The Lock and Key Library 18 – Anonymous · Verses Across
Literature · Gothic Fiction
The Lock and Key Library 18Part 1 · Chapter 11 (part 5)
18
Literature · Gothic Fiction
The Lock and Key Library 18
Part 1 · Chapter 11 (part 5)
AnonymousEnglish
Perhaps (still more dreadful) the FEAR will at last become a HOPE,--shut out from society, watched by a brutal keeper, writhing with all the impotent agony of an incarcerated mind, without communication and without sympathy, unable to exchange ideas but with those whose ideas are only the hideous specters of departed intellect, or even to hear the welcome sound of the human voice, except to mistake it for the howl of a fiend, and stop the ear desecrated by its intrusion,-- then at last your fear will become a more fearful hope; you will wish to become one of them, to escape the agony of consciousness. As those who have long leaned over a precipice, have at last felt a desire to plunge below, to relieve the intolerable temptation of their giddiness,* you will hear them laugh amid their wildest paroxysms; you will say, 'Doubtless those wretches have some consolation, but I have none; my sanity is my greatest curse in this abode of horrors. They greedily devour their miserable meals, while I loathe mine. They sleep sometimes soundly, while my sleep is--worse than their waking. They are revived every morning by some delicious illusion of cunning madness, soothing them with the hope of escaping, baffling or tormenting their keeper; my sanity precludes all such hope. I KNOW I NEVER CAN ESCAPE, and the preservation of my faculties is only an aggravation of my sufferings. I have all their miseries,--I have none of their consolations. They laugh,--I hear them; would I could laugh like them.' You will try, and the very effort will be an invocation to the demon of insanity to come and take full possession of you from that moment forever."
* A fact, related to me by a person who was near committing suicide in a similar situation, to escape what he called "the excruciating torture of giddiness."
(There were other details, both of the menaces and temptations employed by Melmoth, which are too horrible for insertion. One of them may serve for an instance.)
"You think that the intellectual power is something distinct from the vitality of the soul, or, in other words, that if even your reason should be destroyed (which it nearly is), your soul might yet enjoy beatitude in the full exercise of its enlarged and exalted faculties, and all the clouds which obscured them be dispelled by the Sun of Righteousness, in whose beams you hope to bask forever and ever. Now, without going into any metaphysical subtleties about the distinction between mind and soul, experience must teach you, that there can be no crime into which madmen would not, and do not, precipitate themselves; mischief is their occupation, malice their habit, murder their sport, and blasphemy their delight. Whether a soul in this state can be in a hopeful one, it is for you to judge; but it seems to me, that with the loss of reason (and reason cannot long be retained in this place) you lose also the hope of immortality.--Listen," said the tempter, pausing, "listen to the wretch who is raving near you, and whose blasphemies might make a demon start.--He was once an eminent puritanical preacher. Half the day he imagines himself in a pulpit, denouncing damnation against Papists, Arminians, and even Sublapsarians (he being a Supra-lapsarian himself). He foams, he writhes, he gnashes his teeth; you would imagine him in the hell he was painting, and that the fire and brimstone he is so lavish of were actually exhaling from his jaws. At night his creed retaliates on him; he believes himself one of the reprobates he has been all day denouncing, and curses God for the very decree he has all day been glorifying Him for.
"He, whom he has for twelve hours been vociferating 'is the loveliest among ten thousand,' becomes the object of demoniac hostility and execration. He grapples with the iron posts of his bed, and says he is rooting out the cross from the very foundations of Calvary; and it is remarkable, that in proportion as his morning exercises are intense, vivid, and eloquent, his nightly blasphemies are outrageous and horrible.--Hark! Now he believes himself a demon; listen to his diabolical eloquence of horror!"
Stanton listened, and shuddered . .
"Escape--escape for your life," cried the tempter; "break forth into life, liberty, and sanity. Your social happiness, your intellectual powers, your immortal interests, perhaps, depend on the choice of this moment.--There is the door, and the key is in my hand.--Choose--choose!"--"And how comes the key in your hand? and what is the condition of my liberation?" said Stanton.
The explanation occupied several pages, which, to the torture of young Melmoth, were wholly illegible. It seemed, however, to have been rejected by Stanton with the utmost rage and horror, for Melmoth at last made out,--"Begone, monster, demon!--begone to your native place. Even this mansion of horror trembles to contain you; its walls sweat, and its floors quiver, while you tread them."
