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Friday, 22 November 2013
THE DOMAIN OF ARNHEIM
1850
THE DOMAIN OF ARNHEIM
by Edgar Allan Poe
The garden like a lady fair was cut,
That lay as if she slumbered in delight,
And to the open skies her eyes did shut.
The azure fields of Heaven were 'sembled right
In a large round, set with the flowers of light.
The flowers de luce, and the round sparks of dew.
That hung upon their azure leaves did shew
Like twinkling stars that sparkle in the evening blue.
Giles Fletcher.
FROM his cradle to his grave a gale of prosperity bore my friend
Ellison along. Nor do I use the word prosperity in its mere worldly
sense. I mean it as synonymous with happiness. The person of whom I
speak seemed born for the purpose of foreshadowing the doctrines of
Turgot, Price, Priestley, and Condorcet- of exemplifying by individual
instance what has been deemed the chimera of the perfectionists. In
the brief existence of Ellison I fancy that I have seen refuted the
dogma, that in man's very nature lies some hidden principle, the
antagonist of bliss. An anxious examination of his career has given me
to understand that in general, from the violation of a few simple laws
of humanity arises the wretchedness of mankind- that as a species we
have in our possession the as yet unwrought elements of content- and
that, even now, in the present darkness and madness of all thought
on the great question of the social condition, it is not impossible
that man, the individual, under certain unusual and highly
fortuitous conditions, may be happy.
With opinions such as these my young friend, too, was fully
imbued, and thus it is worthy of observation that the uninterrupted
enjoyment which distinguished his life was, in great measure, the
result of preconcert. It is indeed evident that with less of the
instinctive philosophy which, now and then, stands so well in the
stead of experience, Mr. Ellison would have found himself
precipitated, by the very extraordinary success of his life, into
the common vortex of unhappiness which yawns for those of
pre-eminent endowments. But it is by no means my object to pen an
essay on happiness. The ideas of my friend may be summed up in a few
words. He admitted but four elementary principles, or more strictly,
conditions of bliss. That which he considered chief was (strange to
say!) the simple and purely physical one of free exercise in the
open air. "The health," he said, "attainable by other means is
scarcely worth the name." He instanced the ecstasies of the
fox-hunter, and pointed to the tillers of the earth, the only people
who, as a class, can be fairly considered happier than others. His
second condition was the love of woman. His third, and most
difficult of realization, was the contempt of ambition. His fourth was
an object of unceasing pursuit; and he held that, other things being
equal, the extent of attainable happiness was in proportion to the
spirituality of this object.
Ellison was remarkable in the continuous profusion of good gifts
lavished upon him by fortune. In personal grace and beauty he exceeded
all men. His intellect was of that order to which the acquisition of
knowledge is less a labor than an intuition and a necessity. His
family was one of the most illustrious of the empire. His bride was
the loveliest and most devoted of women. His possessions had been
always ample; but on the attainment of his majority, it was discovered
that one of those extraordinary freaks of fate had been played in
his behalf which startle the whole social world amid which they occur,
and seldom fail radically to alter the moral constitution of those who
are their objects.
It appears that about a hundred years before Mr. Ellison's coming of
age, there had died, in a remote province, one Mr. Seabright
Ellison. This gentleman had amassed a princely fortune, and, having no
immediate connections, conceived the whim of suffering his wealth to
accumulate for a century after his decease. Minutely and sagaciously
directing the various modes of investment, he bequeathed the aggregate
amount to the nearest of blood, bearing the name of Ellison, who
should be alive at the end of the hundred years. Many attempts had
been made to set aside this singular bequest; their ex post facto
character rendered them abortive; but the attention of a jealous
government was aroused, and a legislative act finally obtained,
forbidding all similar accumulations. This act, however, did not
prevent young Ellison from entering into possession, on his
twenty-first birthday, as the heir of his ancestor Seabright, of a
fortune of four hundred and fifty millions of dollars.*
* An incident, similar in outline to the one here imagined,
occurred, not very long ago, in England. The name of the fortunate
heir was Thelluson. I first saw an account of this matter in the
"Tour" of Prince Puckler Muskau, who makes the sum inherited ninety
millions of pounds, and justly observes that "in the contemplation
of so vast a sum, and of the services to which it might be applied,
there is something even of the sublime." To suit the views of this
article I have followed the Prince's statement, although a grossly
exaggerated one. The germ, and in fact, the commencement of the
present paper was published many years ago- previous to the issue of
the first number of Sue's admirable "Juif Errant," which may
possibly have been suggested to him by Muskau's account.
When it had become known that such was the enormous wealth
inherited, there were, of course, many speculations as to the mode
of its disposal. The magnitude and the immediate availability of the
sum bewildered all who thought on the topic. The possessor of any
appreciable amount of money might have been imagined to perform any
one of a thousand things. With riches merely surpassing those of any
citizen, it would have been easy to suppose him engaging to supreme
excess in the fashionable extravagances of his time- or busying
himself with political intrigue- or aiming at ministerial power- or
purchasing increase of nobility- or collecting large museums of virtu-
or playing the munificent patron of letters, of science, of art- or
endowing, and bestowing his name upon extensive institutions of
charity. But for the inconceivable wealth in the actual possession
of the heir, these objects and all ordinary objects were felt to
afford too limited a field. Recourse was had to figures, and these but
sufficed to confound. It was seen that, even at three per cent., the
annual income of the inheritance amounted to no less than thirteen
millions and five hundred thousand dollars; which was one million
and one hundred and twenty-five thousand per month; or thirty-six
thousand nine hundred and eighty-six per day; or one thousand five
hundred and forty-one per hour; or six and twenty dollars for every
minute that flew. Thus the usual track of supposition was thoroughly
broken up. Men knew not what to imagine. There were some who even
conceived that Mr. Ellison would divest himself of at least one-half
of his fortune, as of utterly superfluous opulence- enriching whole
troops of his relatives by division of his superabundance. To the
nearest of these he did, in fact, abandon the very unusual wealth
which was his own before the inheritance.
I was not surprised, however, to perceive that he had long made up
his mind on a point which had occasioned so much discussion to his
friends. Nor was I greatly astonished at the nature of his decision.
In regard to individual charities he had satisfied his conscience.
In the possibility of any improvement, properly so called, being
effected by man himself in the general condition of man, he had (I
am sorry to confess it) little faith. Upon the whole, whether
happily or unhappily, he was thrown back, in very great measure,
upon self.
In the widest and noblest sense he was a poet. He comprehended,
moreover, the true character, the august aims, the supreme majesty and
dignity of the poetic sentiment. The fullest, if not the sole proper
satisfaction of this sentiment he instinctively felt to lie in the
creation of novel forms of beauty. Some peculiarities, either in his
early education, or in the nature of his intellect, had tinged with
what is termed materialism all his ethical speculations; and it was
this bias, perhaps, which led him to believe that the most
advantageous at least, if not the sole legitimate field for the poetic
exercise, lies in the creation of novel moods of purely physical
loveliness. Thus it happened he became neither musician nor poet- if
we use this latter term in its every-day acceptation. Or it might have
been that he neglected to become either, merely in pursuance of his
idea that in contempt of ambition is to be found one of the
essential principles of happiness on earth. Is it not indeed, possible
that, while a high order of genius is necessarily ambitious, the
highest is above that which is termed ambition? And may it not thus
happen that many far greater than Milton have contentedly remained
"mute and inglorious?" I believe that the world has never seen- and
that, unless through some series of accidents goading the noblest
order of mind into distasteful exertion, the world will never see-
that full extent of triumphant execution, in the richer domains of
art, of which the human nature is absolutely capable.
Ellison became neither musician nor poet; although no man lived more
profoundly enamored of music and poetry. Under other circumstances
than those which invested him, it is not impossible that he would have
become a painter. Sculpture, although in its nature rigorously
poetical was too limited in its extent and consequences, to have
occupied, at any time, much of his attention. And I have now mentioned
all the provinces in which the common understanding of the poetic
sentiment has declared it capable of expatiating. But Ellison
maintained that the richest, the truest, and most natural, if not
altogether the most extensive province, had been unaccountably
neglected. No definition had spoken of the landscape-gardener as of
the poet; yet it seemed to my friend that the creation of the
landscape-garden offered to the proper Muse the most magnificent of
opportunities. Here, indeed, was the fairest field for the display
of imagination in the endless combining of forms of novel beauty;
the elements to enter into combination being, by a vast superiority,
the most glorious which the earth could afford. In the multiform and
multicolor of the flowers and the trees, he recognised the most direct
and energetic efforts of Nature at physical loveliness. And in the
direction or concentration of this effort- or, more properly, in its
adaptation to the eyes which were to behold it on earth- he
perceived that he should be employing the best means- laboring to
the greatest advantage- in the fulfilment, not only of his own destiny
as poet, but of the august purposes for which the Deity had
implanted the poetic sentiment in man.
"Its adaptation to the eyes which were to behold it on earth." In
his explanation of this phraseology, Mr. Ellison did much toward
solving what has always seemed to me an enigma:- I mean the fact
(which none but the ignorant dispute) that no such combination of
scenery exists in nature as the painter of genius may produce. No such
paradises are to be found in reality as have glowed on the canvas of
Claude. In the most enchanting of natural landscapes, there will
always be found a defect or an excess- many excesses and defects.
While the component parts may defy, individually, the highest skill of
the artist, the arrangement of these parts will always be
susceptible of improvement. In short, no position can be attained on
the wide surface of the natural earth, from which an artistical eye,
looking steadily, will not find matter of offence in what is termed
the "composition" of the landscape. And yet how unintelligible is
this! In all other matters we are justly instructed to regard nature
as supreme. With her details we shrink from competition. Who shall
presume to imitate the colors of the tulip, or to improve the
proportions of the lily of the valley? The criticism which says, of
sculpture or portraiture, that here nature is to be exalted or
idealized rather than imitated, is in error. No pictorial or
sculptural combinations of points of human liveliness do more than
approach the living and breathing beauty. In landscape alone is the
principle of the critic true; and, having felt its truth here, it is
but the headlong spirit of generalization which has led him to
pronounce it true throughout all the domains of art. Having, I say,
felt its truth here; for the feeling is no affectation or chimera. The
mathematics afford no more absolute demonstrations than the sentiments
of his art yields the artist. He not only believes, but positively
knows, that such and such apparently arbitrary arrangements of
matter constitute and alone constitute the true beauty. His reasons,
however, have not yet been matured into expression. It remains for a
more profound analysis than the world has yet seen, fully to
investigate and express them. Nevertheless he is confirmed in his
instinctive opinions by the voice of all his brethren. Let a
"composition" be defective; let an emendation be wrought in its mere
arrangement of form; let this emendation be submitted to every
artist in the world; by each will its necessity be admitted. And
even far more than this:- in remedy of the defective composition, each
insulated member of the fraternity would have suggested the
identical emendation.
I repeat that in landscape arrangements alone is the physical nature
susceptible of exaltation, and that, therefore, her susceptibility
of improvement at this one point, was a mystery I had been unable to
solve. My own thoughts on the subject had rested in the idea that
the primitive intention of nature would have so arranged the earth's
surface as to have fulfilled at all points man's sense of perfection
in the beautiful, the sublime, or the picturesque; but that this
primitive intention had been frustrated by the known geological
disturbances- disturbances of form and color- grouping, in the
correction or allaying of which lies the soul of art. The force of
this idea was much weakened, however, by the necessity which it
involved of considering the disturbances abnormal and unadapted to any
purpose. It was Ellison who suggested that they were prognostic of
death. He thus explained:- Admit the earthly immortality of man to
have been the first intention. We have then the primitive
arrangement of the earth's surface adapted to his blissful estate,
as not existent but designed. The disturbances were the preparations
for his subsequently conceived deathful condition.
"Now," said my friend, "what we regard as exaltation of the
landscape may be really such, as respects only the moral or human
point of view. Each alteration of the natural scenery may possibly
effect a blemish in the picture, if we can suppose this picture viewed
at large- in mass- from some point distant from the earth's surface,
although not beyond the limits of its atmosphere. It is easily
understood that what might improve a closely scrutinized detail, may
at the same time injure a general or more distantly observed effect.
