suitor, St.

Eustache, when, calling for her, at the hour appointed, in the

Rue des Drômes, he should find that she had not been there, and

when, moreover, upon returning to the pension with this alarming

intelligence, he should become aware of her continued absence

from home. She must have thought of these things, I say. She must

have foreseen the chagrin of St. Eustache, the suspicion of all.

She could not have thought of returning to brave this suspicion;

but the suspicion becomes a point of trivial importance to her,

if we suppose her not intending to return.

“We may imagine her thinking thus—‘I am to meet a certain person

for the purpose of elopement, or for certain other purposes known

only to myself. It is necessary that there be no chance of

interruption—there must be sufficient time given us to elude

pursuit—I will give it to be understood that I shall visit and

spend the day with my aunt at the Rue des Drômes—I well tell St.

Eustache not to call for me until dark—in this way, my absence

from home for the longest possible period, without causing

suspicion or anxiety, will be accounted for, and I shall gain

more time than in any other manner. If I bid St. Eustache call

for me at dark, he will be sure not to call before; but, if I

wholly neglect to bid him call, my time for escape will be

diminished, since it will be expected that I return the earlier,

and my absence will the sooner excite anxiety. Now, if it were my

design to return at all—if I had in contemplation merely a stroll

with the individual in question—it would not be my policy to bid

St. Eustache call; for, calling, he will be sure to ascertain

that I have played him false—a fact of which I might keep him for

ever in ignorance, by leaving home without notifying him of my

intention, by returning before dark, and by then stating that I

had been to visit my aunt in the Rue des Drômes. But, as it is my

design never to return—or not for some weeks—or not until certain

concealments are effected—the gaining of time is the only point

about which I need give myself any concern.’

“You have observed, in your notes, that the most general opinion

in relation to this sad affair is, and was from the first, that

the girl had been the victim of a gang of blackguards. Now, the

popular opinion, under certain conditions, is not to be

disregarded. When arising of itself—when manifesting itself in a

strictly spontaneous manner—we should look upon it as analogous

with that _intuition_ which is the idiosyncrasy of the individual

man of genius. In ninety-nine cases from the hundred I would

abide by its decision. But it is important that we find no

palpable traces of _suggestion_. The opinion must be rigorously

_the public’s own_; and the distinction is often exceedingly

difficult to perceive and to maintain. In the present instance,

it appears to me that this ‘public opinion’ in respect to a gang,

has been superinduced by the collateral event which is detailed

in the third of my extracts. All Paris is excited by the

discovered corpse of Marie, a girl young, beautiful and

notorious. This corpse is found, bearing marks of violence, and

floating in the river. But it is now made known that, at the very

period, or about the very period, in which it is supposed that

the girl was assassinated, an outrage similar in nature to that

endured by the deceased, although less in extent, was

perpetuated, by a gang of young ruffians, upon the person of a

second young female. Is it wonderful that the one known atrocity

should influence the popular judgment in regard to the other

unknown? This judgment awaited direction, and the known outrage

seemed so opportunely to afford it! Marie, too, was found in the

river; and upon this very river was this known outrage committed.

The connexion of the two events had about it so much of the

palpable, that the true wonder would have been a failure of the

populace to appreciate and to seize it. But, in fact, the one

atrocity, known to be so committed, is, if any thing, evidence

that the other, committed at a time nearly coincident, was not so

committed. It would have been a miracle indeed, if, while a gang

of ruffians were perpetrating, at a given locality, a most

unheard-of wrong, there should have been another similar gang, in

a similar locality, in the same city, under the same

circumstances, with the same means and appliances, engaged in a

wrong of precisely the same aspect, at precisely the same period

of time! Yet in what, if not in this marvellous train of

coincidence, does the accidentally suggested opinion of the

populace call upon us to believe?

“Before proceeding farther, let us consider the supposed scene of

the assassination, in the thicket at the Barrière du Roule. This

thicket, although dense, was in the close vicinity of a public

road. Within were three or four large stones, forming a kind of

seat with a back and footstool. On the upper stone was discovered

a white petticoat; on the second, a silk scarf. A parasol,

gloves, and a pocket-handkerchief, were also here found. The

handkerchief bore the name, ‘Marie Rogêt.’ Fragments of dress

were seen on the branches around. The earth was trampled, the

bushes were broken, and there was every evidence of a violent

struggle.

“Notwithstanding the acclamation with which the discovery of this

thicket was received by the press, and the unanimity with which

it was supposed to indicate the precise scene of the outrage, it

must be admitted that there was some very good reason for doubt.

That it was the scene, I may or I may not believe—but there was

excellent reason for doubt. Had the true scene been, as Le

Commerciel suggested, in the neighborhood of the Rue Pavée St.

Andrée, the perpetrators of the crime, supposing them still

resident in Paris, would naturally have been stricken with terror

at the public attention thus acutely directed into the proper

channel; and, in certain classes of minds, there would have

arisen, at once, a sense of the necessity of some exertion to

redivert this attention. And thus, the thicket of the Barrière du

Roule having been already suspected, the idea of placing the

articles where they were found, might have been naturally

entertained. There is no real evidence, although Le Soleil so

supposes, that the articles discovered had been more than a very

few days in the thicket; while there is much circumstantial proof

that they could not have remained there, without attracting

attention, during the twenty days elapsing between the fatal

Sunday and the afternoon upon which they were found by the boys.