The conclusion of this extraordinary manuscript was in such a state, that, in fifteen moldy and crumbling pages, Melmoth could hardly make out that number of lines. No antiquarian, unfolding with trembling hand the calcined leaves of an Herculaneum manuscript, and hoping to discover some lost lines of the Aeneis in Virgil's own autograph, or at least some unutterable abomination of Petronius or Martial, happily elucidatory of the mysteries of the Spintriae, or the orgies of the Phallic worshipers, ever pored with more luckless diligence, or shook a head of more hopeless despondency over his task. He could but just make out what tended rather to excite than assuage that feverish thirst of curiosity which was consuming his inmost soul. The manuscript told no more of Melmoth, but mentioned that Stanton was finally liberated from his confinement,--that his pursuit of Melmoth was incessant and indefatigable,--that he himself allowed it to be a species of insanity,--that while he acknowledged it to be the master passion, he also felt it the master torment of his life. He again visited the Continent, returned to England,--pursued, inquired, traced, bribed, but in vain. The being whom he had met thrice, under circumstances so extraordinary, he was fated never to encounter again IN HIS LIFETIME. At length, discovering that he had been born in Ireland, he resolved to go there,--went, and found his pursuit again fruitless, and his inquiries unanswered. The family knew nothing of him, or at least what they knew or imagined, they prudently refused to disclose to a stranger, and Stanton departed unsatisfied. It is remarkable, that he too, as appeared from many half-obliterated pages of the manuscript, never disclosed to mortal the particulars of their conversation in the madhouse; and the slightest allusion to it threw him into fits of rage and gloom equally singular and alarming. He left the manuscript, however, in the hands of the family, possibly deeming, from their incuriosity, their apparent indifference to their relative, or their obvious unacquaintance with reading of any kind, manuscript or books, his deposit would be safe. He seems, in fact, to have acted like men, who, in distress at sea, intrust their letters and dispatches to a bottle sealed, and commit it to the waves. The last lines of the manuscript that were legible, were sufficiently extraordinary. . . .
"I have sought him everywhere.--The desire of meeting him once more is become as a burning fire within me,--it is the necessary condition of my existence. I have vainly sought him at last in Ireland, of which I find he is a native.--Perhaps our final meeting will be in. . . .
Such was the conclusion of the manuscript which Melmoth found in his uncle's closet. When he had finished it, he sunk down on the table near which he had been reading it, his face hid in his folded arms, his senses reeling, his mind in a mingled state of stupor and excitement. After a few moments, he raised himself with an involuntary start, and saw the picture gazing at him from its canvas. He was within ten inches of it as he sat, and the proximity appeared increased by the strong light that was accidentally thrown on it, and its being the only representation of a human figure in the room. Melmoth felt for a moment as if he were about to receive an explanation from its lips.
He gazed on it in return,--all was silent in the house,--they were alone together. The illusion subsided at length: and as the mind rapidly passes to opposite extremes, he remembered the injunction of his uncle to destroy the portrait. He seized it;--his hand shook at first, but the moldering canvas appeared to assist him in the effort. He tore it from the frame with a cry half terrific, half triumphant,--it fell at his feet, and he shuddered as it fell. He expected to hear some fearful sounds, some unimaginable breathings of prophetic horror, follow this act of sacrilege, for such he felt it, to tear the portrait of his ancestor from his native walls. He paused and listened:--"There was no voice, nor any that answered;"--but as the wrinkled and torn canvas fell to the floor, its undulations gave the portrait the appearance of smiling. Melmoth felt horror indescribable at this transient and imaginary resuscitation of the figure. He caught it up, rushed into the next room, tore, cut, and hacked it in every direction, and eagerly watched the fragments that burned like tinder in the turf fire which had been lit in his room. As Melmoth saw the last blaze, he threw himself into bed, in hope of a deep and intense sleep. He had done what was required of him, and felt exhausted both in mind and body; but his slumber was not so sound as he had hoped for. The sullen light of the turf fire, burning but never blazing, disturbed him every moment. He turned and turned, but still there was the same red light glaring on, but not illuminating, the dusky furniture of the apartment. The wind was high that night, and as the creaking door swung on its hinges, every noise seemed like the sound of a hand struggling with the lock, or of a foot pausing on the threshold. But (for Melmoth never could decide) was it in a dream or not, that he saw the figure of his ancestor appear at the door?--hesitatingly as he saw him at first on the night of his uncle's death,--saw him enter the room, approach his bed, and heard him whisper, "You have burned me, then; but those are flames I can survive.--I am alive,--I am beside you." Melmoth started, sprung from his bed,--it was broad daylight. He looked round,--there was no human being in the room but himself. He felt a slight pain in the wrist of his right arm. He looked at it, it was black and blue, as from the recent gripe of a strong hand.
Balzac's tale, Melmoth Reconciled, in Vol. IV., furnishes a solution to the terrible problem which Maturin has stated in this story.--EDITOR'S NOTE.
Introduction to "A Mystery with a Moral"
The next Mystery Story is like no other in these volumes. The editor's defense lies in the plea that Laurence Sterne is not like other writers of English. He is certainly one of the very greatest. Yet nowadays he is generally unknown. His rollicking frankness, his audacious unconventionality, are enough to account for the neglect. Even the easy mannered England of 1760 opened its eyes in horror when "Tristram Shandy" appeared. "A most unclerical clergyman," the public pronounced the rector of Sutton and prebendary of York.
