Chapter V: Front Matter (5)

Afterward Mr. Poe became personally acquainted with the author, and he then wrote, in his account of "The Literati of New-York City," as follows:

"The Confessions of a Poet made much noise in the literary world, and no little curiosity was excited in regard to its author, who was generally supposed to be John Neal.... The 'Confessions,' however, far surpassed any production of Mr. Neal's.... _He_ has done nothing which, as a whole, is _even respectable_, and 'The Confessions' are quite remarkable for their artistic unity and perfection. But on higher regards they are to be commended. _I do not think, indeed, that a better book of its kind has been written in America_....Its scenes of passion are intensely wrought, its incidents are striking and original, its sentiments audacious and suggestive at least, if not at all times tenable. In a word, it is that rare thing, a fiction of _power_ without rudeness."

I will adduce another example of the same kind. In a notice of the "Democratic Review," for September, 1845, Mr. Poe remarks of Mr. William A. Jones's paper on American Humor:

"There is only one really bad article in the number, and that is insufferable: nor do we think it the less a nuisance because it inflicts upon ourselves individually a passage of maudlin compliment about our bring a most 'ingenious critic' 'and prose poet,' with some other things of a similar kind. We thank for his good word no man who gives palpable evidence, in other cases than our own, of his _incapacity_ to distinguish the false from the true--the right from the wrong. If we _are_ an ingenious critic, or a prose poet, it is not because Mr. William Jones says so. The truth is that this essay on 'American Humor' is Contemptible both in a moral and literary sense--is the composition of an _imitator and a quack_--and disgraces the magazine in which it makes its appearance."--_Broadway Journal_, Vol. ii. No. 11.

In the following week he reconsidered this matter, opening his paper for a defense of Mr. Jones; but at the close of it said--

"If we have done Mr. Jones injustice, we beg his pardon: but we do not think we have."

Yet in a subsequent article in "Graham's Magazine," on "Critics and Criticism," he says of Mr. Jones, referring only to writings of his that had been for years before the public when he printed the above paragraphs:

"Our most analytic, _if not altogether our best critic_, (Mr. Whipple, perhaps, excepted,) is Mr. _William A. Jones_, author of 'The Analyst.' How he would write elaborate criticisms I cannot say; but his summary judgments of authors are, in general, discriminative and profound. In fact, his papers on _Emerson_ and on _Macaulay_, published in 'Arcturus.' are better than merely 'profound,' if we take the word in its now desecrated sense; for they are at once pointed, lucid, and just:--as summaries leaving nothing to be desired."

I will not continue the display of these inconsistencies. As I have Already intimated, a volume might be filled with passages to show that his criticisms were guided by no sense of duty, and that his opinions were so variable and so liable to be influenced by unworthy considerations as to be really of no value whatever.

It was among his remarkable habits that he preserved with scrupulous care everything that was published respecting himself or his works, and everything that was written to him in letters that could be used in any way for the establishment or extension of his reputation. In Philadelphia, in 1843, he prepared with his own hands a sketch of his life for a paper called "The Museum." Many parts of it are untrue, but I refer to it for the purpose of quoting a characteristic instance of perversion in the reproduction of compliments:

"Of 'William Wilson,' Mr. Washington Irving says: 'It is managed in a highly picturesque style, and its singular and mysterious interest is ably sustained throughout. In point of mere style, it is, perhaps, even superior to 'The House of Usher.' It is simpler. In the latter composition, he seems to have been distrustful of his effects, or, rather, too solicitous of bringing them forth fully to the eye, and thus, perhaps, has laid on too much coloring. He has erred, however, on the safe side, that of exuberance, and the evil might easily be remedied, by relieving the style of some of its epithets;' [since done.] 'There would be no fear of injuring the graphic effect, _which is powerful_.' The italics are Mr. Irving's own."

Now Mr. Irving had said in a private letter that he thought the "House of Usher" Was clever, and that "a volume of similar stories would be well received by the public." Poe sent him a magazine containing "William Wilson," asking his opinion of it, and Mr. Irving, expressly declining to _publish_ a word upon the subject, remarked in the same manner, that "the singular and mysterious interest is well sustained," and that in point of style the tale was "much better" than the "House of Usher," which, he says, "might be improved by relieving the style from some of the epithets: there is no danger of destroying the graphic effect, which is powerful." There is not a word in _italics_ in Mr. Irving's letter, the meaning of which is quite changed by Mr. Poe's alterations. And this letter was not only published in the face of an implied prohibition, but made to seem like a deliberately-expressed judgment in a public reviewal. In the same way Mr. Poe published the following sentence as an extract from a letter by Miss Barrett:

"Our great poet, Mr. Browning, the author of 'Paracelsus,' etc., _is enthusiastic in his admiration_ of the rhythm."