‘They were all _mildewed_ down hard,’ says Le Soleil, adopting

the opinions of its predecessors, ‘with the action of the rain,

and stuck together from _mildew_. The grass had grown around and

over some of them. The silk of the parasol was strong, but the

threads of it were run together within. The upper part, where it

had been doubled and folded, was all _mildewed_ and rotten, and

tore on being opened.’ In respect to the grass having ‘grown

around and over some of them,’ it is obvious that the fact could

only have been ascertained from the words, and thus from the

recollections, of two small boys; for these boys removed the

articles and took them home before they had been seen by a third

party. But grass will grow, especially in warm and damp weather,

(such as was that of the period of the murder,) as much as two or

three inches in a single day. A parasol lying upon a newly turfed

ground, might, in a single week, be entirely concealed from sight

by the upspringing grass. And touching that mildew upon which the

editor of Le Soleil so pertinaciously insists, that he employs

the word no less than three times in the brief paragraph just

quoted, is he really unaware of the nature of this mildew? Is he

to be told that it is one of the many classes of fungus, of which

the most ordinary feature is its upspringing and decadence within

twenty-four hours?

“Thus we see, at a glance, that what has been most triumphantly

adduced in support of the idea that the articles had been ‘for at

least three or four weeks’ in the thicket, is most absurdly null

as regards any evidence of that fact. On the other hand, it is

exceedingly difficult to believe that these articles could have

remained in the thicket specified, for a longer period than a

single week—for a longer period than from one Sunday to the next.

Those who know any thing of the vicinity of Paris, know the

extreme difficulty of finding seclusion unless at a great

distance from its suburbs. Such a thing as an unexplored, or even

an unfrequently visited recess, amid its woods or groves, is not

for a moment to be imagined. Let any one who, being at heart a

lover of nature, is yet chained by duty to the dust and heat of

this great metropolis—let any such one attempt, even during the

weekdays, to slake his thirst for solitude amid the scenes of

natural loveliness which immediately surround us. At every second

step, he will find the growing charm dispelled by the voice and

personal intrusion of some ruffian or party of carousing

blackguards. He will seek privacy amid the densest foliage, all

in vain. Here are the very nooks where the unwashed most

abound—here are the temples most desecrate. With sickness of the

heart the wanderer will flee back to the polluted Paris as to a

less odious because less incongruous sink of pollution. But if

the vicinity of the city is so beset during the working days of

the week, how much more so on the Sabbath! It is now especially

that, released from the claims of labor, or deprived of the

customary opportunities of crime, the town blackguard seeks the

precincts of the town, not through love of the rural, which in

his heart he despises, but by way of escape from the restraints

and conventionalities of society. He desires less the fresh air

and the green trees, than the utter license of the country. Here,

at the road-side inn, or beneath the foliage of the woods, he

indulges, unchecked by any eye except those of his boon

companions, in all the mad excess of a counterfeit hilarity—the

joint offspring of liberty and of rum. I say nothing more than

what must be obvious to every dispassionate observer, when I

repeat that the circumstance of the articles in question having

remained undiscovered, for a longer period than from one Sunday

to another, in any thicket in the immediate neighborhood of

Paris, is to be looked upon as little less than miraculous.

“But there are not wanting other grounds for the suspicion that

the articles were placed in the thicket with the view of

diverting attention from the real scene of the outrage. And,

first, let me direct your notice to the date of the discovery of

the articles. Collate this with the date of the fifth extract

made by myself from the newspapers. You will find that the

discovery followed, almost immediately, the urgent communications

sent to the evening paper. These communications, although various

and apparently from various sources, tended all to the same

point—viz., the directing of attention to a gang as the

perpetrators of the outrage, and to the neighborhood of the

Barrière du Roule as its scene. Now here, of course, the

suspicion is not that, in consequence of these communications, or

of the public attention by them directed, the articles were found

by the boys; but the suspicion might and may well have been, that

the articles were not before found by the boys, for the reason

that the articles had not before been in the thicket; having been

deposited there only at so late a period as at the date, or

shortly prior to the date of the communication, by the guilty

authors of these communications themselves.

“This thicket was a singular—an exceedingly singular one. It was

unusually dense. Within its naturally walled enclosure were three

extraordinary stones, forming a seat with a back and footstool.

And this thicket, so full of a natural art, was in the immediate

vicinity, within a few rods, of the dwelling of Madame Deluc,

whose boys were in the habit of closely examining the shrubberies

about them in search of the bark of the sassafras. Would it be a

rash wager—a wager of one thousand to one—that a day never passed

over the heads of these boys without finding at least one of them

ensconced in the umbrageous hall, and enthroned upon its natural

throne? Those who would hesitate at such a wager, have either

never been boys themselves, or have forgotten the boyish nature.

I repeat—it is exceedingly hard to comprehend how the articles

could have remained in this thicket undiscovered, for a longer

period than one or two days; and that thus there is good ground

for suspicion, in spite of the dogmatic ignorance of Le Soleil,

that they were, at a comparatively late date, deposited where

found.

