University of California Berkeley 
 
 From the Collection of 
 EDWARD HELLMAN HELLER 
 
 and 
 ELINOR RAAS HELLER 
 
 WILLIAM FORBESMORGAN 
 
l 
 
 ** 
 
WILEY AND PUTNAM'S 
 
 LIBRARY OF 
 
 AMERICAN BOOKS. 
 POE'S TALES. 
 
T A L E S 
 
 BY 
 
 EDGAR A. POE, 
 
 LONDON: 
 WILEY & PUTNAM, 6, WATERLOO PLACE. 
 
 1846. 
 [ENTERED AT STATIONERS' HALL.] 
 

CONTENTS. 
 
 PAOK 
 
 THE GOLD-BUG 1 
 
 THE BLACK CAT . 37 
 
 MESMERIC REVELATION <* 47 
 LIONIZING 58 
 
 THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER ...... 64 
 
 A DESCENT INTO THE MAELSTROM 83 
 
 THE COLLOQUY OF MONOS AND UNA . . . 100 
 
 THE CONVERSATION OF EIROS AND CHARMION , . .110 
 
 THE MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE 119 
 
 THE MYSTERY OF MARIE ROGET t 151 
 
 THE PURLOINED LETTER .... .... 200 
 
 THE MAN IN THE CROWD 219 
 

 TALES 
 
 EDGAR A. POE. 
 
 THE GOLD- BUG. 
 
 What ho ! what ho ! this fellow is dancing mad ! 
 He hath been bitten by the Tarantula. 
 
 All in the Wrong, 
 
 MANY years ago, I contracted an intimacy with a Mr. William 
 Legrand. He was of an ancient Huguenot family, and had once 
 been wealthy ; but a series of misfortunes had reduced him to 
 want. To avoid the mortification consequent upon his disasters, 
 he left New Orleans, the city of his forefathers, and took up his 
 residence at Sullivan's Island, near Charleston, South Carolina. 
 
 This Island is a very singular one. It consists of little else 
 than the sea sand, and is about three miles long. Its breadth at 
 no point exceeds a quarter of a mile. It is separated from the 
 main land by a scarcely perceptible creek, oozing its way through 
 a wilderness of reeds and slime, a favorite resort of the marsh- 
 hen. The vegetation, as might be supposed, is scant, or at least 
 dwarfish. No trees of any magnitude are to be seen. Near the 
 western extremity, where Fort Moultrie stands, and where are 
 some miserable frame buildings, tenanted, during summer, by the 
 fugitives from Charleston dust and fever, may be found, indeed, 
 the bristly palmetto ; but the whole island, with the exception of 
 this western point, and a line of hard, white beach on the sea- 
 coast, is covered with a dense undergrowth of the sweet myrtle, 
 
 8 
 
FOE'S TALES. 
 
 so much prized by the horticulturists of England. The shrub 
 here often attains the height of fifteen or twenty feet, and forms 
 an almost impenetrable coppice, burthening the air with its fra 
 grance. 
 
 In the inmost recesses of this coppice, not far from the eastern 
 or more remote end of the island, Legrand had built himself a 
 small hut, which he occupied when I first, by mere accident, 
 made his acquaintance. This soon ripened into friendship for 
 there was much in the recluse to excite interest and esteem. I 
 found him well educated, with unusual powers of mind, but in 
 fected with misanthropy, and subject to perverse moods of alter 
 nate enthusiasm and melancholy. He had with him many books, 
 but rarely employed them. His chief amusements were gun 
 ning and fishing, or sauntering along the beach and through the 
 myrtles, in quest of shells or entomological specimens ; his col 
 lection of the latter might have been envied by a Swammerdamm. 
 In these excursions he was usually accompanied by an old negro, 
 called Jupiter, who had been manumitted before the reverses of 
 the family, but who could be induced, neither by threats nor by 
 promises, to abandon what he considered his right of attendance 
 upon the footsteps of his young " Massa Will." It is not improb 
 able that the relatives of Legrand, conceiving him to be some 
 what unsettled in intellect, had contrived to instil this obstinacy 
 into Jupiter, with a view to the supervision and guardianship of 
 the wanderer. 
 
 The winters in the latitude of Sullivan's Island are seldom 
 very severe, and in the fall of the year it is a rare event indeed 
 when a fire is considered necessary. About the middle of Octo 
 ber, 18 , there occurred, however, a day of remarkable chilli 
 ness. Just before sunset I scrambled my way through the ever 
 greens to the hut of my friend, whom I had not visited for several 
 weeks my residence being, at that time, in Charleston, a dis 
 tance of nine miles from the Island, while the facilities of passage 
 and re-passage were very far behind those of the present day. 
 Upon reaching the hut I rapped, as was my custom, and getting 
 no reply, sought for the key where I knew it was secreted, un 
 locked the door and went in. A fine fire was blazing upon the 
 hearth. It was a novelty, and by no means an ungrateful one. I 
 
THE GOLD-BUG. 
 
 threw off an overcoat, took an arm-chair by the crackling logs, 
 and awaited patiently the arrival of my hosts. 
 
 Soon after dark they arrived, and gave me a most cordial wel 
 come. Jupiter, grinning from ear tp ear, bustled about to pre 
 pare some marsh-hens for supper. Legrand was in one of his 
 fits how else shall I term them ?-r-of enthusiasm. He had 
 found an unknown bivalve, forming a new genus, and, more than 
 this, he had hunted down and secured, with Jupiter's assistance, 
 a scarab&us which he believed to be totally new, but in respect 
 to which he wished to have my opinion on the morrow. 
 
 " And why not to-night ?" I asked, rubbing my hands over 
 the blaze, and wishing the whole tribe of scarab&i at the devil. 
 
 " Ah, if I had only known you were here !" said Legrand, 
 " but it's so long since I saw you ; and how could I foresee that 
 you would pay me a visit this very night of all others ? As I 
 
 was coming home I met Lieutenant G , from the fort, and, 
 
 very foolishly, I lent him the bug ; so it will be impossible for 
 you to see it until the morning. Stay here to-night, and I will sen$ 
 Jup down for it at sunrise. It is the loveliest thing in creation !" 
 
 " What ? sunrise ?" 
 
 " Nonsense ! no ! the bug. It is of a brilliant gold color 
 about the size of a large hickory r nut with two jet black spots 
 near one extremity of the back, and another, somewhat longer, at 
 the other. The antenna are " 
 
 " Dey aint no tin in him, Massa Will, I keep a tel|in on you," 
 here interrupted Jupiter ; " de bug is a goole bug, sqljd, et)ery 
 bit of him, inside and all, sep him wing neber feel half so hebby 
 a bug in my life." 
 
 " Well, suppose it is, Jup," replied Legrand, somewhat more 
 earnestly, it seemed to me, than the case demanded, " is that any 
 reason for your letting the birds burn ? The color" here he 
 turned to me " is really almost enough to warrant Jupiter's 
 idea. You never saw a more brilliant metallic lustre than the 
 scales emit but of this you cannot judge till to-morrow. In the 
 mean time I can give you some idea of the shape." Saying this, 
 he seated himself at a small table, on which were a pen and ink, 
 but no paper. He looked for some in a drawer, but found none. 
 
 "Never mind," said he at length, "this will answer ;" and he 
 
POE'S TALES. 
 
 drew from his waistcoat pocket a scrap of what I took to be very 
 dirty foolscap, and made upon it a rough drawing with the pen. 
 While he did this, I retained my seat by the fire, for I was still 
 chilly. When the design was complete, he handed it to me with- 
 out rising. As I received it, a loud growl was heard, succeeded 
 by a scratching at the door. Jupiter opened it, and a large New 
 foundland, belonging to Legrand, rushed in, leaped upon my 
 shoulders, and loaded me with caresses ; for I had shown him 
 much attention during previous visits. When his gambols were 
 over, I looked at the paper, and, to speak the truth, found myself 
 not a little puzzled at what my friend had depicted. 
 
 " Well !" I said, after contemplating it for some minutes, " this 
 is a strange scarabaus, I must confess : new to me : never saw 
 anything like it before unless it was a skull, or a death's-head 
 which it more nearly resembles than anything else that has come 
 under my observation/' 
 
 " A death's-head I" echoed Legrand " Oh yes well, it hag 
 something of that appearance upon paper, no doubt. The two 
 upper black spots look like eyes, eh ? and the longer one at the 
 bottom like a mouth and then the shape of the whole is ovaL" 
 
 " Perhaps so," said I ; " but, Legrand, I fear you are no artist. 
 I must wait until I see the beetle itself, if I am to form any idea 
 of its personal appearance." 
 
 " Well, I don't know," said he, a little nettled, " I draw tolera 
 bly should do it at least have had good masters, and flatter 
 myself that I am not quite a blockhead." 
 