Besides, his style was rambling to the last degree. Plot concerned him least of all authors of fiction.
For instance, it is more than doubtful that the whimsical parson really INTENDED a moral to be read into the adventures of his "Sentimental Journey" that follow in these pages. He used to declare that he never intended anything--he never knew whither his pen was leading--the rash implement, once in hand, was likely to fly with him from Yorkshire to Italy--or to Paris--or across the road to Uncle Toby's; and what could the helpless author do but improve each occasion?
So here is one such "occasion" thus "improved" by disjointed sequels--heedless, one would say, and yet glittering with the unreturnable thrust of subtle wit, or softening with simple emotion, like a thousand immortal passages of this random philosopher.
Even the slightest turns of Sterne's pen bear inspiration. No less a critic than the severe Hazlitt was satisfied that "his works consist only of brilliant passages."
And because the editors of the present volumes found added to "The Mystery" not only a "Solution" but an "Application" of worldly wisdom, and a "Contrast" in Sterne's best vein of quiet happiness-- they have felt emboldened to ascribe the passage "A Mystery with a Moral."
As regards the "Application": Sterne knew whereof he wrote. He sought the South of France for health in 1762, and was run after and feted by the most brilliant circles of Parisian litterateurs. This foreign sojourn failed to cure his lung complaint, but suggested the idea to him of the rambling and charming "Sentimental Journey." Only three weeks after its publication, on March 18, 1768, Sterne died alone in his London lodgings.
Spite of all that marred his genius, his work has lived and wil1 live, if only for the exquisite literary art which ever made great things out of little.--The EDITOR.
Laurence Sterne
A Mystery with a Moral
Parisian Experience of Parson Yorick, on his "Sentimental Journey"
A RIDDLE
I remained at the gate of the hotel for some time, looking at everyone who passed by, and forming conjectures upon them, till my attention got fixed upon a single object, which confounded all kind of reasoning upon him.
It was a tall figure of a philosophic, serious adult look, which passed and repassed sedately along the street, making a turn of about sixty paces on each side of the gate of the hotel. The man was about fifty-two, had a small cane under his arm, was dressed in a dark drab-colored coat, waistcoat, and breeches, which seemed to have seen some years' service. They were still clean, and there was a little air of frugal propriete throughout him. By his pulling off his hat, and his attitude of accosting a good many in his way, I saw he was asking charity; so I got a sous or two out of my pocket, ready to give him as he took me in his turn. He passed by me without asking anything, and yet he did not go five steps farther before he asked charity of a little woman. I was much more likely to have given of the two. He had scarce done with the woman, when he pulled his hat off to another who was coming the same way. An ancient gentleman came slowly, and after him a young smart one. He let them both pass and asked nothing. I stood observing him half an hour, in which time he had made a dozen turns backward and forward, and found that he invariably pursued the same plan.
There were two things very singular in this which set my brain to work, and to no purpose; the first was, why the man should only tell his story to the sex; and secondly, what kind of a story it was and what species of eloquence it could be which softened the hearts of the women which he knew it was to no purpose to practice upon the men.
There were two other circumstances which entangled this mystery. The one was, he told every woman what he had to say in her ear, and in a way which had much more the air of a secret than a petition; the other was, it was always successful--he never stopped a woman but she pulled out her purse and immediately gave him something.
I could form no system to explain the phenomenon.
I had got a riddle to amuse me for the rest of the evening, so I walked upstairs to my chamber.
OVERHEARD
The man who either disdains or fears to walk up a dark entry may be an excellent, good man, and fit for a hundred things, but he will not do to make a sentimental traveler. I count little of the many things I see pass at broad noonday, in large and open streets; Nature is shy, and hates to act before spectators; but in such an unobservable corner you sometimes see a single short scene of hers worth all the sentiments of a dozen French plays compounded together; and yet they are ABSOLUTELY fine, and whenever I have a more brilliant affair upon my hands than common, as they suit a preacher just as well as a hero, I generally make my sermon out of them, and for the text, "Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphilia," is as good as anyone in the Bible.
There is a long, dark passage issuing out from the Opera Comique into a narrow street. It is trod by a few who humbly wait for a fiacre* or wish to get off quietly o' foot when the opera is done. At the end of it, toward the theater, 'tis lighted by a small candle, the light of which is almost lost before you get halfway down, but near the door--it is more for ornament than use--you see it as a fixed star of the least magnitude; it burns, but does little good to the world that we know of.
*Hackney coach.
In returning [from the opera] along this passage, I discerned, as I approached within five or six paces of the door, two ladies standing arm in arm with their backs against the wall, waiting, as I imagined, for a fiacre. As they were next the door, I thought they had a prior right, so I edged myself up within a yard or little more of them, and quietly took my stand. I was in black and scarce seen.
