Tales of Mystery and Imagination

INTRODUCTION

LAST year a selection of Emerson’s writings was issued in this series, and it seems desirable to follow it with a collection of the best work of that American writer who, morally and intellectually, was Emerson’s extreme antitype. There could be no harsher contrast than between the careers of the two men. One came early to recognition, and lived his simple, blameless, prosperous life amid the plaudits of the world. The other died young after a career of bitter drudgery, and left little behind him but a legacy of hate. In Edgar Allan Poe genius burned with no hard, gem-like flame, but with a murky intensity that scandalised his contemporaries. In the orderly bourgeois world of young America he moved like a panther among polar-bears. No nation—least of all a young, self-satisfied nation—likes to be told that it is one vast perambulating humbug, and he spoke his opinions equally plainly of his colleagues in literature.

The natural result followed. Every species of literary vulture battened on his reputation, the scandals of his life were magnified, and his genius was hidden by a cloud of vulgar abuse. No man was less fortunate in his epoch and his country. He found an America, middle-class, prosaic, still half Puritan and indomitably respectable, and he ran his head against the stone walls which hemmed him in. He wrote his great stories for starvation wages, since the taste which could value them had largely to be created. Had he lived to-day, we can well imagine that a more cosmopolitan America would have made him a hero almost beyond his deserts. Had he fared less hardly at the world’s hands, there might have been no gall in his pen and fewer dark places in his life.

His posthumous reward has been great, for to no other American writer has it been given to exercise so profound an influence at once on English and French literature. For myself, I should rank him, in the hierarchy of American prose, below Hawthorne, who seems to me to have combined a profounder moral insight with an equal sense of form and an equal imaginative force; but certainly, save for Hawthorne, he has no rival.

The tragic story of his life has been often written: one of the best short biographies is that by Professor Harrison of Virginia, which is prefixed to the recent Virginia Edition of his works. He was born in 1809, the same year which gave to the world Tennyson, Gladstone, Lincoln, Darwin, Mendelssohn, and Chopin. It is part of the irony of his fate that Boston, the city which he hated like the plague, should have had the honour of giving him birth. He came of good stock, originally from Ulster; his parents were on the stage, and lived a roving, unhappy, impecunious life, both dying shortly after he was born. He was adopted by an elderly Scotsman called Allan, a merchant in Richmond, Virginia; and till his adopted father’s second marriage regarded himself, and was regarded by others, as his heir. He spent some years at school in England, where he imbibed the romance of an older country, and then went at an early age to the University of Virginia. He did not greatly distinguish himself there in scholarship, but became noted as a bon vivant and an athlete.

He next went to the famous West Point Academy, and afterwards, Allan having died without leaving him anything, turned to journalism as a profession. For the rest of his days he was tied to the drudgery of the pen, and wrote for his bread tales, poems, reviews, essays, any kind of work, much of it strangely bad, but some of an excellence which no contemporary could claim. He made many enemies, and his wild neurotic nature kept him always in a state of white-heat, a fury either of affection or dislike. He took to drink and drugs, though he was never an ordinary drunkard, seeking a stimulant or a narcotic to relieve the misery of his daily life.

His end was as tragic and strange as his life. Passing through Baltimore, he seems to have been drinking in a tavern, where he was drugged by some electioneering roughs and carried round in their custody to the different voting-booths. He never recovered from the treatment, and a few days later died in hospital.

To most people Poe is best known as a poet, and the poems which have the widest vogue are unfortunately his worst productions. The Raven was, in his own words, to be composed of equal proportions of Beauty and Quaintness intermingled with Melancholy. The result was a parody of his peculiar qualities, and the parody, as in the similar case of The Bells, has been accepted for the original. That sinister fowl has stood between him and the highest kind of poetic fame. The vagueness of exaltation, he wrote, aroused by a sweet air (which should be strictly indefinite and never too strongly suggestive) is precisely what we should aim at in poetry. It is a narrow definition, but in his small body of verse he repeatedly reaches the ideal. To Helen, The City in the Sea, The Haunted Palace, To One in Paradise, The Sleeper, For Annie, Annabel Lee, and even beautiful nonsense like Ulalume, have all the strange haunting sweetness of music.