There may be a class of beings, human once, but now invisible to
humanity, to whom, from afar, our disorder may seem order- our
unpicturesqueness picturesque, in a word, the earth-angels, for
whose scrutiny more especially than our own, and for whose death-
refined appreciation of the beautiful, may have been set in array by
God the wide landscape-gardens of the hemispheres."
In the course of discussion, my friend quoted some passages from a
writer on landscape-gardening who has been supposed to have well
treated his theme:
"There are properly but two styles of landscape-gardening, the
natural and the artificial. One seeks to recall the original beauty of
the country, by adapting its means to the surrounding scenery,
cultivating trees in harmony with the hills or plain of the
neighboring land; detecting and bringing into practice those nice
relations of size, proportion, and color which, hid from the common
observer, are revealed everywhere to the experienced student of
nature. The result of the natural style of gardening, is seen rather
in the absence of all defects and incongruities- in the prevalence
of a healthy harmony and order- than in the creation of any special
wonders or miracles. The artificial style has as many varieties as
there are different tastes to gratify. It has a certain general
relation to the various styles of building. There are the stately
avenues and retirements of Versailles; Italian terraces; and a various
mixed old English style, which bears some relation to the domestic
Gothic or English Elizabethan architecture. Whatever may be said
against the abuses of the artificial landscape- gardening, a mixture
of pure art in a garden scene adds to it a great beauty. This is
partly pleasing to the eye, by the show of order and design, and
partly moral. A terrace, with an old moss- covered balustrade, calls
up at once to the eye the fair forms that have passed there in other
days. The slightest exhibition of art is an evidence of care and human
interest."
"From what I have already observed," said Ellison, "you will
understand that I reject the idea, here expressed, of recalling the
original beauty of the country. The original beauty is never so
great as that which may be introduced. Of course, every thing
depends on the selection of a spot with capabilities. What is said
about detecting and bringing into practice nice relations of size,
proportion, and color, is one of those mere vaguenesses of speech
which serve to veil inaccuracy of thought. The phrase quoted may
mean any thing, or nothing, and guides in no degree. That the true
result of the natural style of gardening is seen rather in the absence
of all defects and incongruities than in the creation of any special
wonders or miracles, is a proposition better suited to the
grovelling apprehension of the herd than to the fervid dreams of the
man of genius. The negative merit suggested appertains to that
hobbling criticism which, in letters, would elevate Addison into
apotheosis. In truth, while that virtue which consists in the mere
avoidance of vice appeals directly to the understanding, and can
thus be circumscribed in rule, the loftier virtue, which flames in
creation, can be apprehended in its results alone. Rule applies but to
the merits of denial- to the excellencies which refrain. Beyond these,
the critical art can but suggest. We may be instructed to build a
"Cato," but we are in vain told how to conceive a Parthenon or an
"Inferno." The thing done, however; the wonder accomplished; and the
capacity for apprehension becomes universal. The sophists of the
negative school who, through inability to create, have scoffed at
creation, are now found the loudest in applause. What, in its
chrysalis condition of principle, affronted their demure reason, never
fails, in its maturity of accomplishment, to extort admiration from
their instinct of beauty.
"The author's observations on the artificial style," continued
Ellison, "are less objectionable. A mixture of pure art in a garden
scene adds to it a great beauty. This is just; as also is the
reference to the sense of human interest. The principle expressed is
incontrovertible- but there may be something beyond it. There may be
an object in keeping with the principle- an object unattainable by the
means ordinarily possessed by individuals, yet which, if attained,
would lend a charm to the landscape-garden far surpassing that which a
sense of merely human interest could bestow. A poet, having very
unusual pecuniary resources, might, while retaining the necessary idea
of art or culture, or, as our author expresses it, of interest, so
imbue his designs at once with extent and novelty of beauty, as to
convey the sentiment of spiritual interference. It will be seen
that, in bringing about such result, he secures all the advantages
of interest or design, while relieving his work of the harshness or
technicality of the worldly art. In the most rugged of wildernesses-
in the most savage of the scenes of pure nature- there is apparent the
art of a creator; yet this art is apparent to reflection only; in no
respect has it the obvious force of a feeling. Now let us suppose this
sense of the Almighty design to be one step depressed- to be brought
into something like harmony or consistency with the sense of human
art- to form an intermedium between the two:- let us imagine, for
example, a landscape whose combined vastness and definitiveness- whose
united beauty, magnificence, and strangeness, shall convey the idea of
care, or culture, or superintendence, on the part of beings
superior, yet akin to humanity- then the sentiment of interest is
preserved, while the art intervolved is made to assume the air of an
intermediate or secondary nature- a nature which is not God, nor an
emanation from God, but which still is nature in the sense of the
handiwork of the angels that hover between man and God."
It was in devoting his enormous wealth to the embodiment of a vision
such as this- in the free exercise in the open air ensured by the
personal superintendence of his plans- in the unceasing object which
these plans afforded- in the high spirituality of the object- in the
contempt of ambition which it enabled him truly to feel- in the
perennial springs with which it gratified, without possibility of
satiating, that one master passion of his soul, the thirst for beauty,
above all, it was in the sympathy of a woman, not unwomanly, whose
loveliness and love enveloped his existence in the purple atmosphere
of Paradise, that Ellison thought to find, and found, exemption from
the ordinary cares of humanity, with a far greater amount of
positive happiness than ever glowed in the rapt day-dreams of De
Stael.
I despair of conveying to the reader any distinct conception of
the marvels which my friend did actually accomplish. I wish to
describe, but am disheartened by the difficulty of description, and
hesitate between detail and generality. Perhaps the better course will
be to unite the two in their extremes.
Mr. Ellison's first step regarded, of course, the choice of a
locality, and scarcely had he commenced thinking on this point, when
the luxuriant nature of the Pacific Islands arrested his attention. In
fact, he had made up his mind for a voyage to the South Seas, when a
night's reflection induced him to abandon the idea. "Were I
misanthropic," he said, "such a locale would suit me. The thoroughness
of its insulation and seclusion, and the difficulty of ingress and
egress, would in such case be the charm of charms; but as yet I am not
Timon. I wish the composure but not the depression of solitude.
There must remain with me a certain control over the extent and
duration of my repose. There will be frequent hours in which I shall
need, too, the sympathy of the poetic in what I have done. Let me
seek, then, a spot not far from a populous city- whose vicinity, also,
will best enable me to execute my plans."
In search of a suitable place so situated, Ellison travelled for
several years, and I was permitted to accompany him. A thousand
spots with which I was enraptured he rejected without hesitation,
for reasons which satisfied me, in the end, that he was right. We came
at length to an elevated table-land of wonderful fertility and beauty,
affording a panoramic prospect very little less in extent than that of
Aetna, and, in Ellison's opinion as well as my own, surpassing the
far-famed view from that mountain in all the true elements of the
picturesque.
"I am aware," said the traveller, as he drew a sigh of deep
delight after gazing on this scene, entranced, for nearly an hour,
"I know that here, in my circumstances, nine-tenths of the most
fastidious of men would rest content. This panorama is indeed
glorious, and I should rejoice in it but for the excess of its
glory. The taste of all the architects I have ever known leads them,
for the sake of 'prospect,' to put up buildings on hill-tops. The
error is obvious. Grandeur in any of its moods, but especially in that
of extent, startles, excites- and then fatigues, depresses. For the
occasional scene nothing can be better- for the constant view
nothing worse. And, in the constant view, the most objectionable phase
of grandeur is that of extent; the worst phase of extent, that of
distance. It is at war with the sentiment and with the sense of
seclusion- the sentiment and sense which we seek to humor in 'retiring
to the country.' In looking from the summit of a mountain we cannot
help feeling abroad in the world. The heart-sick avoid distant
prospects as a pestilence."
It was not until toward the close of the fourth year of our search
that we found a locality with which Ellison professed himself
satisfied. It is, of course, needless to say where was the locality.
The late death of my friend, in causing his domain to be thrown open
to certain classes of visiters, has given to Arnheim a species of
secret and subdued if not solemn celebrity, similar in kind,
although infinitely superior in degree, to that which so long
distinguished Fonthill.
The usual approach to Arnheim was by the river. The visiter left the
city in the early morning. During the forenoon he passed between
shores of a tranquil and domestic beauty, on which grazed
innumerable sheep, their white fleeces spotting the vivid green of
rolling meadows. By degrees the idea of cultivation subsided into that
of merely pastoral care. This slowly became merged in a sense of
retirement- this again in a consciousness of solitude. As the
evening approached, the channel grew more narrow, the banks more and
more precipitous; and these latter were clothed in rich, more profuse,
and more sombre foliage. The water increased in transparency. The
stream took a thousand turns, so that at no moment could its
gleaming surface be seen for a greater distance than a furlong. At
every instant the vessel seemed imprisoned within an enchanted circle,
having insuperable and impenetrable walls of foliage, a roof of
ultramarine satin, and no floor- the keel balancing itself with
admirable nicety on that of a phantom bark which, by some accident
having been turned upside down, floated in constant company with the
substantial one, for the purpose of sustaining it. The channel now
became a gorge- although the term is somewhat inapplicable, and I
employ it merely because the language has no word which better
represents the most striking- not the most distinctive-feature of
the scene. The character of gorge was maintained only in the height
and parallelism of the shores; it was lost altogether in their other
traits. The walls of the ravine (through which the clear water still
tranquilly flowed) arose to an elevation of a hundred and occasionally
of a hundred and fifty feet, and inclined so much toward each other
as, in a great measure, to shut out the light of day; while the long
plume-like moss which depended densely from the intertwining
shrubberies overhead, gave the whole chasm an air of funereal gloom.
The windings became more frequent and intricate, and seemed often as
if returning in upon themselves, so that the voyager had long lost all
idea of direction. He was, moreover, enwrapt in an exquisite sense
of the strange. The thought of nature still remained, but her
character seemed to have undergone modification, there was a weird
symmetry, a thrilling uniformity, a wizard propriety in these her
works. Not a dead branch- not a withered leaf- not a stray pebble- not
a patch of the brown earth was anywhere visible. The crystal water
welled up against the clean granite, or the unblemished moss, with a
sharpness of outline that delighted while it bewildered the eye.
Having threaded the mazes of this channel for some hours, the
gloom deepening every moment, a sharp and unexpected turn of the
vessel brought it suddenly, as if dropped from heaven, into a circular
basin of very considerable extent when compared with the width of
the gorge. It was about two hundred yards in diameter, and girt in
at all points but one- that immediately fronting the vessel as it
entered- by hills equal in general height to the walls of the chasm,
although of a thoroughly different character. Their sides sloped
from the water's edge at an angle of some forty-five degrees, and they
were clothed from base to summit- not a perceptible point escaping- in
a drapery of the most gorgeous flower-blossoms; scarcely a green
leaf being visible among the sea of odorous and fluctuating color.
This basin was of great depth, but so transparent was the water that
the bottom, which seemed to consist of a thick mass of small round
alabaster pebbles, was distinctly visible by glimpses- that is to say,
whenever the eye could permit itself not to see, far down in the
inverted heaven, the duplicate blooming of the hills. On these
latter there were no trees, nor even shrubs of any size. The
impressions wrought on the observer were those of richness, warmth,
color, quietude, uniformity, softness, delicacy, daintiness,
voluptuousness, and a miraculous extremeness of culture that suggested
dreams of a new race of fairies, laborious, tasteful, magnificent, and
fastidious; but as the eye traced upward the myriad-tinted slope, from
its sharp junction with the water to its vague termination amid the
folds of overhanging cloud, it became, indeed, difficult not to
fancy a panoramic cataract of rubies, sapphires, opals, and golden
onyxes, rolling silently out of the sky.
The visiter, shooting suddenly into this bay from out the gloom of
the ravine, is delighted but astounded by the full orb of the
declining sun, which he had supposed to be already far below the
horizon, but which now confronts him, and forms the sole termination
of an otherwise limitless vista seen through another chasm- like
rift in the hills.