 " But, my dear fellow, you are joking then/* said I, " this is a 
 very passable skull indeed, I may say that it is a very excellent 
 skull, according to the vulgar notions about such specimens of 
 physiology and your scarabaus must be the queerest scardb&us 
 in the world if it resembles it. Why, we may get up a very 
 thrilling bit of superstition upon this hint. I presume you will 
 call the bug scarabaus caput hominis, or something of that kind 
 there are many similar titles in the Natural Histories. But where 
 are the antenna you spoke of?" 
 
 " The antenna /" said Legrand, who seemed to be getting un 
 accountably warm upon the subject ; " I am sure you must see 
 
THE GOLD-BUG. 
 
 the antenna. I made them as distinct as they are in the original 
 insect, and I presume that is sufficient." 
 
 " Well, well," I said, " perhaps you have still I don't see 
 them ;" and I handed him the paper without additional remark, 
 not wishing to ruffle his temper ; but I was much surprised at 
 the turn affairs had taken ; his ill humor puzzled me and, as for 
 the drawing of the beetle, there were positively no antenna visible, 
 and the whole did bear a very close resemblance to the ordinary 
 cuts of a death's-head. 
 
 He received the paper very peevishly, and was about to crum 
 ple it, apparently to throw it in the fire, when a casual glance at 
 the design seemed suddenly to rivet his attention. In an instant 
 his face grew violently red^-in another as excessively pale. For 
 some minutes he continued to scrutinize the drawing minutely 
 where he sat. At length he arose, took a candle from the table, 
 and proceeded to seat himself upon a sea-chest in the farthest 
 corner of the room. Here again he made an anxious examina 
 tion of the paper turning it in all directions. He said nothing, 
 however, and his conduct greatly astonished me ; yet I thought 
 it prudent not to exacerbate the growing moodiness of his temper 
 by any comment. Presently he took from his coat pocket a wal 
 let, placed the paper carefully in it, and deposited both in a wri 
 ting-desk, which he locked. He now grew more composed in his 
 demeanor ; but his original air of enthusiasm had quite disap 
 peared. Yet he seemed not so much sulky as abstracted. As 
 the evening wore away he became more and more absorbed in 
 reverie, from which no sallies of mine could arouse him. It had 
 been my intention to pass the night at the hut, as I had frequently 
 done before, but, seeing my host in this mood, I deemed it proper 
 to take leave. He did not press me to remain, but, as I departed, 
 he shook my hand with even more than his usual cordiality. 
 
 It was about a month after this (and during the interval I had 
 seen nothing of Legrand) when I received a visit, at Charleston, 
 from his man, Jupiter. I had never seen the good old negro look 
 so dispirited, and I feared that some serious disaster had befallen 
 my friend. 
 
 " Well, Jup," said I, " what is the matter now ? how is your 
 master ?" 
 
FOE'S TALES. 
 
 " Why, to speak de troof, massa, him not so berry well as 
 mought be." 
 
 " Not well ! I am truly sorry to hear it. What does he com 
 plain of?" 
 
 " Dar ! dat's it != him neber plain of notin but him berry 
 sick for all dat." 
 
 " Very sick, Jupiter I why didn't you say so at once ? Is he 
 confined to bed ?" 
 
 " No, dat he aint ! he aint find nowhar dat's just whar de shoe 
 pinch my mind is got to be berry hebby bout poor Massa Will." 
 
 " Jupiter, I should like to understand what it is you are talking 
 about. You say your master is sick. Hasn't he told you what 
 ails him ?" 
 
 " Why, massa, taint worf while for to git mad about de mat 
 ter Massa Will say noffin at all aint de matter wid him but 
 den what make him go about looking dis here way, wid he head 
 down and he soldiers up, and as white as a gose ? And den he 
 keep a syphon all de time " 
 
 " Keeps a what, Jupiter ?" 
 
 " Keeps a syphon wid de figgurs on de slate de queerest figgurs 
 I ebber did see. Ise gittin to be skeered, I tell you. Hab for 
 to keep mighty tight eye pon him noovers. Todder day he gib 
 me slip fore de sun up and was gone de whole ob de blessed day. 
 I had a big stick ready cut for to gib him deuced good beating 
 when he did come but Ise sich a fool dat I hadn't de heart ar- 
 ter all he look so berry poorly." 
 
 " Eh ? what 1 ah yes ! upon the whole I think you had bet 
 ter not be too severe with the poor fellow don't flog him, Jupiter 
 he can't very well stand it but can you form no idea of what 
 has occasioned this illness, or rather this change of conduct ? 
 Has anything unpleasant happened since I saw you ?" 
 
 " No, massa, dey aint bin noffin onpleasant since den 'twas 
 fore den I'm feared 'twas de berry day you was dare." 
 
 " How ? what do you mean ?" 
 
 " Why, massa, I mean de bug dare now." 
 
 " The what ?" 
 
 " De bug I'm berry sartain dat Massa Will bin bit somewhere 
 bout de head by dat goole-bug." 
 
THE GOLD-BUG. 
 
 "And what cause have you, Jupiter, for such a supposition?" 
 
 " Claws enuff, massa, and mouff too. I nebber did see sich a 
 deuced bug he lack and he bite ebery ting what cum near 
 him. Massa Will cotch him fuss, but had for to let him go gin 
 mighty quick, I tell you den was de time he must ha got de 
 bite. I did n't like de look ob de bug mouff, myself, no how, sol 
 would n't take hold ob him wid my finger, but I cotch him wid 
 a piece ob paper dat I found. I rap him up in de paper and 
 stuff piece ob it in he mouff dat was de way." 
 
 " And you think, then, that your master was really bitten by 
 the beetle, and that the bite made him sick ?" 
 
 " I do n't tink noffin about it I nose it. What make him 
 dream bout de goole so much, if taint cause he bit by de goole- 
 bug ? Ise heerd bout dem goole-bugs fore dis." 
 
 " But how do you know he dreams about gold ?" 
 
 " How I know ? why cause he talk about it in he sleep dat's 
 how I nose." 
 
 " Well, Jup, perhaps you are right > but to what fortunate cir 
 cumstance am I to attribute the honor of a visit from you to-day ?" 
 
 " What de matter, massa ?" 
 
 " Did you bring any message from Mr. Legrand ?" 
 
 " No, massa, I bring dis here pissel ;" and here Jupiter handed 
 me a note which ran thus : 
 
 MY DEAR 
 
 Why have I not seen you for so long a time ? I hope you have 
 not been so foolish as to take offence at any little brusquerie of 
 mine ; but no, that is improbable. 
 
 Since I saw you I have had great cause for anxiety. I have 
 something to tell you, yet scarcely know how to tell it, or whether 
 I should tell it at all. 
 
 I have not been quite well for some days past, and poor old 
 Jup annoys me, almost beyond endurance, by his well-meant at 
 tentions. Would you believe it ? he had prepared a huge stick, 
 the other day, with which to chastise me for giving him the slip, 
 and spending the day, solus, among the hills on the main land. 
 I verily believe that my ill looks alone saved me a flogging. 
 
 I have made no addition to my cabinet since we met. 
 
FOE'S TALES. 
 
 If you can, in any way, make it convenient, come over with 
 Jupiter. Do come. I wish to see you to-night, upon business of 
 importance. I assure you that it is of the highest importance. 
 Ever yours, WILLIAM LEGRAND. 
 
 There was something in the tone of this note which gave me 
 great uneasiness. Its whole style differed materially from that 
 ofLegrand. What could he be dreaming of? What new crotch 
 et possessed his excitable brain ? What " business of the high 
 est importance" could he possibly have to transact ? Jupiter's 
 account of him boded no good. I dreaded lest the continued 
 pressure of misfortune had, at length, fairly unsettled the reason 
 of my friend. Without a moment's hesitation, therefore, I pre 
 pared to accompany the negro. 
 
 Upon reaching the wharf, I noticed a scythe and three spades, 
 all apparently new, lying in the bottom of the boat in which we 
 were to embark. 
 
 " What is the meaning of all this, Jup ?" I inquired. 
 " Him syfe, massa, and spade." 
 " Very true ; but what are they doing here ?" 
 " Him de syfe and de spade what Massa Will sis pon my buy 
 ing for him in de town, and de debbils own lot of money I had to 
 gib for em." 
 
 " But what, in the name of all that is mysterious, is your 
 * Massa Will' going to do with scythes and spades ?" 
 
 " Dat's more dan / know, and debbil take me if I don't blieve 
 'tis more dan he know, too. But it's all cum ob de bug." 
 
 Finding that no satisfaction was to be obtained of Jupiter, 
 whose whole intellect seemed to be absorbed by " de bug," I now 
 stepped into the boat and made sail. With a fair and strong 
 breeze we soon ran into the little cove to the northward of Fort 
 Moultrie, and a walk of some two miles brought us to the hut. 
 It was about three in the afternoon when we arrived. Legrand 
 had been awaiting us in eager expectation. He grasped my hand 
 with a nervous empressement which alarmed me and strengthened 
 the suspicions already entertained. His countenance was pale 
 even to ghastliness, and his deep-set eyes glared with unnatural 
 lustre. After some inquiries respecting his health, I asked him, 
 
THE GOLD-BUG. 9 
 
 not knowing what better to say, if he had yet obtained the scara- 
 
 bceus from Lieutenant G . 
 
