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Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque.
In Two Volumes. Vol. I:
Electronic Edition.

Poe, Edgar Allan, 1809-1849.

Funding from the University of North Carolina Library supported the electronic publication of this title.

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First edition, 2006
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University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,
2006.

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Source Description:
(title page) Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque. In Two Volumes. Vol. I
Edgar A. Poe. 243 p.
Philadelphia:
Lea and Blanchard.
1840.

Call number PS2612 .A1 1840 (Rare Book Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)


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TALES
OF THE
GROTESQUE AND ARABESQUE.

BY EDGAR A. POE.


                       Seltsamen tochter Jovis
                       Seinem schosskinde
                       Der Phantasie.

GOETHE.

IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. I. PHILADELPHIA:
LEA AND BLANCHARD.
1840.

Page verso

ENTERED according to act of Congress, in the year 1839, by EDGAR A. POE, in the clerk's office for the eastern district of Pennsylvania. Printed by
Haswell, Barrington, and Haswell.

Page 3

        These Volumes are Enscribed
TO
COLONEL WILLIAM DRAYTON,
OF PHILADELPHIA,
WITH EVERY SENTIMENT OF RESPECT, GRATITUDE,
AND ESTEEM,
BY HIS OBLIGED FRIEND AND SERVANT,

THE AUTHOR.

Page 5

PREFACE.

        THE epithets "Grotesque" and "Arabesque" will be found to indicate with sufficient precision the prevalent tenor of the tales here published. But from the fact that, during a period of some two or three years, I have written five-and-twenty short stories whose general character may be so briefly defined, it cannot be fairly inferred — at all events it is not truly inferred — that I have, for this species of writing, any inordinate, or indeed any peculiar taste or prepossession. I may have written with an eye to this republication in volume form, and may, therefore, have desired to preserve, as far as a certain point, a certain unity of design. This is, indeed, the fact; and it may even happen that, in this manner, I shall never compose anything again. I speak of these things here, because I am led to think it is this prevalence of the "Arabesque" in my serious tales, which has induced one or two critics to tax me, in all friendliness, with what they have been pleased to term "Germanism" and gloom. The charge is in bad taste, and the grounds of the accusation have not been sufficiently considered. Let us admit, for the moment, that the "phantasy-pieces" now given

Page 6

are Germanic, or what not. Then Germanism is "the vein" for the time being. To morrow I may be anything but German, as yesterday I was everything else. These many pieces are yet one book. My friends would be quite as wise in taxing an astronomer with too much astronomy, or an ethical author with treating too largely of morals. But the truth is that, with a single exception, there is no one of these stories in which the scholar should recognise the distinctive features of that species of pseudo-horror which we are taught to call Germanic, for no better reason than that some of the secondary names of German literature have become identified with its folly. If in many of my productions terror has been the thesis, I maintain that terror is not of Germany, but of the soul, — that I have deduced this terror only from its legitimate sources, and urged it only to its legitimate results.

        There are one or two of the articles here, (conceived and executed in the purest spirit of extravaganza,) to which I expect no serious attention, and of which I shall speak no farther. But for the rest I cannot conscientiously claim indulgence on the score of hasty effort. I think it best becomes me to say, therefore, that if I have sinned, I have deliberately sinned. These brief compositions are, in chief part, the results of matured purpose and very careful elaboration.

Page 7

CONTENTS OF VOL. I.

Page 9

TALES

OF

THE GROTESQUE AND ARABESQUE.

MORELLA.

        Αυτο παθ' αυτο μεθ' αυτου, μονο ειδες αιξι ον.
        Itself, alone by itself, eternally one, and single.

Plato. Sympos.

        WITH a feeling of deep yet most singular affection I regarded my friend Morella. Thrown by accident into her society many years ago, my soul, from our first meeting, burned with fires it had never before known; but the fires were not of Eros; and bitter and tormenting to my spirit was the gradual conviction that I could in no manner define their unusual meaning, or regulate their vague intensity. Yet we met; and fate bound us together at the altar; and I

Page 10

never spoke of passion, nor thought of love. She, however, shunned society, and, attaching herself to me alone, rendered me happy. It is a happiness to wonder; — it is a happiness to dream.

        Morella's erudition was profound. As I hope to live, her talents were of no common order — her powers of mind were gigantic. I felt this, and, in many matters, became her pupil. I soon, however, found that, perhaps on account of her Presburg education, she placed before me a number of those mystical writings which are usually considered the mere dross of the early German literature. These, for what reasons I could not imagine, were her favorite and constant study — and that in process of time they became my own should be attributed to the simple but effectual influence of habit and example.

        In all this, if I err not, my reason had little to do. My convictions, or I forget myself, were in no manner acted upon by the ideal, nor was any tincture of the mysticism which I read to be discovered, unless I am greatly mistaken, either in my deeds or in my thoughts. Feeling deeply persuaded of this, I abandoned myself implicitly to the guidance of my wife, and entered with an unflinching heart into the intricacies of her studies. And then — then, when, poring over forbidden pages, I felt a forbidden spirit enkindling within me — would Morella place her cold hand upon my own, and rake up from the ashes of a dead philosophy some low, singular words, whose strange meaning burned themselves in upon my memory — and

Page 11

then hour after hour would I linger by her side and dwell upon the music of her voice — until, at length, its melody was tainted with terror — and fell like a shadow upon my soul — and I grew pale, and shuddered inwardly at those too unearthly tones. And thus joy suddenly faded into horror, and the most beautiful became the most hideous, as Hinnon became Ge-Henna.

        It is unnecessary to state the exact character of those disquisitions which, growing out of the volumes I have mentioned, formed, for so long a time, almost the sole conversation of Morella and myself. By the learned in what might be termed theological morality they will be readily conceived, and by the unlearned they would, at all events, be little understood. The wild Pantheism of Fichte; the modified Παλιγγενεσια of the Pythagoreans; and, above all, the doctrines of Identity as urged by Schelling, were generally the points of discussion presenting the most of beauty to the imaginative Morella. That identity which is termed personal, Mr. Locke, I think, truly defines to consist in the sameness of a rational being. And since by person we understand an intelligent essence having reason, and since there is a consciousness which always accompanies thinking, it is this which makes us all to be that which we call ourselves — thereby distinguishing us from other beings that think, and giving us our personal identity. But the principium individuationis — the notion of that identity which at death is or is not lost forever, was to me, at all times, a consideration of intense interest, not more from the

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mystical and exciting nature of its consequences, than from the marked and agitated manner in which Morella mentioned them.

        But, indeed, the time had now arrived when the mystery of my wife's manner oppressed me as a spell. I could no longer bear the touch of her wan fingers, nor the low tone of her musical language, nor the lustre of her melancholy eyes. And she knew all this but did not upbraid — she seemed conscious of my weakness or my folly, and, smiling, called it Fate. She seemed, also, conscious of a cause, to me unknown, for the gradual alienation of my regard; but she gave me no hint or token of its nature. Yet was she woman, and pined away daily. In time, the crimson spot settled steadily upon the cheek, and the blue veins upon the pale forehead became prominent; and, one instant, my nature melted into pity, but, in the next, I met the glance of her meaning eyes, and then my soul sickened and became giddy with the giddiness of one who gazes downward into some dreary and unfathomable abyss.

        Shall I then say that I longed with an earnest and consuming desire for the moment of Morella's decease? I did; but the fragile spirit clung to its tenement of clay for many days — for many weeks and irksome months — until my tortured nerves obtained the mastery over my mind, and I grew furious through delay, and, with the heart of a fiend, cursed the days, and the hours, and the bitter moments, which seemed to lengthen and lengthen as her gentle life declined — like shadows in the dying of the day.

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        But one autumnal evening, when the winds lay still in heaven, Morella called me to her side. There was a dim mist over all the earth, and a warm glow upon the waters, and, amid the rich October leaves of the forest, a rainbow from the firmament had surely fallen. As I came she was murmuring, in a low under tone, which trembled with fervor, the words of a Catholic hymn:


                       Sancta Maria! turn thine eyes
                       Upon a sinner's sacrifice
                       Of fervent prayer and humble love
                       From thy holy throne above.


                       At morn, at noon, at twilight dim,
                       Maria! thou hast heard my hymn,
                       In joy and wo, in good and ill,
                       Mother of God! be with me still.


                       When my hours flew gently by,
                       And no storms were in the sky,
                       My soul, lest it should truant be,
                       Thy love did guide to thine and thee.


                       Now when clouds of Fate o'ercast
                       All my Present and my Past,
                       Let my Future radiant shine
                       With sweet hopes of thee and thine.

        "It is a day of days," said Morella; "a day of all days either to live or die. It is a fair day for the

Page 14

sons of earth and life — ah! more fair for the daughter's of heaven and death."

        I turned towards her, and she continued.

        "I am dying — yet shall I live. Therefore for me, Morella, thy wife, hath the charnel-house no terrors — mark me! — not even the terrors of the worm. The days have never been when thou couldst love me; but her whom in life thou didst abhor, in death thou shalt adore."

        "Morella!"

        "I repeat that I am dying. But within me is a pledge of that affection — ah, how little! — which you felt for me, Morella. And when my spirit departs shall the child live — thy child and mine, Morella's. But thy days shall be days of sorrow — that sorrow which is the most lasting of impressions, as the cypress is the most enduring of trees. For the hours of thy happiness are over; and joy is not gathered twice in a life, as the roses of Pæstum twice in a year. Thou shalt no longer, then, play the Teian with time, but, being ignorant of the myrtle and the vine, thou shalt bear about with thee thy shroud on earth, as do the Moslemin at Mecca."

        "Morella!" I cried, "Morella! how knowest thou this?" — but she turned away her face upon the pillow, and, a slight tremor coming over her limbs, she thus died, and I heard her voice no more.

        Yet, as she had foretold, her child — to which in dying she had given birth, and which breathed not until the mother breathed no more — her child, a daughter, lived. And she grew strangely in stature

Page 15

and intellect, and was the perfect resemblance of her who had departed, and I loved her with a love more fervent and more intense than I had believed it possible to feel for any denizen of earth.