The lady next me was a tall, lean figure of a woman of about thirty-six; the other, of the same size and make of about forty. There was no mark of wife or widow in any one part of either of them. They seemed to be two upright vestal sisters, unsapped by caresses, unbroke in upon by tender salutations. I could have wished to have made them happy. Their happiness was destined, that night, to come from another quarter.
A low voice with a good turn of expression and sweet cadence at the end of it, begged for a twelve-sous piece between them for the love of heaven. I thought it singular that a beggar should fix the quota of an alms, and that the sum should be twelve times as much as what is usually given in the dark. They both seemed astonished at it as much as myself. "Twelve sous," said one. "A twelve-sous piece," said the other, and made no reply.
The poor man said he knew not how to ask less of ladies of their rank, and bowed down his head to the ground.
"Pooh!" said they, "we have no money."
The beggar remained silent for a moment or two, and renewed his supplication.
"Do not, my fair young ladies," said he, "stop your good ears against me."
"Upon my word, honest man," said the younger, "we have no change."
"Then God bless you," said the poor man, "and multiply those joys which you can give to others without change."
I observed the older sister put her hand into her pocket. "I will see," said she, "if I have a sous."
"A sous! Give twelve," said the suppliant. "Nature has been bountiful to you; be bountiful to a poor man."
"I would, friend, with all my heart," said the younger, "if I had it."
"My fair charitable," said he, addressing himself to the elder, "what is it but your goodness and humanity which make your bright eyes so sweet that they outshine the morning even in this dark passage? And what was it which made the Marquis de Santerre and his brother say so much of you both, as they just passed by?"
The two ladies seemed much affected, and impulsively at the same time they put their hands into their pockets and each took out a twelve-sous piece.
The contest between them and the poor suppliant was no more. It was continued between themselves which of the two should give the twelve-sous piece in charity, and, to end the dispute, they both gave it together, and the man went away.
SOLUTION
I stepped hastily after him; it was the very man whose success in asking charity of the woman before the door of the hotel had so puzzled me, and I found at once his secret, or at least the basis of it: it was flattery.
Delicious essence! how refreshing art thou to Nature! How strongly are all its powers and all its weaknesses on thy side! How sweetly dost thou mix with the blood, and help it through the most difficult and tortuous passages to the heart!
The poor man, as he was not straitened for time, had given it here in a larger dose. It is certain he had a way of bringing it into less form for the many sudden causes he had to do with in the streets; but how he contrived to correct, sweeten, concenter, and qualify it--I vex not my spirit with the inquiry. It is enough, the beggar gained two twelve-sous pieces, and they can best tell the rest who have gained much greater matters by it.
APPLICATION
We get forward in the world not so much by doing services as receiving them. You take a withering twig and put it in the ground, and then you water it because you have planted it.
Monsieur le Comte de B----, merely because he had done me one kindness in the affair of my passport, would go on and do me another the few days he was at Paris, in making me known to a few people of rank; and they were to present me to others, and so on.
I had got master of my SECRET just in time to turn these honors to some little account; otherwise, as is commonly the case, I should have dined or supped a single time or two round, and then by TRANSLATING French looks and attitudes into plain English, I should presently have seen that I had got hold of the couvert* of some more entertaining guest; and in course of time should have resigned all my places one after another, merely upon the principle that I could not keep them. As it was, things did not go much amiss.
* Plate, napkin, knife, fork, and spoon.
I had the honor of being introduced to the old Marquis de B----. In days of yore he had signalized himself by some small feats of chivalry in the Cour d'Amour, and had dressed himself out to the idea of tilts and tournaments ever since. The Marquis de B---- wished to have it thought the affair was somewhere else than in his brain. "He could like to take a trip to England," and asked much of the English ladies. "Stay where you are, I beseech you, Monsieur le Marquis," said I. "Les Messieurs Anglais can scarce get a kind look from them as it is." The marquis invited me to supper.
M. P----, the farmer-general, was just as inquisitive about our taxes. They were very considerable, he heard. "If we knew but how to collect them," said I, making him a low bow.
I could never have been invited to M. P----'s concerts upon any other terms.
I had been misrepresented to Mme. de Q---- as an esprit--Mme. de Q---- was an esprit herself; she burned with impatience to see me and hear me talk. I had not taken my seat before I saw she did not care a sou whether I had any wit or no. I was let in to be convinced she had. I call Heaven to witness I never once opened the door of my lips.
Mme. de V---- vowed to every creature she met, "She had never had a more improving conversation with a man in her life."
There are three epochs in the empire of a Frenchwoman--she is coquette, then deist, then devote. The empire during these is never lost--she only changes her subjects. When thirty-five years and more have unpeopled her dominion of the slaves of love she repeoples it with slaves of infidelity, and, then with the slaves of the church.
Mme. de V---- was vibrating between the first of these epochs; the color of the rose was fading fast away; she ought to have been a deist five years before the time I had the honor to pay my first visit.