 " Oh, yes," he replied, coloring violently, " I got it from him 
 the next morning. Nothing should tempt me to part with that 
 scarab&us. Do you know that Jupiter is quite right about it ?" 
 "In what way ?" I asked, with a sad foreboding at heart. 
 " In supposing it to be a bug of real gold ." He said this with 
 an air of profound seriousness, and I felt inexpressibly shocked. 
 
 " This bug is to make my fortune," he continued, with a tri 
 umphant smile, " to reinstate me in my family possessions. Is it 
 any wonder, then, that I prize it ? Since Fortune has thought fit 
 to bestow it upon me, I have only to use it properly and I shall 
 ^arrive at the gold of which it is the index. Jupiter, bring me 
 that scarab&us /" 
 
 " What ! de bug, massa ? I'd rudder not go fer trubble dat 
 bug you rnus git him for your own self." Hereupon Legrand 
 arose, with a grave and stately air, and brought me the beetle 
 from a glass case in which it was enclosed. It was a beautiful 
 scarab&us, and, at that time, unknown to naturalists of course a 
 great prize in a scientific point of view. There were two round, 
 black spots near one extremity of the back, and a long one near 
 the other. The scales were exceedingly hard and glossy, with 
 all the appearance of burnished gold. The weight of the insect 
 was very remarkable, and, taking all things into consideration, I 
 could hardly blame Jupiter for his opinion respecting it; but 
 what to make of Legrand 's concordance with that opinion, I could 
 not, for the life of me, tell. 
 
 " I sent for you," said he, in a grandiloquent tone, when I had 
 completed my examination of the beetle, " I sent for you, that I 
 might have your counsel and assistance in furthering the views 
 of Fate and of the bug", 
 
 " My dear Legrand," I cried, interrupting him, " you are cer 
 tainly unwell, and had better use some little precautions. You 
 shall go to bed, and I will remain with you a few days, until you 
 get over this. You are feverish and" 
 " Feel my pulse," said he. 
 
 I felt it, and, to say the truth, found not the slightest indication 
 of fever. 
 
10 POE'S TALES. 
 
 " But you may be ill and yet have no fever. Allow me this 
 once to prescribe for you. In the first place, go to bed. In the 
 next" 
 
 " You are mistaken," he interposed, " I am as well as I can 
 expect to be under the excitement which I suffer. If you really 
 wish me well, you will relieve this excitement." 
 
 " And how is this to be done ?" 
 
 " Very easily. Jupiter and myself are going upon an expe 
 dition into the hills, upon the main land, and, in this expedition, 
 we shall need the aid of some person in whom we can confide. 
 You are the only one we can trust. Whether we succeed or fail, 
 the excitement which you now perceive in me will be equally al 
 layed." 
 
 " I am anxious to oblige you in any way," I replied ; " but do 
 you mean to say that this infernal beetle has any connection with 
 your expedition into the hills ?" 
 
 " It has." 
 
 " Then, Legrand, I can become a party to no such absurd pro^ 
 ceeding." 
 
 " I am sorry very sorry for we shall have to try it by our 
 selves." 
 
 " Try it by yourselves ! The man is surely mad ! but stay ! 
 how long do you propose to be absent ?" 
 
 " Probably all night. We shall start immediately, and be 
 back, at all events, by sunrise." 
 
 " And will you promise me, upon your honor, that when this 
 freak of yours is over, and the bug business (good God !) settled 
 to your satisfaction, you will then return home and follow my ad 
 vice implicitly, as that of your physician ?" 
 
 " Yes ; I promise ; and now let us be off, for we have no time 
 to lose." 
 
 With a heavy heart I accompanied my friend. We started 
 about four o'clock Legrand, Jupiter, the dog, and myself. Ju 
 piter had with him the scythe and spades the whole of which 
 he insisted upon carrying more through fear, it seemed to me, 
 of trusting either of the implements within reach of his master, 
 than from any excess of industry or complaisance. His demeanor 
 was dogged in the extreme, and" dat deuced bug "were the sole 
 
THE GOLD-BUG. 11 
 
 words which escaped his lips during the journey. For my own 
 part, I had charge of a couple of dark lanterns, while Legrand 
 contented himself with the scarabaus, which he carried attached 
 to the end of a bit of whip-cord ; twirling it to and fro, with the 
 air of a conjuror, as he went. When I observed this last, plain 
 evidence of my friend's aberration of mind, I could scarcely re 
 frain from tears. I thought it best, however, to humor his fancy, 
 at least for the present, or until I could adopt some more energetic 
 measures with a chance of success. In the mean time I en 
 deavored, but all in vain, to sound him in regard to the object of 
 the expedition. Having succeeded in inducing me to accompany 
 him, he seemed unwilling to hold conversation upon any topic of 
 minor importance, arid to all my questions vouchsafed no other 
 reply than " we shall see !" 
 
 We crossed the creek at the head of the island by means of a 
 skiff, and, ascending the high grounds on the shore of the main land, 
 proceeded in a northwesterly direction, through a tract of country 
 excessively wild and desolate, where no trace of a human foot 
 step was to be seen. Legrand led the way with decision ; paus 
 ing only for an instant, here and there, to consult what appeared 
 to be certain landmarks of his own contrivance upon a former 
 occasion; 
 
 In this manner we journeyed for about two hours, and the sun 
 was just setHng when we entered a region infinitely more dreary 
 than any yet seen. It was a species of table land, near the sum 
 mit of an almost inaccessible hill, densely wooded from base to 
 pinnacle, and interspersed with huge crags that appeared to lie 
 loosely upon the soil, and in many cases were prevented from 
 precipitating themselves into the valleys below, merely by the 
 support of the trees against which they reclined. Deep ravines, 
 in various directions, gave an air of still sterner solemnity to the 
 scene. 
 
 The natural platform to which we had clambered was thickly 
 overgrown with brambles, through which we soon discovered that it 
 would have been impossible to force our way but for the scythe ; 
 and Jupiter, by direction of his master, proceeded to clear for us 
 a path to the foot of an enormously tall tulip-tree, which stood, 
 with some eight or ten oaks, upon the level, and far surpassed them 
 
12 FOE'S TALES. 
 
 all, and all other trees which I had then ever seen, in the beauty 
 of its foliage and form, in the wide spread of its branches, and in 
 the general majesty of its appearance. When we reached this 
 tree, Legrand turned to Jupiter, and asked him if he thought he 
 could climb it. The old man seemed a little staggered by the 
 question, and for some moments made no reply. At length he 
 approached the huge trunk, walked slowly around it, and exam 
 ined it with minute attention. When he had completed his scru 
 tiny, he merely said, 
 
 " Yes, massa, Jup climb any tree he ebber see in he life." 
 
 " Then up with you as soon as possible, for it will soon be too 
 dark to see what we are about." 
 
 " How far mus go up, massa ?" inquired Jupiter. 
 
 " Get up the main trunk first, and then I will tell you which 
 way to go and here stop ! take this beetle with you." 
 
 " De bug, Massa Will ! de goole bug !" cried the negro, draw 
 ing back in dismay " what for mus tote de bug way up de 
 tree ? d n if I do !" 
 
 " If you are afraid, Jup, a great big negro like you, to take 
 hold of a harmless little dead beetle, why you can carry it up by 
 this string but, if you do not take it up with you in some way, 
 I shall be under the necessity of breaking your head with this 
 shovel." 
 
 " What de matter now, massa ?" said Jup, evidently shamed 
 into compliance ; " always want for to raise fuss wid old nigger. 
 Was only funnin any how. Me feered de bug ! what I keer for 
 de bug ?" Here he took cautiously hold of the extreme end of 
 the string, and, maintaining the insect as far from his person as 
 circumstances would permit, prepared to ascend the tree. 
 
 In youth, the tulip-tree, or Liriodendron Tutipiferum, the most 
 magnificent of American foresters, has a trunk peculiarly smooth, 
 and often rises to a great height without lateral branches ; but, in 
 its riper age, the bark becomes gnarled and uneven, while many 
 short limbs make their appearance on the stem. Thus the diffi 
 culty of ascension, in the present case, lay more in semblance 
 than in reality. Embracing the huge cylinder, as closely as pos 
 sible, with his arms and knees, seizing with his hands some pro 
 jections, and resting his naked toes upon others, Jupiter, after one 
 
THE GOLD-BUG. 13 
 
 or two narrow escapes from falling, at length wriggled himself 
 into the first great fork, and seemed to consider the whole business 
 as virtually accomplished. The risk of the achievement was, in 
 fact, now over, although the climber was some sixty or seventy 
 feet from the ground. 
 
 " Which way mus go now, Massa Will ?" he asked. 
 