But on turning to Miss Barrett's letter, I find that she wrote:

"Our great poet, Mr. Browning, author of 'Paracelsus,' and 'Bells and Pomegranates,' was struck much by the rhythm of that poem."

The piece alluded to is "The Raven."

It is not true, as has been frequently alleged since Mr. Poe's death, that his writings were above the popular taste, and therefore without a suitable market in this country. His poems were worth as much to magazines as those of Bryant or Longfellow, (though none of the publishers paid him half as large a price for them,) and his tales were as popular as those of Willis, who has been commonly regarded as the best magazinist of his time. He ceased to write for _The Lady's Book_ in consequence of a quarrel induced by Mr. Godey's justifiable refusal to print in that miscellany his "Reply to Dr. English," and though in the poor fustian published under the signature of "George R. Graham," in answer to some remarks upon Poe's character in _The Tribune_, that individual is made to assume a passionate friendship for the deceased author that would have become a Pythias, it is known that the personal ill-will on both sides was such that for some four or five years _not a line by Poe was purchased for Graham's Magazine_. To quote again the "Defense of Mr. Poe" in the _Southern Literary Messenger_:

"His changeable humors, his irregularities, his caprices, his total disregard of everything and body, save the fancy in his head, prevented him from doing well in the world. The evils and sufferings that poverty brought upon him, soured his nature, and deprived him of faith in human beings. This was evident to the eye--he believed in nobody, and cared for nobody. Such a mental condition of course drove away all those who would otherwise have stood by him in his hours of trial. He became, and was, an Ishmaelite."

After having, in no ungenerous spirit, presented the chief facts in Mr. Poe's history, not designedly exaggerating his genius, which none held in higher admiration, not bringing into bolder relief than was just and necessary his infirmities. I am glad to offer a portraiture of some of his social qualities, equally beautiful, and--so changeable and inconsistent was the man--as far as it goes, truthful. Speaking of him one day soon after his death, with the late Mrs. Osgood, the beauty of whose character had made upon Poe's mind that impression which it never failed to produce upon minds capable of the apprehension of the finest traits in human nature, she said she did not doubt that my view of Mr. Poe, which she knew indeed to be the common view, was perfectly just, as it regarded him in his relations with men; but to women he was different, and she would write for me some recollections of him, to be placed beside my harsher judgments in any notice of his life that the acceptance of the appointment to be his literary executor might render it necessary for me to give to the world. She was an invalid--dying of that consumption by which in a few weeks she was removed to heaven, and calling for pillows to support her while she wrote, she drew this sketch:

"You ask me, my friend, to write for you my reminiscences of Edgar Poe. For you, who knew and understood my affectionate interest in him, and my frank acknowledgment of that interest to all who had a claim upon my confidence, for you, I will willingly do so. I think no one could know him--no one _has_ known him personally--certainly no woman-without feeling the same interest. I can sincerely say, that although I have frequently _heard_ of aberrations on his part from the 'straight and narrow path,' I have never _seen_ him otherwise than gentle, generous, well-bred, and fastidiously refined. To a sensitive and delicately-nurtured woman, there was a peculiar and irresistible charm in the chivalric, graceful, and almost tender reverence with which he invariably approached all women who won his respect. It was this which first commanded and always retained my regard for him.

"I have been told, that when his sorrows and pecuniary embarrassments had driven him to the use of stimulants, which a less delicate organization might have borne without injury, he was in the habit of speaking disrespectfully of the ladies of his acquaintance. It is difficult for me to believe this; for to _me_, to whom he came during the year of our acquaintance for counsel and kindness in all his many anxieties and griefs, he never spoke irreverently of any woman save one, and then only in _my_ defense; and though I rebuked him for his momentary forgetfulness of the respect due to himself and to me, I could not but forgive the offense for the sake of the generous impulse which prompted it. Yet even were these sad rumors true of him, the wise and well-informed knew how to regard, as they would the impetuous anger of a spoiled infant, balked of its capricious will, the equally harmless and unmeaning phrensy of that stray child of Poetry and Passion. For the few unwomanly and slander-loving gossips who have injured _him_ and _themselves_ only by _repeating_ his ravings, when in such moods they have accepted his society. I have only to vouchsafe my wonder and my pity. They cannot surely harm the true and pure, who, reverencing his genius, and pitying his misfortunes and his errors, endeavored, by their timely kindness and sympathy, to soothe his sad career.