“But there are still other and stronger reasons for believing

them so deposited, than any which I have as yet urged. And, now,

let me beg your notice to the highly artificial arrangement of

the articles. On the _upper_ stone lay a white petticoat; on the

_second_, a silk scarf; scattered around, were a parasol, gloves,

and a pocket-handkerchief bearing the name, ‘Marie Rogêt.’ Here

is just such an arrangement as would naturally be made by a not

over-acute person wishing to dispose the articles naturally. But

it is by no means a really natural arrangement. I should rather

have looked to see the things all lying on the ground and

trampled under foot. In the narrow limits of that bower, it would

have been scarcely possible that the petticoat and scarf should

have retained a position upon the stones, when subjected to the

brushing to and fro of many struggling persons. ‘There was

evidence,’ it is said, ‘of a struggle; and the earth was

trampled, the bushes were broken,’—but the petticoat and the

scarf are found deposited as if upon shelves. ‘The pieces of the

frock torn out by the bushes were about three inches wide and six

inches long. One part was the hem of the frock and it had been

mended. They looked like strips torn off.’ Here, inadvertently,

Le Soleil has employed an exceedingly suspicious phrase. The

pieces, as described, do indeed ‘look like strips torn off;’ but

purposely and by hand. It is one of the rarest of accidents that

a piece is ‘torn off,’ from any garment such as is now in

question, by the agency of a thorn. From the very nature of such

fabrics, a thorn or nail becoming entangled in them, tears them

rectangularly—divides them into two longitudinal rents, at right

angles with each other, and meeting at an apex where the thorn

enters—but it is scarcely possible to conceive the piece ‘torn

off.’ I never so knew it, nor did you. To tear a piece off from

such fabric, two distinct forces, in different directions, will

be, in almost every case, required. If there be two edges to the

fabric—if, for example, it be a pocket-handkerchief, and it is

desired to tear from it a slip, then, and then only, will the one

force serve the purpose. But in the present case the question is

of a dress, presenting but one edge. To tear a piece from the

interior, where no edge is presented, could only be effected by a

miracle through the agency of thorns, and no one thorn could

accomplish it. But, even where an edge is presented, two thorns

will be necessary, operating, the one in two distinct directions,

and the other in one. And this in the supposition that the edge

is unhemmed. If hemmed, the matter is nearly out of the question.

We thus see the numerous and great obstacles in the way of pieces

being ‘torn off’ through the simple agency of ‘thorns;’ yet we

are required to believe not only that one piece but that many

have been so torn. ‘And one part,’ too, ‘was the hem of the

frock!’ Another piece was ‘part of the skirt, not the hem,’—that

is to say, was torn completely out through the agency of thorns,

from the uncaged interior of the dress! These, I say, are things

which one may well be pardoned for disbelieving; yet, taken

collectedly, they form, perhaps, less of reasonable ground for

suspicion, than the one startling circumstance of the articles’

having been left in this thicket at all, by any murderers who had

enough precaution to think of removing the corpse. You will not

have apprehended me rightly, however, if you suppose it my design

to deny this thicket as the scene of the outrage. There might

have been a wrong here, or, more possibly, an accident at Madame

Deluc’s. But, in fact, this is a point of minor importance. We

are not engaged in an attempt to discover the scene, but to

produce the perpetrators of the murder. What I have adduced,

notwithstanding the minuteness with which I have adduced it, has

been with the view, first, to show the folly of the positive and

headlong assertions of Le Soleil, but secondly and chiefly, to

bring you, by the most natural route, to a further contemplation

of the doubt whether this assassination has, or has not, been the

work of a gang.

“We will resume this question by mere allusion to the revolting

details of the surgeon examined at the inquest. It is only

necessary to say that his published inferences, in regard to the

number of ruffians, have been properly ridiculed as unjust and

totally baseless, by all the reputable anatomists of Paris. Not

that the matter might not have been as inferred, but that there

was no ground for the inference:—was there not much for another?

“Let us reflect now upon ‘the traces of a struggle;’ and let me

ask what these traces have been supposed to demonstrate. A gang.

But do they not rather demonstrate the absence of a gang? What

struggle could have taken place—what struggle so violent and so

enduring as to have left its ‘traces’ in all directions—between a

weak and defenceless girl and the gang of ruffians imagined? The

silent grasp of a few rough arms and all would have been over.

The victim must have been absolutely passive at their will. You

will here bear in mind that the arguments urged against the

thicket as the scene, are applicable in chief part, only against

it as the scene of an outrage committed by more than a single

individual. If we imagine but one violator, we can conceive, and

thus only conceive, the struggle of so violent and so obstinate a

nature as to have left the ‘traces’ apparent.

“And again. I have already mentioned the suspicion to be excited

by the fact that the articles in question were suffered to remain

at all in the thicket where discovered. It seems almost

impossible that these evidences of guilt should have been

accidentally left where found. There was sufficient presence of

mind (it is supposed) to remove the corpse; and yet a more

positive evidence than the corpse itself (whose features might

have been quickly obliterated by decay,) is allowed to lie

conspicuously in the scene of the outrage—I allude to the

handkerchief with the name of the deceased. If this was accident,

it was not the accident of a gang. We can imagine it only the

accident of an individual. Let us see. An individual has

committed the murder. He is alone with the ghost of the departed.

He is appalled by what lies motionless before him. The fury of

his passion is over, and there is abundant room in his heart for

the natural awe of the deed. His is none of that confidence which

the presence of numbers inevitably inspires. He is alone with the

dead. He trembles and is bewildered. Yet there is a necessity for

disposing of the corpse. He bears it to the river, but leaves

behind him the other evidences of guilt; for it is difficult, if

not impossible to carry all the burthen at once, and it will be

easy to return for what is left. But in his toilsome journey to

the water his fears redouble within him. The sounds of life

encompass his path. A dozen times he hears or fancies the step of

an observer. Even the very lights from the city bewilder him.