On his own definition Poe is a master-singer, and on any definition he is a true lyric poet. But his real medium was prose, for, apart from gifts of style and melody, he had in the highest degree the constructive imagination which can reproduce a realm of fancy with the minute realism of everyday life. He reveals all around us the shadowy domain of the back-world, and behind our smug complacency the shrieking horror of the unknown. There is no humour in him, none of that wise detachment, which makes Wandering Willie’s Tale immortal, for every nerve, as he writes, quivers at the terrors he is conjuring. To this imaginative intensity he added a style of singular flexibility and grace. He has, to be sure, appalling lapses into the banal, but at his best he has a store of apt and jewelled words in which to clothe his recondite thoughts. It is this combination which endeared him to Théophile Gautier and his school, and gave him Baudelaire and Mallarmé as his translators.

But style and imagination, if left alone, might have landed him in an unprofitable mysticism. What gives him his unique power is the mathematical accuracy of his mind. All his life he had a passion for cryptographs, and maintained that human ingenuity could create no cypher which human ingenuity could not unravel. His mind worked on data with the most logical precision and he once startled Dickens by predicting the whole plot of Barnaby Rudge from the material furnished in the earlier chapters. Hence in all his tales there is a clear sequence of cause and effect which gives them an imaginative coherence and verisimilitude. Without this gift his fancy would have lost itself in vague flights and barren splendours.

The conjunction of such very different talents gives him a right to a high place among the masters of the short story, in his own genre perhaps to the highest place, for I know no French imitator who can produce the haunting sense of fate which we get from The Fall of the House of Usher, or the devilish horror of The Cask of Amontillado. How admirable, too, are his mystifications, The Murders in the Rue Morgue or The Gold-Bug. Sometimes, as in Berenice, his mortuary turn of mind carries him too far for serious art; but he makes amends in tales like The Narrative of A. Gordon Pym, where his imagination works soberly and convincingly among realities.

It is a fascinating but barren game which critics sometimes indulge in to discuss which is the best short story in the world. If I were put on oath I should decide for Scott’s Wandering Willie’s Tale, and give the second place to Mr. Kipling’s Man who would be King.

But such a classification, like the Cambridge Senior Wranglership, is captious and unintelligent. A more sensible form of the game is to create a small first-class, say of a dozen. Here it is possible to get something nearer a general agreement. Most people would give one place to Scott (Wandering Willie’s Tale); one to Stevenson (Thrawn Janet, perhaps); one to Hawthorne (the choice is large); one place each to Tourgeniev, Balzac, Guy de Maupassant, Daudet, Anatole France, and Mr. Kipling. In the remaining three I should include Mr. Joseph Conrad’s Youth, and the two other places I should leave to Poe. The truth seems to be that while Poe wrote nothing that wholly transcends his rivals in his own sphere, he wrote more stories that reach the level of the very best. He deserves two places in a roll of honour where the others have only one.

In an excellent recent essay Mr. Hamilton W. Mabie discusses Poe’s place in American literature, and finds in his complete aloofness from vulgar ideals, his exquisite craftsmanship, and his devotion to an austere art for its own sake the example which was especially needed by his generation. He sought above all things distinction, and to a nation which was apt to content itself with the gods of the market-place he preached in his strange way a wholesome lesson. The final justification of a democracy lies in its ability to clear the way for superiority. The democracy which suffered under his lash is at last beginning to realise the superiority of its critic. So far he is the one great surprise of American letters. A shrewd observer, after the Revolution, might have predicted Longfellow and Emerson and Holmes and Hawthorne, but it would have passed the wit of man to foretell Poe.

J.B.

1909

I

THE GOLD-BUG

What ho! what ho! this fellow is dancing mad!

He hath been bitten by the Tarantula.