But here the voyager quits the vessel which has borne him so far,
and descends into a light canoe of ivory, stained with arabesque
devices in vivid scarlet, both within and without. The poop and beak
of this boat arise high above the water, with sharp points, so that
the general form is that of an irregular crescent. It lies on the
surface of the bay with the proud grace of a swan. On its ermined
floor reposes a single feathery paddle of satin-wood; but no oarsmen
or attendant is to be seen. The guest is bidden to be of good cheer-
that the fates will take care of him. The larger vessel disappears,
and he is left alone in the canoe, which lies apparently motionless in
the middle of the lake. While he considers what course to pursue,
however, he becomes aware of a gentle movement in the fairy bark. It
slowly swings itself around until its prow points toward the sun. It
advances with a gentle but gradually accelerated velocity, while the
slight ripples it creates seem to break about the ivory side in
divinest melody-seem to offer the only possible explanation of the
soothing yet melancholy music for whose unseen origin the bewildered
voyager looks around him in vain.
The canoe steadily proceeds, and the rocky gate of the vista is
approached, so that its depths can be more distinctly seen. To the
right arise a chain of lofty hills rudely and luxuriantly wooded. It
is observed, however, that the trait of exquisite cleanness where
the bank dips into the water, still prevails. There is not one token
of the usual river debris. To the left the character of the scene is
softer and more obviously artificial. Here the bank slopes upward from
the stream in a very gentle ascent, forming a broad sward of grass
of a texture resembling nothing so much as velvet, and of a brilliancy
of green which would bear comparison with the tint of the purest
emerald. This plateau varies in width from ten to three hundred yards;
reaching from the river-bank to a wall, fifty feet high, which
extends, in an infinity of curves, but following the general direction
of the river, until lost in the distance to the westward. This wall is
of one continuous rock, and has been formed by cutting perpendicularly
the once rugged precipice of the stream's southern bank, but no
trace of the labor has been suffered to remain. The chiselled stone
has the hue of ages, and is profusely overhung and overspread with the
ivy, the coral honeysuckle, the eglantine, and the clematis. The
uniformity of the top and bottom lines of the wall is fully relieved
by occasional trees of gigantic height, growing singly or in small
groups, both along the plateau and in the domain behind the wall,
but in close proximity to it; so that frequent limbs (of the black
walnut especially) reach over and dip their pendent extremities into
the water. Farther back within the domain, the vision is impeded by an
impenetrable screen of foliage.
These things are observed during the canoe's gradual approach to
what I have called the gate of the vista. On drawing nearer to this,
however, its chasm-like appearance vanishes; a new outlet from the bay
is discovered to the left- in which direction the wall is also seen to
sweep, still following the general course of the stream. Down this new
opening the eye cannot penetrate very far; for the stream, accompanied
by the wall, still bends to the left, until both are swallowed up by
the leaves.
The boat, nevertheless, glides magically into the winding channel;
and here the shore opposite the wall is found to resemble that
opposite the wall in the straight vista. Lofty hills, rising
occasionally into mountains, and covered with vegetation in wild
luxuriance, still shut in the scene.
Floating gently onward, but with a velocity slightly augmented,
the voyager, after many short turns, finds his progress apparently
barred by a gigantic gate or rather door of burnished gold,
elaborately carved and fretted, and reflecting the direct rays of
the now fast-sinking sun with an effulgence that seems to wreath the
whole surrounding forest in flames. This gate is inserted in the lofty
wall; which here appears to cross the river at right angles. In a
few moments, however, it is seen that the main body of the water still
sweeps in a gentle and extensive curve to the left, the wall following
it as before, while a stream of considerable volume, diverging from
the principal one, makes its way, with a slight ripple, under the
door, and is thus hidden from sight. The canoe falls into the lesser
channel and approaches the gate. Its ponderous wings are slowly and
musically expanded. The boat glides between them, and commences a
rapid descent into a vast amphitheatre entirely begirt with purple
mountains, whose bases are laved by a gleaming river throughout the
full extent of their circuit. Meantime the whole Paradise of Arnheim
bursts upon the view. There is a gush of entrancing melody; there is
an oppressive sense of strange sweet odor,- there is a dream- like
intermingling to the eye of tall slender Eastern trees- bosky
shrubberies- flocks of golden and crimson birds- lily-fringed lakes-
meadows of violets, tulips, poppies, hyacinths, and tuberoses- long
intertangled lines of silver streamlets- and, upspringing confusedly
from amid all, a mass of semi-Gothic, semi-Saracenic architecture
sustaining itself by miracle in mid-air, glittering in the red
sunlight with a hundred oriels, minarets, and pinnacles; and seeming
the phantom handiwork, conjointly, of the Sylphs, of the Fairies, of
the Genii and of the Gnomes.
THE END
.
THE DOMAIN OF ARNHEIM
by Edgar Allan Poe
The garden like a lady fair was cut,
That lay as if she slumbered in delight,
And to the open skies her eyes did shut.
The azure fields of Heaven were 'sembled right
In a large round, set with the flowers of light.
The flowers de luce, and the round sparks of dew.
That hung upon their azure leaves did shew
Like twinkling stars that sparkle in the evening blue.
Giles Fletcher.
FROM his cradle to his grave a gale of prosperity bore my friend
Ellison along. Nor do I use the word prosperity in its mere worldly
sense. I mean it as synonymous with happiness. The person of whom I
speak seemed born for the purpose of foreshadowing the doctrines of
Turgot, Price, Priestley, and Condorcet- of exemplifying by individual
instance what has been deemed the chimera of the perfectionists. In
the brief existence of Ellison I fancy that I have seen refuted the
dogma, that in man's very nature lies some hidden principle, the
antagonist of bliss. An anxious examination of his career has given me
to understand that in general, from the violation of a few simple laws
of humanity arises the wretchedness of mankind- that as a species we
have in our possession the as yet unwrought elements of content- and
that, even now, in the present darkness and madness of all thought
on the great question of the social condition, it is not impossible
that man, the individual, under certain unusual and highly
fortuitous conditions, may be happy.
With opinions such as these my young friend, too, was fully
imbued, and thus it is worthy of observation that the uninterrupted
enjoyment which distinguished his life was, in great measure, the
result of preconcert. It is indeed evident that with less of the
instinctive philosophy which, now and then, stands so well in the
stead of experience, Mr. Ellison would have found himself
precipitated, by the very extraordinary success of his life, into
the common vortex of unhappiness which yawns for those of
pre-eminent endowments. But it is by no means my object to pen an
essay on happiness. The ideas of my friend may be summed up in a few
words. He admitted but four elementary principles, or more strictly,
conditions of bliss. That which he considered chief was (strange to
say!) the simple and purely physical one of free exercise in the
open air. "The health," he said, "attainable by other means is
scarcely worth the name." He instanced the ecstasies of the
fox-hunter, and pointed to the tillers of the earth, the only people
who, as a class, can be fairly considered happier than others. His
second condition was the love of woman. His third, and most
difficult of realization, was the contempt of ambition. His fourth was
an object of unceasing pursuit; and he held that, other things being
equal, the extent of attainable happiness was in proportion to the
spirituality of this object.
Ellison was remarkable in the continuous profusion of good gifts
lavished upon him by fortune. In personal grace and beauty he exceeded
all men. His intellect was of that order to which the acquisition of
knowledge is less a labor than an intuition and a necessity. His
family was one of the most illustrious of the empire. His bride was
the loveliest and most devoted of women. His possessions had been
always ample; but on the attainment of his majority, it was discovered
that one of those extraordinary freaks of fate had been played in
his behalf which startle the whole social world amid which they occur,
and seldom fail radically to alter the moral constitution of those who
are their objects.
It appears that about a hundred years before Mr. Ellison's coming of
age, there had died, in a remote province, one Mr. Seabright
Ellison. This gentleman had amassed a princely fortune, and, having no
immediate connections, conceived the whim of suffering his wealth to
accumulate for a century after his decease. Minutely and sagaciously
directing the various modes of investment, he bequeathed the aggregate
amount to the nearest of blood, bearing the name of Ellison, who
should be alive at the end of the hundred years. Many attempts had
been made to set aside this singular bequest; their ex post facto
character rendered them abortive; but the attention of a jealous
government was aroused, and a legislative act finally obtained,
forbidding all similar accumulations. This act, however, did not
prevent young Ellison from entering into possession, on his
twenty-first birthday, as the heir of his ancestor Seabright, of a
fortune of four hundred and fifty millions of dollars.*
* An incident, similar in outline to the one here imagined,
occurred, not very long ago, in England. The name of the fortunate
heir was Thelluson. I first saw an account of this matter in the
"Tour" of Prince Puckler Muskau, who makes the sum inherited ninety
millions of pounds, and justly observes that "in the contemplation
of so vast a sum, and of the services to which it might be applied,
there is something even of the sublime." To suit the views of this
article I have followed the Prince's statement, although a grossly
exaggerated one. The germ, and in fact, the commencement of the
present paper was published many years ago- previous to the issue of
the first number of Sue's admirable "Juif Errant," which may
possibly have been suggested to him by Muskau's account.
When it had become known that such was the enormous wealth
inherited, there were, of course, many speculations as to the mode
of its disposal. The magnitude and the immediate availability of the
sum bewildered all who thought on the topic. The possessor of any
appreciable amount of money might have been imagined to perform any
one of a thousand things. With riches merely surpassing those of any
citizen, it would have been easy to suppose him engaging to supreme
excess in the fashionable extravagances of his time- or busying
himself with political intrigue- or aiming at ministerial power- or
purchasing increase of nobility- or collecting large museums of virtu-
or playing the munificent patron of letters, of science, of art- or
endowing, and bestowing his name upon extensive institutions of
charity. But for the inconceivable wealth in the actual possession
of the heir, these objects and all ordinary objects were felt to
afford too limited a field. Recourse was had to figures, and these but
sufficed to confound. It was seen that, even at three per cent., the
annual income of the inheritance amounted to no less than thirteen
millions and five hundred thousand dollars; which was one million
and one hundred and twenty-five thousand per month; or thirty-six
thousand nine hundred and eighty-six per day; or one thousand five
hundred and forty-one per hour; or six and twenty dollars for every
minute that flew. Thus the usual track of supposition was thoroughly
broken up. Men knew not what to imagine. There were some who even
conceived that Mr. Ellison would divest himself of at least one-half
of his fortune, as of utterly superfluous opulence- enriching whole
troops of his relatives by division of his superabundance. To the
nearest of these he did, in fact, abandon the very unusual wealth
which was his own before the inheritance.
I was not surprised, however, to perceive that he had long made up
his mind on a point which had occasioned so much discussion to his
friends. Nor was I greatly astonished at the nature of his decision.
In regard to individual charities he had satisfied his conscience.
In the possibility of any improvement, properly so called, being
effected by man himself in the general condition of man, he had (I
am sorry to confess it) little faith. Upon the whole, whether
happily or unhappily, he was thrown back, in very great measure,
upon self.
In the widest and noblest sense he was a poet. He comprehended,
moreover, the true character, the august aims, the supreme majesty and
dignity of the poetic sentiment. The fullest, if not the sole proper
satisfaction of this sentiment he instinctively felt to lie in the
creation of novel forms of beauty. Some peculiarities, either in his
early education, or in the nature of his intellect, had tinged with
what is termed materialism all his ethical speculations; and it was
this bias, perhaps, which led him to believe that the most
advantageous at least, if not the sole legitimate field for the poetic
exercise, lies in the creation of novel moods of purely physical
loveliness. Thus it happened he became neither musician nor poet- if
we use this latter term in its every-day acceptation. Or it might have
been that he neglected to become either, merely in pursuance of his
idea that in contempt of ambition is to be found one of the
essential principles of happiness on earth. Is it not indeed, possible
that, while a high order of genius is necessarily ambitious, the
highest is above that which is termed ambition? And may it not thus
happen that many far greater than Milton have contentedly remained
"mute and inglorious?" I believe that the world has never seen- and
that, unless through some series of accidents goading the noblest
order of mind into distasteful exertion, the world will never see-
that full extent of triumphant execution, in the richer domains of
art, of which the human nature is absolutely capable.