Yet, in time and by long and frequent pauses of deep agony, he

reaches the river’s brink, and disposes of his ghastly

charge—perhaps through the medium of a boat. But now what

treasure does the world hold—what threat of vengeance could it

hold out—which would have power to urge the return of that lonely

murderer over that toilsome and perilous path, to the thicket and

its blood chilling recollections? He returns not, let the

consequences be what they may. He could not return if he would.

His sole thought is immediate escape. He turns his back forever

upon those dreadful shrubberies and flees as from the wrath to

come.

“But how with a gang? Their number would have inspired them with

confidence; if, indeed confidence is ever wanting in the breast

of the arrant blackguard; and of arrant blackguards alone are the

supposed gangs ever constituted. Their number, I say, would have

prevented the bewildering and unreasoning terror which I have

imagined to paralyze the single man. Could we suppose an

oversight in one, or two, or three, this oversight would have

been remedied by a fourth. They would have left nothing behind

them; for their number would have enabled them to carry all at

once. There would have been no need of return.

“Consider now the circumstance that in the outer garment of the

corpse when found, ‘a slip, about a foot wide had been torn

upward from the bottom hem to the waist wound three times round

the waist, and secured by a sort of hitch in the back.’ This was

done with the obvious design of affording a handle by which to

carry the body. But would any number of men have dreamed of

resorting to such an expedient? To three or four, the limbs of

the corpse would have afforded not only a sufficient, but the

best possible hold. The device is that of a single individual;

and this brings us to the fact that ‘between the thicket and the

river, the rails of the fences were found taken down, and the

ground bore evident traces of some heavy burden having been

dragged along it!’ But would a number of men have put themselves

to the superfluous trouble of taking down a fence, for the

purpose of dragging through it a corpse which they might have

lifted over any fence in an instant? Would a number of men have

so dragged a corpse at all as to have left evident traces of the

dragging?

“And here we must refer to an observation of Le Commerciel; an

observation upon which I have already, in some measure,

commented. ‘A piece,’ says this journal, ‘of one of the

unfortunate girl’s petticoats was torn out and tied under her

chin, and around the back of her head, probably to prevent

screams. This was done by fellows who had no

pocket-handkerchiefs.’

“I have before suggested that a genuine blackguard is never

without a pocket-handkerchief. But it is not to this fact that I

now especially advert. That it was not through want of a

handkerchief for the purpose imagined by Le Commerciel, that this

bandage was employed, is rendered apparent by the handkerchief

left in the thicket; and that the object was not ‘to prevent

screams’ appears, also, from the bandage having been employed in

preference to what would so much better have answered the

purpose. But the language of the evidence speaks of the strip in

question as ‘found around the neck, fitting loosely, and secured

with a hard knot.’ These words are sufficiently vague, but differ

materially from those of Le Commerciel. The slip was eighteen

inches wide, and therefore, although of muslin, would form a

strong band when folded or rumpled longitudinally. And thus

rumpled it was discovered. My inference is this. The solitary

murderer, having borne the corpse, for some distance (whether

from the thicket or elsewhere) by means of the bandage hitched

around its middle, found the weight, in this mode of procedure,

too much for his strength. He resolved to drag the burthen—the

evidence goes to show that it was dragged. With this object in

view, it became necessary to attach something like a rope to one

of the extremities. It could be best attached about the neck,

where the head would prevent its slipping off. And, now, the

murderer bethought him, unquestionably, of the bandage about the

loins. He would have used this, but for its volution about the

corpse, the hitch which embarrassed it, and the reflection that

it had not been ‘torn off’ from the garment. It was easier to

tear a new slip from the petticoat. He tore it, made it fast

about the neck, and so dragged his victim to the brink of the

river. That this ‘bandage,’ only attainable with trouble and

delay, and but imperfectly answering its purpose—that this

bandage was employed at all, demonstrates that the necessity for

its employment sprang from circumstances arising at a period when

the handkerchief was no longer attainable—that is to say,

arising, as we have imagined, after quitting the thicket, (if the

thicket it was), and on the road between the thicket and the

river.

“But the evidence, you will say, of Madame Deluc (!) points

especially to the presence of a gang, in the vicinity of the

thicket, at or about the epoch of the murder. This I grant. I

doubt if there were not a dozen gangs, such as described by

Madame Deluc, in and about the vicinity of the Barrière du Roule

at or about the period of this tragedy. But the gang which has

drawn upon itself the pointed animadversion, although the

somewhat tardy and very suspicious evidence of Madame Deluc, is

the only gang which is represented by that honest and scrupulous

old lady as having eaten her cakes and swallowed her brandy,

without putting themselves to the trouble of making her payment.

Et hinc illæ iræ?

“But what is the precise evidence of Madame Deluc? ‘A gang of

miscreants made their appearance, behaved boisterously, ate and

drank without making payment, followed in the route of the young

man and girl, returned to the inn about dusk, and recrossed the

river as if in great haste.’

“Now this ‘great haste’ very possibly seemed greater haste in the

eyes of Madame Deluc, since she dwelt lingeringly and lamentingly

upon her violated cakes and ale—cakes and ale for which she might

still have entertained a faint hope of compensation. Why,

otherwise, since it was about dusk, should she make a point of

the haste? It is no cause for wonder, surely, that even a gang of

blackguards should make haste to get home, when a wide river is

to be crossed in small boats, when storm impends, and when night

approaches.