 " Keep up the largest branch the one on this side," said Le- 
 grand. The negro obeyed him promptly, and apparently with 
 but little trouble ; ascending higher and higher, until no glimpse 
 of bis squat figure could be obtained through the dense foliage 
 which enveloped it. Presently his voice was heard in a sort of 
 halloo. 
 
 " How much fudder is got for go ?" 
 
 " How high up are you ?" asked Legrand. 
 
 " Ebber so fur," replied the negro ; " can see de sky fru de top 
 ob de tree*" 
 
 " Never mind the sky, but attend to what I say. Look down 
 the trunk and count the limbs below you on this side. How 
 many limbs have you passed ?" 
 
 " One, two, tree, four, fibe-*-I done pass fibe big limb, massa, 
 pon dis side." 
 
 " Then go one limb higher." 
 
 In a few minutes the voice was heard again, announcing that 
 the seventh limb was attained. 
 
 " Now, Jup," cried Legrand, evidently much excited, " I want 
 you to work your way out upon that limb as far as you can. If 
 you see anything strange, let me know." 
 
 By this time what little doubt I might have entertained of my 
 poor friend's insanity, was put finally at rest. I had no alterna 
 tive but to conclude him stricken with lunacy, and I became se 
 riously anxious about getting him home. While I was pondering 
 upon what was best to be done, Jupiter's voice was again heard. 
 
 " Mos feerd for to ventur pon dis limb befry far 'tis dead 
 limb putty much all de way." 
 
 " Did you say it was a dead limb, Jupiter ?" cried Legrand in 
 a quavering voice. 
 
 " Yes, massa, him dead as de door-nail done up for sartain 
 done departed dis here life." 
 
14 POE'S TALES. 
 
 " What in the name of heaven shall I do ?" asked Legrand, 
 seemingly in the greatest distress. 
 
 " Do !" said I, glad of an opportunity to interpose a word, 
 "why come home and go to bed. Come now ! that's a fine fel 
 low. It's getting late, and, besides, you remember your promise." 
 
 " Jupiter," cried he, without heeding me in the least, " do you 
 hear me ?" 
 
 " Yes, Massa Will, hear you ebber so plain." 
 
 " Try the wood well, then, with your knife, and see if you 
 think it very rotten." 
 
 " Him rotten, massa, sure nuff," replied the negro in a few 
 moments, " but not so berry rotten as mought be. Mought ven- 
 tur out leetle way pon de limb by myself, dat's true," 
 
 "By yourself! what do you mean ?" 
 
 " Why I mean de bug. 'Tis berry hebby bug. Spose I drop 
 him down fuss, and den de limb won't break wid just de weight 
 ob one nigger." 
 
 " You infernal scoundrel !" cried Legrand, apparently much 
 relieved, " what do you mean by telling me such nonsense as 
 that ? As sure as you drop that beetle I'll break your neck. 
 Look here, Jupiter, do you hear me ?" 
 
 " Yes, massa, needn't hollo at poor nigger dat style." 
 
 " Well ! now listen ! if you will venture out on the limb as 
 far as you think safe, and not let go the beetle, I'll make^ you 
 a present of a silver dollar as soon as you get down." 
 
 " I'm gwine, Massa Will^-deed I is," replied the negro very 
 promptly " mos out to the eend now." 
 
 " Out to the end /" here fairly screamed Legrand, " do you 
 say you are out to the end of that limb ?" 
 
 " Soon be to de eend, massa, o-o-o-o-oh ! Lor-gol-a-marcy ! 
 what is dis here pon de tree ?" 
 
 " Well !" cried Legrand, highly delighted, " what is it ?" 
 
 " Why taint noffin but a skull somebody bin lef him head up 
 de tree, and de crows done gobble ebery bit ob de meat off." 
 
 " A skull, you say ! very well ! how is it fastened to the 
 limb ? what holds it on ?" 
 
 " Sure nuff, massa j mus look. Why dis berry curous sar- 
 
THE GOLD-BUG. 15 
 
 cumstance, pon my word dare's a great big nail in de skull, 
 what fastens ob it on to de tree." 
 
 " Well now, Jupiter, do exactly as I tell you do you hear ?" 
 
 "Yes, massa." 
 
 " Pay attention, then! find the left eye of the skull." 
 
 " Hum ! hoo ! dat's good ! why dare aint no eye lef at all." 
 
 " Curse your stupidity ! do you know your right hand from 
 your left ?" 
 
 " Yes, I nose dat nose all bout dat rtis my lef hand what I 
 chops de wood wid." 
 
 " To be sure ! you are left-handed ; and your left eye is on 
 the same side as your left hand. Now, I suppose, you can find 
 the left eye of the skull, or the place where the left eye has been. 
 Have you found it ?" 
 
 Here was a long pause. At length the negro asked, 
 
 " Is de lef eye of de skull pon de same side as de lef hand of 
 de skull, too ? cause de skull aint got not a bit ob a hand at 
 all nebber mind ! I got de lef eye now here de lef eye ! what 
 mus do wid it ?" 
 
 " Let the beetle drop through it, as far as the string will 
 reach but be careful and not let go your hold of the string." 
 
 " All dat done, Massa Will ; mighty easy ting for to put de bug 
 fru de hole look out for him dare below !" 
 
 During this colloquy no portion of Jupiter's perspn could be 
 seen ; but the beetle, which he had suffered to descend, was now 
 visible at the end of the string, and glistened, like a globe of bur 
 nished gold, in the last rays of the setting sun, some pf which 
 still faintly illumined the eminence upon which we stood. The 
 scarab(us hung quite clear of any branches^ and, if allowed to 
 fall, would have fallen at our feet. Legrand immediately took 
 the scythe, and cleared with it a circular space, three or four 
 yards in diameter, just beneath the insect, and, having accom 
 plished this, ordered Jupiter to let go the string and come down 
 from the tree. 
 
 Driving a peg, with great nicety, into the ground, at the precise 
 spot where the beetle fell, my friend now produced from his pocket 
 a tape-measure. Fastening one end of this at that point of the 
 trunk of the tree which was nearest the peg, he unrolled it till it 
 
16 FOE'S TALES. 
 
 reached the peg, and thence farther unrolled it, in the direction 
 already established by the two points of the tree and the peg, for 
 the distance of fifty feet Jupiter clearing away the brambles 
 with the scythe. At the spot thus attained a second peg was 
 driven, and about this, as a centre, a rude circle, about four feet 
 in diameter, described. Taking now a spade himself, and giving 
 one to Jupiter and one to me,-Legrand begged us to set about dig 
 ging as quickly as possible. 
 
 To speak the truth, I had no especial relish for such amuse 
 ment at any time, and, at that particular moment, would most 
 willingly have declined it ; for the night was coming on, and I 
 felt much fatigued with the exercise already taken ; but I saw no 
 mode of escape, and was fearful of disturbing my poor friend's 
 equanimity by a refusal. Could I have depended, indeed, upon 
 Jupiter's aid, I would have had no hesitation in attempting to get 
 the lunatic home by force ; but I was too well assured of the old 
 negro's disposition, to hope that he would assist me, under any 
 circumstances, in a personal contest with his master. I made no 
 doubt that the latter had been infected with some of the innumer 
 able Southern superstitions about money buried, and that his 
 phantasy had received confirmation by the finding of the scara- 
 laus, or, perhaps, by Jupiter's obstinacy in maintaining it to be 
 " a bug of real gold." A mind disposed to lunacy would readily 
 be led away by such suggestions especially if chiming in with 
 favorite preconceived ideas -and then I called to mind the poor 
 fellow's speech about the beetle's being " the index of his fortune." 
 Upon the whole, I was sadly vexed and puzzled, but, at length, I 
 concluded to make a virtue of necessity to dig with a good will, 
 and thus the sooner to convince the visionary, by ocular demon 
 stration, of the fallacy of the opinions he entertained. 
 
 The lanterns having been lit, we all fell to work with a zeal 
 worthy a more rational cause ; and, as the glare fell upon our 
 persons and implements, I could not help thinking how pictu 
 resque a group we composed, and how strange and suspicious our 
 labors must have appeared to any interloper who, by chance, 
 might have stumbled upon our whereabouts. 
 
 We dug very steadily for two hours. Little was said ; and 
 our chief embarrassment lay in the yelpings of the dog, who took 
 
THE GOLD-BUG. 17 
 
 exceeding interest in our proceedings. He, at length, became so 
 obstreperous that we grew fearful of his giving the alarm to some 
 stragglers in the vicinity ; or, rather, this was the apprehension 
 of Legrand ; for myself, I should have rejoiced at any interrup 
 tion which might have enabled me to get the wanderer home. 
 The noise was, at length, very effectually silenced by Jupiter, 
 who, getting out of the hole with a dogged air of deliberation, tied 
 the brute's mouth up with one of his suspenders, and then return 
 ed, with a grave chuckle, to his task. 
 