She placed me upon the same sofa with her for the sake of disputing the point of religion more closely. In short, Mme. de V---- told me she believed nothing.
I told Mme. de V---- it might be her principle, but I was sure it could not be her interest, to level the outworks, without which I could not conceive how such a citadel as hers could be defended; that there was not a more dangerous thing in the world than for a beauty to be a deist; that it was a debt I owed my creed not to conceal it from her; that I had not been five minutes upon the sofa beside her before I had begun to form designs; and what is it but the sentiments of religion, and the persuasion they had existed in her breast, which could have checked them as they rose up?
"We are not adamant," said I, taking hold of her hand, "and there is need of all restraints till age in her own time steals in and lays them on us; but, my dear lady," said I, kissing her hand, "it is too--too soon."
I declare I had the credit all over Paris of unperverting Mme. de V----. She affirmed to M. D---- and the Abbe M---- that in one half hour I had said more for revealed religion than all their encyclopaedia had said against it. I was listed directly into Mme. de V----o's coterie, and she put off the epoch of deism for two years.
I remember it was in this coterie, in the middle of a discourse, in which I was showing the necessity of a first cause, that the young Count de Faineant took me by the hand to the farthest corner of the room, to tell me that my solitaire was pinned too strait about my neck. "It should be plus badinant," said the count, looking down upon his own; "but a word, M. Yorick, to the wise--"
"And from the wise, M. le Comte," replied I, making him a bow, "is enough."
The Count de Faineant embraced me with more ardor than ever I was embraced by mortal man.
For three weeks together I was of every man's opinion I met. "Pardi! ce M. Yorick a autant d'esprit que nous autres."
"Il raisonne bien," said another.
"C'est un bon enfant," said a third.
And at this price I could have eaten and drunk and been merry all the days of my life at Paris; but it was a dishonest reckoning. I grew ashamed of it; it was the gain of a slave; every sentiment of honor revolted against it; the higher I got, the more was I forced upon my beggarly system; the better the coterie, the more children of Art, I languished for those of Nature. And one night, after a most vile prostitution of myself to half a dozen different people, I grew sick, went to bed, and ordered horses in the morning to set out for Italy.
CONTRAST
A shoe coming loose from the forefoot of the thill horse at the beginning of the ascent of Mount Taurira, the postilion dismounted, twisted the shoe off, and put it in his pocket; as the ascent was of five or six miles, and that horse our main dependence I made a point of having the shoe fastened on again as well as we could, but the postilion had thrown away the nails, and the hammer in the chaise box being of no great use without them, I submitted to go on.
He had not mounted half a mile higher when, coming to a flinty piece of road, the poor devil lost a second shoe, and from off his other forefoot. I then got out of the chaise in good earnest, and seeing a house about a quarter of a mile to the left hand, with a great deal to do I prevailed upon the postilion to turn up to it. The look of the house, and of everything about it, as we drew nearer, soon reconciled me to the disaster. It was a little farmhouse surrounded with about twenty acres of vineyard, about as much corn, and close to the house on one side was a potagerie of an acre and a half, full of everything which could make plenty in a French peasant's house, and on the other side was a little wood which furnished wherewithal to dress it. It was about eight in the evening when I got to the house, so I left the postilion to manage his point as he could, and for mine I walked directly into the house.
The family consisted of an old gray-headed man and his wife, with five or six sons and sons-in-laws, and their several wives, and a joyous genealogy out of them.
They were all sitting down together to their lentil soup. A large wheaten loaf was in the middle of the table, and a flagon of wine at each end of it promised joy through the stages of the repast-- 'twas a feast of love.
The old man rose up to meet me, and with a respectful cordiality would have me sit down at the table. My heart was sat down the moment I entered the room, so I sat down at once like a son of the family, and to invest myself in the character as speedily as I could, I instantly borrowed the old man's knife, and taking up the loaf cut myself a hearty luncheon; and, as I did it, I saw a testimony in every eye, not only of an honest welcome, but of a welcome mixed with thanks that I had not seemed to doubt it.
Was it this, or tell me, Nature, what else it was that made this morsel so sweet, and to what magic I owe it that the draught I took of their flagon was so delicious with it that they remain upon my palate to this hour?
If the supper was to my taste, the grace which followed it was much more so.
When supper was over, the old man gave a knock upon the table with the haft of his knife to bid them prepare for the dance. The moment the signal was given, the women and girls ran all together into a back apartment to tie up their hair, and the young men to the door to wash their faces and change their sabots, and in three minutes every soul was ready upon a little esplanade before the house to begin. The old man and his wife came out last, and, placing me betwixt them, sat down upon a sofa of turf by the door.
The old man had some fifty years ago been no mean performer upon the vielle,* and at the age he was then of, touched well enough for the purpose. His wife sung now and then a little to the tune, then intermitted, and joined her old man again, as their children and grandchildren danced before them.