        But, ere long, the heaven of this pure affection became overcast, and gloom, and horror, and grief, swept over it in clouds. I said the child grew strangely in stature and intelligence. Strange indeed was her rapid increase in bodily size — but terrible, oh! terrible were the tumultuous thoughts which crowded upon me while watching the development of her mental being. Could it be otherwise, when I daily discovered in the conceptions of the child the adult powers and faculties of the woman? — when the lessons of experience fell from the lips of infancy? and when the wisdom or the passions of maturity I found hourly gleaming from its full and speculative eye? When, I say, all this became evident to my appalled senses — when I could no longer hide it from my soul, nor throw it off from those perceptions which trembled to receive it — is it to be wondered at that suspicions, of a nature fearful and exciting, crept in upon my spirit, or that my thoughts fell back aghast upon the wild tales and thrilling theories of the entombed Morella? I snatched from the scrutiny of the world a being whom destiny compelled me to adore, and, in the rigorous seclusion of my old ancestral home, watched with an agonizing anxiety over all which concerned the beloved.

        And, as years rolled away, and I gazed, day after day, upon her holy, and mild, and eloquent face, and

Page 16

pored over her maturing form, day after day did I discover new points of resemblance in the child to her mother, the melancholy and the dead. And, hourly, grew darker these shadows of similitude, and more full, and more definite, and more perplexing, and more hideously terrible in their aspect. For that her smile was like her mother's I could bear; but then I shuddered at its too perfect identity — that her eyes were like Morella's I could endure; but then they too often looked down into the depths of my soul with Morella's own intense and bewildering meaning. And in the contour of the high forehead, and in the ringlets of the silken hair, and in the wan fingers which buried themselves therein, and in the sad musical tones of her speech, and above all — oh, above all — in the phrases and expressions of the dead on the lips of the loved and the living, I found food for consuming thought and horror — for a worm that would not die.

        Thus passed away two lustrums of her life, but my daughter remained nameless upon the earth. "My child" and "my love" were the designations usually prompted by a father's affection, and the rigid seclusion of her days precluded all other intercourse. Morella's name died with her at her death. Of the mother I had never spoken to the daughter — it was impossible to speak. Indeed, during the brief period of her existtence the latter had received no impressions from the outward world but such as might have been afforded by the narrow limits of her privacy. But at length the ceremony of baptism presented to my mind, in its unnerved and agitated condition, a present deliverance

Page 17

from the terrors of my destiny. And at the baptismal font I hesitated for a name. And many titles of the wise and beautiful, of old and modern times, of my own and foreign lands, came thronging to my lips — and many, many fair titles of the gentle, and the happy, and the good. What prompted me then to disturb the memory of the buried dead? What demon urged me to breathe that sound, which, in its very recollection, was wont to make ebb the purple blood in torrents from the temples to the heart? What fiend spoke from the recesses of my soul, when, amid those dim aisles, and in the silence of the night, I shrieked within the ears of the holy man the syllables — Morella? What more than fiend convulsed the features of my child, and overspread them with the hues of death, as, starting at that sound, she turned her glassy eyes from the earth to heaven, and, falling prostrate on the black slabs of our ancestral vault, responded — "I am here!"

        Distinct, coldly, calmly distinct — like a knell of death — horrible, horrible death — sank the eternal sounds within my soul. Years — years may roll away, but the memory of that epoch — never! Now was I indeed ignorant of the flowers and the vine — but the hemlock and the cypress overshadowed me night and day. And I kept no reckoning of time or place, and the stars of my fate faded from heaven, and, therefore, the earth grew dark, and its figures passed by me like flitting shadows, and among them all I beheld only — Morella. The winds of the firmament breathed but one sound within my ears, and the ripples

Page 18

upon the sea murmured evermore — Morella. But she died; and with my own hands I bore her to the tomb; and I laughed with a long and bitter laugh as I found no traces of the first, in the charnel where I laid the second — Morella.

Page 19

LIONIZING.


                       — all people went
                       Upon their ten toes in wild wonderment.

Bishop Hall's Satires.

        I AM — that is to say, I was — a great man; but I am neither the author of Junius, nor the man in the mask, for my name is Thomas Smith, and I was born somewhere in the city of Fum-Fudge. The first action of my life was the taking hold of my nose with both hands; my mother saw this, and called me a genius; my father wept for joy, and bought me a treatise on Nosology. Before I was breeched I had not only mastered the treatise, but had collected into a common-place book all that is said on the subject by Pliny, Aristotle, Alexander Ross, Minutius Felix, Hermanus Pictorius, Del Rio, Villarêt, Bartholinus, and Sir Thomas Browne.

        I now began to feel my way in the science, and soon came to understand that, provided a man had a nose sufficiently big, he might, by merely following it, arrive at a lionship. But my attention was not

Page 20

confined to theories alone; every morning I took a dram or two, and gave my proboscis a couple of pulls. When I came of age my father asked me, one day, if I would step with him into his study.

        "My son," said he, when we got there, "what is the chief end of your existence?"

        "Father," I said, "it is the study of Nosology."

        "And what, Thomas," he continued, "is nosology?"

        "Sir," I replied, "it is the Science of Noses."

        "And can you tell me," he asked, "what is the meaning of a nose?"

        "A nose, my father," said I, "has been variously defined by about a thousand different authors, (here I pulled out my watch). It is now noon, or thereabouts — we shall have time enough to get through with them all before midnight. To commence, then. The nose, according to Bartholinus, is that protuberance, that bump, that excrescence, that —"

        "That will do, Thomas," said the old gentleman. "I am thunderstruck at the extent of your information — I am positively — upon my soul. Come here! (and he took me by the arm). Your education may now be considered as finished, and it is high time that you should scuffle for yourself — so — so — so — (here he kicked me down stairs and out of the door) so get out of my house, and God bless you!"

        As I felt within me the divine afflatus, I considered this accident rather fortunate than otherwise, and determined to follow my nose. So I gave it a pull

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or two, and wrote a pamphlet on Nosology. All Fum-Fudge was in an uproar.

        "Wonderful genius!" said the Quarterly.

        "Superb physiologist!" said the New Monthly.

        "Fine writer!" said the Edinburgh.

        "Great man!" said Blackwood.

        "Who can he be?" said Mrs. Bas-Bleu.

        "What can he be?" said big Miss Bas-Bleu.

        "Where can he be?" said little Miss Bas-Bleu. But I paid them no manner of attention, and walked into the shop of an artist.

        The Duchess of Bless-my-Soul was sitting for her portrait; the Marchioness of So-and-So was holding the Duchess's poodle; the Earl of This-and-That was flirting with her salts; and his Royal Highness of Touch-me-Not was standing behind her chair. I merely walked towards the artist, and held up my proboscis.

        "O beautiful!" sighed the Duchess.

        "O pretty!" lisped the Marchioness.

        "O horrible!" groaned the Earl.

        "O abominable!" growled his Royal Highness.

        "What will you take for it?" said the artist.

        "A thousand pounds," said I, sitting down.

        "A thousand pounds?" he inquired, turning the nose to the light.

        "Precisely," said I.

        "Beautiful!" said he, looking at the nose.

        "A thousand pounds," said I, twisting it to one side.

        "Admirable!" said he.

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        "A thousand pounds," said I.

        "You shall have them," said he, "what a piece of virtu!" So he paid me the money, and made a sketch of my nose. I took rooms in Jermyn street, sent her Majesty the ninety-ninth edition of the Nosology with a portrait of the author's nose, and his Royal Highness of Touch-me-Not invited me to dinner.

        We were all lions and recherchés.

        There was a Grand Turk from Stamboul. He said that the angels were horses, cocks, and bulls—that somebody in the sixth heaven had seventy thousand heads and seventy thousand tongues—and that the earth was held up by a sky-blue cow, having four hundred horns.

        There was Sir Positive Paradox. He said that all fools were philosophers, and all philosophers were fools.

        There was a writer on ethics. He talked of fire, unity, and atoms; bi-part, and pre-existent soul; affinity and discord; primitive intelligence and homoomeria.

        There was Theologos Theology. He talked of Eusebius and Arianus; heresy and the Council of Nice; consubstantialism, Homousios, and Homouioisios.

        There was Fricassée from the Rocher de Cancale. He mentioned Latour, Markbrunnen, and Mareschino; muriton of red tongue, and cauliflowers with velouté sauce; veal à la St. Menehoult, marinade à la St. Florentin, and orange jellies en mosaiques.

Page 23

        There was Signor Tintontintino from Florence. He spoke of Cimabué, Arpino, Carpaccio, and Argostino; the gloom of Caravaggio, the amenity of Albano, the golden glories of Titian, the frows of Rubens, and the waggeries of Jan Steen.

        There was the great geologist Feltzpar. He talked of internal fires and tertiary formations; of aëriforms, fluidiforms, and solidiforms; of quartz and marl; of schist and schorl; of gypsum, hornblende, micaslate, and pudding-stone.

        There was the President of the Fum-Fudge University. He said that the moon was called Bendis in Thrace, Bubastis in Egypt, Dian in Rome, and Artemis in Greece.

        There was Delphinus Polyglott. He told us what had become of the eighty-three lost tragedies of Æschylus; of the fifty-four orations of Isœus; of the three hundred and ninety-one speeches of Lysias; of the hundred and eighty treatises of Theophrastus; of the eighth book of the conic sections of Apollonius; of Pindar's hymns and dithyrambics; and the five-and-forty tragedies of Homer Junior.

        There was a modern Platonist. He quoted Porphyry, Iamblicus, Plotinus, Proclus, Hierocles, Maximus Tyrius, and Syrianus.

        There was a human-perfectibility man. He quoted Turgot, Price, Priestly, Condorcet, De Stael, and "The Ambitious Student in Ill Health."

        There was myself. I spoke of Pictorius, Del Rio, Alexander Ross, Minutius Felix, Bartholinus, Sir Thomas Browne, and the Science of Noses.

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        "Marvellous clever man!" said his Highness.

        "Superb!" said his guests; and the next morning her grace of Bless-my-Soul paid me a visit.

        "Will you go to Almack's, pretty creature?" she said, chucking me under the chin.

        "Upon honor," said I.

        "Nose and all?" she asked.

        "As I live," I replied.

        "Here, then, is a card, my life, shall I say you will be there?"