 When the time mentioned had expired, we had reached a depth 
 of five feet, and yet no signs of any treasure became manifest. 
 A general pause ensued, and I began to hope that the farce was 
 at an end. Legrand, however, although evidently much discon 
 certed, wiped his brow thoughtfully and recommenced. We had 
 excavated the entire circle of four feet diameter, and now we 
 slightly enlarged the limit, and went to the farther depth of two 
 feet. Still nothing appeared. The gold-seeker, whom I sincere 
 ly pitied, at length clambered from the pit, with the bitterest dis 
 appointment imprinted upon every feature, and proceeded, slowly 
 and reluctantly, to put on his coat, which he had thrown off at 
 the beginning of his labor. In the mean time I made no remark. 
 Jupiter, at a signal from his master, began to gather up his tools. 
 This done, and the dog having been unmuzzled, we turned in 
 profound silence towards home. 
 
 We had taken, perhaps, a dozen steps in this direction, when, 
 with a loud oath, Legrand strode up to Jupiter, and seized him by 
 the collar. The astonished negro opened his eyes and mouth to 
 the fullest extent, let fall the spades, and fell upon his knees. 
 
 "You scoundrel," said Legrand, hissing out the syllables from 
 between his clenched teeth " you infernal black villain ! speak, 
 I tell you ! answer me this instant, without prevarication ! 
 which which is your left eye ?" 
 
 " Oh, my golly, Massa Will ! aint dis here my lef eye for sar- 
 tain ?" roared the terrified Jupiter, placing his hand upon his right 
 organ of vision, and holding it there with a desperate pertinacity, 
 as if in immediate dread of his master's attempt at a gouge. 
 
 " I thought so ! I knew it ! hurrah !" vociferated Legrand, 
 letting the negro go, and executing a series of curvets and cara. 
 
 3 
 
]8 POE'S TALES. 
 
 cols, much to the astonishment of his valet, who, arising from his 
 knees, looked, mutely, from his master to myself, and then from 
 myself to his master. 
 
 " Come ! we must go back," said the latter, " the game 's not 
 up yet ;" and he again led the way to the tulip-tree. 
 
 " Jupiter," said he, when we reached its foot, " come here ! 
 was the skull nailed to the limb with the face outwards, or with 
 the face to the limb ?" 
 
 " De face was out, massa, so dat de crows could get at de eyes 
 good, widout any trouble." 
 
 " Well, then, was it this eye or that through which you drop 
 ped the beetle ?" here Legrand touched each of Jupiter's eyes. 
 
 " Twas dis eye, massa de lef eye jis as you tell me," and 
 here it was his right eye that the negro indicated. 
 
 " That will do we must try it again." 
 
 Here my friend, about whose madness I now saw, or fancied 
 that I saw, certain indications of method, removed the peg which 
 marked the spot where the beetle fell, to a spot about three inches 
 to the westward of its former position. Taking, now, the tape- 
 measure from the nearest point of the trunk to the peg, as before, 
 and continuing the extension in a straight line to the distance of 
 fifty feet, a spot was indicated, removed, by several yards, from 
 the point at which we had been digging. 
 
 Around the new position a circle, somewhat larger than in the 
 former instance, was now described, and we again set to work 
 with the spades. I was dreadfully weary, but, scarcely under 
 standing what had occasioned the change in my thoughts, I felt 
 no longer any great aversion from the labor imposed. I had be 
 come most unaccountably interested nay, even excited. Per 
 haps there was something, amid all the extravagant demeanor of 
 Legrand some air of forethought, or of deliberation, which im 
 pressed me. I dug eagerly, and now and then caught myself 
 actually looking, with something that very much resembled ex 
 pectation, for the fancied treasure, the vision of which had de 
 mented my unfortunate companion. At a period when such va 
 garies of thought most fully possessed me, and when we had been 
 at work perhaps an hour and a half, we were again interrupted 
 by the violent bowlings of the dog. His uneasiness, in the first 
 
THE GOLD-BUG. 19 
 
 instance, had been, evidently, but the result of playfulness or ca 
 price, but he now assumed a bitter and serious tone. Upon Ju 
 piter's again attempting to muzzle him, he made furious resistance, 
 and, leaping into the hole, tore up the mould frantically with his 
 claws. In a few seconds he had uncovered a mass of human 
 bones, forming two complete skeletons, intermingled with sev 
 eral buttons of metal, and what appeared to be the dust of decayed 
 woollen. One or two strokes of a spade upturned the blade of a 
 large Spanish knife, and, as we dug farther, three or four loose 
 pieces of gold and silver coin came to light. 
 
 At sight of these the joy of Jupiter could scarcely be restrained, 
 but the countenance of his master wore an air of extreme disap 
 pointment. He urged us, however, to continue our exertions, and 
 the words were hardly uttered when I stumbled and fell forward, 
 having caught the toe of my boot in a large ring of iron that lay 
 half buried in the loose earth. 
 
 We now worked in earnest, and never did I pass ten minutes 
 of more intense excitement. During this interval we had fairly 
 unearthed an oblong chest of wood, which, from its perfect pres 
 ervation and wonderful hardness, had plainly been subjected to 
 some mineralizing process perhaps that of the Bi-chloride of 
 Mercury. This box was three feet and a half long, three feet 
 broad, and two and a half feet deep. It was firmly secured by 
 bands of wrought iron, riveted, and forming a kind of open trellis- 
 work over the whole. On each side of the chest, near the top, 
 were three rings of iron six in all by means of which a firm 
 hold could be obtained by six persons. Our utmost united en 
 deavors served only to disturb the coffer very slightly in its bed. 
 We at once saw the impossibility of removing so great a weight. 
 Luckily, the sole fastenings of the lid consisted of two sliding bolts. 
 These we drew back trembling and panting with anxiety. In 
 an instant, a treasure of incalculable value lay gleaming before 
 us. As the rays of the lanterns fell within the pit, there Hashed 
 upwards a glow and a glare, from a confused heap of gold and of 
 jewels, that absolutely dazzled our eyes. 
 
 I shall not pretend to describe the feelings with which I gazed. 
 Amazement was, of course, predominant. Legrand appeared ex 
 hausted with excitement, and spoke very few words. Jupiter's 
 
20 FOE'S TALES. 
 
 countenance wore, for some minutes, as deadly a pallor as it is 
 possible, in the nature of things, for any negro's visage to assume. 
 He seemed stupified thunderstricken. Presently he fell upon 
 his knees in the pit, and, burying his naked arms up to the 
 elbows in gold, let them there remain, as if enjoying the luxury of a 
 bath. At length, with a deep sigh, he exclaimed, as if in a solil 
 oquy, 
 
 " And dis all cum ob de goole-bug ! de putty goole-bug ! de 
 poor little goole-bug, what I boosed in dat sabage kind ob style ! 
 Aint you shamed ob yourself, nigger ? answer me dat !" 
 
 It became necessary, at last, that I should arouse both master 
 and valet to the expediency of removing the treasure. It was 
 growing late, and it behooved us to make exertion, that we might 
 get every thing housed before daylight. It was difficult to say 
 what should be done, and much time was spent in deliberation 
 so confused were the ideas of all. We, finally, lightened the box 
 by removing two thirds of its contents, when we were enabled, 
 with some trouble, to raise it from the hole. The articles taken 
 out were deposited among the brambles, and the dog left to guard 
 them, with strict orders from Jupiter neither, upon any pretence, 
 to stir from the spot, nor to open his mouth until our return. We 
 then hurriedly made for home with the chest ; reaching the hut 
 in safety, but after excessive toil, at one o'clock in the morning. 
 Worn out as we were, it was not in human nature to do more im 
 mediately. We rested until two, and had supper ; starting for 
 the hills immediately afterwards, armed with three stout sacks, 
 which, by good luck, were upon the premises. A little before 
 four we arrived at the pit, divided the remainder of the booty, as 
 equally as might be, among us, and, leaving the holes unfilled, 
 again set out for the hut, at which, for the second time, we de 
 posited our golden burthens, just as the first faint streaks of the 
 dawn gleamed from over the tree-tops in the East. 
 
 We were now thoroughly broken down ; but the intense ex 
 citement of the time denied us repose. After an unquiet slumber 
 of some three or four hours' duration, we arose, as if by precon 
 cert, to make examination of our treasure. 
 