“I say approaches; for the night had not yet arrived. It was only

about dusk that the indecent haste of these ‘miscreants’ offended

the sober eyes of Madame Deluc. But we are told that it was upon

this very evening that Madame Deluc, as well as her eldest son,

‘heard the screams of a female in the vicinity of the inn.’ And

in what words does Madame Deluc designate the period of the

evening at which these screams were heard? ‘It was soon after

dark,’ she says. But ‘soon after dark,’ is, at least, dark; and

‘about dusk’ is as certainly daylight. Thus it is abundantly

clear that the gang quitted the Barrière du Roule prior to the

screams overheard (?) by Madame Deluc. And although, in all the

many reports of the evidence, the relative expressions in

question are distinctly and invariably employed just as I have

employed them in this conversation with yourself, no notice

whatever of the gross discrepancy has, as yet, been taken by any

of the public journals, or by any of the myrmidons of police.

“I shall add but one to the arguments against a gang; but this

one has, to my own understanding at least, a weight altogether

irresistible. Under the circumstances of large reward offered,

and full pardon to any king’s evidence, it is not to be imagined,

for a moment, that some member of a gang of low ruffians, or of

any body of men, would not long ago have betrayed his

accomplices. Each one of a gang so placed, is not so much greedy

of reward, or anxious for escape, as fearful of betrayal. He

betrays eagerly and early that he may not himself be betrayed.

That the secret has not been divulged, is the very best of proof

that it is, in fact, a secret. The horrors of this dark deed are

known only to one, or two, living human beings, and to God.

“Let us sum up now the meagre yet certain fruits of our long

analysis. We have attained the idea either of a fatal accident

under the roof of Madame Deluc, or of a murder perpetrated, in

the thicket at the Barrière du Roule, by a lover, or at least by

an intimate and secret associate of the deceased. This associate

is of swarthy complexion. This complexion, the ‘hitch’ in the

bandage, and the ‘sailor’s knot,’ with which the bonnet-ribbon is

tied, point to a seaman. His companionship with the deceased, a

gay, but not an abject young girl, designates him as above the

grade of the common sailor. Here the well written and urgent

communications to the journals are much in the way of

corroboration. The circumstance of the first elopement, as

mentioned by Le Mercurie, tends to blend the idea of this seaman

with that of the ‘naval officer’ who is first known to have led

the unfortunate into crime.

“And here, most fitly, comes the consideration of the continued

absence of him of the dark complexion. Let me pause to observe

that the complexion of this man is dark and swarthy; it was no

common swarthiness which constituted the sole point of

remembrance, both as regards Valence and Madame Deluc. But why is

this man absent? Was he murdered by the gang? If so, why are

there only traces of the assassinated girl? The scene of the two

outrages will naturally be supposed identical. And where is his

corpse? The assassins would most probably have disposed of both

in the same way. But it may be said that this man lives, and is

deterred from making himself known, through dread of being

charged with the murder. This consideration might be supposed to

operate upon him now—at this late period—since it has been given

in evidence that he was seen with Marie—but it would have had no

force at the period of the deed. The first impulse of an innocent

man would have been to announce the outrage, and to aid in

identifying the ruffians. This policy would have suggested. He

had been seen with the girl. He had crossed the river with her in

an open ferry-boat. The denouncing of the assassins would have

appeared, even to an idiot, the surest and sole means of

relieving himself from suspicion. We cannot suppose him, on the

night of the fatal Sunday, both innocent himself and incognizant

of an outrage committed. Yet only under such circumstances is it

possible to imagine that he would have failed, if alive, in the

denouncement of the assassins.

“And what means are ours, of attaining the truth? We shall find

these means multiplying and gathering distinctness as we proceed.

Let us sift to the bottom this affair of the first elopement. Let

us know the full history of ‘the officer,’ with his present

circumstances, and his whereabouts at the precise period of the

murder. Let us carefully compare with each other the various

communications sent to the evening paper, in which the object was

to inculpate a gang. This done, let us compare these

communications, both as regards style and MS., with those sent to

the morning paper, at a previous period, and insisting so

vehemently upon the guilt of Mennais. And, all this done, let us

again compare these various communications with the known MSS. of

the officer. Let us endeavor to ascertain, by repeated

questionings of Madame Deluc and her boys, as well as of the

omnibus driver, Valence, something more of the personal

appearance and bearing of the ‘man of dark complexion.’ Queries,

skilfully directed, will not fail to elicit, from some of these

parties, information on this particular point (or upon

others)—information which the parties themselves may not even be

aware of possessing. And let us now trace the boat picked up by

the bargeman on the morning of Monday the twenty-third of June,

and which was removed from the barge-office, without the

cognizance of the officer in attendance, and without the rudder,

at some period prior to the discovery of the corpse. With a

proper caution and perseverance we shall infallibly trace this

boat; for not only can the bargeman who picked it up identify it,

but the rudder is at hand. The rudder of a sail-boat would not

have been abandoned, without inquiry, by one altogether at ease

in heart. And here let me pause to insinuate a question. There

was no advertisement of the picking up of this boat. It was

silently taken to the barge-office, and as silently removed. But

its owner or employer—how happened he, at so early a period as

Tuesday morning, to be informed, without the agency of

advertisement, of the locality of the boat taken up on Monday,

unless we imagine some connexion with the navy—some personal

permanent connexion leading to cognizance of its minute in

interests—its petty local news?