        "Dear Duchess, with all my heart."

        "Pshaw, no!—but with all your nose?"

        "Every bit of it, my love," said I; so I gave it a pull or two, and found myself at Almack's.

        The rooms were crowded to suffocation.

        "He is coming!" said somebody on the staircase.

        "He is coming!" said somebody further up.

        "He is coming!" said somebody further still.

        "He is come!" said the Duchess; "he is come, the little love!" and she caught me by both hands, and looked me in the nose.

        "Ah joli!" said Mademoiselle Pas Seul.

        "Dios guarda!" said Don Stiletto.

        "Diavolo!" said Count Capricornuto.

        "Tousand teufel!" said Baron Bludennuff.

        "Tweedle-dee—tweedle-dee—tweedle-dum!" said the Orchestra.

        "Ah joli! Dios guarda! Diavolo! and Tousand teufel!" repeated Mademoiselle Pas Seul, Don Stiletto, Count Capricornuto, and Baron Bludennuff. This applause—it was obstreperous; it was not the

Page 25

thing; it was too bad; it was not to be borne. I grew angry.

        "Sir!" said I to the Baron, "you are a baboon."

        "Sir!" he replied after a pause, "Donner und blitzen!" This was sufficient. We exchanged cards. The next morning I shot off his nose at six o'clock, and then called upon my friends.

        "Bête!" said the first.

        "Fool!" said the second.

        "Ninny!" said the third.

        "Dolt!" said the fourth.

        "Noodle!" said the fifth.

        "Ass!" said the sixth.

        "Be off!" said the seventh.

        At all this I felt mortified, and so called upon my father.

        "Father," I said, "what is the chief end of my existence?"

        "My son," he replied, "it is still the study of Nosology; but in hitting the Baron's nose, you have overshot your mark. You have a fine nose, it is true; but then Bludennuff has none. You are d—d; and he has become the lion of the day. In Fum-Fudge great is a lion with a big proboscis, but greater by far is a lion with no proboscis at all."

Page 27

WILLIAM WILSON.


                       What say of it? what say of CONSCIENCE grim,
                       That spectre in my path?

Chamberlaine's Pharronida.

        LET me call myself, for the present, William Wilson. The fair page now lying before me need not be sullied with my real appellation. This has been already too much an object for the scorn, for the horror, for the detestation of my race. To the uttermost regions of the globe have not the indignant winds bruited its unparalleled infamy? Oh, outcast of all outcasts most abandoned! To the earth art thou not forever dead? to its honors, to its flowers, to its golden aspirations? and a cloud, dense, dismal, and limitless, does it not hang eternally between thy hopes and heaven?

        I would not, if I could, here or to-day, embody a record of my later years of unspeakable misery, and unpardonable crime. This epoch—these later years—took unto themselves a sudden elevation in turpitude,

Page 28

whose origin alone it is my present purpose to assign. Men usually grow base by degrees. From me, in an instant, all virtue dropped bodily as a mantle. I shrouded my nakedness in triple guilt. From comparatively trivial wickedness I passed, with the stride of a giant, into more than the enormities of an Elah-Gabalus. What chance, what one event brought this evil thing to pass, bear with me while I relate. Death approaches; and the shadow which foreruns him has thrown a softening influence over my spirit. I long, in passing through the dim valley, for the sympathy — I had nearly said for the pity — of my fellow-men. I would fain have them believe that I have been, in some measure, the slave of circumstances beyond human control. I would wish them to seek out for me, in the details I am about to give, some little oasis of fatality amid a wilderness of error. I would have them allow — what they cannot refrain from allowing — that, although temptation may have erewhile existed as great, man was never thus, at least, tempted before — certainly, never thus fell. And therefore has he never thus suffered. Have I not indeed been living in a dream? And am I not now dying a victim to the horror and the mystery of the wildest of all sublunary visions?

        I am come of a race whose imaginative and easily excitable temperament has at all times rendered them remarkable; and, in my earliest infancy, I gave evidence of having fully inherited the family character. As I advanced in years it was more strongly developed; becoming, for many reasons, a cause of serious

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disquietude to my friends, and of positive injury to myself. I grew self-willed, addicted to the wildest caprices, and a prey to the most ungovernable passions. Weak-minded, and beset with constitutional infirmities akin to my own, my parents could do but little to check the evil propensities which distinguished me. Some feeble and ill-directed efforts resulted in complete failure on their part, and, of course, in total triumph on mine. Thenceforward my voice was a household law; and at an age when few children have abandoned their leading-strings, I was left to the guidance of my own will, and became, in all but name, the master of my own actions.

        My earliest recollections of a school-life are connected with a large, rambling, cottage-built, and somewhat decayed building in a misty-looking village of England, where were a vast number of gigantic and gnarled trees, and where all the houses were excessively ancient and inordinately tall. In truth, it was a dream-like and spirit-soothing place, that venerable old town. At this moment, in fancy, I feel the refreshing chilliness of its deeply-shadowed avenues, inhale the fragrance of its thousand shrubberies, and thrill anew with undefinable delight, at the deep, hollow note of the church-bell, breaking each hour, with sullen and sudden roar, upon the stillness of the dusky atmosphere in which the old, fretted, Gothic steeple lay imbedded and asleep.

        It gives me, perhaps, as much of pleasure as I can now in any manner experience, to dwell upon minute recollections of the school and its concerns. Steeped

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in misery as I am — misery, alas! only too real — I shall be pardoned for seeking relief, however slight and temporary, in the weakness of a few rambling details. These, moreover, utterly trivial, and even ridiculous in themselves, assume, to my fancy, adventitious importance as connected with a period and a locality, when and where I recognise the first ambiguous monitions of the destiny which afterwards so fully overshadowed me. Let me then remember.

        The house, I have said, was old, irregular, and cottage-built. The grounds were extensive, and an enormously high and solid brick wall, topped with a bed of mortar and broken glass, encompassed the whole. This prison-like rampart formed the limit of our domain; beyond it we saw but thrice a week — once every Saturday afternoon, when, attended by two ushers, we were permitted to take brief walks in a body through some of the neighbouring fields — and twice during Sunday, when we were paraded in the same formal manner to the morning and evening service in the one church of the village. Of this church the principal of our school was pastor. With how deep a spirit of wonder and perplexity was I wont to regard him from our remote pew in the gallery, as, with step solemn and slow, he ascended the pulpit! This reverend man, with countenance so demurely benign, with robes, so glossy and so clerically flowing, with wig so minutely powdered, so rigid and so vast — could this be he who of late, with sour visage, and in snuffy habiliments, administered, ferule in hand, the Draconian laws of the

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academy? Oh, gigantic paradox, too utterly monstrous for solution!

        At an angle of the ponderous wall frowned a more ponderous gate. It was riveted and studded with iron bolts, and surmounted with jagged iron spikes. What impressions of deep awe it inspired! It was never opened save for the three periodical egressions and ingressions already mentioned; then, in every creak of its mighty hinges we found a plenitude of mystery, a world of matter for solemn remark, or for more solemn meditation.

        The extensive enclosure was irregular in form, having many capacious recesses. Of these, three or four of the largest constituted the play-ground. It was level, and covered with fine, hard gravel. I well remember it had no trees, nor benches, nor anything similar within it. Of course it was in the rear of the house. In front lay a small parterre, planted with box and other shrubs; but through this sacred division we passed only upon rare occasions indeed, such as a first advent to school or final departure thence, or perhaps, when a parent or friend having called for us, we joyfully took our way home for the Christmas or Midsummer holydays.

        But the house — how quaint an old building was this! — to me how veritably a palace of enchantment! There was really no end to its windings, to its incomprehensible subdivisions. It was impossible, at any given time, to say with certainty upon which of its two stories one happened to be. From each room to every other there were sure to be found three or

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four steps either in ascent or descent. Then the lateral branches were innumerable — inconceivable — and so returning in upon themselves, that our most exact ideas in regard to the whole mansion were not very far different from those with which we pondered upon infinity. During the five years of my residence here I was never able to ascertain with precision, in what remote locality lay the little sleeping apartment assigned to myself and some eighteen or twenty other scholars.

        The school-room was the largest in the house—I could not help thinking in the world. It was very long, narrow, and dismally low, with pointed Gothic windows and a ceiling of oak. In a remote and terror-inspiring angle was a square enclosure of eight or ten feet, comprising the sanctum, "during hours," of our principal, the Reverend Dr. Bransby. It was a solid structure, with massy door, sooner than open which in the absence of the "Dominie," we would all have willingly perished by the peine forte et dure. In other angles were two other similar boxes, far less reverenced, indeed, but still greatly matters of awe. One of these was the pulpit of "the classical" usher, one of the "English and mathematical." Interspersed about the room, crossing and recrossing in endless irregularity, were innumerable benches and desks, black, ancient, and time-worn, piled desperately with much-bethumbed books, and so beseamed with initial letters, names at full length, meaningless gashes, grotesque figures, and other multiplied efforts of the knife, as to have entirely lost what little of original

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form might have been their portion in days long departed. A huge bucket with water stood at one extremity of the room, and a clock of stupendous dimensions at the other.

        Encompassed by the massy walls of this venerable academy I passed, yet not in tedium or disgust, the years of the third lustrum of my life. The teeming brain of childhood requires no external world of incident to occupy or amuse it, and the apparently dismal monotony of a school was replete with more intense excitement than my riper youth has derived from luxury, or my full manhood from crime. Yet I must believe that my first mental development had in it much of the uncommon, even much of the outré. Upon mankind at large the events of very early existence rarely leave in mature age any definite impression. All is gray shadow — a weak and irregular remembrance — an indistinct regathering of feeble pleasures and phantasmagoric pains. With me this is not so. In childhood I must have felt with the energy of a man what I now find stamped upon memory in lines as vivid, as deep, and as durable as the exergues of the Carthaginian medals.

        Yet in fact — in the fact of the world's view — how little was there to remember! The morning's awakening, the nightly summons to bed; the connings, the recitations; the periodical half-holidays, and perambulations; the play-ground, with its broils, its pastimes, its intrigues — these, by a mental sorcery long forgotten, were made to involve a wilderness of sensation, a world of rich incident, an universe of

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varied emotion, of excitement the most passionate and spirit-stirring. "Oh, le bon temps, que ce siecle de fer!"