 The chest had been full to the brim, and we spent the whole 
 day, and the greater part of the next night, in a scrutiny of its 
 
THE GOLD-BUG. 21 
 
 contents. There had been nothing like order or arrangement. 
 Every thing had been heaped in promiscuously. Having assorted 
 all with care, we found ourselves possessed of even vaster wealth 
 than we had at first supposed. In coin there was rather more 
 than four hundred and fifty thousand dollars estimating the 
 value of the pieces, as accurately as we could, by the tables of 
 the period. There was not a particle of silver. All was gold 
 of antique date and of great variety French, Spanish, and Ger 
 man money, with a few English guineas, and some counters, of 
 which we had never seen specimens before. There were several 
 very large and heavy coins, so worn that we could make nothing 
 of their inscriptions. There was no American money. The 
 value of the jewels we found more difficulty in estimating. There 
 were diamonds some of them exceedingly large and fine a 
 hundred and ten in all, and not one of them small ; eighteen ru 
 bies of remarkable brilliancy ; three hundred and ten emeralds, 
 all very beautiful ; and twenty-one sapphires, with an opal. 
 These stones had all been broken from their settings and thrown 
 loose in the chest. The settings themselves, which we picked out 
 from among the other gold, appeared to have been beaten up with 
 hammers, as if to prevent identification. Besides all this, there 
 was a vast quantity of solid gold ornaments ; nearly two hun 
 dred massive finger and ear rings ; rich chains thirty of these, 
 if I remember ; eighty-three very large and heavy crucifixes ; 
 five gold censers of great value ; a prodigious golden punch 
 bowl, ornamented with richly chased vine-leaves and Bacchana 
 lian figures ; with two sword-handles exquisitely embossed, and 
 many other smaller articles which I cannot recollect. The 
 weight of these valuables exceeded three hundred and fifty pounds 
 avoirdupois ; and in this estimate I have not included one hun 
 dred and ninety-seven superb gold watches ; three of the number 
 being worth each five hundred dollars, if one. Many of them 
 were very old, and as time keepers valueless ; the works having 
 suffered, more or less, from corrosion but all were richly jewel 
 led and in cases of great worth. We estimated the entire con 
 tents of the chest, that night, at a million and a half of dollars ; 
 and, upon the subsequent disposal of the trinkets and jewels (a 
 
22 FOE'S TALES. 
 
 few being retained for our own use), it was found that we had 
 greatly undervalued the treasure. 
 
 When, at length, we had concluded our examination, and the 
 intense excitement of the time had, in some measure, subsided, 
 Legrand, who saw that I was dying with impatience for a solu 
 tion of this most extraordinary riddle, entered into a full detail 
 of all the circumstances connected with it. 
 
 " You remember," said he, " the night when I handed you the 
 rough sketch I had made of the scarab&us. You recollect also, 
 that I became quite vexed at you for insisting that my drawing 
 resembled a death's-head. When you first made this assertion I 
 thought you were jesting ; but afterwards I called to mind the 
 peculiar spots on the back of the insect, and admitted to myself 
 that your remark had some little foundation in fact. Still, the 
 sneer at my graphic powers irritated me for I am considered a 
 good artist and, therefore, when you handed me the scrap of 
 parchment, I was about to crumple it up and throw it angrily 
 into the fire." 
 
 " The scrap of paper, you mean," said I. 
 
 " No ; it had much of the appearance of paper, and at first I 
 supposed it to be such, but when I came to draw upon it, I dis 
 covered it, at once, to be a piece of very thin parchment. It was 
 quite dirty, you remember. Well, as I was in the very act of 
 crumpling it up, my glance fell upon the sketch at which you had 
 been looking, and you may imagine my astonishment when I 
 perceived, in fact, the figure of a death's-head just where, it 
 seemed to me, I had made the drawing of the beetle. For a mo 
 ment I was too much amazed to think with accuracy. I knew that 
 my design was very different in detail from this although there 
 was a certain similarity in general outline. Presently I took a 
 candle, and seating myself at the other end of the room, proceed 
 ed to scrutinize the parchment more closely. Upon turning it 
 over, I saw my own sketch upon the reverse, just as I had made 
 it. My first idea, now, was mere surprise at the really remark 
 able similarity of outline at the singular coincidence involved iti 
 the fact, that unknown to me, there should have been a skull upon 
 the other side of the parchment, immediately beneath my figure of 
 the scaralaus, and that this skull, not only in outline, but in size, 
 
THE GOLD-BUG. 23 
 
 should so closely resemble my drawing. I say the singularity of 
 this coincidence absolutely stupified me for a time. This is the 
 usual effect of such coincidences. The mind struggles to estab 
 lish a connexion a sequence of cause and effect and, being 
 unable to do so, suffers a species of temporary paralysis. But, 
 when I recovered from this stupor, there dawned upon me grad 
 ually a conviction which startled me even far more than the coinci 
 dence. I began distinctly, positively, to remember that there had 
 been no drawing upon the parchment when I made my sketch of 
 the scarabaus. I became perfectly certain of this ; for I recol 
 lected turning up first one side and then the other, in search of 
 the cleanest spot. Had the skull been then there, of course I 
 could not have failed to notice it. Here was indeed a mystery 
 which I felt it impossible to explain ; but, even at that early mo 
 ment, there seemed to glimmer, faintly, within the most remote 
 and secret chambers of my intellect, a glow-worm-like concep 
 tion of that truth which last night's adventure brought to so mag 
 nificent a demonstration. I arose at once, and putting the parch 
 ment securely away, dismissed all farther reflection until I should 
 be alone. 
 
 " When you had gone, and when Jupiter was fast asleep, I be 
 took myself to a more methodical investigation of the affair. In 
 the first place I considered the manner in which the parchment 
 had come into my possession. The spot where we discovered the 
 scarab&us was on the coast of the main land, about a mile east 
 ward of the island, and but a short distance above high water 
 mark. Upon my taking hold of it, it gave me a sharp bite, which 
 caused me to let it drop. Jupiter, with his accustomed caution, be 
 fore seizing the insect, which had flown towards him, looked about 
 him for a leaf, or something of that nature, by which to take hold 
 of it. It was at this moment that his eyes, and mine also, fell 
 upon the scrap of parchment, which I then supposed to be paper. 
 It was lying half buried in the sand, a corner sticking up. Near 
 the spot where we found it, I observed the remnants of the hull of 
 what appeared to have been a ship's long boat. The wreck 
 seemed to have been there for a very great while ; for the resem 
 blance to boat timbers could scarcely be traced. 
 
 " Well, Jupiter picked up the parchment, wrapped the beetle 
 
24 FOE'S TALES. 
 
 in it, and gave it to me. Soon afterwards we turned to go home, 
 and on the way met Lieutenant G . I showed him the insect, 
 and he begged me to let him take it to the fort. Upon my con 
 senting, he thrust it forthwith into his waistcoat pocket, without 
 the parchment in which it had been wrapped, and which I had 
 continued to hold in my hand during his inspection. Perhaps he 
 dreaded my changing my mind, and thought it best to make sure 
 of the prize at once you know how enthusiastic he is on all sub 
 jects connected with Natural History. At the same time, with 
 out being conscious of it, I must have deposited the parchment in 
 my own pocket. 
 
 " You remember that when I went to the table, for the purpose 
 of making a sketch of the beetle, I found no paper where it was 
 usually kept. I looked in the drawer, and found none there. I 
 searched my pockets, hoping to find an old letter, when my hand 
 fell upon the parchment. I thus detail the precise mode in which 
 it came into my possession ; for the circumstances impressed me 
 with peculiar force. 
 
 " No doubt you will think me fanciful but I had already es 
 tablished a kind of connexion. I had put together two links of a 
 great chain. There was a boat lying upon a sea-coast, and not 
 far from the boat was a parchment not a paper with a skull 
 depicted upon it. You will, of course, ask ' where is the connec 
 tion ?' I reply that the skull, or death's-head, is the well-known 
 emblem of the pirate. The flag of the death's-head is hoisted in 
 all engagements. 
 
 " I have said that the scrap was parchment, and not paper. 
 Parchment is durable almost imperishable. Matters of little 
 moment are rarely consigned to parchment ; since, for the mere 
 ordinary purposes of drawing or writing, it is not nearly so well 
 adapted as paper. This reflection suggested some meaning 
 some relevancy in the death's-head. I did not fail to observe, 
 also, the form of the parchment. Although one of its corners had 
 been, by some accident, destroyed, it could be seen that the origi 
 nal form was oblong. It was just such a slip, indeed, as might 
 have been chosen for a memorandum for a record of something 
 to be long remembered and carefully preserved." 
 
 " But," I interposed, " you say that the skull was not upon the 
 
THE GOLD-BUG. 25 
 
 parchment when you made the drawing of the beetle. How then 
 do you trace any connexion between the boat and the skull 
 since this latter, according to your own admission, must have 
 been designed (God only knows how or by whom) at some period 
 subsequent to your sketching the scarab&us ?" 
 
 " Ah, hereupon turns the whole mystery ; although the secret, 
 at this point, I had comparatively little difficulty in solving. My 
 steps were sure, and could afford but a single result. I reasoned, 
 for example, thus : When I drew the scarabceus, there was no 
 skull apparent upon the parchment. When I had completed the 
 drawing I gave it to you, and observed you narrowly until you 
 returned it. You, therefore, did not design the skull, and no one 
 else was present to do it. Then it was not done by human agen 
 cy. And nevertheless it was done. 
 