“In speaking of the lonely assassin dragging his burden to the

shore, I have already suggested the probability of his availing

himself of a boat. Now we are to understand that Marie Rogêt was

precipitated from a boat. This would naturally have been the

case. The corpse could not have been trusted to the shallow

waters of the shore. The peculiar marks on the back and shoulders

of the victim tell of the bottom ribs of a boat. That the body

was found without weight is also corroborative of the idea. If

thrown from the shore a weight would have been attached. We can

only account for its absence by supposing the murderer to have

neglected the precaution of supplying himself with it before

pushing off. In the act of consigning the corpse to the water, he

would unquestionably have noticed his oversight; but then no

remedy would have been at hand. Any risk would have been

preferred to a return to that accursed shore. Having rid himself

of his ghastly charge, the murderer would have hastened to the

city. There, at some obscure wharf, he would have leaped on land.

But the boat—would he have secured it? He would have been in too

great haste for such things as securing a boat. Moreover, in

fastening it to the wharf, he would have felt as if securing

evidence against himself. His natural thought would have been to

cast from him, as far as possible, all that had held connection

with his crime. He would not only have fled from the wharf, but

he would not have permitted the boat to remain. Assuredly he

would have cast it adrift. Let us pursue our fancies.—In the

morning, the wretch is stricken with unutterable horror at

finding that the boat has been picked up and detained at a

locality which he is in the daily habit of frequenting —at a

locality, perhaps, which his duty compels him to frequent. The

next night, without daring to ask for the rudder, he removes it.

Now where is that rudderless boat? Let it be one of our first

purposes to discover. With the first glimpse we obtain of it, the

dawn of our success shall begin. This boat shall guide us, with a

rapidity which will surprise even ourselves, to him who employed

it in the midnight of the fatal Sabbath. Corroboration will rise

upon corroboration, and the murderer will be traced.”

[For reasons which we shall not specify, but which to many

readers will appear obvious, we have taken the liberty of here

omitting, from the MSS. placed in our hands, such portion as

details the following up of the apparently slight clew obtained

by Dupin. We feel it advisable only to state, in brief, that the

result desired was brought to pass; and that the Prefect

fulfilled punctually, although with reluctance, the terms of his

compact with the Chevalier. Mr. Poe’s article concludes with the

following words.—Eds. (*23)]

It will be understood that I speak of coincidences and no more.

What I have said above upon this topic must suffice. In my own

heart there dwells no faith in præter-nature. That Nature and its

God are two, no man who thinks, will deny. That the latter,

creating the former, can, at will, control or modify it, is also

unquestionable. I say “at will;” for the question is of will, and

not, as the insanity of logic has assumed, of power. It is not

that the Deity cannot modify his laws, but that we insult him in

imagining a possible necessity for modification. In their origin

these laws were fashioned to embrace all contingencies which

could lie in the Future. With God all is Now.

I repeat, then, that I speak of these things only as of

coincidences. And farther: in what I relate it will be seen that

between the fate of the unhappy Mary Cecilia Rogers, so far as

that fate is known, and the fate of one Marie Rogêt up to a

certain epoch in her history, there has existed a parallel in the

contemplation of whose wonderful exactitude the reason becomes

embarrassed. I say all this will be seen. But let it not for a

moment be supposed that, in proceeding with the sad narrative of

Marie from the epoch just mentioned, and in tracing to its

dénouement the mystery which enshrouded her, it is my covert

design to hint at an extension of the parallel, or even to

suggest that the measures adopted in Paris for the discovery of

the assassin of a grisette, or measures founded in any similar

ratiocination, would produce any similar result.

For, in respect to the latter branch of the supposition, it

should be considered that the most trifling variation in the

facts of the two cases might give rise to the most important

miscalculations, by diverting thoroughly the two courses of

events; very much as, in arithmetic, an error which, in its own

individuality, may be inappreciable, produces, at length, by dint

of multiplication at all points of the process, a result

enormously at variance with truth. And, in regard to the former

branch, we must not fail to hold in view that the very Calculus

of Probabilities to which I have referred, forbids all idea of

the extension of the parallel—forbids it with a positiveness

strong and decided just in proportion as this parallel has

already been long-drawn and exact. This is one of those anomalous

propositions which, seemingly appealing to thought altogether

apart from the mathematical, is yet one which only the

mathematician can fully entertain. Nothing, for example, is more

difficult than to convince the merely general reader that the

fact of sixes having been thrown twice in succession by a player

at dice, is sufficient cause for betting the largest odds that

sixes will not be thrown in the third attempt. A suggestion to

this effect is usually rejected by the intellect at once. It does

not appear that the two throws which have been completed, and

which lie now absolutely in the Past, can have influence upon the

throw which exists only in the Future. The chance for throwing

sixes seems to be precisely as it was at any ordinary time—that

is to say, subject only to the influence of the various other

throws which may be made by the dice. And this is a reflection

which appears so exceedingly obvious that attempts to controvert

it are received more frequently with a derisive smile than with

anything like respectful attention. The error here involved—a

gross error redolent of mischief—I cannot pretend to expose

within the limits assigned me at present; and with the

philosophical it needs no exposure. It may be sufficient here to

say that it forms one of an infinite series of mistakes which

arise in the path of Reason through her propensity for seeking

truth in detail.