* A small violin, such as was used by the wandering jongleurs of the Middle Ages.--EDITOR.
It was not till the middle of the second dance when, from some pauses in the movement wherein they all seemed to look up, I fancied I could distinguish an elevation of spirit different from that which is the cause or the effect of simple jollity. In a word, I thought I beheld RELIGION mixing in the dance; but, as I had never seen her so engaged, I should have looked upon it now as one of the illusions of an imagination, which is eternally misleading me, had not the old man, as soon as the dance ended, said that this was their constant way, and that all his life long he had made it a rule, after supper was over, to call out his family to dance and rejoice, believing, he said, that a cheerful and contented mind was the best sort of thanks to heaven that an illiterate peasant could pay--
"Or a learned prelate either," said I.
When you have gained the top of Mount Taurira, you run presently down to Lyons. Adieu then to all rapid movements! It is a journey of caution, and it fares better with sentiments not to be in a hurry with them, so I contracted with a volturin to take his time with a couple of mules and convey me in my own chaise safe to Turin through Savoy.
Poor, patient, quiet, honest people, fear not! Your poverty, the treasury of your simple virtues, will not be envied you by the world, nor will your values be invaded by it. Nature, in the midst of thy disorders, thou art still friendly to the scantiness thou hast created; with all thy great works about thee little hast thou left to give, either to the scythe or to the sickle, but to that little thou grantest safety and protection, and sweet are the dwellings which stand so sheltered!
William Makepeace Thackeray
On Being Found Out
At the close (let us say) of Queen Anne's reign, when I was a boy at a private and preparatory school for young gentlemen, I remember the wiseacre of a master ordering us all, one night, to march into a little garden at the back of the house, and thence to proceed one by one into a tool or hen house (I was but a tender little thing just put into short clothes, and can't exactly say whether the house was for tools or hens), and in that house to put our hands into a sack which stood on a bench, a candle burning beside it. I put my hand into the sack. My hand came out quite black. I went and joined the other boys in the schoolroom; and all their hands were black too.
By reason of my tender age (and there are some critics who, I hope, will be satisfied by my acknowledging that I am a hundred and fifty-six next birthday) I could not understand what was the meaning of this night excursion--this candle, this tool house, this bag of soot. I think we little boys were taken out of our sleep to be brought to the ordeal. We came, then, and showed our little hands to the master; washed them or not--most probably, I should say, not--and so went bewildered back to bed.
Something had been stolen in the school that day; and Mr. Wiseacre having read in a book of an ingenious method of finding out a thief by making him put his hand into a sack (which, if guilty, the rogue would shirk from doing), all we boys were subjected to the trial. Goodness knows what the lost object was, or who stole it. We all had black hands to show the master. And the thief, whoever he was, was not Found Out that time.
I wonder if the rascal is alive--an elderly scoundrel he must be by this time; and a hoary old hypocrite, to whom an old schoolfellow presents his kindest regards--parenthetically remarking what a dreadful place that private school was; cold, chilblains, bad dinners, not enough victuals, and caning awful!--Are you alive still, I say, you nameless villain, who escaped discovery on that day of crime? I hope you have escaped often since, old sinner. Ah, what a lucky thing it is, for you and me, my man, that we are NOT found out in all our peccadilloes; and that our backs can slip away from the master and the cane!
Just consider what life would be, if every rogue was found out, and flogged coram populo! What a butchery, what an indecency, what an endless swishing of the rod! Don't cry out about my misanthropy. My good friend Mealymouth, I will trouble you to tell me, do you go to church? When there, do you say, or do you not, that you are a miserable sinner, and saying so do you believe or disbelieve it? If you are a M. S., don't you deserve correction, and aren't you grateful if you are to be let off? I say again what a blessed thing it is that we are not all found out!
Just picture to yourself everybody who does wrong being found out, and punished accordingly. Fancy all the boys in all the school being whipped; and then the assistants, and then the headmaster (Dr. Badford let us call him). Fancy the provost marshal being tied up, having previously superintended the correction of the whole army. After the young gentlemen have had their turn for the faulty exercises, fancy Dr. Lincolnsinn being taken up for certain faults in HIS Essay and Review. After the clergyman has cried his peccavi, suppose we hoist up a bishop, and give him a couple of dozen! (I see my Lord Bishop of Double-Gloucester sitting in a very uneasy posture on his right reverend bench.) After we have cast off the bishop, what are we to say to the Minister who appointed him? My Lord Cinqwarden, it is painful to have to use personal correction to a boy of your age; but really . . . Siste tandem carnifex! The butchery is too horrible. The hand drops powerless, appalled at the quantity of birch which it must cut and brandish. I am glad we are not all found out, I say again; and protest, my dear brethren, against our having our deserts.