"It was in his own simple yet poetical home, that to me the character of Edgar Poe appeared in its most beautiful light. Playful, affectionate, witty, alternately docile and wayward as a petted child-for his young, gentle, and idolized wife, and for all who came, he had, even in the midst of his most harassing literary duties, a kind word, a pleasant smile, a graceful and courteous attention. At his desk, beneath the romantic picture of his loved and lost Lenore, he would sit, hour after hour, patient, assiduous, and uncomplaining, tracing, in an exquisitely clear chirography, and with almost superhuman swiftness, the lightning thoughts--the 'rare and radiant' fancies as they flashed through his wonderful and ever-wakeful brain. I recollect, one morning, toward the close of his residence in this city, when he seemed unusually gay and light-hearted. Virginia, his sweet wife, had written me a pressing invitation to come to them; and I, who never could resist her affectionate summons, and who enjoyed his society far more in his own home than elsewhere, hastened to Amity-street. I found him just completing his series of papers entitled 'The Literati of New York.' 'See,' said he, displaying, in laughing triumph, several little rolls of narrow paper, (he always wrote thus for the press,) 'I am going to show you, by the difference of length in these, the different degrees of estimation in which I hold all you literary people. In each of these, one of you is rolled up and fully discussed. Come, Virginia, help me!' And one by one they unfolded them. At last they came to one which seemed interminable. Virginia laughingly ran to one corner of the room with one end, and her husband to the opposite with the other. 'And whose lengthened sweetness long drawn out is that?' said I. 'Hear her!' he cried, 'just as if her little vain heart didn't tell her it's herself!'

"My first meeting with the poet was at the Astor House. A few days previous. Mr. Willis had handed me, at the _table d'hote_, that strange and thrilling poem entitled 'The Raven,' saying that the author wanted my opinion of it. Its effect upon me was so singular, so like that of 'weird unearthly music,' that it was with a feeling almost of dread, I heard he desired an introduction. Yet I could not refuse without seeming ungrateful, because I had just heard of his enthusiastic and partial eulogy of my writings, in his lecture on American Literature. I shall never forget the morning when I was summoned to the drawing-room by Mr. Willis to receive him. With his proud and beautiful head erect, his dark eyes flashing with the elective light of feeling and of thought, a peculiar, an inimitable blending of sweetness and hauteur in his expression and manner, he greeted me, calmly, gravely, almost coldly; yet with so marked an earnestness that I could not help being deeply impressed by it. From that moment until his death we were friends; although we met only during the first year of our acquaintance. And in his last words, ere reason had forever left her imperial throne in that overtasked brain, I have a touching memento of his undying faith and friendship.

"During that year, while traveling for my health, I maintained a correspondence with Mr. Poe, in accordance with the earnest entreaties of his wife, who imagined that my influence over him had a restraining and beneficial effect. It _had_, as far as this--that having solemnly promised me to give up the use of stimulants, he so firmly respected his promise and me, as never once, during our whole acquaintance, to appear in my presence when in the slightest degree affected by them. Of the charming love and confidence that existed between his wife and himself, always delightfully apparent to me, in spite of the many little poetical episodes, in which the impassioned romance of his temperament impelled him to indulge; of this I cannot speak too earnestly--too warmly. I believe she was the only woman whom he ever truly loved; and this is evinced by the exquisite pathos of the little poem lately written, called Annabel Lee, of which she was the subject, and which is by far the most natural, simple, tender and touchingly beautiful of all his songs. I have heard it said that it was intended to illustrate a late love affair of the author; but they who believe this, have in their dullness evidently misunderstood or missed the beautiful meaning latent in the most lovely of all its verses--where he says,

"'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.'

"There seems a strange and almost profane disregard of the sacred purity and spiritual tenderness of this delicious ballad, in thus overlooking the allusion to the _kindred angels_ and the heavenly _Father_ of the lost and loved and unforgotten wife.

"But it was in his conversations and his letters, far more than in his published poetry and prose writings, that the genius of Poe was most gloriously revealed. His letters were divinely beautiful, and for hours I have listened to him, entranced by strains of such pure and almost celestial eloquence as I have never read or heard elsewhere. Alas! in the thrilling words of Stoddard,

"'He might have soared in the morning light,
But he built his nest with the birds of night;
But he lie in dust, and the stone is rolled
Over the sepulcher dim and cold;
He has canceled the ill he has done or said,
And gone to the dear and holy dead.
Let us forget the path he trod,
And leave him now to his Maker, God.'"

The influence of Mr. Poe's aims and vicissitudes upon his literature, 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 take the trouble to trace his steps, will perceive, but slightly concealed, the figure of himself. The lineaments here disclosed, I think, are not different from those displayed in his biography, which is but a filling up of the picture. Thus far the few criticisms of his life or works that I have ventured have been suggested by the immediate examination of the points to which they referred. I add but a few words of more general description.