        In truth, the ardency, the enthusiasm, and the imperiousness of my disposition, soon rendered me a marked character among my schoolmates, and by slow, but natural gradations, gave me an ascendency over all not greatly older than myself — over all with one single exception. This exception was found in the person of a scholar, who, although no relation, bore the same Christian and surname as myself — a circumstance, in fact, little remarkable, for, notwithstanding a noble descent, mine was one of those every-day appellations which seem, by prescriptive right, to have been, time out of mind, the common property of the mob. In this narrative I have therefore designated myself as William Wilson—a fictitious title not very dissimilar to the real. My namesake alone, of those who in school phraseology constituted "our set," presumed to compete with me in the studies of the class, in the sports and broils of the play-ground—to refuse implicit belief in my assertions, and submission to my will — indeed to interfere with my arbitrary dictation in any respect whatsoever. If there be on earth a supreme and unqualified despotism, it is the despotism of a master mind in boyhood over the less energetic spirits of its companions.

        Wilson's rebellion was to me a source of the greatest embarrassment—the more so as, in spite of the bravado with which in public I made a point of treating him and his pretensions, I secretly felt that I feared him,

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and could not help thinking the equality which he maintained so easily with myself, a proof of his true superiority, since not to be overcome cost me a perpetual struggle. Yet this superiority — even this equality—was in truth acknowledged by no one but myself; our associates, by some unaccountable blindness, seemed not even to suspect it. Indeed, his competition, his resistance, and especially his impertinent and dogged interference with my purposes, were not more pointed than private. He appeared to be utterly destitute alike of the ambition which urged, and of the passionate energy of mind which enabled me to excel. In his rivalry he might have been supposed actuated solely by a whimsical desire to thwart, astonish, or mortify myself; although there were times when I could not help observing, with a feeling made up of wonder, abasement, and pique, that he mingled with his injuries, his insults, or his contradictions, a certain most inappropriate, and assuredly most unwelcome affectionateness of manner. I could only conceive this singular behaviour to arise from a consummate self-conceit assuming the vulgar airs of patronage and protection.

        Perhaps it was this latter trait in Wilson's conduct, conjoined with our identity of name, and the mere accident of our having entered the school upon the same day, which set afloat the notion that we were brothers, among the senior classes in the academy. These do not usually inquire with much strictness into the affairs of their juniors. I have before said, or should have said, that Wilson was not, in the most

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remote degree, connected with my family. But assuredly if we had been brothers we must have been twins, for, after leaving Dr. Bransby's, I casually learned that my namesake — a somewhat remarkable coincidence — was born on the nineteenth of January, 1809 — and this is precisely the day of my own nativity.

        It may seem strange that in spite of the continual anxiety occasioned me by the rivalry of Wilson, and his intolerable spirit of contradiction, I could not bring myself to hate him altogether. We had, to be sure, nearly every day a quarrel, in which, yielding me publicly the palm of victory, he, in some manner, contrived to make me feel that it was he who had deserved it; yet a sense of pride upon my part, and a veritable dignity upon his own, kept us always upon what are called "speaking terms," while there were many points of strong congeniality in our tempers, operating to awake in me a sentiment which our position alone, perhaps, prevented from ripening into friendship. It is difficult, indeed, to define, or even to describe, my real feelings towards him. They were formed of a heterogeneous mixture — some petulant animosity, which was not yet hat red, some esteem, more respect, much fear, with a world of uneasy curiosity. To the moralist fully acquainted with the minute spirings of human action, it will be unnecessary to say, in addition, that Wilson and myself were the most inseparable of companions.

        It was no doubt the anomalous state of affairs existing between us which turned all my attacks upon

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him, (and they were many, either open or covert) into the channel of banter or practical joke (giving pain while assuming the aspect of mere fun) rather than into that of a more serious and determined hostility. But my endeavors on this head were by no means uniformly successful, even when my plans were the most wittily concocted; for my namesake had much about him, in character, of that unassuming and quiet austerity which, while enjoying the poignancy of its own jokes, has no heel of Achilles in itself, and absolutely refuses to be laughed at. I could find, indeed, but one vulnerable point, and that, lying in a personal peculiarity, arising, perhaps, from constitutional disease, would have been spared by any antagonist less at his wit's end than myself — my rival had a weakness in the faucial or guttural organs, which precluded him from raising his voice at any time above a very low whisper. Of this defect I did not fail to take what poor advantage lay in my power.

        Wilson's retaliations in kind were many, and there was one form of his practical wit that disturbed me beyond measure. How his sagacity first discovered at all that so petty a thing would vex me is a question I never could solve — but, having discovered, he habitually practised the annoyance. I had always felt aversion to my uncourtly patronymic, and its very common, if not plebeian praenomen. The words were venom in my ears; and when, upon the day of my arrival, a second William Wilson came also to the academy, I felt angry with him for bearing the

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name, and doubly disgusted with the name because a stranger bore it, who would be the cause of its twofold repetition, who would be constantly in my presence, and whose concerns, in the ordinary routine of the school business, must, inevitably, on account of the detestable coincidence, be often confounded with my own.

        The feeling of vexation thus engendered grew stronger with every circumstance tending to show resemblance, moral or physical, between my rival and myself. I had not then discovered the remarkable fact that we were of the same age; but I saw that we were of the same height, and I perceived that we were not altogether unlike in general contour of person and outline of feature. I was galled, too, by the rumor touching a relationship which had grown current in the upper forms. In a word, nothing could more seriously disturb me, (although I scrupulously concealed such disturbance,) than any allusion to a similarity of mind, person, or condition existing between us. But, in truth, I had no reason to believe that (with the exception of the matter of relationship, and in the case of Wilson himself), this similarity had ever been made a subject of comment, or even observed at all by our schoolfellows. That he observed it in all its bearings, and as fixedly as I, was apparent, but that he could discover in such circumstances so fruitful a field of annoyance for myself can only be attributed, as I said before, to his more than ordinary penetration.

        His cue, which was to perfect an imitation of

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myself, lay both in words and in actions; and most admirably did he play his part. My dress it was an easy matter to copy; my gait and general manner, were, without difficulty, appropriated; in spite of his constitutional defect, even my voice did not escape him. My louder tones were, of course, unattempted, but then the key, it was identical; and his singular whisper, it grew the very echo of my own.

        How greatly this most exquisite portraiture harassed me, (for it could not justly be termed a caricature,) I will not now venture to describe. I had but one consolation — in the fact that the imitation, apparently, was noticed by myself alone, and that I had to endure only the knowing and strangely sarcastic smiles of my namesake himself. Satisfied with having produced in my bosom the intended effect, he seemed to chuckle in secret over the sting he had inflicted, and was characteristically disregardful of the public applause which the success of his witty endeavors might have so easily elicited. That the school, indeed, did not feel his design, perceive its accomplishment, and participate in his sneer, was, for many anxious months, a riddle I could not resolve. Perhaps the gradation of his copy rendered it not so readily perceptible, or, more possibly, I owed my security to the masterly air of the copyist, who, disdaining the letter, which in a painting is all the obtuse can see, gave but the full spirit of his original for my individual contemplation and chagrin.

        I have already more than once spoken of the disgusting

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air of patronage which he assumed towards me, and of his frequent officious interference with my will. This interference often took the ungracious character of advice; advice not openly given, but hinted or insinuated. I received it with a repugnance which gained strength as I grew in years. Yet, at this distant day, let me do him the simple justice to acknowledge that I can recall no occasion when the suggestions of my rival were on the side of those errors or follies so usual to his immature age, and seeming inexperience; that his moral sense, at least, if not his general talents and worldly wisdom, was far keener than my own; and that I might, today, have been a better, and thus a happier man, had I more seldom rejected the counsels embodied in those meaning whispers which I then but too cordially hated, and too bitterly derided.

        As it was, I at length grew restive in the extreme, under his distasteful supervision, and daily resented more and more openly what I considered his intolerable arrogance. I have said that, in the first years of our connexion as schoolmates, my feelings in regard to him might have been easily ripened into friendship; but, in the latter months of my residence at the academy, although the intrusion of his ordinary manner had, beyond doubt, in some measure, abated, my sentiments, in nearly similar proportion, partook very much of positive hatred. Upon one occasion he saw this, I think, and afterwards avoided, or made a show of avoiding me.

        It was about the same period, if I remember aright,

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that, in an altercation of violence with him, in which he was more than usually thrown off his guard, and spoke and acted with an openness of demeanor rather foreign to his nature, I discovered, or fancied I discovered, in his accent, his air, and general appearance, a something which first startled, and then deeply interested me, by bringing to mind dim visions of my earliest infancy — wild, confused and thronging memories of a time when memory herself was yet unborn. I cannot better describe the sensation which oppressed me than by saying that I could with difficulty shake off the belief that myself and the being who stood before me had been acquainted at some epoch very long ago; some point of the past even infinitely remote. The delusion, however, faded rapidly as it came; and I mention it at all but to define the day of the last conversation I there held with my singular namesake.

        The huge old house, with its countless subdivisions, had several enormously large chambers communicating with each other, where slept the greater number of the students. There were, however, as must necessarily happen in a building so awkwardly planned, many little nooks or recesses, the odds and ends of the structure; and these the economic ingenuity of Dr. Bransby had also fitted up as dormitories — although, being the merest closets, they were capable of accommodating only a single individual. One of these small apartments was occupied by Wilson.

        It was upon a gloomy and tempestuous night of

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an early autumn, about the close of my fifth year at the school, and immediately after the altercation just mentioned, that, finding every one wrapped in sleep, I arose from bed, and, lamp in hand, stole through a wilderness of narrow passages from my own bedroom to that of my rival. I had been long plotting one of those ill-natured pieces of practical wit at his expense in which I had hitherto been so uniformly unsuccessful. It was my intention, now, to put my scheme in operation, and I resolved to make him feel the whole extent of the malice with which I was imbued. Having reached his closet, I noiselessly entered, leaving the lamp, with a shade over it, on the outside. I advanced a step, and listened to the sound of his tranquil breathing. Assured of his being asleep, I returned, took the light, and with it again approached the bed. Close curtains were around it, which, in the prosecution of my plan, I slowly and quietly withdrew, when the bright rays fell vividly upon the sleeper, and my eyes, at the same moment, upon his countenance. I looked, and a numbness, an iciness of feeling instantly pervaded my frame. My breast heaved, my knees tottered, my whole spirit became possessed with an objectless yet intolerable horror. Gasping for breath, I lowered the lamp in still nearer proximity to the face. Were these — these the lineaments of William Wilson? I saw, indeed, that they were his, but I shook as with a fit of the ague in fancying they were not. What was there about them to confound me in this manner? I gazed—while my brain reeled with a multitude of incoherent thoughts.