All in the Wrong

MANY years ago I contracted an intimacy with a Mr. William Legrand. He was of an ancient Huguenot family, and had once been wealthy; but a series of misfortunes had reduced him to want. To avoid the mortification consequent upon his disasters, he left New Orleans, the city of his forefathers, and took up his residence at Sullivan’s Island, near Charleston, South Carolina.

This island is a very singular one. It consists of little else than the sea sand, and is about three miles long. Its breadth at no point exceeds a quarter of a mile. It is separated from the mainland by a scarcely perceptible creek, oozing its way through a wilderness of reeds and slime, a favourite resort of the marsh-hen. The vegetation, as might be supposed, is scant, or at least dwarfish. No trees of any magnitude are to be seen. Near the western extremity, where Fort Moultrie stands, and where are some miserable frame buildings, tenanted, during summer, by the fugitives from Charleston dust and fever, may be found, indeed, the bristly palmetto; but the whole island, with the exception of this western point, and a line of hard, white beach on the sea coast, is covered with a dense undergrowth of the sweet myrtle, so much prized by the horticulturists of England. The shrub here often attains the height of fifteen or twenty feet, and forms an almost impenetrable coppice, burthening the air with its fragrance.

In the inmost recesses of this coppice, not far from the eastern or more remote end of the island, Legrand had built himself a small hut, which he occupied when I first, by mere accident, made his acquaintance. This soon ripened into friendship—for there was much in the recluse to excite interest and esteem. I found him well educated, with unusual powers of mind, but infected with misanthropy, and subject to perverse moods of alternate enthusiasm and melancholy. He had with him many books, but rarely employed them. His chief amusements were gunning and fishing, or sauntering along the beach and through the myrtles, in quest of shells or entomological specimens;—his collection of the latter might have been envied by a Swammerdamm. In these excursions he was usually accompanied by an old negro, called Jupiter, who had been manumitted before the reverses of the family, but who could be induced, neither by threats nor by promises, to abandon what he considered his right of attendance upon the footsteps of his young Massa Will. It is not improbable that the relatives of Legrand, conceiving him to be somewhat unsettled in intellect, had contrived to instil this obstinacy into Jupiter, with a view to the supervision and guardianship of the wanderer.

The winters in the latitude of Sullivan’s Island are seldom very severe, and in the fall of the year it is a rare event indeed when a fire is considered necessary. About the middle of October, 18—, there occurred, however, a day of remarkable chilliness. Just before sunset I scrambled my way through the evergreens to the hut of my friend, whom I had not visited for several weeks—my residence being at that time in Charleston, a distance of nine miles from the island, while the facilities of passage and re-passage were very far behind those of the present day. Upon reaching the hut I rapped, as was my custom, and getting no reply, sought for the key where I knew it was secreted, unlocked the door and went in. A fine fire was blazing upon the hearth. It was a novelty, and by no means an ungrateful one. I threw off an overcoat, took an arm-chair by the crackling logs, and awaited patiently the arrival of my hosts.

Soon after dark they arrived, and gave me a most cordial welcome. Jupiter, grinning from ear to ear, bustled about to prepare some marsh-hens for supper. Legrand was in one of his fits—how else shall I term them?—of enthusiasm. He had found an unknown bivalve, forming a new genus, and, more than this, he had hunted down and secured, with Jupiter’s assistance, a scarabæus which he believed to be totally new, but in respect to which he wished to have my opinion on the morrow.

And why not to-night? I asked, rubbing my hands over the blaze, and wishing the whole tribe of scarabæi at the devil.

Ah, if I had only known you were here! said Legrand, but it’s so long since I saw you; and how could I foresee that you would pay me a visit this very night of all others? As I was coming home I met Lieutenant G——, from the fort, and, very foolishly, I lent him the bug; so it will be impossible for you to see it until the morning. Stay here to-night, and I will send Jup down for it at sunrise. It is the loveliest thing in creation!

What!—sunrise?

"Nonsense! no!—the bug. If is of a brilliant gold colour—about the size of a large hickory-nut—with two jet black spots near one extremity of the back, and another, somewhat longer, at the other. The antennæ are——"

"Dey aint no tin in him, Massa Will, I keep a tellin on you, here interrupted Jupiter; de bug is a goole-bug, solid, ebery bit of him, inside and all, sep him wing—neber feel half so hebby a bug in my life."