In person he was below the middle height, slenderly but compactly formed, and in his better moments he had in an eminent degree that air of gentlemanliness which men of a lower order seldom succeed in acquiring.

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 to 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 which 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 idiosyncracies--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.

* * * * *

"LAUGH AND GET FAT!"

BY JOHN KENYON

Lack we motives to laugh? Are not all things, anything, everything, to be laughed at? And if nothing were to be seen, felt, heard, or understood, we would laugh at it too! _Merry Beggars._

I.
There's nothing here on earth deserves
Half of the thought we waste about it,
And thinking but destroys the nerves,
When we could do so well without it:
If folks would let the world go round,
And pay their tithes, and eat their dinners,
Such doleful looks would not be found,
To frighten us poor laughing sinners.
Never sigh when you can sing,
But laugh, like me, at everything!

II.

One plagues himself about the sun,
And puzzles on, through every weather,
What time he'll rise,--how long he'll run,--
And when he'll leave us altogether;
Now matters it a pebble-stone,
Whether he shines at six or seven?
If they don't leave the sun alone,
At last they'll plague him out of heaven!
Never sigh when you can sing
But laugh, like me, at everything!

III.

Another spins from out his brains
Fine cobweb, to amuse his neighbors,
And gets, for all his toils and pains,
Reviewed, and laughed at for his labors:
Fame is _his_ star! and fame is sweet;
And praise is pleasanter than honey,--
I write at just so much a sheet,
And Messrs Longman pay the money!
Never sigh when you can sing,
But laugh, like me, at everything!

IV.

My brother gave his heart away
To Mercandests[*illegible], when he met her,
She married Mr. Ball one day--
He's gone to Sweden to forget her
I had a charmer, too--and sighed,
And raved all day and night about her;
She caught a cold, poor thing! and died,
And I--am just as fat without her
Never sigh when you can sing,
But laugh, like me, at everything!

V.

For tears are vastly pretty things,
But make one very thin and taper;
And sighs are music's sweetest strings,
But sound most beautiful--on paper!
"Thought" is the Sage's brightest star,
Her gems alone are worth his finding;
But as I'm not particular,
Please God! I'll keep on "never minding."
Never sigh when you can sing,
But laugh, like me, at everything!

VI.

Oh! in this troubled world of ours,
A laughter-mine's a glorious treasure;
And separating thorns from flowers,
Is half a pain and half a pleasure:
And why be grave instead of gay?
Why feel a-thirst while folks are quaffing?--
Oh! trust me, whatsoe'er they say,
There's nothing half so good as laughing!
Never sigh when you can sing,
But laugh, like me, at everything!

* * * * *

FROM THE GERMAN OF LENAU.

Over that ancient story grass has grown;
Myself, I scarce recall my own transgression;
Yet, when at twilight hour, I stray alone,
At times I feel as I could make confession.
But turning from the Past as all unknown.
I harbor in the Present! Such opression
Of futile sad remorse by me be flown!
Why summon bootless woes to Memory's session?
When Death, that scythesman stern, thy frame destroyeth,
He'll lop the grass, too, which thing actions covers.
And that forgotten deed shall cling about thee!
Back to the Past! Not vainly Care employeth
Labor and pain to pierce where Darkness hovers;
Till sin is slain within, it cannot die without thee!

THE LEADER.

* * * * *

EBBA: OR THE EMIGRANTS IN SWEDEN.

TRANSLATION FOR THE INTERNATIONAL, FROM THE FRENCH OF X. MARMIER.

BY FAYETTE ROBINSON.

Toward the end of November, in the year 1831, one of those rude sleighs, met with in winter on all the roads of Sweden, passed rapidly along the shores of the Gulf of Bothnia. For several hours the pale winter sun had been like a lamp extinguished beneath the horizon. The skies, however, had that transparent clearness which is one of the charms of the nights of the north. Myriads of stars covered its surface with a network of gold, and glittered again on the snow which covered the surface of the earth. The wind was calm: space was silent. Nothing was heard but the sounds of the hoofs of two horses attached to a light vehicle, and occasionally the voice of the Swedish postillion, who from time to time urged them on by a word of affectionate reproach, or a joyous eulogium. A traveler sat in the sleigh, wrapped up in heavy furs, and from time to time cast aside the folds of the cloak which covered him, to take a thoughtful glance around him. A stranger in Sweden, he was traveling through it, and during the last month had experienced a multitude of emotions, altogether unexpected, and which seemed to increase as he drew near the north. After having crossed the southern provinces of that kingdom bounded by the Baltic, and those on the vast silver basin of Lake Milar, seen Stockholm in all its pride, Upsal, the city of the ancient gods, and Gébel, the active and industrious, he found himself amid a region entirely silent, inanimate, and wrapped in a snowy pall. Soon he penetrated the bosom of a long pine forest, the shafts of which seemed, as it were, giants wrapped in cloaks of white. Now he ascended steep hills, then rapidly hurried to the Gulf, the shores of which the waves had made to look like point-lace, and looked up at the immense rocks on which the waters broke.