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Not thus he appeared — assuredly not thus — in the vivacity of his waking hours. The same name; the same contour of person; the same day of arrival at the academy! And then his dogged and meaningless imitation of my gait, my voice, my habits, and my manner! Was it, in truth, within the bounds of human possibility that what I now witnessed was the result of the habitual practice of this sarcastic imitation? Awe-stricken, and with a creeping shudder, I extinguished the lamp, passed silently from the chamber, and left, at once, the halls of that old academy, never to enter them again.

        After a lapse of some months, spent at home in mere idleness, I found myself a student at Eton. The brief interval had been sufficient to enfeeble my remembrance of the events at Dr. Bransby's, or at least to effect a material change in the nature of the feelings with which I remembered them. The truth — the tragedy — of the drama was no more. I could now find room to doubt the evidence of my senses: and seldom called up the subject at all but with wonder at the extent of human credulity, and a smile at the vivid force of the imagination which I hereditarily possessed. Neither was this species of scepticism likely to be diminished by the character of the life I led at Eton. The vortex of thoughtless folly into which I there so immediately and so recklessly plunged, washed away all but the froth of my past hours — engulfed at once every solid or serious impression, and left to memory only the veriest levities of a former existence.

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        I do not wish, however, to trace the course of my miserable profligacy here—a profligacy which set at defiance the laws, while it eluded the vigilance of the institution. Three years of folly, passed without profit, had but given me rooted habits of vice, and added, in a somewhat unusual degree, to my bodily stature, when, after a week of soulless dissipation, I invited a small party of the most dissolute students to a secret carousal in my chamber. We met at a late hour of the night, for our debaucheries were to be faithfully protracted until morning. The wine flowed freely, and there were not wanting other, perhaps more dangerous, seductions; so that the gray dawn had already faintly appeared in the east, while our delirious extravagance was at its height. Madly flushed with cards and intoxication, I was in the act of insisting upon a toast of more than intolerable profanity, when my attention was suddenly diverted by the violent, although partial unclosing of the door of the apartment, and by the eager voice from without of a servant. He said that some person, apparently in great haste, demanded to speak with me in the hall.

        Wildly excited with the potent Vin de Barac, the unexpected interruption rather delighted than surprised me. I staggered forward at once, and a few steps brought me to the vestibule of the building. In this low and small room there hung no lamp; and now no light at all was admitted, save that of the exceedingly feeble dawn which made its way through a semicircular window. As I put my foot over the

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threshold I became aware of the figure of a youth about my own height, and (what then peculiarly struck my mad fancy) habited in a white cassimere morning frock, cut in the novel fashion of the one I myself wore at the moment. This the faint light enabled me to perceive — but the features of his face I could not distinguish. Immediately upon my entering he strode hurriedly up to me, and, seizing me by the arm with a gesture of petulant impatience, whispered the words "William Wilson!" in my ear. I grew perfectly sober in an instant.

        There was that in the manner of the stranger, and in the tremulous shake of his uplifted finger, as he held it between my eyes and the light, which filled me with unqualified amazement—but it was not this which had so violently moved me. It was the pregnancy of solemn admonition in the singular, low, hissing utterance; and, above all, it was the character, the tone, the key, of those few, simple, and familiar, yet whispered, syllables, which came with a thousand thronging memories of by-gone days, and struck upon my soul with the shock of a galvanic battery. Ere I could recover the use of my senses he was gone.

        Although this event failed not of a vivid effect upon my disordered imagination, yet was it evanescent as vivid. For some weeks, indeed, I busied myself in earnest inquiry, or was wrapped in a cloud of morbid speculation. I did not pretend to disguise from my perception the identity of the singular individual who thus perseveringly interfered with my affairs, and harassed me with his insinuated

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counsel. But who and what was this Wilson? — and whence came he? — and what were his purposes? Upon neither of these points could I be satisfied — merely ascertaining, in regard to him, that a sudden accident in his family had caused his removal from Dr. Bransby's academy on the afternoon of the day in which I myself had eloped. But in a brief period I ceased to think upon the subject; my attention being all absorbed in a contemplated departure for Oxford. Thither I soon went; the uncalculating vanity of my parents furnishing me with an outfit, and annual establishment, which would enable me to indulge at will in the luxury already so dear to my heart — to vie in profuseness of expenditure with the haughtiest heirs of the wealthiest earldoms in Great Britain.

        Excited by such appliances to vice, my constitutional temperament broke forth with redoubled ardor, and I spurned even the common restraints of decency in the mad infatuation of my revels. But it were absurd to pause in the detail of my extravagance. Let it suffice, that among spendthrifts I out-heroded Herod, and that, giving name to a multitude of novel follies, I added no brief appendix to the long catalogue of vices then usual in the most dissolute university of Europe.

        It could hardly be credited, however, that I had, even here, so utterly fallen from the gentlemanly estate as to seek acquaintance with the vilest arts of the gambler by profession, and, having become an adept in his despicable science, to practise it habitually

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as a means of increasing my already enormous income at the expense of the weak-minded among my fellow-collegians. Such, nevertheless, was the fact. And the very enormity of this offence against all manly and honourable sentiment proved, beyond doubt, the main, if not the sole reason of the impunity with which it was committed. Who, indeed, among my most abandoned associates, would not rather have disputed the clearest evidence of his senses, than have suspected of such courses the gay, the frank, the generous William Wilson — the noblest and most liberal commoner at Oxford — him whose follies (said his parasites) were but the follies of youth and unbridled fancy — whose errors but inimitable whim — whose darkest vice but a careless and dashing extravagance?

        I had been now two years successfully busied in this way, when there came to the university a young parvenu nobleman, Glendinning — rich, said report, as Herodes Atticus — his riches, too, as easily acquired. I soon found him of weak intellect, and, of course, marked him as a fitting subject for my skill. I frequently engaged him in play, and contrived, with a gambler's usual art, to let him win considerable sums, the more effectually to entangle him in my snares. At length, my schemes being ripe, I met him (with the full intention that this meeting should be final and decisive) at the chambers of a fellow-commoner, (Mr. Preston,) equally intimate with both, but who, to do him justice, entertained not even a remote suspicion of my design. To give

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to this a better coloring, I had contrived to have assembled a party of some eight or ten, and was solicitously careful that the introduction of cards should appear accidental, and originate in the proposal of my contemplated dupe himself. To be brief upon a vile topic, none of the low finesse was omitted, so customary upon similar occasions that it is a just matter for wonder how any are still found so besotted as to fall its victim.

        We had protracted our sitting far into the night, and I had at length effected the manœuvre of getting Glendinning as my sole antagonist. The game, too, was my favorite écarté. The rest of the company, interested in the extent of our play, had abandoned their own cards, and were standing around us as spectators. The parvenu, who had been induced by my artifices in the early part of the evening to drink deeply, now shuffled, dealt, or played, with a wild nervousness of manner for which his intoxication, I thought, might partially, but could not altogether account. In a very short period he had become my debtor to a large amount of money, when, having taken a long draught of port, he did precisely what I had been coolly anticipating, he proposed to double our already extravagant stakes. With a well-feigned show of reluctance, and not until after my repeated refusal had seduced him into some angry words which gave a color of pique to my compliance, did I finally comply. The result, of course, did but prove how entirely the prey was in my toils — in less than a single hour he had quadrupled his debt. For some

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time his countenance had been losing the florid tinge lent it by the wine — but now, to my astonishment, I perceived that it had grown to a palor truly fearful. I say to my astonishment. Glendinning had been represented to my eager inquiries as immeasurably wealthy; and the sums which he had as yet lost, although in themselves vast, could not, I supposed, very seriously annoy, much less so violently affect him. That he was overcome by the wine just swallowed, was the idea which most readily presented itself; and, rather with a view to the preservation of my own character in the eyes of my associates, than from any less interested motive, I was about to insist, peremptorily, upon a discontinuance of the play, when some expressions at my elbow from among the company, and an ejaculation evincing utter despair on the part of Glendinning, gave me to understand that I had effected his total ruin under circumstances which, rendering him an object for the pity of all, should have protected him from the ill offices even of a fiend.

        What now might have been my conduct it is difficult to say. The pitiable condition of my dupe had thrown an air of embarrassed gloom over all, and, for some moments, a profound and unbroken silence was maintained, during which I could not help feeling my cheeks tingle with the many burning glances of scorn or reproach cast upon me by the less abandoned of the party. I will even own that an intolerable weight of anxiety was for a brief instant lifted from my bosom by the sudden and extraordinary

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interruption which ensued. The wide, heavy, folding doors of the apartment were all at once thrown open, to their full extent, with a vigorous and rushing impetuosity that extinguished, as if by magic, every candle in the room. Their light, in dying, enabled us just to perceive that a stranger had entered, of about my own height, and closely muffled in a cloak. The darkness, however, was now total; and we could only feel that he was standing in our midst. Before any one of us could recover from the extreme astonishment into which this rudeness had thrown all, we heard the voice of the intruder.

        "Gentlemen," he said, in a low, distinct, and never-to-be-forgotten whisper which thrilled to the very marrow of my bones, "Gentlemen, I make no apology for this behaviour, because in thus behaving I am but fulfilling a duty. You are, beyond doubt, uninformed of the true character of the person who has to-night won at écarté a large sum of money from Lord Glendinning. I will therefore put you upon an expeditious and decisive plan of obtaining this very necessary information. Please to examine, at your leisure, the inner linings of the cuff of his left sleeve, and the several little packages which may be found in the somewhat capacious pockets of his embroidered morning wrapper."