Ellison became neither musician nor poet; although no man lived more
profoundly enamored of music and poetry. Under other circumstances
than those which invested him, it is not impossible that he would have
become a painter. Sculpture, although in its nature rigorously
poetical was too limited in its extent and consequences, to have
occupied, at any time, much of his attention. And I have now mentioned
all the provinces in which the common understanding of the poetic
sentiment has declared it capable of expatiating. But Ellison
maintained that the richest, the truest, and most natural, if not
altogether the most extensive province, had been unaccountably
neglected. No definition had spoken of the landscape-gardener as of
the poet; yet it seemed to my friend that the creation of the
landscape-garden offered to the proper Muse the most magnificent of
opportunities. Here, indeed, was the fairest field for the display
of imagination in the endless combining of forms of novel beauty;
the elements to enter into combination being, by a vast superiority,
the most glorious which the earth could afford. In the multiform and
multicolor of the flowers and the trees, he recognised the most direct
and energetic efforts of Nature at physical loveliness. And in the
direction or concentration of this effort- or, more properly, in its
adaptation to the eyes which were to behold it on earth- he
perceived that he should be employing the best means- laboring to
the greatest advantage- in the fulfilment, not only of his own destiny
as poet, but of the august purposes for which the Deity had
implanted the poetic sentiment in man.
"Its adaptation to the eyes which were to behold it on earth." In
his explanation of this phraseology, Mr. Ellison did much toward
solving what has always seemed to me an enigma:- I mean the fact
(which none but the ignorant dispute) that no such combination of
scenery exists in nature as the painter of genius may produce. No such
paradises are to be found in reality as have glowed on the canvas of
Claude. In the most enchanting of natural landscapes, there will
always be found a defect or an excess- many excesses and defects.
While the component parts may defy, individually, the highest skill of
the artist, the arrangement of these parts will always be
susceptible of improvement. In short, no position can be attained on
the wide surface of the natural earth, from which an artistical eye,
looking steadily, will not find matter of offence in what is termed
the "composition" of the landscape. And yet how unintelligible is
this! In all other matters we are justly instructed to regard nature
as supreme. With her details we shrink from competition. Who shall
presume to imitate the colors of the tulip, or to improve the
proportions of the lily of the valley? The criticism which says, of
sculpture or portraiture, that here nature is to be exalted or
idealized rather than imitated, is in error. No pictorial or
sculptural combinations of points of human liveliness do more than
approach the living and breathing beauty. In landscape alone is the
principle of the critic true; and, having felt its truth here, it is
but the headlong spirit of generalization which has led him to
pronounce it true throughout all the domains of art. Having, I say,
felt its truth here; for the feeling is no affectation or chimera. The
mathematics afford no more absolute demonstrations than the sentiments
of his art yields the artist. He not only believes, but positively
knows, that such and such apparently arbitrary arrangements of
matter constitute and alone constitute the true beauty. His reasons,
however, have not yet been matured into expression. It remains for a
more profound analysis than the world has yet seen, fully to
investigate and express them. Nevertheless he is confirmed in his
instinctive opinions by the voice of all his brethren. Let a
"composition" be defective; let an emendation be wrought in its mere
arrangement of form; let this emendation be submitted to every
artist in the world; by each will its necessity be admitted. And
even far more than this:- in remedy of the defective composition, each
insulated member of the fraternity would have suggested the
identical emendation.
I repeat that in landscape arrangements alone is the physical nature
susceptible of exaltation, and that, therefore, her susceptibility
of improvement at this one point, was a mystery I had been unable to
solve. My own thoughts on the subject had rested in the idea that
the primitive intention of nature would have so arranged the earth's
surface as to have fulfilled at all points man's sense of perfection
in the beautiful, the sublime, or the picturesque; but that this
primitive intention had been frustrated by the known geological
disturbances- disturbances of form and color- grouping, in the
correction or allaying of which lies the soul of art. The force of
this idea was much weakened, however, by the necessity which it
involved of considering the disturbances abnormal and unadapted to any
purpose. It was Ellison who suggested that they were prognostic of
death. He thus explained:- Admit the earthly immortality of man to
have been the first intention. We have then the primitive
arrangement of the earth's surface adapted to his blissful estate,
as not existent but designed. The disturbances were the preparations
for his subsequently conceived deathful condition.
"Now," said my friend, "what we regard as exaltation of the
landscape may be really such, as respects only the moral or human
point of view. Each alteration of the natural scenery may possibly
effect a blemish in the picture, if we can suppose this picture viewed
at large- in mass- from some point distant from the earth's surface,
although not beyond the limits of its atmosphere. It is easily
understood that what might improve a closely scrutinized detail, may
at the same time injure a general or more distantly observed effect.
There may be a class of beings, human once, but now invisible to
humanity, to whom, from afar, our disorder may seem order- our
unpicturesqueness picturesque, in a word, the earth-angels, for
whose scrutiny more especially than our own, and for whose death-
refined appreciation of the beautiful, may have been set in array by
God the wide landscape-gardens of the hemispheres."
In the course of discussion, my friend quoted some passages from a
writer on landscape-gardening who has been supposed to have well
treated his theme:
"There are properly but two styles of landscape-gardening, the
natural and the artificial. One seeks to recall the original beauty of
the country, by adapting its means to the surrounding scenery,
cultivating trees in harmony with the hills or plain of the
neighboring land; detecting and bringing into practice those nice
relations of size, proportion, and color which, hid from the common
observer, are revealed everywhere to the experienced student of
nature. The result of the natural style of gardening, is seen rather
in the absence of all defects and incongruities- in the prevalence
of a healthy harmony and order- than in the creation of any special
wonders or miracles. The artificial style has as many varieties as
there are different tastes to gratify. It has a certain general
relation to the various styles of building. There are the stately
avenues and retirements of Versailles; Italian terraces; and a various
mixed old English style, which bears some relation to the domestic
Gothic or English Elizabethan architecture. Whatever may be said
against the abuses of the artificial landscape- gardening, a mixture
of pure art in a garden scene adds to it a great beauty. This is
partly pleasing to the eye, by the show of order and design, and
partly moral. A terrace, with an old moss- covered balustrade, calls
up at once to the eye the fair forms that have passed there in other
days. The slightest exhibition of art is an evidence of care and human
interest."
"From what I have already observed," said Ellison, "you will
understand that I reject the idea, here expressed, of recalling the
original beauty of the country. The original beauty is never so
great as that which may be introduced. Of course, every thing
depends on the selection of a spot with capabilities. What is said
about detecting and bringing into practice nice relations of size,
proportion, and color, is one of those mere vaguenesses of speech
which serve to veil inaccuracy of thought. The phrase quoted may
mean any thing, or nothing, and guides in no degree. That the true
result of the natural style of gardening is seen rather in the absence
of all defects and incongruities than in the creation of any special
wonders or miracles, is a proposition better suited to the
grovelling apprehension of the herd than to the fervid dreams of the
man of genius. The negative merit suggested appertains to that
hobbling criticism which, in letters, would elevate Addison into
apotheosis. In truth, while that virtue which consists in the mere
avoidance of vice appeals directly to the understanding, and can
thus be circumscribed in rule, the loftier virtue, which flames in
creation, can be apprehended in its results alone. Rule applies but to
the merits of denial- to the excellencies which refrain. Beyond these,
the critical art can but suggest. We may be instructed to build a
"Cato," but we are in vain told how to conceive a Parthenon or an
"Inferno." The thing done, however; the wonder accomplished; and the
capacity for apprehension becomes universal. The sophists of the
negative school who, through inability to create, have scoffed at
creation, are now found the loudest in applause. What, in its
chrysalis condition of principle, affronted their demure reason, never
fails, in its maturity of accomplishment, to extort admiration from
their instinct of beauty.
"The author's observations on the artificial style," continued
Ellison, "are less objectionable. A mixture of pure art in a garden
scene adds to it a great beauty. This is just; as also is the
reference to the sense of human interest. The principle expressed is
incontrovertible- but there may be something beyond it. There may be
an object in keeping with the principle- an object unattainable by the
means ordinarily possessed by individuals, yet which, if attained,
would lend a charm to the landscape-garden far surpassing that which a
sense of merely human interest could bestow. A poet, having very
unusual pecuniary resources, might, while retaining the necessary idea
of art or culture, or, as our author expresses it, of interest, so
imbue his designs at once with extent and novelty of beauty, as to
convey the sentiment of spiritual interference. It will be seen
that, in bringing about such result, he secures all the advantages
of interest or design, while relieving his work of the harshness or
technicality of the worldly art. In the most rugged of wildernesses-
in the most savage of the scenes of pure nature- there is apparent the
art of a creator; yet this art is apparent to reflection only; in no
respect has it the obvious force of a feeling. Now let us suppose this
sense of the Almighty design to be one step depressed- to be brought
into something like harmony or consistency with the sense of human
art- to form an intermedium between the two:- let us imagine, for
example, a landscape whose combined vastness and definitiveness- whose
united beauty, magnificence, and strangeness, shall convey the idea of
care, or culture, or superintendence, on the part of beings
superior, yet akin to humanity- then the sentiment of interest is
preserved, while the art intervolved is made to assume the air of an
intermediate or secondary nature- a nature which is not God, nor an
emanation from God, but which still is nature in the sense of the
handiwork of the angels that hover between man and God."
It was in devoting his enormous wealth to the embodiment of a vision
such as this- in the free exercise in the open air ensured by the
personal superintendence of his plans- in the unceasing object which
these plans afforded- in the high spirituality of the object- in the
contempt of ambition which it enabled him truly to feel- in the
perennial springs with which it gratified, without possibility of
satiating, that one master passion of his soul, the thirst for beauty,
above all, it was in the sympathy of a woman, not unwomanly, whose
loveliness and love enveloped his existence in the purple atmosphere
of Paradise, that Ellison thought to find, and found, exemption from
the ordinary cares of humanity, with a far greater amount of
positive happiness than ever glowed in the rapt day-dreams of De
Stael.
I despair of conveying to the reader any distinct conception of
the marvels which my friend did actually accomplish. I wish to
describe, but am disheartened by the difficulty of description, and
hesitate between detail and generality. Perhaps the better course will
be to unite the two in their extremes.
Mr. Ellison's first step regarded, of course, the choice of a
locality, and scarcely had he commenced thinking on this point, when
the luxuriant nature of the Pacific Islands arrested his attention. In
fact, he had made up his mind for a voyage to the South Seas, when a
night's reflection induced him to abandon the idea. "Were I
misanthropic," he said, "such a locale would suit me. The thoroughness
of its insulation and seclusion, and the difficulty of ingress and
egress, would in such case be the charm of charms; but as yet I am not
Timon. I wish the composure but not the depression of solitude.
There must remain with me a certain control over the extent and
duration of my repose. There will be frequent hours in which I shall
need, too, the sympathy of the poetic in what I have done. Let me
seek, then, a spot not far from a populous city- whose vicinity, also,
will best enable me to execute my plans."
In search of a suitable place so situated, Ellison travelled for
several years, and I was permitted to accompany him. A thousand
spots with which I was enraptured he rejected without hesitation,
for reasons which satisfied me, in the end, that he was right. We came
at length to an elevated table-land of wonderful fertility and beauty,
affording a panoramic prospect very little less in extent than that of
Aetna, and, in Ellison's opinion as well as my own, surpassing the
far-famed view from that mountain in all the true elements of the
picturesque.