Well, suppose it is, Jup, replied Legrand, somewhat more earnestly, it seemed to me, than the case demanded, is that any reason for your letting the birds burn? The colour—here he turned to me—is really almost enough to warrant Jupiter’s idea. You never saw a more brilliant metallic lustre than the scales emit—but of this you cannot judge till to-morrow. In the meantime I can give you some idea of the shape. Saying this, he seated himself at a small table, on which were a pen and ink, but no paper. He looked for some in a drawer, but found none.

Never mind, said he at length, this will answer; and he drew from his waistcoat pocket a scrap of what I took to be very dirty foolscap, and made upon it a rough drawing with the pen. While he did this, I retained my seat by the fire, for I was still chilly. When the design was complete, he handed it to me without rising. As I received it, a loud growl was heard, succeeded by a scratching at the door. Jupiter opened it, and a large Newfoundland, belonging to Legrand, rushed in, leaped upon my shoulders, and loaded me with caresses; for I had shown him much attention during previous visits. When his gambols were over, I looked at the paper, and, to speak the truth, found myself not a little puzzled at what my friend had depicted.

Well! I said, after contemplating it for some minutes, "this is a strange scarabæus, I must confess: new to me: never saw anything like it before—unless it was a skull, or a death’s head—which it more nearly resembles than anything else that has come under my observation."

A death’s-head! echoed Legrand—Oh—yes—well, it has something of that appearance upon paper, no doubt. The two upper black spots look like eyes, eh? and the longer one at the bottom like a mouth—and then the shape of the whole is oval.

Perhaps so, said I; but, Legrand, I fear you are no artist. I must wait until I see the beetle itself, if I am to form any idea of its personal appearance.

Well, I don’t know, said he, a little nettled. "I draw tolerably—should do it at least—have had good masters, and flatter myself that I am not quite a blockhead."

But, my dear fellow, you are joking then, said I; "this is a very passable skull—indeed, I may say that it is a very excellent skull, according to the vulgar notions about such specimens of physiology—and your scarabæus must be the queerest scarabæus in the world if it resembles it. Why, we may get up a very thrilling bit of superstition upon this hint. I presume you will call the bug scarabæus caput hominis, or something of that kind—there are many similar titles in the Natural Histories. But where are the antennæ you spoke of?"

"The antennæ! said Legrand, who seemed to be getting unaccountably warm upon the subject; I am sure you must see the antennæ. I made them as distinct as they are in the original insect, and I presume that is sufficient."

Well, well, I said, perhaps you have—still I don’t see them; and I handed him the paper without additional remark, not wishing to ruffle his temper; but I was much surprised at the turn affairs had taken; his ill-humour puzzled me—and, as for the drawing of the beetle, there were positively no antennæ visible, and the whole did bear a very close resemblance to the ordinary cuts of a death’s-head.

He received the paper very peevishly, and was about to crumple it, apparently to throw it in the fire, when a casual glance at the design seemed suddenly to rivet his attention. In an instant his face grew violently red—in another as excessively pale. For some minutes he continued to scrutinise the drawing minutely where he sat. At length he arose, took a candle from the table, and proceeded to seat himself upon a sea-chest in the farthest corner of the room. Here again he made an anxious examination of the paper; turning it in all directions. He said nothing, however, and his conduct greatly astonished me; yet I thought it prudent not to exacerbate the growing moodiness of his temper by any comment. Presently he took from his coat pocket a wallet, placed the paper carefully in it, and deposited both in a writing-desk, which he locked. He now grew more composed in his demeanour; but his original air of enthusiasm had quite disappeared. Yet he seemed not so much sulky as abstracted. As the evening wore away he became more and more absorbed in reverie, from which no sallies of mine could arouse him. It had been my intention to pass the night at the hut, as I had frequently done before, but, seeing my host in this mood, I deemed it proper to take leave. He did not press me to remain, but, as I departed, he shook my hand with even more than his usual cordiality.