        While he spoke, so profound was the stillness that one might have heard a pin dropping upon the floor. In ceasing, he at once departed, and as abruptly as he had entered. Can I — shall I describe my sensations? — must I say that I felt all the horrors of the

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damned? Most assuredly I had little time given for reflection. Many hands roughly seized me upon the spot, and lights were immediately reprocured. A search ensued. In the lining of my sleeve were found all of the court-cards essential in écarté, and, in the pockets of my wrapper, a number of packs, fac-similes of those used at our sittings, with the single exception that mine were of the species called, technically, arrondés; the honors being slightly convex at the ends, the lower cards slightly convex at the sides. In this disposition, the dupe who cuts, as customary, at the breadth of the pack, will invariably find that he cuts his antagonist an honor; while the gambler, cutting at the length, will, as certainly, cut nothing for his victim which may count in the records of the game.

        Any outrageous burst of indignation upon this shameful discovery would have affected me less than the silent contempt, or the sarcastic composure with which it was received.

        "Mr. Wilson," said our host, stooping to remove from beneath his feet an exceedingly luxurious cloak of rare furs, "Mr. Wilson, this is your property." (The weather was cold; and, upon quitting my own room, I had thrown a cloak over my dressing wrapper, putting it off upon reaching the scene of play.) "I presume it is supererogatory to seek here (eyeing the folds of the garment with a bitter smile), for any farther evidence of your skill. Indeed we have had enough. You will see the necessity, I hope, of

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quitting Oxford — at all events, of quitting, instantly, my chambers."

        Abased, humbled to the dust as I then was, it is probable that I should have resented this galling language by immediate personal violence, had not my whole attention been at the moment arrested, by a fact of the most startling character. The cloak which I had worn was of a rare description of fur; how rare, how extravagantly costly, I shall not venture to say. Its fashion, too, was of my own fantastic invention; for I was fastidious, to a degree of absurd coxcombry, in matters of this frivolous nature. When, therefore, Mr. Preston reached me that which he had picked up upon the floor, and near the folding doors of the apartment, it was with an astonishment nearly bordering upon terror, that I perceived my own already hanging on my arm, (where I had no doubt unwittingly placed it,) and that the one presented me was but its exact counterpart in every, in even the minutest possible particular. The singular being who had so disastrously exposed me, had been muffled, I remembered, in a cloak; and none had been worn at all by any of the members of our party with the exception of myself. Retaining some presence of mind, I took the one offered me by Preston, placed it, unnoticed, over my own, left the apartment with a resolute scowl of defiance, and, next morning ere dawn of day, commenced a hurried journey from Oxford to the continent, in a perfect agony of horror and of shame.

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        I fled in vain. My evil destiny pursued me as if in exultation, and proved, indeed, that the exercise of its mysterious dominion had as yet only begun. Scarcely had I set foot in Paris ere I had fresh evidence of the detestable interest taken by this Wilson in my concerns. Years flew, while I experienced no relief. Villain! — at Rome, with how untimely, yet with how spectral an officiousness, stepped he in between me and my ambition! At Vienna, too, at Berlin, and at Moscow! Where, in truth, had I not bitter cause to curse him within my heart? From his inscrutable tyranny did I at length flee, panic-stricken, as from a pestilence; and to the very ends of the earth I fled in vain.

        And again, and again, in secret communion with my own spirit, would I demand the questions "Who is he? — whence came he? — and what are his objects?" But no answer was there found. And now I scrutinized, with a minute scrutiny, the forms, and the methods, and the leading traits of his impertinent supervision. But even here there was very little upon which to base a conjecture. It was noticeable, indeed, that, in no one of the multiplied instances in which he had of late crossed my path, had he so crossed it except to frustrate those schemes, or to disturb those actions, which, fully carried out, might have resulted in bitter mischief. Poor justification this, in truth, for an authority so imperiously assumed! Poor indemnity for natural rights of self-agency so pertinaciously, so insultingly denied!

        I had also been forced to notice that my tormentor,

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for a very long period of time, (while scrupulously and with miraculous dexterity maintaining his whim of an identity of apparel with myself,) had so contrived it, in the execution of his varied interference with my will, that I saw not, at any moment, the features of his face. Be Wilson what he might, this, at least, was but the veriest of affectation, or of folly. Could he, for an instant, have supposed that, in my admonisher at Eton, in the destroyer of my honor at Oxford, in him who thwarted my ambition at Rome, my revenge in Paris, my passionate love at Naples, or what he falsely termed my avarice in Egypt, that in this, my arch-enemy and evil genius, I could fail to recognise the William Wilson of my schoolboy days, the namesake, the companion, the rival, the hatred and dreaded rival at Dr. Bransby's? Impossible! — But let me hasten to the last eventful scene of the drama.

        Thus far I had succumbed supinely to this imperious domination. The sentiments of deep awe with which I habitually regarded the elevated character, the majestic wisdom, the apparent omnipresence and omnipotence of Wilson, added to a feeling of even terror, with which certain other traits in his nature and assumptions inspired me, had operated, hitherto, to impress me with an idea of my own utter weakness and helplessness, and to suggest an implicit, although bitterly reluctant submission to his arbitrary will. But, of late days, I had given myself up entirely to wine; and its maddening influence upon my hereditary temper rendered me more

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and more impatient of control. I began to murmur, to hesitate, to resist. And was it only fancy which induced me to believe that, with the increase of my own firmness, that of my tormentor underwent a proportional diminution? Be this as it may, I now began to feel the inspiration of a burning hope, and at length nurtured in my secret thoughts a stern and desperate resolution that I would submit no longer to be enslaved.

        It was at Rome, during the carnival of 18—, that I attended a masquerade in the palazzo of the Neapolitan Duke Di Broglio. I had indulged more freely than usual in the excesses of the wine-table; and now the suffocating atmosphere of the crowded rooms irritated me beyond endurance. The difficulty, too, of forcing my way through the mazes of the company contributed not a little to the ruffling of my temper; for I was anxiously seeking, let me not say with what unworthy motive, the young, the gay, the beautiful wife of the aged and doting Di Broglio. With a too unscrupulous confidence she had previously communicated to me the secret of the costume in which she would be habited, and now, having caught a glimpse of her person, I was hurrying to make my way into her presence. At this moment I felt a light hand placed upon my shoulder, and that ever-remembered, low, damnable whisper within my ear.

        In a perfect whirlwind of wrath, I turned at once upon him who had thus interrupted me, and seized him violently by the collar. He was attired, as I

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had expected, like myself; wearing a large Spanish cloak, and a mask of black silk which entirely covered his features.

        "Scoundrel!" I said, in a voice husky with rage, while every syllable I uttered seemed as new fuel to my fury, "scoundrel! impostor! accursed villain! you shall not — you shall not dog me unto death! Follow me, or I stab you where you stand," and I broke my way from the room into a small antechamber adjoining, dragging him unresistingly with me as I went.

        Upon entering, I thrust him furiously from me. He staggered against the wall, while I closed the door with an oath, and commanded him to draw. He hesitated but for an instant, then, with a slight sigh, drew in silence, and put himself upon his defence.

        The contest was brief indeed. I was frantic with every species of wild excitement, and felt within my single arm the energy and the power of a multitude. In a few seconds I forced him by sheer strength against the wainscoting, and thus, getting him at mercy, plunged my sword, with brute ferocity, repeatedly through and through his bosom.

        At this instant some person tried the latch of the door. I hastened to prevent an intrusion, and then immediately returned to my dying antagonist. But what human language can adequately portray that astonishment, that horror which possessed me at the spectacle then presented to view. The brief moment in which I averted my eyes had been sufficient to produce, apparently, a material change in the arrangements

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at the upper or farther end of the room. A large mirror, it appeared to me, now stood where none had been perceptible before; and, as I stepped up to it in extremity of terror, mine own image, but with features all pale and dabbled in blood, advanced, with a feeble and tottering gait, to meet me.

        Thus it appeared, I say, but was not. It was my antagonist — it was Wilson, who then stood before me in the agonies of his dissolution. Not a line in all the marked and singular lineaments of that face which was not, even identically, mine own! His mask and cloak lay where he had thrown them, upon the floor.

        It was Wilson, but he spoke no longer in a whisper, and I could have fancied that I myself was speaking while he said —

        "You have conquered, and I yield. Yet, henceforward art thou also dead — dead to the world and its hopes. In me didst thou exist — and, in my death, see by this image, which is thine own, how utterly thou hast murdered thyself."


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THE MAN THAT WAS USED UP.

A TALE OF THE LATE BUGABOO AND KICKAPOO CAMPAIGN.

        I CANNOT just now remember when or where I first made the acquaintance of that truly fine-looking fellow, Brevet Brigadier General John A. B. C. Smith. Some one did introduce me to the gentleman, I am sure — at some public meeting, I know very well — held about something of great importance, no doubt — and at some place or other, of this I feel convinced — whose name I have unaccountably forgotten. The truth is — that the introduction was attended, upon my part, with a degree of anxious and tremulous embarrassment which operated to prevent any definite impressions of either time or place. I am constitutionally nervous — this, with me, is a family failing, and I can't help it. In especial, the slightest appearance of mystery — of any point I cannot exactly comprehend — puts me at once into a pitiable state of agitation.

        There was something, as it were, remarkable — yes, remarkable, although this is but a feeble term to

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express my full meaning — about the entire individuality of the personage in question. What this something was, however, I found it impossible to say. He was, perhaps, six feet in height, and of a presence singularly commanding. There was an air distingué pervading the whole man, which spoke of high breeding, and hinted at high birth. Upon this topic — the topic of Smith's personal appearance — I have a kind of melancholy satisfaction in being minute. His head of hair would have done honor to a Brutus — nothing could be more richly flowing, or possess a brighter gloss. It was of a jetty black — which was also the color, or more properly the no color, of his unimaginable whiskers. You perceive I cannot speak of these latter without enthusiasm; it is not too much to say that they were the handsomest pair of whiskers under the sun. At all events, they encircled, and at times partially overshadowed, a mouth utterly unequalled. Here were the most entirely even, and the most brilliantly white of all conceivable teeth. From between them, upon every proper occasion, issued a voice of surpassing clearness, melody, and strength. In the matter of eyes, my acquaintance was, also, preeminently endowed. Either one of such a pair was worth a couple of the ordinary ocular organs. They were of a deep hazel, exceedingly large and lustrous: and there was perceptible about them, ever and anon, just that amount of interesting obliquity which gives pregnancy to expression.