"I am aware," said the traveller, as he drew a sigh of deep
delight after gazing on this scene, entranced, for nearly an hour,
"I know that here, in my circumstances, nine-tenths of the most
fastidious of men would rest content. This panorama is indeed
glorious, and I should rejoice in it but for the excess of its
glory. The taste of all the architects I have ever known leads them,
for the sake of 'prospect,' to put up buildings on hill-tops. The
error is obvious. Grandeur in any of its moods, but especially in that
of extent, startles, excites- and then fatigues, depresses. For the
occasional scene nothing can be better- for the constant view
nothing worse. And, in the constant view, the most objectionable phase
of grandeur is that of extent; the worst phase of extent, that of
distance. It is at war with the sentiment and with the sense of
seclusion- the sentiment and sense which we seek to humor in 'retiring
to the country.' In looking from the summit of a mountain we cannot
help feeling abroad in the world. The heart-sick avoid distant
prospects as a pestilence."
It was not until toward the close of the fourth year of our search
that we found a locality with which Ellison professed himself
satisfied. It is, of course, needless to say where was the locality.
The late death of my friend, in causing his domain to be thrown open
to certain classes of visiters, has given to Arnheim a species of
secret and subdued if not solemn celebrity, similar in kind,
although infinitely superior in degree, to that which so long
distinguished Fonthill.
The usual approach to Arnheim was by the river. The visiter left the
city in the early morning. During the forenoon he passed between
shores of a tranquil and domestic beauty, on which grazed
innumerable sheep, their white fleeces spotting the vivid green of
rolling meadows. By degrees the idea of cultivation subsided into that
of merely pastoral care. This slowly became merged in a sense of
retirement- this again in a consciousness of solitude. As the
evening approached, the channel grew more narrow, the banks more and
more precipitous; and these latter were clothed in rich, more profuse,
and more sombre foliage. The water increased in transparency. The
stream took a thousand turns, so that at no moment could its
gleaming surface be seen for a greater distance than a furlong. At
every instant the vessel seemed imprisoned within an enchanted circle,
having insuperable and impenetrable walls of foliage, a roof of
ultramarine satin, and no floor- the keel balancing itself with
admirable nicety on that of a phantom bark which, by some accident
having been turned upside down, floated in constant company with the
substantial one, for the purpose of sustaining it. The channel now
became a gorge- although the term is somewhat inapplicable, and I
employ it merely because the language has no word which better
represents the most striking- not the most distinctive-feature of
the scene. The character of gorge was maintained only in the height
and parallelism of the shores; it was lost altogether in their other
traits. The walls of the ravine (through which the clear water still
tranquilly flowed) arose to an elevation of a hundred and occasionally
of a hundred and fifty feet, and inclined so much toward each other
as, in a great measure, to shut out the light of day; while the long
plume-like moss which depended densely from the intertwining
shrubberies overhead, gave the whole chasm an air of funereal gloom.
The windings became more frequent and intricate, and seemed often as
if returning in upon themselves, so that the voyager had long lost all
idea of direction. He was, moreover, enwrapt in an exquisite sense
of the strange. The thought of nature still remained, but her
character seemed to have undergone modification, there was a weird
symmetry, a thrilling uniformity, a wizard propriety in these her
works. Not a dead branch- not a withered leaf- not a stray pebble- not
a patch of the brown earth was anywhere visible. The crystal water
welled up against the clean granite, or the unblemished moss, with a
sharpness of outline that delighted while it bewildered the eye.
Having threaded the mazes of this channel for some hours, the
gloom deepening every moment, a sharp and unexpected turn of the
vessel brought it suddenly, as if dropped from heaven, into a circular
basin of very considerable extent when compared with the width of
the gorge. It was about two hundred yards in diameter, and girt in
at all points but one- that immediately fronting the vessel as it
entered- by hills equal in general height to the walls of the chasm,
although of a thoroughly different character. Their sides sloped
from the water's edge at an angle of some forty-five degrees, and they
were clothed from base to summit- not a perceptible point escaping- in
a drapery of the most gorgeous flower-blossoms; scarcely a green
leaf being visible among the sea of odorous and fluctuating color.
This basin was of great depth, but so transparent was the water that
the bottom, which seemed to consist of a thick mass of small round
alabaster pebbles, was distinctly visible by glimpses- that is to say,
whenever the eye could permit itself not to see, far down in the
inverted heaven, the duplicate blooming of the hills. On these
latter there were no trees, nor even shrubs of any size. The
impressions wrought on the observer were those of richness, warmth,
color, quietude, uniformity, softness, delicacy, daintiness,
voluptuousness, and a miraculous extremeness of culture that suggested
dreams of a new race of fairies, laborious, tasteful, magnificent, and
fastidious; but as the eye traced upward the myriad-tinted slope, from
its sharp junction with the water to its vague termination amid the
folds of overhanging cloud, it became, indeed, difficult not to
fancy a panoramic cataract of rubies, sapphires, opals, and golden
onyxes, rolling silently out of the sky.
The visiter, shooting suddenly into this bay from out the gloom of
the ravine, is delighted but astounded by the full orb of the
declining sun, which he had supposed to be already far below the
horizon, but which now confronts him, and forms the sole termination
of an otherwise limitless vista seen through another chasm- like
rift in the hills.
But here the voyager quits the vessel which has borne him so far,
and descends into a light canoe of ivory, stained with arabesque
devices in vivid scarlet, both within and without. The poop and beak
of this boat arise high above the water, with sharp points, so that
the general form is that of an irregular crescent. It lies on the
surface of the bay with the proud grace of a swan. On its ermined
floor reposes a single feathery paddle of satin-wood; but no oarsmen
or attendant is to be seen. The guest is bidden to be of good cheer-
that the fates will take care of him. The larger vessel disappears,
and he is left alone in the canoe, which lies apparently motionless in
the middle of the lake. While he considers what course to pursue,
however, he becomes aware of a gentle movement in the fairy bark. It
slowly swings itself around until its prow points toward the sun. It
advances with a gentle but gradually accelerated velocity, while the
slight ripples it creates seem to break about the ivory side in
divinest melody-seem to offer the only possible explanation of the
soothing yet melancholy music for whose unseen origin the bewildered
voyager looks around him in vain.
The canoe steadily proceeds, and the rocky gate of the vista is
approached, so that its depths can be more distinctly seen. To the
right arise a chain of lofty hills rudely and luxuriantly wooded. It
is observed, however, that the trait of exquisite cleanness where
the bank dips into the water, still prevails. There is not one token
of the usual river debris. To the left the character of the scene is
softer and more obviously artificial. Here the bank slopes upward from
the stream in a very gentle ascent, forming a broad sward of grass
of a texture resembling nothing so much as velvet, and of a brilliancy
of green which would bear comparison with the tint of the purest
emerald. This plateau varies in width from ten to three hundred yards;
reaching from the river-bank to a wall, fifty feet high, which
extends, in an infinity of curves, but following the general direction
of the river, until lost in the distance to the westward. This wall is
of one continuous rock, and has been formed by cutting perpendicularly
the once rugged precipice of the stream's southern bank, but no
trace of the labor has been suffered to remain. The chiselled stone
has the hue of ages, and is profusely overhung and overspread with the
ivy, the coral honeysuckle, the eglantine, and the clematis. The
uniformity of the top and bottom lines of the wall is fully relieved
by occasional trees of gigantic height, growing singly or in small
groups, both along the plateau and in the domain behind the wall,
but in close proximity to it; so that frequent limbs (of the black
walnut especially) reach over and dip their pendent extremities into
the water. Farther back within the domain, the vision is impeded by an
impenetrable screen of foliage.
These things are observed during the canoe's gradual approach to
what I have called the gate of the vista. On drawing nearer to this,
however, its chasm-like appearance vanishes; a new outlet from the bay
is discovered to the left- in which direction the wall is also seen to
sweep, still following the general course of the stream. Down this new
opening the eye cannot penetrate very far; for the stream, accompanied
by the wall, still bends to the left, until both are swallowed up by
the leaves.
The boat, nevertheless, glides magically into the winding channel;
and here the shore opposite the wall is found to resemble that
opposite the wall in the straight vista. Lofty hills, rising
occasionally into mountains, and covered with vegetation in wild
luxuriance, still shut in the scene.
Floating gently onward, but with a velocity slightly augmented,
the voyager, after many short turns, finds his progress apparently
barred by a gigantic gate or rather door of burnished gold,
elaborately carved and fretted, and reflecting the direct rays of
the now fast-sinking sun with an effulgence that seems to wreath the
whole surrounding forest in flames. This gate is inserted in the lofty
wall; which here appears to cross the river at right angles. In a
few moments, however, it is seen that the main body of the water still
sweeps in a gentle and extensive curve to the left, the wall following
it as before, while a stream of considerable volume, diverging from
the principal one, makes its way, with a slight ripple, under the
door, and is thus hidden from sight. The canoe falls into the lesser
channel and approaches the gate. Its ponderous wings are slowly and
musically expanded. The boat glides between them, and commences a
rapid descent into a vast amphitheatre entirely begirt with purple
mountains, whose bases are laved by a gleaming river throughout the
full extent of their circuit. Meantime the whole Paradise of Arnheim
bursts upon the view. There is a gush of entrancing melody; there is
an oppressive sense of strange sweet odor,- there is a dream- like
intermingling to the eye of tall slender Eastern trees- bosky
shrubberies- flocks of golden and crimson birds- lily-fringed lakes-
meadows of violets, tulips, poppies, hyacinths, and tuberoses- long
intertangled lines of silver streamlets- and, upspringing confusedly
from amid all, a mass of semi-Gothic, semi-Saracenic architecture
sustaining itself by miracle in mid-air, glittering in the red
sunlight with a hundred oriels, minarets, and pinnacles; and seeming
the phantom handiwork, conjointly, of the Sylphs, of the Fairies, of
the Genii and of the Gnomes.
THE END
.
Thursday, 21 November 2013
DIDDLING
1850
DIDDLING
Considered as One of the Exact Sciences
by Edgar Allen Poe
Hey, diddle diddle
The cat and the fiddle
SINCE the world began there have been two Jeremys. The one wrote a
Jeremiad about usury, and was called Jeremy Bentham. He has been
much admired by Mr. John Neal, and was a great man in a small way. The
other gave name to the most important of the Exact Sciences, and was a
great man in a great way- I may say, indeed, in the very greatest of
ways.
Diddling- or the abstract idea conveyed by the verb to diddle- is
sufficiently well understood. Yet the fact, the deed, the thing
diddling, is somewhat difficult to define. We may get, however, at a
tolerably distinct conception of the matter in hand, by defining-
not the thing, diddling, in itself- but man, as an animal that
diddles. Had Plato but hit upon this, he would have been spared the
affront of the picked chicken.
Very pertinently it was demanded of Plato, why a picked chicken,
which was clearly "a biped without feathers," was not, according to
his own definition, a man? But I am not to be bothered by any
similar query. Man is an animal that diddles, and there is no animal
that diddles but man. It will take an entire hen-coop of picked
chickens to get over that.
What constitutes the essence, the nare, the principle of diddling
is, in fact, peculiar to the class of creatures that wear coats and
pantaloons. A crow thieves; a fox cheats; a weasel outwits; a man
diddles. To diddle is his destiny. "Man was made to mourn," says the
poet. But not so:- he was made to diddle. This is his aim- his object-
his end. And for this reason when a man's diddled we say he's "done."
Diddling, rightly considered, is a compound, of which the
ingredients are minuteness, interest, perseverance, ingenuity,
audacity, nonchalance, originality, impertinence, and grin.
Minuteness:- Your diddler is minute. His operations are upon a small
scale. His business is retail, for cash, or approved paper at sight.
Should he ever be tempted into magnificent speculation, he then, at
once, loses his distinctive features, and becomes what we term
"financier." This latter word conveys the diddling idea in every
respect except that of magnitude. A diddler may thus be regarded as
a banker in petto- a "financial operation," as a diddle at Brobdignag.
The one is to the other, as Homer to "Flaccus"- as a Mastodon to a
mouse- as the tail of a comet to that of a pig.
Interest:- Your diddler is guided by self-interest. He scorns to
diddle for the mere sake of the diddle. He has an object in view-
his pocket- and yours. He regards always the main chance. He looks
to Number One. You are Number Two, and must look to yourself.
Perseverance:- Your diddler perseveres. He is not readily
discouraged. Should even the banks break, he cares nothing about it.