It was about a month after this (and during the interval I had seen nothing of Legrand) when I received a visit, at Charleston, from his man, Jupiter. I had never seen the good old negro look so dispirited and I feared that some serious disaster had befallen my friend.

Well, Jup, said I, what is the matter now?—how is your master?

Why, to speak de troof, massa, him not so berry well as mought be.

Not well! I am truly sorry to hear it. What does he complain of?

Dar! dat’s it!—him nebber plain of notin—but him berry sick for all dat.

"Very sick, Jupiter!—why didn’t you say so at once? Is he confined to bed?"

No dat he aint!—he aint find nowhar—dat’s just whar de shoe pinch—my mind is got to be berry hebby bout poor Massa Will.

Jupiter, I should like to understand what it is you are talking about. You say your master is sick. Hasn’t he told you what ails him?

Why, massa, taint worf while for to git mad about de matter—Massa Will say noffin at all aint de matter wid him—but den what make him go about looking dis here way, wid he head down and he soldiers up, and as white as a gose? And den he keep a syphon all de time——

Keeps a what, Jupiter?

Keeps a syphon wid de figgurs on de slate—de queerest figgurs I ebber did see. Ise gittin to be skeered, I tell you. Hab for to keep mighty tight eye pon him noovers. Todder day he gib me slip fore de sun up, and was gone de whole ob de blessed day. I had a big stick ready cut for to gib him deuced good beating when he did come—but Ise sich a fool dat I hadn’t de heart arter all—he look so berry poorly.

Eh?—what?—ah yes!—upon the whole I think you had better not be too severe with the poor fellow—don’t flog him, Jupiter—he can’t very well stand it—but can you form no idea of what has occasioned this illness, or rather this change of conduct? Has anything unpleasant happened since I saw you?

"No, massa, dey aint bin noffin onpleasant since den—’twas fore den I’m feared—’twas de berry day you was dare."

How? What do you mean?

Why, massa, I mean de bug—dare now.

The what?

De bug—I’m berry sartain dat Massa Will bin bit somewhere bout de head by dat goole-bug.

And what cause have you, Jupiter, for such a supposition?

Claws enuff, massa, and mouff too. I nebber did see sich a deuced bug—he kick and he bite ebery ting what cum near him. Massa Will cotch him fuss, but had for to let him go gin mighty quick, I tell you—den was de time he must ha got de bite. I didn’t like de look ob de bug mouff, myself, no how, so I wouldn’t take hold ob him wid my finger, but I cotch him wid a piece ob paper dat I found. I rap him up in de paper and stuff piece ob it in he mouff—dat was de way.

And you think, then, that your master was really bitten by the beetle, and that the bite made him sick?

I don’t tink noffin about it—I nose it. What make him dream bout de goole so much, if taint cause he bit by de goole-bug? Ise heerd bout dem goole-bugs fore dis.

But how do you know he dreams about gold?

How I know? Why, cause he talk about it in he sleep—dat’s how I nose.

Well, Jup, perhaps you are right; but to what fortunate circumstance am I to attribute the honour of a visit from you to-day?

What de matter, massa?

Did you bring any message from Mr. Legrand?

No, massa, I bring dis here pissel; and here Jupiter handed me a note which ran thus:

"MY DEAR——

"Why have I not seen you for so long a time? I hope you have not been so foolish as to take offence at any little brusquerie of mine; but no, that is improbable.

"Since I saw you I have had great cause for anxiety. I have something to tell you, yet scarcely know how to tell it, or whether I should tell it at all.

"I have not been quite well for some days past, and poor old Jup annoys me, almost beyond endurance, by his well-meant attentions. Would you believe it?—he had prepared a huge stick, the other day, with which to chastise me for giving him the slip, and spending the day, solus, among the hills on the mainland. I verily believe that my ill looks alone saved me a flogging.

"I have made no addition to my cabinet since we met.

"If you can, in any way, make it convenient, come over with Jupiter. Do come. I wish to see you to-night, upon business of importance. I assure you that it is of the highest importance,—Ever yours,

WILLIAM LEGRAND.