        The bust of the General was unquestionably the

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finest bust I ever saw. For your life you could not have found a fault with its wonderful proportion. This rare peculiarity set off to great advantage a pair of shoulders which would have called up a blush of conscious inferiority into the countenance of the marble Apollo. I have a passion for fine shoulders, and may say that I never beheld them in perfection before. His arms altogether were admirably modelled, and the fact of his wearing the right in a sling, gave a greater decision of beauty to the left. Nor were the lower limbs less marvellously superb. These were, indeed, the ne plus ultra of good legs. Every connoisseur in such matters admitted the legs to be good. There was neither too much flesh, nor too little — neither rudeness nor fragility. I could not imagine a more graceful curve than that of the os femoris, and there was just that due gentle prominence in the rear of the fibula which goes to the conformation of a properly proportioned calf. I wish to God my young and talented friend Chiponchipino, the sculptor, had but seen the legs of Brevet Brigadier General John A. B. C. Smith.

        But although men so absolutely fine-looking are neither as plenty as reasons or blackberries, still I could not bring myself to believe that the remarkable something to which I alluded just now — that the odd air of je ne sais quoi which hung about my new acquaintance — lay altogether, or indeed at all, in the supreme excellence of his bodily endowments. Perhaps it might be traced to the manner — yet

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here again I could not pretend to be positive. There was a primness, not to say stiffness, in his carriage — a degree of measured, and, if I may so express it, of rectangular precision, attending his every movement, which, observed in a more petite figure, would have had the least little savor in the world of affectation, pomposity, or constraint, but which, noticed in a gentleman of his undoubted dimension, was readily placed to the account of reserve, hauteur, of a commendable sense, in short, of what is due to the dignity of colossal proportion.

        The kind friend who presented me to General Smith whispered in my ear, at the instant, some few words of comment upon the man. He was a remarkable man — a very remarkable man — indeed one of the most remarkable men of the age. He was an especial favorite, too, with the ladies — chiefly on account of his high reputation for courage.

        "In that point he is unrivalled — indeed he is a perfect desperado — a downright fire-eater, and no mistake," said my friend, here dropping his voice excessively low, and thrilling me with the mystery of his tone.

        "A downright fire-eater, and no mistake — showed that, I should say, to some purpose, in the late tremendous swamp-fight away down south, with the Bugaboo and Kickapoo Indians. (Here my friend placed his forefinger to the side of his nose, and opened his eyes to some extent.) Bless my soul! —

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blood and thunder, and all that! — prodigies of valor! — heard of him, of course? — you know he's the man" —

        "Man alive, how do you do? why how are ye? very glad to see ye, indeed!" here interrupted the General himself, seizing my companian by the hand as he drew near, and bowing stiffly, but profoundly, as I was presented. I then thought, (and I think so still,) that I never heard a clearer nor a stronger voice, nor beheld a finer set of teeth — but I must say that I was sorry for the interruption just at that moment, as, owing to the whispers and insinuations aforesaid, my interest had been greatly excited in the hero of the Bugaboo and Kickapoo campaign.

        However, the delightfully luminous conversation of Brevet Brigadier General John A. B. C. Smith soon completely dissipated this chagrin. My friend leaving us immediately, we had quite a long tête-à-tête, and I was not only pleased but really instructed. I never heard a more fluent talker, or a man of greater general information. With becoming modesty, he forbore, nevertheless, to touch upon the theme I had just then most at heart — I mean the mysterious circumstances attending the Bugaboo war — and, on my own part, what I conceive to be a proper sense of delicacy forbade me to broach the subject, although, in truth, I was exceedingly tempted to do so. I perceived, too, that the gallant soldier preferred topics of philosophical interest, and that he delighted, especially, in commenting upon the rapid march of mechanical invention. Indeed — lead him

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where I would — this was a point to which he invariably came back.

        "There is nothing at all like it," he would say; "we are a wonderful people, and live in a wonderful age. Parachutes and rail-roads — man-traps and spring-guns! Our steam-boats are upon every sea, and the Nassau balloon packet is about to run regular trips (fare either way only twenty pounds sterling) between London and Timbuctoo. And who shall calculate the immense influence upon social life — upon arts — upon commerce — upon literature — which will be the immediate result of the application of the great principles of electro-magnetics? Nor is this all, let me assure you! There is really no end to the march of invention. The most wonderful — the most ingenious — and let me add, Mr. — Mr. — Thompson, I believe, is your name — let me add, I say, the most useful — the most truly useful mechanical contrivances, are daily springing up like mushrooms, if I may so express myself, or, more figuratively, like — grasshoppers — like grasshoppers, Mr. Thompson — about us and — ah — around us!"

        Thompson, to be sure, is not my name; but it is needless to say that I left General Smith with a heightened interest in the man, with an exalted opinion of his conversational powers, and a deep sense of the valuable privileges we enjoy in living in this age of mechanical invention. My curiosity, however, had not been altogether satisfied, and I resolved to prosecute immediate inquiry among my acquaintances touching the Brevet Brigadier General

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himself, and particularly respecting the tremendous events in which he performed so conspicuous a part — quorum pars magna fuit — during the Bugaboo and Kickapoo campaign.

        The first opportunity which presented itself, and which (horresco referens) I did not in the least scruple to seize, occurred at the church of the Reverend Doctor Drummummupp, where I found myself established, one Sunday, just at sermon time, not only in the pew, but by the side, of that worthy and communicative little friend of mine, Miss Tabitha T. Thus seated, I congratulated myself, and with much reason, upon the very flattering state of affairs. If any person knew anything about Brevet Brigadier General John A. B. C. Smith, that person, it was clear to me, was Miss Tabitha T. We telegraphed a few signals, and then commenced, sotto voce, a brisk tête-à-tête.

        "Smith!" said she, in reply to my very earnest inquiry; "Smith! — why, not General John A. B. C.? Bless me, I thought you knew all about him! This is a wonderfully inventive age! Horrid affair that! — a bloody set of wretches, those Kickapoos! — fought like a hero — prodigies of valor — immortal renown. Smith! — Brevet Brigadier General John A. B. C.! — why, you know he's the man" —

        "Man," here broke in Doctor Drummummupp, at the top of his voice, and with a thump that came near knocking down the pulpit about our ears; "man that is born of a woman hath but a short time to live — he cometh up and is cut down like a

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flower!" I started to the extremity of the pew, and perceived by the animated looks of the divine, that the wrath which had proved so nearly fatal to the pulpit had been excited by the whispers of the lady and myself. There was no help for it — so I submitted with a good grace, and listened, in all the martyrdom of a dignified silence, to the balance of that very capital discourse.

        Next evening found me a somewhat late visitor at the Rantipole theatre, where I felt sure of satisfying my curiosity at once, by merely stepping into the box of those exquisite specimens of affability and omniscience, the Misses Arabella and Miranda Cognoscenti. That fine tragedian, Climax, however, was doing Iago to a very crowded house, and I experienced some little difficulty in making my wishes understood; especially, as our box was next to the slips, and completely overlooked the stage.

        "Smith?" said Miss Arabella, as she at length comprehended the purport of my query; "Smith? — why, not General John A. B. C.?"

        "Smith?" inquired Miranda, musingly. "God bless me, did you ever behold a finer figure?"

        "Never, madam; but do tell me" —

        "Or so inimitable grace?"

        "Never, upon my word! — but pray inform me" —

        "Or so just an appreciation of stage effect?"

        "Madam!"

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        "Or a more delicate sense of the true beauties of Shakspeare? Be so good as to look at that leg!"

        "The devil!" and I turned again to her sister.

        "Smith?" said she, "why, not General John A. B. C.? Horrid affair that, was'nt it? — great wretches, those Bugaboos — savage and so on — but we live in a wonderfully inventive age! — Smith! — O yes! great man! — perfect desperado — immortal renown — prodigies of valor! Never heard! (This was given in a scream.) Bless my soul! — why he's the man" —


                       — "mandragora,
                       Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world,
                       Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep
                       Which thou owd'st yesterday!"


        here roared out Climax just in my ear, and shaking his fist in my face all the time, in a way that I couldn't stand, and I wouldn't. I left the Misses Cognoscenti immediately, and went behind the scenes for the purpose of giving the scoundrel a sound thrashing.

        At the soirée of the lovely widow, Mrs. Kathleen O'Trump, I was very confident that I should meet with no similar disappointment. Accordingly, I was no sooner seated at the card table, with my pretty hostess for a partner, than I propounded those questions whose solution had become a matter so essential to my peace.

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        "Smith?" said my partner, "why, not General John A. B. C.? Horrid affair that, wasn't it? — diamonds, did you say? — terrible wretches, those Kickapoos! — we are playing whist, if you please, Mr. Tattle — however, this is the age of invention, most certainly — the age, one may say — the age par excellence — speak French? — oh, quite a hero — perfect desperado! — no hearts, Mr. Tattle! — I don't believe it — immortal renown and all that — prodigies of valor! Never heard! ! — why, bless me, he's the man" —

        "Mann? — Captain Mann?" here screamed some little feminine interloper from the farthest corner of the room. "Are you talking about Captain Mann and the duel? — oh, I must hear — do tell — go on, Mrs. O'Trump! — do now go on!" And go on Mrs. O'Trump did — all about a certain Captain Mann who was either shot or hung, or should have been both shot and hung. Yes! Mrs. O'Trump, she went on, and I — I went off. There was no chance of hearing anything farther that evening in regard to Brevet Brigadier General John A. B. C. Smith.

        Still, I consoled myself with the reflection that the tide of ill luck would not run against me for ever, and so determined to make a bold push for information at the rout of that bewitching little angel, the graceful Mrs. Pirouette.