He steadily pursues his end, and
Ut canis a corio nunquam absterrebitur uncto.
so he never lets go of his game.
Ingenuity:- Your diddler is ingenious. He has constructiveness
large. He understands plot. He invents and circumvents. Were he not
Alexander he would be Diogenes. Were he not a diddler, he would be a
maker of patent rat-traps or an angler for trout.
Audacity:- Your diddler is audacious.- He is a bold man. He
carries the war into Africa. He conquers all by assault. He would
not fear the daggers of Frey Herren. With a little more prudence
Dick Turpin would have made a good diddler; with a trifle less
blarney, Daniel O'Connell; with a pound or two more brains Charles the
Twelfth.
Nonchalance:- Your diddler is nonchalant. He is not at all
nervous. He never had any nerves. He is never seduced into a flurry.
He is never put out- unless put out of doors. He is cool- cool as a
cucumber. He is calm- "calm as a smile from Lady Bury." He is easy-
easy as an old glove, or the damsels of ancient Baiae.
Originality:- Your diddler is original- conscientiously so. His
thoughts are his own. He would scorn to employ those of another. A
stale trick is his aversion. He would return a purse, I am sure,
upon discovering that he had obtained it by an unoriginal diddle.
Impertinence.- Your diddler is impertinent. He swaggers. He sets his
arms a-kimbo. He thrusts. his hands in his trowsers' pockets. He
sneers in your face. He treads on your corns. He eats your dinner,
he drinks your wine, he borrows your money, he pulls your nose, he
kicks your poodle, and he kisses your wife.
Grin:- Your true diddler winds up all with a grin. But this nobody
sees but himself. He grins when his daily work is done- when his
allotted labors are accomplished- at night in his own closet, and
altogether for his own private entertainment. He goes home. He locks
his door. He divests himself of his clothes. He puts out his candle.
He gets into bed. He places his head upon the pillow. All this done,
and your diddler grins. This is no hypothesis. It is a matter of
course. I reason a priori, and a diddle would be no diddle without a
grin.
The origin of the diddle is referrable to the infancy of the Human
Race. Perhaps the first diddler was Adam. At all events, we can
trace the science back to a very remote period of antiquity. The
moderns, however, have brought it to a perfection never dreamed of
by our thick-headed progenitors. Without pausing to speak of the
"old saws," therefore, I shall content myself with a compendious
account of some of the more "modern instances."
A very good diddle is this. A housekeeper in want of a sofa, for
instance, is seen to go in and out of several cabinet warehouses. At
length she arrives at one offering an excellent variety. She is
accosted, and invited to enter, by a polite and voluble individual
at the door. She finds a sofa well adapted to her views, and upon
inquiring the price, is surprised and delighted to hear a sum named at
least twenty per cent. lower than her expectations. She hastens to
make the purchase, gets a bill and receipt, leaves her address, with a
request that the article be sent home as speedily as possible, and
retires amid a profusion of bows from the shopkeeper. The night
arrives and no sofa. A servant is sent to make inquiry about the
delay. The whole transaction is denied. No sofa has been sold- no
money received- except by the diddler, who played shop-keeper for
the nonce.
Our cabinet warehouses are left entirely unattended, and thus afford
every facility for a trick of this kind. Visiters enter, look at
furniture, and depart unheeded and unseen. Should any one wish to
purchase, or to inquire the price of an article, a bell is at hand,
and this is considered amply sufficient.
Again, quite a respectable diddle is this. A well-dressed individual
enters a shop, makes a purchase to the value of a dollar; finds,
much to his vexation, that he has left his pocket-book in another coat
pocket; and so says to the shopkeeper-
"My dear sir, never mind; just oblige me, will you, by sending the
bundle home? But stay! I really believe that I have nothing less
than a five dollar bill, even there. However, you can send four
dollars in change with the bundle, you know."
"Very good, sir," replies the shop-keeper, who entertains, at
once, a lofty opinion of the high-mindedness of his customer. "I
know fellows," he says to himself, "who would just have put the
goods under their arm, and walked off with a promise to call and pay
the dollar as they came by in the afternoon."
A boy is sent with the parcel and change. On the route, quite
accidentally, he is met by the purchaser, who exclaims:
"Ah! This is my bundle, I see- I thought you had been home with
it, long ago. Well, go on! My wife, Mrs. Trotter, will give you the
five dollars- I left instructions with her to that effect. The
change you might as well give to me- I shall want some silver for
the Post Office. Very good! One, two, is this a good quarter?-
three, four- quite right! Say to Mrs. Trotter that you met me, and
be sure now and do not loiter on the way."
The boy doesn't loiter at all- but he is a very long time in getting
back from his errand- for no lady of the precise name of Mrs.
Trotter is to be discovered. He consoles himself, however, that he has
not been such a fool as to leave the goods without the money, and
re-entering his shop with a self-satisfied air, feels sensibly hurt
and indignant when his master asks him what has become of the change.
A very simple diddle, indeed, is this. The captain of a ship,
which is about to sail, is presented by an official looking person
with an unusually moderate bill of city charges. Glad to get off so
easily, and confused by a hundred duties pressing upon him all at
once, he discharges the claim forthwith. In about fifteen minutes,
another and less reasonable bill is handed him by one who soon makes
it evident that the first collector was a diddler, and the original
collection a diddle.
And here, too, is a somewhat similar thing. A steamboat is casting
loose from the wharf. A traveller, portmanteau in hand, is
discovered running toward the wharf, at full speed. Suddenly, he makes
a dead halt, stoops, and picks up something from the ground in a
very agitated manner. It is a pocket-book, and- "Has any gentleman
lost a pocketbook?" he cries. No one can say that he has exactly
lost a pocket-book; but a great excitement ensues, when the treasure
trove is found to be of value. The boat, however, must not be
detained.
"Time and tide wait for no man," says the captain.
"For God's sake, stay only a few minutes," says the finder of the
book- "the true claimant will presently appear."
"Can't wait!" replies the man in authority; "cast off there, d'ye
hear?"
"What am I to do?" asks the finder, in great tribulation. "I am
about to leave the country for some years, and I cannot
conscientiously retain this large amount in my possession. I beg
your pardon, sir," [here he addresses a gentleman on shore,] "but
you have the air of an honest man. Will you confer upon me the favor
of taking charge of this pocket-book- I know I can trust you- and of
advertising it? The notes, you see, amount to a very considerable sum.
The owner will, no doubt, insist upon rewarding you for your trouble-
"Me!- no, you!- it was you who found the book."
"Well, if you must have it so- I will take a small reward- just to
satisfy your scruples. Let me see- why these notes are all hundreds-
bless my soul! a hundred is too much to take- fifty would be quite
enough, I am sure-
"Cast off there!" says the captain.
"But then I have no change for a hundred, and upon the whole, you
had better-
"Cast off there!" says the captain.
"Never mind!" cries the gentleman on shore, who has been examining
his own pocket-book for the last minute or so- "never mind! I can
fix it- here is a fifty on the Bank of North America- throw the book."
And the over-conscientious finder takes the fifty with marked
reluctance, and throws the gentleman the book, as desired, while the
steamboat fumes and fizzes on her way. In about half an hour after her
departure, the "large amount" is seen to be a "counterfeit
presentment," and the whole thing a capital diddle.
A bold diddle is this. A camp-meeting, or something similar, is to
be held at a certain spot which is accessible only by means of a
free bridge. A diddler stations himself upon this bridge, respectfully
informs all passers by of the new county law, which establishes a toll
of one cent for foot passengers, two for horses and donkeys, and so
forth, and so forth. Some grumble but all submit, and the diddler goes
home a wealthier man by some fifty or sixty dollars well earned.
This taking a toll from a great crowd of people is an excessively
troublesome thing.
A neat diddle is this. A friend holds one of the diddler's
promises to pay, filled up and signed in due form, upon the ordinary
blanks printed in red ink. The diddler purchases one or two dozen of
these blanks, and every day dips one of them in his soup, makes his
dog jump for it, and finally gives it to him as a bonne bouche. The
note arriving at maturity, the diddler, with the diddler's dog,
calls upon the friend, and the promise to pay is made the topic of
discussion. The friend produces it from his escritoire, and is in
the act of reaching it to the diddler, when up jumps the diddler's dog
and devours it forthwith. The diddler is not only surprised but
vexed and incensed at the absurd behavior of his dog, and expresses
his entire readiness to cancel the obligation at any moment when the
evidence of the obligation shall be forthcoming.
A very mean diddle is this. A lady is insulted in the street by a
diddler's accomplice. The diddler himself flies to her assistance,
and, giving his friend a comfortable thrashing, insists upon attending
the lady to her own door. He bows, with his hand upon his heart, and
most respectfully bids her adieu. She entreats him, as her
deliverer, to walk in and be introduced to her big brother and her
papa. With a sigh, he declines to do so. "Is there no way, then, sir,"
she murmurs, "in which I may be permitted to testify my gratitude?"
"Why, yes, madam, there is. Will you be kind enough to lend me a
couple of shillings?"
In the first excitement of the moment the lady decides upon fainting
outright. Upon second thought, however, she opens her purse-strings
and delivers the specie. Now this, I say, is a diddle minute- for
one entire moiety of the sum borrowed has to be paid to the
gentleman who had the trouble of performing the insult, and who had
then to stand still and be thrashed for performing it.
Rather a small but still a scientific diddle is this. The diddler
approaches the bar of a tavern, and demands a couple of twists of
tobacco. These are handed to him, when, having slightly examined them,
he says:
"I don't much like this tobacco. Here, take it back, and give me a
glass of brandy and water in its place." The brandy and water is
furnished and imbibed, and the diddler makes his way to the door.
But the voice of the tavern-keeper arrests him.
"I believe, sir, you have forgotten to pay for your brandy and
water."
"Pay for my brandy and water!- didn't I give you the tobacco for the
brandy and water? What more would you have?"
"But, sir, if you please, I don't remember that you paid me for
the tobacco."
"What do you mean by that, you scoundrel?- Didn't I give you back
your tobacco? Isn't that your tobacco lying there? Do you expect me to
pay for what I did not take?"
"But, sir," says the publican, now rather at a loss what to say,
"but sir-"
"But me no buts, sir," interrupts the diddler, apparently in very
high dudgeon, and slamming the door after him, as he makes his
escape.- "But me no buts, sir, and none of your tricks upon
travellers."
Here again is a very clever diddle, of which the simplicity is not
its least recommendation. A purse, or pocket-book, being really
lost, the loser inserts in one of the daily papers of a large city a
fully descriptive advertisement.
Whereupon our diddler copies the facts of this advertisement, with a
change of heading, of general phraseology and address. The original,
for instance, is long, and verbose, is headed "A Pocket-Book Lost!"
and requires the treasure, when found, to be left at No. 1 Tom Street.
The copy is brief, and being headed with "Lost" only, indicates No.
2 Dick, or No. 3 Harry Street, as the locality at which the owner
may be seen. Moreover, it is inserted in at least five or six of the
daily papers of the day, while in point of time, it makes its
appearance only a few hours after the original. Should it be read by
the loser of the purse, he would hardly suspect it to have any
reference to his own misfortune. But, of course, the chances are
five or six to one, that the finder will repair to the address given
by the diddler, rather than to that pointed out by the rightful
proprietor. The former pays the reward, pockets the treasure and
decamps.
Quite an analogous diddle is this. A lady of ton has dropped, some
where in the street, a diamond ring of very unusual value. For its
recovery, she offers some forty or fifty dollars reward- giving, in
her advertisement, a very minute description of the gem, and of its
settings, and declaring that, on its restoration at No. so and so,
in such and such Avenue, the reward would be paid instanter, without a
single question being asked. During the lady's absence from home, a
day or two afterwards, a ring is heard at the door of No. so and so,
in such and such Avenue; a servant appears; the lady of the house is
asked for and is declared to be out, at which astounding
information, the visitor expresses the most poignant regret. His
business is of importance and concerns the lady herself. In fact, he
had the good fortune to find her diamond ring. But perhaps it would be
as well that he should call again. "By no means!" says the servant;
and "By no means!" says the lady's sister and the lady's
sister-in-law, who are summoned forthwith. The ring is clamorously
identified, the reward is paid, and the finder nearly thrust out of
doors. The lady returns and expresses some little dissatisfaction with
her sister and sister-in-law, because they happen to have paid forty
or fifty dollars for a fac-simile of her diamond ring- a fac-simile
made out of real pinch-beck and unquestionable paste.