Everywhere the same silence existed. Far in the distance a light was seen to shine, either the glitter of a woodman's fire, or the midnight torch kindled by some invalid. This light, fixed like a point in space, was but another evidence of the isolation of man in these regions.

In this inanimateness of nature, in this sad uniformity of plains of snow, in this desert of fields and woods, such sadness, such distress was evident, that the heart of the traveler, who however was young and brave, was filled with a kind of mysterious fear. Before him, among all the other stars, shone that of the pole, that faithful light which is nightly kindled like a pharos, and in the seasons of storm, smiles on the pilgrim who has gone astray, and guides the navigator's steps. The stranger, for a few instants, kept his eyes fixed on this benevolent light, as if to find some relief to the impressions he had received from the melancholy appearance of the earth. He then tapped the postillion on the shoulder, and said to him, with the laconism compulsory on him from his knowledge of the Swedish tongue, "_Aland?_" This was the name of the halting-place. "_Intet tu,_" (not yet,) replied the postillion, as he took his arm from the sheepskin which surrounded his shoulders. At the same time he cracked his whip, as if to show how impatient he was to reach his halting-place. The animals, thus excited, set forth at a long gallop across that portion of the Gulf where the frequent passage of the fishermen had to a degree leveled the snow, and ascended with much difficulty a hill covered by trees at least a hundred years old. At the extremity of this forest, the postillion turned toward the traveler, and with his finger pointed out to him a spot so distant that it could be distinguished with difficulty. "_Aland!_" said he; and with his voice and gestures he encouraged his horses, who doubled their ardor, as if they comprehended that this was the last effort which would be required of them before they reached their destination.

The sleigh soon halted at the foot of a vast wooden house. When the driver cracked his whip, when the sound of the bells was heard, the door opened, and the stranger, it was evident to see, was expected. A servant advanced to meet him, with a lantern in his hand, and led him through a long corridor, introducing him into a room where a man with gray hair sat in an arm-chair.

"My uncle!" said the traveler, rushing toward him.

"Ireneus, my dear child!" said the old man. They stood in silence, clasped in each other's arms, until the old man, taking the young one by the hand, led him to a table on which two lights were burning, looked at him with complaisance, and said, "It is indeed yourself--it is the likeness of my poor brother: the same eyes, the same proud and resolute air. You look as he did thirty years ago, when he was about to cast himself amid the dangers of war; when, unfortunately, he embraced me for the last time."

"My dear uncle," said Ireneus, "instead of the brother you have lost, a son comes to you. In my early youth, my mother taught me to love you. That duty I shall be glad to discharge."

"The very sound of his voice!" continued the old man, who still looked at him; "the very sparkle of his eye! No painter could have made a more exact portrait. May you, however, have a far different destiny. Fatality weighs on the family of Vermondans. May you, the only vigorous offshoot of that old race of soldiers, already stricken by misfortune, already an exile from your country, never learn, as your father and I did, how bitter is the bread of the stranger--how difficult it is to go up and down the stranger's staircase. But what do I say? You are in another father's house. You come to it like a long-expected child, and you meet with two sisters." Then going toward the door of another room, he said, "Ebba, Alete, come to welcome your cousin."

Two young girls entered immediately. One of them was lively and active, with black eyes and a ruddy complexion; the other pale, fair, and delicate. The first gave her hand gaily to Ireneus, and kissed him on both cheeks; the other advanced timidly, and with downcast eyes, leaning her brow forward to be kissed.

"My dear cousins," said Ireneus, "my mother would have been delighted, as I am, to have seen you; but being unable to make this long journey in Sweden, has sent you at least a token of her affection." As he spoke, he took from his pocket a little morocco box, which the agile Alete took and opened with eagerness.

"What pretty ear-rings!" said she; "what a charming ring! See that little blue cross, and the bracelet set with emeralds. Such jewels are made only in Paris. Come look at them, Ebba!"

During all this time, Ebba stood aside motionless and silent. She then approached the table on which her sister had displayed the jewels, and looked at them without speaking.

"Is not this pretty?" said Alete. "We must divide them; and as I have a lover who will make it a point of honor to give me as many ornaments as my whim dictates and his fortune will permit, I wish you to take the larger part."

"No," said Ebba, with a voice soft as that of a child, "as you are about to be married you should have all as a wedding present. If you will however let me keep this little cross, I shall be very grateful."