 " At this stage of my reflections I endeavored to remember, 
 and did remember, with entire distinctness, every incident which 
 occurred about the period in question. The weather was chilly 
 (oh rare and happy accident !), and a fire was blazing upon the 
 hearth. I was heated with exercise and sat near the table. You, 
 however, had drawn a chair close to the chimney. Just as I placed 
 the parchment in your hand, and as you were in the act of in 
 specting it, Wolf, the Newfoundland, entered, and leaped upon your 
 shoulders. With your left hand you caressed him and kept him 
 off, while your right, holding the parchment, was permitted to fall 
 listlessly between your knees, and in close proximity to the fire. At 
 one moment I thought the blaze had caught it, and was about to 
 caution you, but, before I could speak, you had withdrawn it, and 
 were engaged in its examination. When I considered all these 
 particulars, I doubted not for a moment that heat had been the agent 
 in bringing to light, upon the parchment, the skull which I saw de 
 signed upon it. You are well aware that chemical preparations 
 exist, and have existed time out of mind, by means of which it is 
 possible to write upon either paper or vellum, so that the characters 
 shall become visible only when subjected to the action of fire. 
 Z afire, digested in aqua rcgia, and diluted with four times its weight 
 of water, is sometimes employed ; a green tint results. The reg- 
 ulus of cobalt, dissolved in spirit of nitre, gives a red. These 
 colors disappear at longer or shorter intervals after the material 
 
26 FOE'S TALES. 
 
 written upon cools, but again become apparent upon the re-ap 
 plication of heat. 
 
 " I now scrutinized the death's-head with care. Its outer 
 edges the edges of the drawing nearest the edge of the vellum 
 were far more distinct than the others. It was clear that the ac 
 tion of the caloric had been imperfect or unequal. I immediately 
 kindled a fire, and subjected every portion of the parchment to a 
 glowing heat. At first, the only effect was the strengthening of 
 the faint lines in the skull ; but, upon persevering in the experi 
 ment, there became visible, at the corner of the slip, diagonally 
 opposite to the spot in which the death's-head was delineated, the 
 figure of what I at first supposed to be a goat. A closer scrutiny, 
 however, satisfied me that it was intended for a kid." 
 
 " Ha ! ha !" said I, "to be sure I have no right to laugh at you 
 a million and a half of money is too serious a matter for mirth 
 but you are not about to establish a third link in your chain - 
 you will not find any especial connexion between your pirates 
 and a goat pirates, you know; have nothing to do with goats , 
 they appertain to the farming interest." 
 
 " But I have just said that the figure was not that of a goat." 
 
 " Well, a kid then pretty much the same thing." 
 
 " Pretty much, but not altogether," said Legrand. " You may 
 have heard of one Captain Kidd. I at once looked upon the 
 figure of the animal as a kind of punning or hieroglyphical sig 
 nature. I say signature ; because its position upon the vellum 
 suggested this idea. The death's-head at the corner diagonally 
 opposite, had, in the same manner, the air of a stamp, or seal. 
 But I was sorely put out by the absence of all else of the body 
 to my imagined instrument of the text for my context." 
 
 " I presume you expected to find a letter between the stamp 
 and the signature." 
 
 " Something of that kind. The fact is, I felt irresistibly im 
 pressed with a presentiment of some vast good fortune impending. 
 I can scarcely say why. Perhaps, after all, it was rather a de 
 sire than an actual belief; but do you know that Jupiter's 
 silly words, about the bug being of solid gold, had a remarkable 
 effect upon my fancy ? And then the series of accidents and 
 coincidences these were so very extraordinary. Do you ob- 
 
THE GOLD-BUG. 27 
 
 serve how mere an accident it was that these events should have 
 occurred upon the sole day of all the year in which it has been, 
 or may be, sufficiently cool for fire, and that without the fire, or 
 without the intervention of the dog at the precise moment in which 
 he appeared, I should never have become aware of the death's- 
 head, and so never the possessor of the treasure ?" 
 
 " But proceed I am all impatience." 
 
 " Well ; you have heard, of course, the many stories current 
 the thousand vague rumors afloat about money buried, some 
 where upon the Atlantic coast, by Kidd and his associates. These 
 rumors must have had some foundation in fact. And that the 
 rumors have existed so long and so continuous, could have re 
 sulted, it appeared to me, only from the circumstance of the 
 buried treasure still remaining entombed. Had Kidd concealed 
 his plunder for a time, and afterwards reclaimed it, the rumors 
 would scarcely have reached us in their present unvarying form. 
 You will observe that the stories told are all about money-seekers, 
 not about money-finders. Had the pirate recovered his money, 
 there the affair would have dropped. It seemed to me that some 
 accident say the loss of a memorandum indicating its locality 
 had deprived him of the means of recovering it, and that this ac 
 cident had become known to his followers, who otherwise might 
 never have heard that treasure had been concealed at all, and 
 who, busying themselves in vain, because unguided attempts, to 
 regain it, had given first birth, and then universal currency, to 
 the reports which are now so common. Have you ever heard 
 of any important treasure being unearthed along the coast ?" 
 
 " Never." 
 
 " But that Kidd's accumulations were immense, is well known. 
 I took it for granted, therefore, that the earth still held them ; and 
 you will scarcely be surprised when I tell you that I felt a hope, 
 nearly amounting to certainty, that the parchment so strangely 
 found, involved a lost record of the place of deposit." 
 
 " But how did you proceed ?" 
 
 " I held the vellum again to the fire, after increasing the heat ; 
 but nothing appeared. I now thought it possible that the coating 
 of dirt might have something to do with the failure ; so I care 
 fully rinsed the parchment by pouring warm water over it, and, 
 
28 FOE'S TALES. 
 
 having done this, I placed it in a tin pan, with the skull downwards, 
 and put the pan upon a furnace of lighted charcoal. In a few 
 minutes, the pan having become thoroughly heated, I removed 
 the slip, and, to my inexpressible joy, found it spotted, in several 
 places, with what appeared to be figures arranged in lines. Again 
 I placed it in the pan, and suffered it to remain another minute. 
 Upon taking it off, the whole was just as you see it now." 
 
 Here Legrand, having re-heated the parchment, submitted it to 
 my inspection. The following characters were rudely traced, in 
 a red tint, between the death's-head and the goat : 
 
 4)81T8*;40692 
 : 8:fl;48t85;4)485t528806*81(:j:9;48; 
 
 " But," said I, returning him the slip, " I am as much in the 
 dark as ever. Were all the jewels of Golconda awaiting me 
 upon my solution of this enigma, I am quite sure that I should be 
 unable to earn them." 
 
 " And yet," said Legrand, " the solution is by no means so 
 difficult as you might be lead to imagine from the first hasty in 
 spection of the characters. These characters, as any one might 
 readily guess, form a cipher that is to say, they convey a mean 
 ing ; but then, from what is known of Kidd, I could not suppose 
 him capable of constructing any of the more abstruse crypto 
 graphs. I made up my mind, at once, that this was of a simple 
 species such, however, as would appear, to the crude intellect 
 of the sailor, absolutely insoluble without the key." 
 
 " And you really solved it ?" 
 
 " Readily ; I have solved others of an abstruseness ten thou 
 sand times greater. Circumstances, and a certain bias of mind, 
 have led me to take interest in such riddles, and it may well be 
 doubted whether human ingenuity can construct an enigma of the 
 kind which human ingenuity may not, by proper application, re 
 solve. In fact, having once established connected and legible 
 characters, I scarcely gave a thought to the mere difficulty of de 
 veloping their import. 
 
THE GOLD-BUG. 
 
 " In the present case indeed in all cases of secret writing 
 the first question regards the language of the cipher ; for the prin 
 ciples of solution, so far, especially, as the more simple ciphers 
 are concerned, depend upon, and arc varied by, the genius of the 
 particular idiom. In general, there is no alternative but experi 
 ment (directed by probabilities) of every tongue known to him 
 who attempts the solution, until the true one be attained. But, 
 with the cipher now before us, all difficulty was removed by the 
 signature. The pun upon the word ' Kidd' is appreciable in no 
 other language than the English. But for this consideration I 
 should have begun my attempts with the Spanish and French, as 
 the tongues in which a secret of this kind would most naturally 
 have been written by a pirate of the Spanish main. As it was, I 
 assumed the cryptograph to be English. 
 
 " You observe there are no divisions between the words. Had 
 there been divisions, the task would have been comparatively 
 easy. In such case I should have commenced with a collation 
 and analysis of the shorter words, and, had a word of a single let 
 ter occurred, as is most likely, (a or I, for example,) I should 
 have considered the solution as assured. But, there being no di 
 vision, my first step was to ascertain the predominant letters, as 
 well as the least frequent. Counting all, I constructed a table, 
 thus: 
 
 
 
 u 
 
 26. 
 
 4 
 
 (( 
 
 19. 
 
 t) 
 
 it 
 
 16. 
 
 * 
 
 it 
 
 13. 
 
 5 
 
 u 
 
 12. 
 
 6 
 
 u 
 
 11. 
 
 t 1 
 
 u 
 
 8. 
 