        "Smith?" said Mrs. P., as we twirled about together in a pas de zephyr, "Smith? — why not General John A. B. C.? Dreadful business that of the Bugaboos, wasn't it? — terrible creatures, those

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Indians! — do turn out your toes, I really am ashamed of you — man of great courage, poor fellow — but this is a wonderful age for invention — O dear me, I'm out of breath — quite a desperado — prodigies of valor — never heard! ! — can't believe it — I shall have to sit down and tell you — Smith! why he's the man" —

        "Man-fred, I tell you!" here bawled out Miss Bas-Bleu, as I led Mrs. Pirouette to a seat. "Did ever any body hear the like? It's Man-fred, I say, and not at all by any means Man-Friday." Here Miss Bas-Bleu beckoned to me in a very peremptory manner; and I was obliged, will I nill I, to leave Mrs. P. for the purpose of deciding a dispute touching the title of a certain poetical drama of Lord Byron's. Although I pronounced, with great promptness, that the true title was Man-Friday, and not by any means Man-fred, yet when I returned to seek for Mrs. Pirouette she was not to be discovered, and I made my retreat from the house in a very bitter spirit of animosity against the whole race of the Bas-Bleus.

        Matters had now assumed a really serious aspect, and I resolved to call at once upon my particular friend, Mr. Theodore Sinivate — for I knew that here at least I should get something like definite information.

        "Smith?" said he, in his well known peculiar way of drawling out his syllables; "Smith? — why, not General John A — B — C.? Savage affair that with the Kickapo-o-o-o-os, was'nt it? Say! don't

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you think so? — perfect despera-a-ado — great pity, 'pon my honor! — wonderfully inventive age! — pro-o-odigies of valor! By the by, did you ever hear about Captain Mann?"

        "Captain Mann be d — d!" said I, "please to go on with your story."

        "Hem! — oh well! — toute la même cho-o-ose, as we say in France. Smith, eh? Brigadier General John A — B — C.? I say — (here Mr. S. thought proper to put his finger to the side of his nose) — I say, you don't mean to insinuate now, really, and truly, and conscientiously, that you don't know all about that affair of Smith's as well as I do, eh? Smith? John A — B — C.? Why, bless me, he's the ma-a-an" —

        "Mr. Sinivate," said I, imploringly, "is he the man in the mask?"

        "No-o-o!" said he, looking wise, "nor the man in the mo-o-o-on."

        This reply I considered a pointed and positive insult, and I left the house at once in high dudgeon, with a firm resolve to call my friend, Mr. Sinivate, to a speedy account for his ungentlemanly conduct and ill breeding.

        In the meantime, however, I had no notion of being thwarted touching the information I desired. There was one resource left me yet. I would go to the fountain head. I would call forthwith upon the General himself, and demand, in explicit terms, a solution of this abominable piece of mystery. Here at least there should be no chance for equivocation.

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I would be plain, positive, peremptory — as short as pie-crust — as concise as Tacitus or Montesquieu.

        It was early when I called, and the General was dressing; but I pleaded urgent business, and was shown at once into his bed-room by an old negro valet, who remained in attendance during my visit. As I entered the chamber, I looked about, of course, for the occupant, but did not immediately perceive him. There was a large and exceedingly odd-looking bundle of something which lay close by my feet, on the floor, and, as I was not in the best humour in the world, I gave it a kick out of the way.

        "Hem! ahem! rather civil that, I should say!" said the bundle, in one of the smallest, the weakest, and altogether the funniest little voices, between a squeak and a whistle, that ever I heard in all the days of my existence.

        "Ahem! rather civil that, I should observe!" — I fairly shouted with terror, and made off at a tangent, into the farthest extremity of the room.

        "God bless me, my dear fellow," here again whistled the bundle, "what — what — what — why, what is the matter? I really believe you don't know me at all."

        "No — no — no!" said I, getting as close to the wall as possible, and holding up both hands in the way of expostulation; "don't know you — know you — know you — don't know you at all! Where's your master?" here I gave an impatient squint towards the negro, still keeping a tight eye upon the bundle.

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        "He! he! he! he-aw! he-aw!" cachinnated that delectable specimen of the human family, with his mouth fairly extended from ear to ear, and with his forefinger held up close to his face, and levelled at the object of my apprehension, as if he was taking aim at it with a pistol.

        "He! he! he! he-aw! he-aw! he-aw! — what? you want Mass Smif? Why, dar's him!"

        What could I say to all this — what could I?" I staggered into an arm-chair, and, with staring eyes and open mouth, awaited the solution of the wonder.

        "Strange you shouldn't know me though, isn't it?" presently re-squeaked the bundle, which I now perceived was performing, upon the floor, some inexplicable evolution, very analogous to the drawing on of a stocking. There was only a single leg, however, apparent.

        "Strange you shouldn't know me, though, isn't it? Pompey, bring me that leg!" Here Pompey handed the bundle a very capital cork leg, all ready dressed, which it screwed on in a trice, and then it stood upright before my eyes. Devil the word could I say.

        "And a bloody action it was," continued the thing, as if in a soliloquy; "but then one musn't fight with the Bugaboos and Kickapoos, and think of coming off with a mere scratch. Pompey, I'll thank you now for that arm. Thomas (turning to me) is decidedly the best hand at a cork leg; he lives in Race street, No. 79 — stop, I'll give you his card; but if you should ever want an arm, my dear fellow, you

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must really let me recommend you to Bishop." Here Pompey screwed on an arm.

        "We had rather hot work of it, that you may say. Now, you dog, slip on my shoulders and bosom — Pettitt makes the best shoulders, but for a bosom you will have to go to Duerow."

        "Bosom!" said I.

        "Pompey, will you never be ready with that wig? Scalping is a rough process after all; but then you can procure such a capital scratch at De L'Orme's."

        "Scratch!"

        "Now, you nigger, my teeth! For a good set of these you had better go to Parmly's at once; high prices, but excellent work. I swallowed some very capital articles, though, when the big Bugaboo rammed me down with the butt end of his rifle."

        "Butt end! — ram down! — my eye!"

        "O yes, by the by, my eye — here, Pompey, you scamp, screw it in! Those Kickapoos are not so very slow at a gouge — but he's a belied man, that Dr. Williams, after all; you can't imagine how well I see with the eyes of his make."

        I now began very clearly to perceive that the object before me was nothing more or less than my new acquaintance, Brevet Brigadier General John A. B. C. Smith. The manipulations of Pompey had made, I must confess, a very striking difference in the appearance of the personal man. The voice, however, still puzzled me no little; but even this apparent mystery was speedily cleared up.

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        "Pompey, you black rascal," squeaked the General, "I really do believe you would let me go out without my palate."

        Hereupon the negro, grumbling out an apology, went up to his master, opened his mouth with the knowing air of a horse-jockey, and adjusted therein a somewhat singular looking machine, in a very dexterous manner that I could not altogether comprehend. The alteration, however, in the whole expression of the countenance of the General was instantaneous and surprising. When he again spoke, his voice had resumed the whole of that rich melody and strength which I had noticed upon our original introduction.

        "D—n the vagabonds!" said he, in so clear a tone that I positively started at the change, "d—n the vagabonds! they not only knocked in the roof of my mouth, but took the trouble to cut off at least seven-eighths of my tongue. There isn't Bonfanti's equal, however, in America, for really good articles of this description. I can recommend you to him with confidence, (here the General bowed,) and assure you that I have the greatest pleasure in so doing."

        I acknowledged this kindness in my best manner, and now took leave of my friend at once, with a perfect understanding of the state of affairs — with a full comprehension of the mystery which had troubled me so long. It was evident. It was a clear case. Brevet Brigadier General John A. B. C. Smith was the man — was

        THE MAN THAT WAS USED UP.

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THE

FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER.

        DURING the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country; and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher. I know not how it was—but, with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit. I say insufferable; for the feeling was unrelieved by any of that half-pleasurable, because poetic, sentiment, with which the mind usually receives even the sternest natural images of the desolate or terrible. I looked upon the scene before me — upon the mere house, and the simple landscape features of the domain — upon the bleak walls — upon the vacant eye-like windows — upon a few rank sedges — and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees — with an utter depression of soul which I can compare to no earthly sensation more properly than to the after-dream of the reveller upon opium — the bitter lapse into common life — the

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hideous dropping off of the veil. There was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart — an unredeemed dreariness of thought which no goading of the imagination could torture into aught of the sublime. What was it — I paused to think — what was it that so unnerved me in the contemplation of the House of Usher? It was a mystery all insoluble; nor could I grapple with the shadowy fancies that crowded upon me as I pondered. I was forced to fall back upon the unsatisfactory conclusion, that while, beyond doubt, there are combinations of very simple natural objects which have the power of thus affecting us, still the reason, and the analysis, of this power, lie among considerations beyond our depth. It was possible, I reflected, that a mere different arrangement of the particulars of the scene, of the details of the picture, would be sufficient to modify, or perhaps to annihilate its capacity for sorrowful impression; and, acting upon this idea, I reined my horse to the precipitous brink of a black and lurid tarn that lay in unruffled lustre by the dwelling, and gazed down — but with a shudder even more thrilling than before — upon the re-modelled and inverted images of the gray sedge, and the ghastly tree-stems, and the vacant and eye-like windows.

        Nevertheless, in this mansion of gloom I now proposed to myself a sojourn of some weeks. Its proprietor, Roderick Usher, had been one of my boon companions in boyhood; but many years had elapsed since our last meeting. A letter, however, had

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lately reached me in a distant part of the country — a letter from him — which, in its wildly importunate nature, had admitted of no other than a personal reply. The MS. gave evidence of nervous agitation. The writer spoke of acute bodily illness — of a pitiable mental idiosyncrasy which oppressed him — and of an earnest desire to see me, as his best, and indeed, his only personal friend, with a view of attempting, by the cheerfulness of my society, some alleviation of his malady. It was the manner in which all this, and much more, was said — it was the apparent heart that went with his request — which allowed me no room for hesitation — and I accordingly obeyed, what I still considered a very singular summons, forthwith.

        Although, as boys, we had been even intimate associates, yet I really knew little of my friend. His reserve had been always excessive and habitual. I was aware, however, that his very ancient family had been noted, time out of mind, for a peculiar sensibility of temperament, displaying itself, through long ages, in many works of exalted art, and manifested, of late, in repeated deeds of munificent