To fancy all men found out and punished is bad enough; but imagine all the women found out in the distinguished social circle in which you and I have the honor to move. Is it not a mercy that a many of these fair criminals remain unpunished and undiscovered! There is Mrs. Longbow, who is forever practicing, and who shoots poisoned arrows, too; when you meet her you don't call her liar, and charge her with the wickedness she has done and is doing. There is Mrs. Painter, who passes for a most respectable woman, and a model in society. There is no use in saying what you really know regarding her and her goings on. There is Diana Hunter--what a little haughty prude it is; and yet WE know stories about her which are not altogether edifying. I say it is best for the sake of the good, that the bad should not all be found out. You don't want your children to know the history of that lady in the next box, who is so handsome, and whom they admire so. Ah me, what would life be if we were all found out and punished for all our faults? Jack Ketch would be in permanence; and then who would hang Jack Ketch?
They talk of murderers being pretty certainly found out. Psha! I have heard an authority awfully competent vow and declare that scores and hundreds of murders are committed, and nobody is the wiser. That terrible man mentioned one or two ways of committing murder, which he maintained were quite common, and were scarcely ever found out. A man, for instance, comes home to his wife, and . . . but I pause--I know that this Magazine has a very large circulation.* Hundreds and hundreds of thousands--why not say a million of people at once?--well, say a million, read it. And among these countless readers, I might be teaching some monster how to make away with his wife without being found out, some fiend of a woman how to destroy her dear husband. I will NOT then tell this easy and simple way of murder, as communicated to me by a most respectable party in the confidence of private intercourse. Suppose some gentle reader were to try this most simple and easy receipt--it seems to me almost infallible--and come to grief in consequence, and be found out and hanged? Should I ever pardon myself for having been the means of doing injury to a single one of our esteemed subscribers? The prescription whereof I speak--that is to say, whereof I DON'T speak--shall be buried in this bosom. No, I am a humane man. I am not one of your Bluebeards to go and say to my wife, "My dear! I am going away for a few days to Brighton. Here are all the keys of the house. You may open every door and closet, except the one at the end of the oak room opposite the fireplace, with the little bronze Shakespeare on the mantelpiece (or what not)." I don't say this to a woman--unless, to be sure, I want to get rid of her--because, after such a caution, I know she'll peep into the closet. I say nothing about the closet at all. I keep the key in my pocket, and a being whom I love, but who, as I know, has many weaknesses, out of harm's way. You toss up your head, dear angel, drub on the ground with your lovely little feet, on the table with your sweet rosy fingers, and cry, "Oh, sneerer! You don't know the depth of woman's feeling, the lofty scorn of all deceit, the entire absence of mean curiosity in the sex, or never, never would you libel us so!" Ah, Delia! dear, dear Delia! It is because I fancy I DO know something about you (not all, mind--no, no; no man knows that).--Ah, my bride, my ringdove, my rose, my poppet--choose, in fact, whatever name you like--bulbul of my grove, fountain of my desert, sunshine of my darkling life, and joy of my dungeoned existence, it is because I DO know a little about you that I conclude to say nothing of that private closet, and keep my key in my pocket. You take away that closet key then, and the house key. You lock Delia in. You keep her out of harm's way and gadding, and so she never CAN be found out.
* The Cornhill.--editor.
And yet by little strange accidents and coincidents how we are being found out every day. You remember that old story of the Abbe Kakatoes, who told the company at supper one night how the first confession he ever received was--from a murderer, let us say. Presently enters to supper the Marquis de Croquemitaine. "Palsambleu, abbe!" says the brilliant marquis, taking a pinch of snuff, "are you here? Gentlemen and ladies! I was the abbe's first penitent, and I made him a confession, which I promise you astonished him."
To be sure how queerly things are found out! Here is an instance. Only the other day I was writing in these Roundabout Papers about a certain man, whom I facetiously called Baggs, and who had abused me to my friends, who of course told me. Shortly after that paper was published another friend--Sacks let us call him--scowls fiercely at me as I am sitting in perfect good humor at the club, and passes on without speaking. A cut. A quarrel. Sacks thinks it is about him that I was writing: whereas, upon my honor and conscience, I never had him once in my mind, and was pointing my moral from quite another man. But don't you see, by this wrath of the guilty- conscienced Sacks, that he had been abusing me too? He has owned himself guilty, never having been accused. He has winced when nobody thought of hitting him. I did but put the cap out, and madly butting and chafing, behold my friend rushes out to put his head into it! Never mind, Sacks, you are found out; but I bear you no malice, my man.