There was something in the tone of this note which gave me great uneasiness. Its whole style differed materially from that of Legrand. What could he be dreaming of? What new crotchet possessed his excitable brain? What business of the highest importance could he possibly have to transact? Jupiter’s account of him boded no good. I dreaded lest the continued pressure of misfortune had, at length, fairly unsettled the reason of my friend. Without a moment’s hesitation, therefore, I prepared to accompany the negro.

Upon reaching the wharf, I noticed a scythe and three spades, all apparently new, lying in the bottom of the boat in which we were to embark.

What is the meaning of all this, Jup? I inquired.

Him syfe, massa, and spade.

Very true; but what are they doing here?

Him de syfe and de spade what Massa Will sis pon my buying for him in de town, and de debbil’s own lot of money I had to gib for em.

But what, in the name of all that is mysterious, is your ‘Massa Will’ going to do with scythes and spades?

"Dat’s more dan I know, and debbil take me if I don’t blieve ’tis more dan he know too. But it’s all cum ob de bug."

Finding that no satisfaction was to be obtained of Jupiter, whose whole intellect seemed to be absorbed by de bug, I now stepped into the boat and made sail. With a fair and strong breeze we soon ran into the little cove to the northward of Fort Moultrie, and a walk of some two miles brought us to the hut. It was about three in the afternoon when we arrived. Legrand had been awaiting us in eager expectation. He grasped my hand with a nervous empressement which alarmed me and strengthened the suspicions already entertained. His countenance was pale even to ghastliness, and his deep-set eyes glared with unnatural lustre. After some inquiries respecting his health, I asked him, not knowing what better to say, if he had yet obtained the scarabœus from Lieutenant G——.

Oh, yes, he replied, colouring violently, "I got it from him the next morning. Nothing should tempt me to part with that scarabœus. Do you know that Jupiter is quite right about it!"

In what way? I asked, with a sad foreboding at heart.

"In supposing it to be a bug of real gold." He said this with an air of profound seriousness, and I felt inexpressibly shocked.

This bug is to make my fortune, he continued, with a triumphant smile, "to reinstate me in my family possessions. Is it any wonder, then, that I prize it? Since Fortune has thought fit to bestow it upon me, I have only to use it properly and I shall arrive at the gold of which it is the index. Jupiter, bring me that scarabœus!"

What! de bug, massa? I’d rudder not go fer trubble dat bug—you mus git him for your own self. Hereupon Legrand arose, with a grave and stately air, and brought me the beetle from a glass case in which it was enclosed. It was a beautiful scarabœus, and, at that time, unknown to naturalists—of course a great prize in a scientific point of view. There were two round black spots near one extremity of the back, and a long one near the other. The scales were exceedingly hard and glossy, with all the appearance of burnished gold. The weight of the insect was very remarkable, and, taking all things into consideration, I could hardly blame Jupiter for his opinion respecting it; but what to make of Legrand’s concordance with that opinion, I could not, for the life of me, tell.

I sent for you, said he, in a grandiloquent tone, when I had completed my examination of the beetle, I sent for you, that I might have your counsel and assistance in furthering the views of Fate and of the bug——

My dear Legrand, I cried, interrupting him, you are certainly unwell, and had better use some little precautions. You shall go to bed, and I will remain with you a few days, until you get over this. You are feverish and——

Feel my pulse, said he.

I felt it, and, to say the truth, found not the slightest indication of fever.

But you may be ill and yet have no fever. Allow me this once to prescribe for you. In the first place, go to bed. In the next——

You are mistaken, he interposed; I am as well as I can expect to be under the excitement which I suffer. If you really wish me well, you will relieve this excitement.

And how is this to be done?

Very easily. Jupiter and myself are going upon an expedition into the hills, upon the mainland, and, in this expedition, we shall need the aid of some person in whom we can confide. You are the only one we can trust. Whether we succeed or fail, the excitement which you now perceive in me will be equally allayed.

"I am anxious to oblige you