FOOTNOTES—Marie Rogêt

(*1) Upon the original publication of “Marie Roget,” the

foot-notes now appended were considered unnecessary; but the

lapse of several years since the tragedy upon which the tale is

based, renders it expedient to give them, and also to say a few

words in explanation of the general design. A young girl, Mary

Cecilia Rogers, was murdered in the vicinity of New York; and,

although her death occasioned an intense and long-enduring

excitement, the mystery attending it had remained unsolved at the

period when the present paper was written and published

(November, 1842). Herein, under pretence of relating the fate of

a Parisian grisette, the author has followed in minute detail,

the essential, while merely paralleling the inessential facts of

the real murder of Mary Rogers. Thus all argument founded upon

the fiction is applicable to the truth: and the investigation of

the truth was the object. The “Mystery of Marie Roget” was

composed at a distance from the scene of the atrocity, and with

no other means of investigation than the newspapers afforded.

Thus much escaped the writer of which he could have availed

himself had he been upon the spot, and visited the localities. It

may not be improper to record, nevertheless, that the confessions

of two persons, (one of them the Madame Deluc of the narrative)

made, at different periods, long subsequent to the publication,

confirmed, in full, not only the general conclusion, but

absolutely all the chief hypothetical details by which that

conclusion was attained.

(*2) The nom de plume of Von Hardenburg.

(*3) Nassau Street.

(*4) Anderson.

(*5) The Hudson.

(*6) Weehawken.

(*7) Payne.

(*8) Crommelin.

(*9) The New York “Mercury.”

(*10) The New York “Brother Jonathan,” edited by H. Hastings

Weld, Esq.

(*11) New York “Journal of Commerce.”

(*12) Philadelphia “Saturday Evening Post,” edited by C. I.

Peterson, Esq.

(*13) Adam

(*14) See “Murders in the Rue Morgue.”

(*15) The New York “Commercial Advertiser,” edited by Col. Stone.

(*16) “A theory based on the qualities of an object, will prevent

its being unfolded according to its objects; and he who arranges

topics in reference to their causes, will cease to value them

according to their results. Thus the jurisprudence of every

nation will show that, when law becomes a science and a system,

it ceases to be justice. The errors into which a blind devotion

to principles of classification has led the common law, will be

seen by observing how often the legislature has been obliged to

come forward to restore the equity its scheme had lost.”—Landor.

(*17) New York “Express”

(*18) New York “Herald.”

(*19) New York “Courier and Inquirer.”

(*20) Mennais was one of the parties originally suspected and

arrested, but discharged through total lack of evidence.

(*21) New York “Courier and Inquirer.”

(*22) New York “Evening Post.”

(*23) Of the Magazine in which the article was originally

published.

THE BALLOON-HOAX

[Astounding News by Express, _via_ Norfolk!—The Atlantic crossed in

Three Days! Signal Triumph of Mr. Monck Mason’s Flying

Machine!—Arrival at Sullivan’s Island, near Charlestown, S.C., of Mr.

Mason, Mr. Robert Holland, Mr. Henson, Mr. Harrison Ainsworth, and four

others, in the Steering Balloon, “Victoria,” after a passage of

Seventy-five Hours from Land to Land! Full Particulars of the Voyage!

The subjoined _jeu d’esprit_ with the preceding heading in

magnificent capitals, well interspersed with notes of admiration,

was originally published, as matter of fact, in the “New York Sun,”

a daily newspaper, and therein fully subserved the purpose of

creating indigestible aliment for the _quidnuncs_ during the few

hours intervening between a couple of the Charleston mails. The

rush for the “sole paper which had the news,” was something beyond

even the prodigious; and, in fact, if (as some assert) the

“Victoria” _did_ not absolutely accomplish the voyage recorded, it

will be difficult to assign a reason why she _should_ not have

accomplished it.]

The great problem is at length solved! The air, as well as the

earth and the ocean, has been subdued by science, and will become

a common and convenient highway for mankind. _The Atlantic has

been actually crossed in a Balloon!_ and this too without

difficulty—without any great apparent danger—with thorough

control of the machine—and in the inconceivably brief period of

seventy-five hours from shore to shore! By the energy of an agent

at Charleston, S.C., we are enabled to be the first to furnish

the public with a detailed account of this most extraordinary

voyage, which was performed between Saturday, the 6th instant, at

11, A.M., and 2, P.M., on Tuesday, the 9th instant, by Sir

Everard Bringhurst; Mr. Osborne, a nephew of Lord Bentinck’s; Mr.

Monck Mason and Mr. Robert Holland, the well-known æronauts; Mr.

Harrison Ainsworth, author of “Jack Sheppard,” &c.; and Mr.

Henson, the projector of the late unsuccessful flying

machine—with two seamen from Woolwich—in all, eight persons. The

particulars furnished below may be relied on as authentic and

accurate in every respect, as, with a slight exception, they are

copied _verbatim_ from the joint diaries of Mr. Monck Mason and

Mr. Harrison Ainsworth, to whose politeness our agent is also

indebted for much verbal information respecting the balloon

itself, its construction, and other matters of interest. The only

alteration in the MS. received, has been made for the purpose of

throwing the hurried account of our agent, Mr. Forsyth, into a

connected and intelligible form.

“THE BALLOON.