And yet to be found out, I know from my own experience, must be painful and odious, and cruelly mortifying to the inward vanity. Suppose I am a poltroon, let us say. With fierce mustache, loud talk, plentiful oaths, and an immense stick, I keep up nevertheless a character for courage. I swear fearfully at cabmen and women; brandish my bludgeon, and perhaps knock down a little man or two with it: brag of the images which I break at the shooting gallery, and pass among my friends for a whiskery fire-eater, afraid of neither man nor dragon. Ah me! Suppose some brisk little chap steps up and gives me a caning in St. James's Street, with all the heads of my friends looking out of all the club windows. My reputation is gone. I frighten no man more. My nose is pulled by whipper-snappers, who jump up on a chair to reach it. I am found out. And in the days of my triumphs, when people were yet afraid of me, and were taken in by my swagger, I always knew that I was a lily liver, and expected that I should be found out some day.
That certainty of being found out must haunt and depress many a bold braggadocio spirit. Let us say it is a clergyman, who can pump copious floods of tears out of his own eyes and those of his audience. He thinks to himself, "I am but a poor swindling, chattering rogue. My bills are unpaid. I have jilted several women whom I have promised to marry. I don't know whether I believe what I preach, and I know I have stolen the very sermon over which I have been sniveling. Have they found me out?" says he, as his head drops down on the cushion.
Then your writer, poet, historian, novelist, or what not? The Beacon says that "Jones's work is one of the first order." The Lamp declares that Jones's tragedy surpasses every work since the days of Him of Avon." The Comet asserts that "J's 'Life of Goody Twoshoes' is a [Greek text omitted], a noble and enduring monument to the fame of that admirable Englishwoman," and so forth. But then Jones knows that he has lent the critic of the Beacon five pounds; that his publisher has a half share in the Lamp; and that the Cornet comes repeatedly to dine with him. It is all very well. Jones is immortal until he is found out; and then down comes the extinguisher, and the immortal is dead and buried. The idea (dies irae!) of discovery must haunt many a man, and make him uneasy, as the trumpets are puffing in his triumph. Brown, who has a higher place than he deserves, cowers before Smith, who has found him out. What is the chorus of critics shouting "Bravo"?--a public clapping hands and flinging garlands? Brown knows that Smith has found him out. Puff, trumpets! Wave, banners! Huzza, boys, for the immortal Brown! This is all very well," B. thinks (bowing the while, smiling, laying his hand to his heart); "but there stands Smith at the window: HE has measured me; and some day the others will find me out too." It is a very curious sensation to sit by a man who has found you out, and who, as you know, has found you out; or, vice versa, to sit with a man whom YOU have found out. His talent? Bah! His virtue? We know a little story or two about his virtue, and he knows we know it. We are thinking over friend Robinson's antecedents, as we grin, bow and talk; and we are both humbugs together. Robinson a good fellow, is he? You know how he behaved to Hicks? A good-natured man, is he? Pray do you remember that little story of Mrs. Robinson's black eye? How men have to work, to talk, to smile, to go to bed, and try and sleep, with this dread of being found out on their consciences! Bardolph, who has robbed a church, and Nym, who has taken a purse, go to their usual haunts, and smoke their pipes with their companions. Mr. Detective Bullseye appears, and says, "Oh, Bardolph! I want you about that there pyx business!" Mr. Bardolph knocks the ashes out of his pipe, puts out his hands to the little steel cuffs, and walks away quite meekly. He is found out. He must go. "Good-by, 'Doll Tearsheet! Good-by, Mrs. Quickly, ma'am!" The other gentlemen and ladies de la societe look on and exchange mute adieux with the departing friends. And an assured time will come when the other gentlemen and ladies will be found out too.
What a wonderful and beautiful provision of nature it has been that, for the most part, our womankind are not endowed with the faculty of finding us out! THEY don't doubt, and probe, and weigh, and take your measure. Lay down this paper, my benevolent friend and reader, go into your drawing-room now, and utter a joke ever so old, and I wager sixpence the ladies there will all begin to laugh. Go to Brown's house, and tell Mrs. Brown and the young ladies what you think of him, and see what a welcome you will get! In like manner, let him come to your house, and tell YOUR good lady his candid opinion of you, and fancy how she will receive him! Would you have your wife and children know you exactly for what you are, and esteem you precisely at your worth? If so, my friend, you will live in a dreary house, and you will have but a chilly fireside. Do you suppose the people round it don't see your homely face as under a glamour, and, as it were, with a halo of love round it? You don't fancy you ARE as you seem to them? No such thing, my man. Put away that monstrous conceit, and be thankful that THEY have not found you out.
The Notch on the Ax
A Story a la Mode*
* (Here Thackeray reduces to an absurdity the literary fashion of the day--the vogue for startling stories and "Tales of Terror," which was high in his time, and which influenced several of the stories which precede in this volume. But while Dickens made fun, with mental reservations; while Bulwer Lytton tried to explain by rising to the heights of natural philosophy, and Maturin did not explain at all, but let his extravagant genius roam between heaven and earth--Thackeray's keen wit saw mainly one chance for exquisite literary satire and parody. At one point or another in this skit, the style of each principal sensational novelist of the day is delightfully imitated.--EDITOR.)