Alete, who under the mask of frivolity concealed a tender and delicate heart, sought in vain to overcome the modesty of her sister; and finally, with much reluctance, received three-quarters of the jewel-case.

"Now, young ladies," said their father, who had been an observer of this contest of generosity, "remember that your cousin has made a long journey. See if his room is in order and if supper is ready; for when one has passed the whole day in crossing our snow-plains, some comfort is required."

"They are good and affectionate children," continued the father, when they had gone out. "The eldest is a gipsy who delights me with her gayety; the youngest often moves me even to tears. Her mother died in giving birth to her. The poor girl seems constantly under the influence of the misfortune which presided over her birth.

"None of the things in which girls of her age delight, please or excite her. Her silent and retiring life, seems one long act of resignation. She finds interest in story and books alone. She has learned three or four languages, and read all the books either here or at the parsonage. When, however, she is in society, one would fancy her a very ignorant person, so little does she say and so anxious does she appear to conceal her information. Her modesty is disturbed by no vanity, and the placidity of her meditations is interrupted by no vulgar commotion. One might almost fancy her a stranger to this world, indifferent to its calculations, lost to its joys, and submitting without effort to its sorrows. I have never seen her smile, but I have never heard her complain. Delicate and weak, the paleness of her face, the languor of her appearance, betray a physical suffering she herself denies.

"As soon as she perceives that I remark any indisposition in her, her countenance becomes illuminated by a gentle light, her lips are gilded with a sweet smile, as if she begged me to excuse the uneasiness she had inspired me with.

"Forgive me, dear Ireneus, for this unscrupulous thrusting on you of my paternal egotism. I should first have inquired after you and your hopes which were crushed so soon. Ebba, however, is ever a cause of anxiety to me."

Ireneus replied to this confidence by cordially clasping his hand. Just at that moment it was announced that the table was served.

"Come," said the old man, "you will not find here the gastronomical niceties of Paris. Like plain country people, we live on the produce of the soil. A good bottle of old beer, however, has some merit, and varieties of game are found in our forests, for which the _gourmets_ of Paris would willingly exchange their hares and partridges."

Ireneus sat between his two cousins, and his youthful appetite, sharpened by the journey he had made, delighted the old man. As he ate large slices of the haunch of a reindeer, and drank cup after cup of a savory beer, prepared with particular care by Alete, he contrived to look at the young girls on each side of him.

The eldest, always in motion, waited on her cousin and her father, went to the kitchen, sat again at the table, and when she laughed disclosed two rows of pearl between her rose-colored lips. She was indeed a charming girl, round and dimpled as a child, fresh and gay as a bird, with every gesture graceful, though she was a little espiegle and coquettish. Her coquetry, however, was naive and chaste, of a kind which in many women is but the amiable manifestation of a sentiment of benevolence, and an innocent desire to be agreeable.

Ireneus took pleasure in looking at her, and as she immediately acquired self-possession, she conferred the same privilege on others. She already jested with him as if he had been an old friend, and he felt himself as unconstrained as if he had passed his whole life with her. When, however, he looked at Ebba, it was with strange emotion. Nothing in his whole life had ever touched him so. The countenance of the young girl had a cold marble whiteness, making it assume the appearance of a statue, wrought in the most artistic manner.

Two long tresses of yellow hair fell over her cheeks, and disclosed a brow of ideal serenity. Her pale face was lit up with eyes clear as crystal, and blue and deep as lakes reflecting the skies. Any one who had once looked into her eyes could not forget them. Often they drooped beneath the lids, like a heart overcome with grief sheltering itself beneath a cloud. When they were lifted up no earthly desire animated them, and in their vague radiation they seemed to look into the infinite.

There are plants which the dew and sun do not completely develop. There are beings like weak plants, attached to earth by but feeble roots, and who from their very birth seem predestined to misfortune, and who, by a kind of second-sight, made aware of the fate which awaits them, attach themselves with fear and trembling to a world in which they anticipate only an ephemeral existence and cruel deception. Their sadness is reflected on those who approach them. There is as it were a fatal circle around them, in which all feel themselves seized with indescribable fear, and with the evidences of sympathy entertained for them is mingled a kind of commiseration.

Ireneus experienced at the appearance of Ebba this sentiment of uneasiness and melancholy sympathy. When after supper he bade adieu to his uncle and cousins, when he was alone in his room, he smiled when he remembered the amiable gayety of Alete, but became sad and pensive when he recalled the dreamy look of her young sister, the sad melancholy glance which shone over her face like the twilight of an autumn day.