“Two very decided failures, of late—those of Mr. Henson and Sir

George Cayley—had much weakened the public interest in the

subject of aerial navigation. Mr. Henson’s scheme (which at first

was considered very feasible even by men of science,) was founded

upon the principle of an inclined plane, started from an eminence

by an extrinsic force, applied and continued by the revolution of

impinging vanes, in form and number resembling the vanes of a

windmill. But, in all the experiments made with models at the

Adelaide Gallery, it was found that the operation of these fans

not only did not propel the machine, but actually impeded its

flight. The only propelling force it ever exhibited, was the mere

_impetus_ acquired from the descent of the inclined plane; and

this _impetus_ carried the machine farther when the vanes were at

rest, than when they were in motion—a fact which sufficiently

demonstrates their inutility; and in the absence of the

propelling, which was also the _sustaining_ power, the whole

fabric would necessarily descend. This consideration led Sir

George Cayley to think only of adapting a propeller to some

machine having of itself an independent power of support—in a

word, to a balloon; the idea, however, being novel, or original,

with Sir George, only so far as regards the mode of its

application to practice. He exhibited a model of his invention at

the Polytechnic Institution. The propelling principle, or power,

was here, also, applied to interrupted surfaces, or vanes, put in

revolution. These vanes were four in number, but were found

entirely ineffectual in moving the balloon, or in aiding its

ascending power. The whole project was thus a complete failure.

“It was at this juncture that Mr. Monck Mason (whose voyage from

Dover to Weilburg in the balloon, “Nassau,” occasioned so much

excitement in 1837,) conceived the idea of employing the

principle of the Archimedean screw for the purpose of propulsion

through the air—rightly attributing the failure of Mr. Henson’s

scheme, and of Sir George Cayley’s, to the interruption of

surface in the independent vanes. He made the first public

experiment at Willis’s Rooms, but afterward removed his model to

the Adelaide Gallery.

“Like Sir George Cayley’s balloon, his own was an ellipsoid. Its

length was thirteen feet six inches—height, six feet eight

inches. It contained about three hundred and twenty cubic feet of

gas, which, if pure hydrogen, would support twenty-one pounds

upon its first inflation, before the gas has time to deteriorate

or escape. The weight of the whole machine and apparatus was

seventeen pounds—leaving about four pounds to spare. Beneath the

centre of the balloon, was a frame of light wood, about nine feet

long, and rigged on to the balloon itself with a network in the

customary manner. From this framework was suspended a wicker

basket or car.

“The screw consists of an axis of hollow brass tube, eighteen

inches in length, through which, upon a semi-spiral inclined at

fifteen degrees, pass a series of steel wire radii, two feet

long, and thus projecting a foot on either side. These radii are

connected at the outer extremities by two bands of flattened

wire—the whole in this manner forming the framework of the screw,

which is completed by a covering of oiled silk cut into gores,

and tightened so as to present a tolerably uniform surface. At

each end of its axis this screw is supported by pillars of hollow

brass tube descending from the hoop. In the lower ends of these

tubes are holes in which the pivots of the axis revolve. From the

end of the axis which is next the car, proceeds a shaft of steel,

connecting the screw with the pinion of a piece of spring

machinery fixed in the car. By the operation of this spring, the

screw is made to revolve with great rapidity, communicating a

progressive motion to the whole. By means of the rudder, the

machine was readily turned in any direction. The spring was of

great power, compared with its dimensions, being capable of

raising forty-five pounds upon a barrel of four inches diameter,

after the first turn, and gradually increasing as it was wound

up. It weighed, altogether, eight pounds six ounces. The rudder

was a light frame of cane covered with silk, shaped somewhat like

a battle-door, and was about three feet long, and at the widest,

one foot. Its weight was about two ounces. It could be turned

_flat_, and directed upwards or downwards, as well as to the

right or left; and thus enabled the æronaut to transfer the

resistance of the air which in an inclined position it must

generate in its passage, to any side upon which he might desire

to act; thus determining the balloon in the opposite direction.

“This model (which, through want of time, we have necessarily

described in an imperfect manner,) was put in action at the

Adelaide Gallery, where it accomplished a velocity of five miles

per hour; although, strange to say, it excited very little

interest in comparison with the previous complex machine of Mr.

Henson—so resolute is the world to despise anything which carries

with it an air of simplicity. To accomplish the great desideratum

of ærial navigation, it was very generally supposed that some

exceedingly complicated application must be made of some

unusually profound principle in dynamics.

“So well satisfied, however, was Mr. Mason of the ultimate

success of his invention, that he determined to construct

immediately, if possible, a balloon of sufficient capacity to

test the question by a voyage of some extent—the original design

being to cross the British Channel, as before, in the Nassau

balloon. To carry out his views, he solicited and obtained the

patronage of Sir Everard Bringhurst and Mr. Osborne, two

gentlemen well known for scientific acquirement, and especially

for the interest they have exhibited in the progress of

ærostation. The project, at the desire of Mr. Osborne, was kept a

profound secret from the public—the only persons entrusted with

the design being those actually engaged in the construction of

the machine, which was built (under the superintendence of Mr.

Mason, Mr. Holland, Sir Everard Bringhurst, and Mr. Osborne,) at

the seat of the latter gentleman near Penstruthal, in Wales. Mr.

Henson, accompanied by his friend Mr. Ainsworth, was admitted to

a private view of the balloon, on Saturday last—when the two

gentlemen made final arrangements to be included in the

adventure. We are not informed for what reason the two seamen

were also included in the party—but, in the course of a day or

two, we shall put our readers in possession of the minutest

particulars respecting this extraordinary voyage.