But as there is really no end to diddling, so there would be none to
this essay, were I even to hint at half the variations, or
inflections, of which this science is susceptible. I must bring this
paper, perforce, to a conclusion, and this I cannot do better than
by a summary notice of a very decent, but rather elaborate diddle,
of which our own city was made the theatre, not very long ago, and
which was subsequently repeated with success, in other still more
verdant localities of the Union. A middle-aged gentleman arrives in
town from parts unknown. He is remarkably precise, cautious, staid,
and deliberate in his demeanor. His dress is scrupulously neat, but
plain, unostentatious. He wears a white cravat, an ample waistcoat,
made with an eye to comfort alone; thick-soled cosy-looking shoes, and
pantaloons without straps. He has the whole air, in fact, of your
well-to-do, sober-sided, exact, and respectable "man of business," Par
excellence- one of the stern and outwardly hard, internally soft, sort
of people that we see in the crack high comedies- fellows whose
words are so many bonds, and who are noted for giving away guineas, in
charity, with the one hand, while, in the way of mere bargain, they
exact the uttermost fraction of a farthing with the other.
He makes much ado before he can get suited with a boarding house. He
dislikes children. He has been accustomed to quiet. His habits are
methodical- and then he would prefer getting into a private and
respectable small family, piously inclined. Terms, however, are no
object- only he must insist upon settling his bill on the first of
every month, (it is now the second) and begs his landlady, when he
finally obtains one to his mind, not on any account to forget his
instructions upon this point- but to send in a bill, and receipt,
precisely at ten o'clock, on the first day of every month, and under
no circumstances to put it off to the second.
These arrangements made, our man of business rents an office in a
reputable rather than a fashionable quarter of the town. There is
nothing he more despises than pretense. "Where there is much show," he
says, "there is seldom any thing very solid behind"- an observation
which so profoundly impresses his landlady's fancy, that she makes a
pencil memorandum of it forthwith, in her great family Bible, on the
broad margin of the Proverbs of Solomon.
The next step is to advertise, after some such fashion as this, in
the principal business six-pennies of the city- the pennies are
eschewed as not "respectable"- and as demanding payment for all
advertisements in advance. Our man of business holds it as a point
of his faith that work should never be paid for until done.
"WANTED- The advertisers, being about to commence extensive business
operations in this city, will require the services of three or four
intelligent and competent clerks, to whom a liberal salary will be
paid. The very best recommendations, not so much for capacity, as
for integrity, will be expected. Indeed, as the duties to be performed
involve high responsibilities, and large amounts of money must
necessarily pass through the hands of those engaged, it is deemed
advisable to demand a deposit of fifty dollars from each clerk
employed. No person need apply, therefore, who is not prepared to
leave this sum in the possession of the advertisers, and who cannot
furnish the most satisfactory testimonials of morality. Young
gentlemen piously inclined will be preferred. Application should be
made between the hours of ten and eleven A. M., and four and five P.
M., of Messrs.
"Bogs, Hogs Logs, Frogs & Co.,
"No. 110 Dog Street"
By the thirty-first day of the month, this advertisement has brought
to the office of Messrs. Bogs, Hogs, Logs, Frogs, and Company, some
fifteen or twenty young gentlemen piously inclined. But our man of
business is in no hurry to conclude a contract with any- no man of
business is ever precipitate- and it is not until the most rigid
catechism in respect to the piety of each young gentleman's
inclination, that his services are engaged and his fifty dollars
receipted for, just by way of proper precaution, on the part of the
respectable firm of Bogs, Hogs, Logs, Frogs, and Company. On the
morning of the first day of the next month, the landlady does not
present her bill, according to promise- a piece of neglect for which
the comfortable head of the house ending in ogs would no doubt have
chided her severely, could he have been prevailed upon to remain in
town a day or two for that purpose.
As it is, the constables have had a sad time of it, running hither
and thither, and all they can do is to declare the man of business
most emphatically, a "hen knee high"- by which some persons imagine
them to imply that, in fact, he is n. e. i.- by which again the very
classical phrase non est inventus, is supposed to be understood. In
the meantime the young gentlemen, one and all, are somewhat less
piously inclined than before, while the landlady purchases a
shilling's worth of the Indian rubber, and very carefully
obliterates the pencil memorandum that some fool has made in her great
family Bible, on the broad margin of the Proverbs of Solomon.
THE END
.
DIDDLING
Considered as One of the Exact Sciences
by Edgar Allen Poe
Hey, diddle diddle
The cat and the fiddle
SINCE the world began there have been two Jeremys. The one wrote a
Jeremiad about usury, and was called Jeremy Bentham. He has been
much admired by Mr. John Neal, and was a great man in a small way. The
other gave name to the most important of the Exact Sciences, and was a
great man in a great way- I may say, indeed, in the very greatest of
ways.
Diddling- or the abstract idea conveyed by the verb to diddle- is
sufficiently well understood. Yet the fact, the deed, the thing
diddling, is somewhat difficult to define. We may get, however, at a
tolerably distinct conception of the matter in hand, by defining-
not the thing, diddling, in itself- but man, as an animal that
diddles. Had Plato but hit upon this, he would have been spared the
affront of the picked chicken.
Very pertinently it was demanded of Plato, why a picked chicken,
which was clearly "a biped without feathers," was not, according to
his own definition, a man? But I am not to be bothered by any
similar query. Man is an animal that diddles, and there is no animal
that diddles but man. It will take an entire hen-coop of picked
chickens to get over that.
What constitutes the essence, the nare, the principle of diddling
is, in fact, peculiar to the class of creatures that wear coats and
pantaloons. A crow thieves; a fox cheats; a weasel outwits; a man
diddles. To diddle is his destiny. "Man was made to mourn," says the
poet. But not so:- he was made to diddle. This is his aim- his object-
his end. And for this reason when a man's diddled we say he's "done."
Diddling, rightly considered, is a compound, of which the
ingredients are minuteness, interest, perseverance, ingenuity,
audacity, nonchalance, originality, impertinence, and grin.
Minuteness:- Your diddler is minute. His operations are upon a small
scale. His business is retail, for cash, or approved paper at sight.
Should he ever be tempted into magnificent speculation, he then, at
once, loses his distinctive features, and becomes what we term
"financier." This latter word conveys the diddling idea in every
respect except that of magnitude. A diddler may thus be regarded as
a banker in petto- a "financial operation," as a diddle at Brobdignag.
The one is to the other, as Homer to "Flaccus"- as a Mastodon to a
mouse- as the tail of a comet to that of a pig.
Interest:- Your diddler is guided by self-interest. He scorns to
diddle for the mere sake of the diddle. He has an object in view-
his pocket- and yours. He regards always the main chance. He looks
to Number One. You are Number Two, and must look to yourself.
Perseverance:- Your diddler perseveres. He is not readily
discouraged. Should even the banks break, he cares nothing about it.
He steadily pursues his end, and
Ut canis a corio nunquam absterrebitur uncto.
so he never lets go of his game.
Ingenuity:- Your diddler is ingenious. He has constructiveness
large. He understands plot. He invents and circumvents. Were he not
Alexander he would be Diogenes. Were he not a diddler, he would be a
maker of patent rat-traps or an angler for trout.
Audacity:- Your diddler is audacious.- He is a bold man. He
carries the war into Africa. He conquers all by assault. He would
not fear the daggers of Frey Herren. With a little more prudence
Dick Turpin would have made a good diddler; with a trifle less
blarney, Daniel O'Connell; with a pound or two more brains Charles the
Twelfth.
Nonchalance:- Your diddler is nonchalant. He is not at all
nervous. He never had any nerves. He is never seduced into a flurry.
He is never put out- unless put out of doors. He is cool- cool as a
cucumber. He is calm- "calm as a smile from Lady Bury." He is easy-
easy as an old glove, or the damsels of ancient Baiae.
Originality:- Your diddler is original- conscientiously so. His
thoughts are his own. He would scorn to employ those of another. A
stale trick is his aversion. He would return a purse, I am sure,
upon discovering that he had obtained it by an unoriginal diddle.
Impertinence.- Your diddler is impertinent. He swaggers. He sets his
arms a-kimbo. He thrusts. his hands in his trowsers' pockets. He
sneers in your face. He treads on your corns. He eats your dinner,
he drinks your wine, he borrows your money, he pulls your nose, he
kicks your poodle, and he kisses your wife.
Grin:- Your true diddler winds up all with a grin. But this nobody
sees but himself. He grins when his daily work is done- when his
allotted labors are accomplished- at night in his own closet, and
altogether for his own private entertainment. He goes home. He locks
his door. He divests himself of his clothes. He puts out his candle.
He gets into bed. He places his head upon the pillow. All this done,
and your diddler grins. This is no hypothesis. It is a matter of
course. I reason a priori, and a diddle would be no diddle without a
grin.
The origin of the diddle is referrable to the infancy of the Human
Race. Perhaps the first diddler was Adam. At all events, we can
trace the science back to a very remote period of antiquity. The
moderns, however, have brought it to a perfection never dreamed of
by our thick-headed progenitors. Without pausing to speak of the
"old saws," therefore, I shall content myself with a compendious
account of some of the more "modern instances."
A very good diddle is this. A housekeeper in want of a sofa, for
instance, is seen to go in and out of several cabinet warehouses. At
length she arrives at one offering an excellent variety. She is
accosted, and invited to enter, by a polite and voluble individual
at the door. She finds a sofa well adapted to her views, and upon
inquiring the price, is surprised and delighted to hear a sum named at
least twenty per cent. lower than her expectations. She hastens to
make the purchase, gets a bill and receipt, leaves her address, with a
request that the article be sent home as speedily as possible, and
retires amid a profusion of bows from the shopkeeper. The night
arrives and no sofa. A servant is sent to make inquiry about the
delay. The whole transaction is denied. No sofa has been sold- no
money received- except by the diddler, who played shop-keeper for
the nonce.
Our cabinet warehouses are left entirely unattended, and thus afford
every facility for a trick of this kind. Visiters enter, look at
furniture, and depart unheeded and unseen. Should any one wish to
purchase, or to inquire the price of an article, a bell is at hand,
and this is considered amply sufficient.
Again, quite a respectable diddle is this. A well-dressed individual
enters a shop, makes a purchase to the value of a dollar; finds,
much to his vexation, that he has left his pocket-book in another coat
pocket; and so says to the shopkeeper-
"My dear sir, never mind; just oblige me, will you, by sending the
bundle home? But stay! I really believe that I have nothing less
than a five dollar bill, even there. However, you can send four
dollars in change with the bundle, you know."
"Very good, sir," replies the shop-keeper, who entertains, at
once, a lofty opinion of the high-mindedness of his customer. "I
know fellows," he says to himself, "who would just have put the
goods under their arm, and walked off with a promise to call and pay
the dollar as they came by in the afternoon."
A boy is sent with the parcel and change. On the route, quite
accidentally, he is met by the purchaser, who exclaims:
"Ah! This is my bundle, I see- I thought you had been home with
it, long ago. Well, go on! My wife, Mrs. Trotter, will give you the
five dollars- I left instructions with her to that effect. The
change you might as well give to me- I shall want some silver for
the Post Office. Very good! One, two, is this a good quarter?-
three, four- quite right! Say to Mrs. Trotter that you met me, and
be sure now and do not loiter on the way."
The boy doesn't loiter at all- but he is a very long time in getting
back from his errand- for no lady of the precise name of Mrs.
Trotter is to be discovered. He consoles himself, however, that he has
not been such a fool as to leave the goods without the money, and
re-entering his shop with a self-satisfied air, feels sensibly hurt
and indignant when his master asks him what has become of the change.