Ireneus was not however one of those sentimental beings belonging to the Byronic or German school. His mind was rather energetic than tender; it was rather ardent than despairing. The son of a brave country gentleman who had devoted fortune and life to the cause of legitimacy, and after having followed the princes in their various emigrations, had died for them in the wilderness of la Vendée. Ireneus had been the inheritor of that obstinate will which never deviates from the end it proposes to itself, and of a chivalric worship of the Royal family, which to him seemed by a law divine to be invested with the imprescriptible right to govern France. Of the large fortune which formerly belonged to his family, the revolution had left him but a dilapidated castle, a few fields and forests, the revenue of which scarcely sufficed to support his mother in comfort.

The condition of his fortune did not permit him to lead an idle life. His birth made his profession certain. He entered Saint-Cyr, and left it with the best possible recommendations. He could also appeal to the traditions of his fathers services. Through the union of these two claims he was so rapidly advanced that at twenty-eight he was already Captain of the Lancers of the Guard, with an honorable name, a handsome person, some intelligence and that elegance of manners inherent in the class to which he belonged, and which to us is known as the aristocracy, the young nobleman might without presumption anticipate a brilliant future. His mother amid the silence of her provincial castle followed him step by step, with pride, and her solitary dreams saw him the husband of a rich heiress, Colonel and aide-de-camp of a prince, deputy and peer of France. Who can tell how vague were the hopes entertained in relation to that child in whom all her hopes were centered!

His mother was lost in this study and observation of castles in the air, when the revolutions of July burst forth like a thunderbolt, and at one blow overturned all her aerial edifices.

Ireneus was at Paris when this terrible contest, the result of which was the overturning of a monarchy, began with the crushing of a throne. He fought with the ardor inspired at once by his love of legitimacy and his innate horror of the revolutionary flag. On the first day he had the honor of resisting with his company a numerous body of insurgents, and succeeded in protecting the post which had been confided to him. On the second day, after a desperate contest, the danger of which served only to magnify his courage, he fell from his horse with a ball through his chest. His soldiers who were devoted to him bore him to a house where he was kindly treated. A few hours after, a General who had seen him in the battle, sent him the brevet of Major. It was an empty honor, for the hand which signed this promotion soon renounced all human grandeur and all command.

The wound of Ireneus was severe. The kind attentions however which surrounded, protected him from danger of death. As soon as he was beginning to grow well, he went to his mother's house, where his cure was completed. There he heard of the new exile of those for whom his father had shed his blood and of the establishment of the new monarchy. Many of his friends were soon induced to connect themselves with the new monarchy which retained them in service, and even conferred special compliments on them, and they wrote to induce him to follow their example. Such a thought never entered his mind. Without partaking of the exaggerated hatred of many of the Legitimists against the new monarchy, he had stated that he would never serve it. He was not a man to violate a promise. But he was subject to the danger of inactivity, the greatest torment of active and strong minds. As an ambitious man examines with great uneasiness the path which leads him to power, as the speculator contemplates the capricious whims of fortune, as the young officer waiting orders looks in every direction for action, did Ireneus. More than once he resolved to join his fortunes with those of the exiled princes in the arena of public opinion. They however had submitted to their fate, and no longer appealed to their faithful servants. The time of Royal crusades had gone by. Sovereigns made uneasy by the effervescence of revolutions, which like a contagion spread over Europe, had enough to do to secure their own thrones, and had no disposition to ruin themselves in lifting up that of a neighbor.

Madame de Vermondans, after striving in vain to amuse her son, induced him to visit his uncle in Sweden, hoping that travel would restore quiet to his mind. It was one of those healthful remedies which often escape the observation of science, and are suggested only by the ingenuity of tenderness. Nothing in certain moral diseases is more efficacious than travel. He who after having enjoyed all the emotions of active life, finds himself at once condemned to the sterility of idleness, suffers under a perpetual fever. Within him there is as it were an ever-acting spring he strives with a constant effort to repress.

His intellectual and physical faculties, his imagination, his senses seek to resume their old power. If the forces with which he is endowed, if the abundant grasp of his mind are paralyzed in their motion, these forces weigh on him like a useless burden. Soon in consequence of the internal contest he has undergone, the constant desires he has given vent to, from the very exuberance of life, which finding no outlet, recoils on itself, he becomes a victim of the demon of satiety. To escape from its rude grasp, air and space are required. The victim must be borne from the narrow circle within which he is riveted as by a chain, which clasps his frame. He must shake from himself every chimera, and to enable him to forget himself, the aspect of strange lands, of scenes and pictures which one after the other exhibit themselves before him, all that forcibly attracts the attention, all that occupies the mind in a new land, material cares, unexpected incidents, the surprises of travel, and yet more the magical influence of nature, are required to restore tone to the sick soul.

Ireneus had really experienced the effect of this moral remedy. In his journey across Germany and the North, he had not recovered his early impetus, his natural ardor, but he at least felt himself master of himself. He reached his uncle's house in the happiest possible disposition of mind.