A very simple diddle, indeed, is this. The captain of a ship,
which is about to sail, is presented by an official looking person
with an unusually moderate bill of city charges. Glad to get off so
easily, and confused by a hundred duties pressing upon him all at
once, he discharges the claim forthwith. In about fifteen minutes,
another and less reasonable bill is handed him by one who soon makes
it evident that the first collector was a diddler, and the original
collection a diddle.
And here, too, is a somewhat similar thing. A steamboat is casting
loose from the wharf. A traveller, portmanteau in hand, is
discovered running toward the wharf, at full speed. Suddenly, he makes
a dead halt, stoops, and picks up something from the ground in a
very agitated manner. It is a pocket-book, and- "Has any gentleman
lost a pocketbook?" he cries. No one can say that he has exactly
lost a pocket-book; but a great excitement ensues, when the treasure
trove is found to be of value. The boat, however, must not be
detained.
"Time and tide wait for no man," says the captain.
"For God's sake, stay only a few minutes," says the finder of the
book- "the true claimant will presently appear."
"Can't wait!" replies the man in authority; "cast off there, d'ye
hear?"
"What am I to do?" asks the finder, in great tribulation. "I am
about to leave the country for some years, and I cannot
conscientiously retain this large amount in my possession. I beg
your pardon, sir," [here he addresses a gentleman on shore,] "but
you have the air of an honest man. Will you confer upon me the favor
of taking charge of this pocket-book- I know I can trust you- and of
advertising it? The notes, you see, amount to a very considerable sum.
The owner will, no doubt, insist upon rewarding you for your trouble-
"Me!- no, you!- it was you who found the book."
"Well, if you must have it so- I will take a small reward- just to
satisfy your scruples. Let me see- why these notes are all hundreds-
bless my soul! a hundred is too much to take- fifty would be quite
enough, I am sure-
"Cast off there!" says the captain.
"But then I have no change for a hundred, and upon the whole, you
had better-
"Cast off there!" says the captain.
"Never mind!" cries the gentleman on shore, who has been examining
his own pocket-book for the last minute or so- "never mind! I can
fix it- here is a fifty on the Bank of North America- throw the book."
And the over-conscientious finder takes the fifty with marked
reluctance, and throws the gentleman the book, as desired, while the
steamboat fumes and fizzes on her way. In about half an hour after her
departure, the "large amount" is seen to be a "counterfeit
presentment," and the whole thing a capital diddle.
A bold diddle is this. A camp-meeting, or something similar, is to
be held at a certain spot which is accessible only by means of a
free bridge. A diddler stations himself upon this bridge, respectfully
informs all passers by of the new county law, which establishes a toll
of one cent for foot passengers, two for horses and donkeys, and so
forth, and so forth. Some grumble but all submit, and the diddler goes
home a wealthier man by some fifty or sixty dollars well earned.
This taking a toll from a great crowd of people is an excessively
troublesome thing.
A neat diddle is this. A friend holds one of the diddler's
promises to pay, filled up and signed in due form, upon the ordinary
blanks printed in red ink. The diddler purchases one or two dozen of
these blanks, and every day dips one of them in his soup, makes his
dog jump for it, and finally gives it to him as a bonne bouche. The
note arriving at maturity, the diddler, with the diddler's dog,
calls upon the friend, and the promise to pay is made the topic of
discussion. The friend produces it from his escritoire, and is in
the act of reaching it to the diddler, when up jumps the diddler's dog
and devours it forthwith. The diddler is not only surprised but
vexed and incensed at the absurd behavior of his dog, and expresses
his entire readiness to cancel the obligation at any moment when the
evidence of the obligation shall be forthcoming.
A very mean diddle is this. A lady is insulted in the street by a
diddler's accomplice. The diddler himself flies to her assistance,
and, giving his friend a comfortable thrashing, insists upon attending
the lady to her own door. He bows, with his hand upon his heart, and
most respectfully bids her adieu. She entreats him, as her
deliverer, to walk in and be introduced to her big brother and her
papa. With a sigh, he declines to do so. "Is there no way, then, sir,"
she murmurs, "in which I may be permitted to testify my gratitude?"
"Why, yes, madam, there is. Will you be kind enough to lend me a
couple of shillings?"
In the first excitement of the moment the lady decides upon fainting
outright. Upon second thought, however, she opens her purse-strings
and delivers the specie. Now this, I say, is a diddle minute- for
one entire moiety of the sum borrowed has to be paid to the
gentleman who had the trouble of performing the insult, and who had
then to stand still and be thrashed for performing it.
Rather a small but still a scientific diddle is this. The diddler
approaches the bar of a tavern, and demands a couple of twists of
tobacco. These are handed to him, when, having slightly examined them,
he says:
"I don't much like this tobacco. Here, take it back, and give me a
glass of brandy and water in its place." The brandy and water is
furnished and imbibed, and the diddler makes his way to the door.
But the voice of the tavern-keeper arrests him.
"I believe, sir, you have forgotten to pay for your brandy and
water."
"Pay for my brandy and water!- didn't I give you the tobacco for the
brandy and water? What more would you have?"
"But, sir, if you please, I don't remember that you paid me for
the tobacco."
"What do you mean by that, you scoundrel?- Didn't I give you back
your tobacco? Isn't that your tobacco lying there? Do you expect me to
pay for what I did not take?"
"But, sir," says the publican, now rather at a loss what to say,
"but sir-"
"But me no buts, sir," interrupts the diddler, apparently in very
high dudgeon, and slamming the door after him, as he makes his
escape.- "But me no buts, sir, and none of your tricks upon
travellers."
Here again is a very clever diddle, of which the simplicity is not
its least recommendation. A purse, or pocket-book, being really
lost, the loser inserts in one of the daily papers of a large city a
fully descriptive advertisement.
Whereupon our diddler copies the facts of this advertisement, with a
change of heading, of general phraseology and address. The original,
for instance, is long, and verbose, is headed "A Pocket-Book Lost!"
and requires the treasure, when found, to be left at No. 1 Tom Street.
The copy is brief, and being headed with "Lost" only, indicates No.
2 Dick, or No. 3 Harry Street, as the locality at which the owner
may be seen. Moreover, it is inserted in at least five or six of the
daily papers of the day, while in point of time, it makes its
appearance only a few hours after the original. Should it be read by
the loser of the purse, he would hardly suspect it to have any
reference to his own misfortune. But, of course, the chances are
five or six to one, that the finder will repair to the address given
by the diddler, rather than to that pointed out by the rightful
proprietor. The former pays the reward, pockets the treasure and
decamps.
Quite an analogous diddle is this. A lady of ton has dropped, some
where in the street, a diamond ring of very unusual value. For its
recovery, she offers some forty or fifty dollars reward- giving, in
her advertisement, a very minute description of the gem, and of its
settings, and declaring that, on its restoration at No. so and so,
in such and such Avenue, the reward would be paid instanter, without a
single question being asked. During the lady's absence from home, a
day or two afterwards, a ring is heard at the door of No. so and so,
in such and such Avenue; a servant appears; the lady of the house is
asked for and is declared to be out, at which astounding
information, the visitor expresses the most poignant regret. His
business is of importance and concerns the lady herself. In fact, he
had the good fortune to find her diamond ring. But perhaps it would be
as well that he should call again. "By no means!" says the servant;
and "By no means!" says the lady's sister and the lady's
sister-in-law, who are summoned forthwith. The ring is clamorously
identified, the reward is paid, and the finder nearly thrust out of
doors. The lady returns and expresses some little dissatisfaction with
her sister and sister-in-law, because they happen to have paid forty
or fifty dollars for a fac-simile of her diamond ring- a fac-simile
made out of real pinch-beck and unquestionable paste.
But as there is really no end to diddling, so there would be none to
this essay, were I even to hint at half the variations, or
inflections, of which this science is susceptible. I must bring this
paper, perforce, to a conclusion, and this I cannot do better than
by a summary notice of a very decent, but rather elaborate diddle,
of which our own city was made the theatre, not very long ago, and
which was subsequently repeated with success, in other still more
verdant localities of the Union. A middle-aged gentleman arrives in
town from parts unknown. He is remarkably precise, cautious, staid,
and deliberate in his demeanor. His dress is scrupulously neat, but
plain, unostentatious. He wears a white cravat, an ample waistcoat,
made with an eye to comfort alone; thick-soled cosy-looking shoes, and
pantaloons without straps. He has the whole air, in fact, of your
well-to-do, sober-sided, exact, and respectable "man of business," Par
excellence- one of the stern and outwardly hard, internally soft, sort
of people that we see in the crack high comedies- fellows whose
words are so many bonds, and who are noted for giving away guineas, in
charity, with the one hand, while, in the way of mere bargain, they
exact the uttermost fraction of a farthing with the other.
He makes much ado before he can get suited with a boarding house. He
dislikes children. He has been accustomed to quiet. His habits are
methodical- and then he would prefer getting into a private and
respectable small family, piously inclined. Terms, however, are no
object- only he must insist upon settling his bill on the first of
every month, (it is now the second) and begs his landlady, when he
finally obtains one to his mind, not on any account to forget his
instructions upon this point- but to send in a bill, and receipt,
precisely at ten o'clock, on the first day of every month, and under
no circumstances to put it off to the second.
These arrangements made, our man of business rents an office in a
reputable rather than a fashionable quarter of the town. There is
nothing he more despises than pretense. "Where there is much show," he
says, "there is seldom any thing very solid behind"- an observation
which so profoundly impresses his landlady's fancy, that she makes a
pencil memorandum of it forthwith, in her great family Bible, on the
broad margin of the Proverbs of Solomon.
The next step is to advertise, after some such fashion as this, in
the principal business six-pennies of the city- the pennies are
eschewed as not "respectable"- and as demanding payment for all
advertisements in advance. Our man of business holds it as a point
of his faith that work should never be paid for until done.
"WANTED- The advertisers, being about to commence extensive business
operations in this city, will require the services of three or four
intelligent and competent clerks, to whom a liberal salary will be
paid. The very best recommendations, not so much for capacity, as
for integrity, will be expected. Indeed, as the duties to be performed
involve high responsibilities, and large amounts of money must
necessarily pass through the hands of those engaged, it is deemed
advisable to demand a deposit of fifty dollars from each clerk
employed. No person need apply, therefore, who is not prepared to
leave this sum in the possession of the advertisers, and who cannot
furnish the most satisfactory testimonials of morality. Young
gentlemen piously inclined will be preferred. Application should be
made between the hours of ten and eleven A. M., and four and five P.
M., of Messrs.
"Bogs, Hogs Logs, Frogs & Co.,
"No. 110 Dog Street"
By the thirty-first day of the month, this advertisement has brought
to the office of Messrs. Bogs, Hogs, Logs, Frogs, and Company, some
fifteen or twenty young gentlemen piously inclined. But our man of
business is in no hurry to conclude a contract with any- no man of
business is ever precipitate- and it is not until the most rigid
catechism in respect to the piety of each young gentleman's
inclination, that his services are engaged and his fifty dollars
receipted for, just by way of proper precaution, on the part of the
respectable firm of Bogs, Hogs, Logs, Frogs, and Company. On the
morning of the first day of the next month, the landlady does not
present her bill, according to promise- a piece of neglect for which
the comfortable head of the house ending in ogs would no doubt have
chided her severely, could he have been prevailed upon to remain in
town a day or two for that purpose.
As it is, the constables have had a sad time of it, running hither
and thither, and all they can do is to declare the man of business
most emphatically, a "hen knee high"- by which some persons imagine
them to imply that, in fact, he is n. e. i.- by which again the very
classical phrase non est inventus, is supposed to be understood. In
the meantime the young gentlemen, one and all, are somewhat less
piously inclined than before, while the landlady purchases a
shilling's worth of the Indian rubber, and very carefully
obliterates the pencil memorandum that some fool has made in her great
family Bible, on the broad margin of the Proverbs of Solomon.
THE END
.
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