When he arose on the next day, he took occasion to remark the delicate Precaution taken to render his sojourn pleasant as possible. The furniture of maple or birch was plain, but wonderfully neat; the bed linen was of snowy whiteness and purity; and perfumed by aromatic plants with which in the drawers it had been strewed. Here and there were a few choice engravings, and on the floor was a carpet woven by his two cousins.

At the very dawn of day a servant came to open the earthen stove, which stood on the hearth like a vast column, and placed in it an armfull of the pitch pine, which sent out jets of flame and a perfume which filled the whole room. Double windows protected this room also against the severity of the weather. Between them was a bed of flocks of wool on which the young girls had placed artificial flowers, as if to preserve in the nudity of winter the smiling image of spring. Here windows looked out on a landscape which in the summer time must have presented a charming aspect. The house of M. Vermondans stood on a hill, on the brow of which was a breast of pines. In front of the principal façade was a garden with a proclivity toward the lake, which was surrounded and sheltered by a belt of trees. In the distance the peasants' houses were seen, the tall clock spire of Aland, and far in the distance the chimneys of the furnace belonging to M. de Vermondans. At this moment, the plain, the snow-covered woods, the frozen lake presented one uniform color. Any one, however, might see they would present beautiful landscapes, when the sun called forth the field-flowers, made the forests lifeful, and gilded the water.

Ireneus went to his uncle's room. He found the old man rested in an arm chair, with his legs crossed and a long pipe in his mouth.

M. de Vermondans was not one of those persons who willingly distress themselves about what the poets call the miseries of human life. He took things as they came, and enjoyed prosperity without imagining future troubles.

While young, he had fought with his brothers the battles of legitimacy. Like his brother, he entertained a mortal hatred for revolutionary rabble: gradually, like many others, he had begun to reason on the matter, and become so tolerant that his doctrines reached the point almost of carelessness. Just as her [sic] nephew came in, he was reflecting and _quasi_ confirmed in the wisdom of his principles. "Yes," said he, as if he continued a conversation already begun, "yes, my friend, I am as much opposed as you are to a stormy revolution. I left my father's house, I abandoned my patrimony to accompany our princes into exile. I have fought for them, in their holy cause I received a sabre cut on the arm, which every now and then, by a very disagreeable sensation, recalls my youthful patriotism to me. Soon, however, the idle pretensions of my comrades, the disputes of our chiefs, repressed my ardor. I left one of the cohorts in which reason was treated as treachery, and where boasting alone was listened to with complacency. There firmness and complaisance were paralyzed now by erroneous movements and next by contradictory orders. A faithful servant contrived to save a portion of my estate, and at the peril of his own life brought me twenty thousand francs in gold. With this sum I came to Sweden, knowing that here everything was cheap, and determined to buy a small estate on which I might live, until I could find an opportunity of serving to some purpose that cause to which my heart was devoted, and which I had never yet entirely abandoned.

"At Stockholm one of those strange rencontres which we attribute to chance, but which the pious with more propriety think originate in Providence, made me acquainted with a land-holder in Angermania, named Guldberg, as good a man as ever lived. I am indebted to him for all my prosperity, and I bless his memory. M. Guldberg had discovered a rich mineral deposit on his estate, was anxious to establish a furnace, and sought for some one to aid him in his enterprise. In the course of my studies I had acquired some ideas of hydraulics and mechanics, trifling enough it is true, but one day conversation having been directed to these matters, Guldberg, who knew even less than I did, appeared delighted with my explanations, and asked me to aid him in his projected enterprise. Without reflecting more than he did when he made the offer, I consented. I came hither with him: I superintended the construction and the first labor of the furnace you see glowing there. I was not unlike the ignorant teacher who studies in the morning the lesson he teaches in the afternoon. I made more than one unfortunate experiment. I committed more than one error, but at last I got our establishment under way. Guldberg had suffered patiently, and never complained of the mistakes I had made, and now appeared most grateful for my success. He very generously offered me a share of the profits of an enterprise which from the very commencement promised the most favorable results. From this time commences a series of derogations I now look on as so many wise resolutions, but which many would look on as acts of apostasy. Here I am, a French noble, with I know not how many illustrious quarters, compromising my escatcheon in an industrial occupation. This was the first derogation. Guldberg had an only daughter, very interesting, and who pleased me. She had the kindness to show that I was not disagreeable; she however had not a drop of noble blood, not even a single quartering. I married her, much to your father's discontent. That was my second derogation. This woman during her life was the very impersonation of virtue, but was a protestant, and asked me as a favor that if our children were female, they might be educated in her faith. My two daughters believe as their mother did. That is the third derogation.