 
 
 n 
 
 6. 
 
 92 
 
 ii 
 
 5. 
 
 : 3 
 
 (i 
 
 4i 
 
 ? 
 
 (( 
 
 3. 
 
 IT 
 
 u 
 
 2. 
 
 .. 
 
 ft 
 
 1. 
 
 " Now, in English, the letter w 
 
 hich most frequently occurs is 
 
FOE'S TALES. 
 
 e. Afterwards, the succession runs thus : aoidhnrstuyc 
 fgtmwbkpqxz. E predominates so remarkably that an 
 individual sentence of any length is rarely seen, in which it is not 
 the prevailing character. 
 
 " Here, then, we have, in the very beginning, the groundwork 
 for something more than a mere guess. The general use which 
 may be made of the table is obvious but, in this particular 
 cipher, we shall only very partially require its aid. As our pre 
 dominant character is 8, we will commence by assuming it as the 
 e of the natural alphabet. To verify the supposition, let us ob 
 serve if the 8 be seen often in couples for e is doubled with great 
 frequency in English in such words, for example, as ' meet,' 
 1 fleet/ ' speed,' ' seen, 3 been,' * agree,' &c. In the present in 
 stance we see it doubled no less than five times, although the 
 cryptograph is brief. 
 
 " Let us assume 8, then, as e. Now, of all words in the lan 
 guage, ' the' is most usual ; let us see, therefore, whether there 
 are not repetitions of any three characters, in the same order of 
 collocation, the last of them being 8. If we discover repetitions 
 of such letters, so arranged, they will most probably represent 
 the word ' the.' Upon inspection, we find no less than seven such 
 arrangements, the characters being ;48. We may, therefore, as 
 sume that ; represents t, 4 represents /i, and 8 represents e the 
 last being now well confirmed. Thus a great step has been 
 taken, 
 
 " But, having established a single word, we are enabled to es 
 tablish a vastly important point ; that is to say, several com 
 mencements and terminations of other words. Let us refer, for 
 example, to the last instance but one, in which the combination 
 ;48 occurs not far from the end of the cipher. We know that 
 the ; immediately ensuing is the commencement of a word, and, 
 of the six characters succeeding this ' the,' we are cognizant of 
 no less than five. Let us set these characters down, thus, by the 
 letters we know them to represent, leaving a space for the un 
 known 
 
 t eeth. 
 
 " Here we are enabled, at once, to discard the < th, 'as forming 
 no portion of the word commencing with the first t ; since, by ex- 
 
THE GOLD-BUG. 31 
 
 periment of the entire alphabet for a letter adapted to the vacancy, 
 we perceive that no word can be formed of which this th can be 
 a part. We are thus narrowed into 
 
 t ee, 
 
 and, going through the alphabet, if necessary, as before, we 
 arrive at the word ' tree,' as the sole possible reading. We thus 
 gain another letter, r, represented by (, with the words ' the tree' 
 in juxtaposition. 
 
 " Looking beyond these words, for a short distance, we again 
 see the combination ;48, and employ it by way of termination to 
 what immediately precedes. We have thus this arrangement : 
 
 the tree ;4(^?34 the, 
 
 or, substituting the natural letters, where known, it reads thus : 
 the tree thrj?3h the. 
 
 " Now, if, in place of the unknown characters, we leave blank 
 spaces, or substitute dots, we read thus : 
 
 the tree thr...h the, 
 
 when the word ' through' makes itself evident at once. But this 
 discovery gives us three new letters, o, u and g, represented by 
 $ ? and 3. 
 
 " Looking now, narrowly, through the cipher for combinations 
 of known characters, we find, not very far from the beginning, 
 this arrangement, 
 
 83(88, or egree, 
 
 which, plainly, is the conclusion of the word f degree,' and gives 
 us another letter, d, represented by f. 
 
 " Four letters beyond the word ' degree,' we perceive the com 
 bination 
 
 ;48(;88. 
 
 " Translating the known characters, and representing the un 
 known by dots, as before, we read thus : 
 
 th rtee. 
 
 an arrangement immediately suggestive of the word ( thirteen,' 
 and again furnishing us with two new characters, i and w, repre 
 sented by 6 and *. 
 
 " Referring, now, to the beginning of the cryptograph, we find 
 the combination, 
 
POE'S TALES. 
 
 " Translating, as before, we obtain 
 
 . good, 
 
 which assures us that the first letter is A, and that the first two 
 words are ( A good.' 
 
 " It is now time that we arrange our key, as far as discovered, 
 in a tabular form, to avoid confusion. It will stand thus : 
 
 5 represents a 
 f " d 
 8 " e 
 
 3 g 
 
 4 " h 
 
 6 i 
 * " n 
 t " o 
 ( r 
 
 a t 
 ? l 
 
 " We have, therefore, no less than ten of the most important 
 letters represented, and it will be unnecessary to proceed with the 
 details of the solution. I have said enough to convince you that 
 ciphers of this nature are readily soluble, and to give you some 
 insight into the rationale of their development. But be assured 
 that the specimen before us appertains to the very simplest spe 
 cies of cryptograph. It now only remains to give you the full 
 translation of the characters upon the parchment, as unriddled. 
 Here it is : 
 
 ' A good glass in the bishop's hostel in the devil's seat forty-one 
 degrees and thirteen minutes northeast and by north main branch 
 seventh limb east side shoot from the left eye of the death's-head a 
 bee line from the tree through the shot ffty feet out.' " 
 
 " But," said I, " the enigma seems still in as bad a condition 
 as ever. How is it possible to extort a meaning from all this jar 
 gon about ' devil's seats,' ' death's-heads,' and bishop's hotels ?' " 
 
 " I confess," replied Legrand, " that the matter still wears a 
 serious aspect, when regarded' with a casual glance. My first 
 endeavor was to divide the sentence into the natural division in. 
 tended by the cryptographist." 
 
 " You mean, to punctuate it ?" 
 
 " Something of that kind." 
 
THE GOLD-BUG. 33 
 
 " But how was it possible to effect this ?" 
 
 " I reflected that it had been a point with the writer to run his 
 words together without division, so as to increase the difficulty of 
 solution. Now, a not over-acute man, in pursuing such an object, 
 would be nearly certain to overdo the matter. When, in the 
 course of his composition, he arrived at a break in his subject 
 which would naturally require a pause, or a point, he would be 
 exceedingly apt to run his characters, at this place, more than 
 usually close together. If you will observe the MS., in the pres- 
 ent instance, you will easily detect five such cases of unusual 
 crowding. Acting upon this hint, I made the division thus : 
 
 ' A good glass in the Bishop's hostel in the Devil's seat forty- 
 one degrees and thirteen minutes northeast and by north main 
 branch seventh limb east side shoot from the left eye of the 
 death's-head a bee-line from the tree through the shot fifty feet 
 out.' " 
 
 " Even this division," said I, " leaves me still in the dark." 
 
 " It left me also in the dark," replied Legrand, " for a few 
 days ; during which I made diligent inquiry, in the neighborhood 
 of Sullivan's Island, for any building which went by the name of 
 the ' Bishop's Hotel ;' for, of course, I dropped the obsolete word 
 * hostel.' Gaining no information on the subject, I was on the 
 point of extending my sphere of search, and proceeding in a more 
 systematic manner, when, one morning, it entered into my head, 
 quite suddenly, that this ' Bishop's Hostel ' might have some refer 
 ence to an old family, of th name of Bessop, which, time out of 
 mind, had held possession of an ancient manor-house, about four 
 miles to the northward of the Island. I accordingly went over to 
 the plantation, and re-instituted my inquiries among the older ne 
 groes of the place. At length one of the most aged of the women 
 said that she had heard of such a place as Bessop's Castle, and 
 thought that she could guide me to it, but that it was not a castle, 
 nor a tavern, but a high rock. 
 
 " I offered to pay her well for her trouble, and, after some de 
 mur, she consented to accompany me to the spot. We found it 
 without much difficulty, when, dismissing her, I proceeded to ex 
 amine the place. The < castle' consisted of an irregular assem 
 blage of cliffs and rocks one of the latter being quite remark- 
 
 4 
 
34 FOE'S TALES. 
 
 able for its height as well as for its insulated and artificial ap 
 pearance. I clambered to its apex, and then felt much at a loss 
 as to what should be next done. 
 
 " While I was busied in reflection, my eyes fell upon a narrow 
 ledge in the eastern face of the rock, perhaps a yard below. the sum 
 mit upon which I stood. This ledge projected about eighteen 
 inches, and was not more than a foot wide, while a niphe in the 
 cliff just above it, gave it a rude resemblance to one of the hol 
 low-backed chairs used by our ancestors. I made no doubt that 
 here was the < devil's-seat' alluded to in the MS., and now I seem 
 ed to grasp the full secret of the riddle. 
 
 " The ' good glass,' I knew, could have reference to nothing 
 but a telescope ; for the word ' glass' is rarely employed in any 
 other sense by seamen. Now here, I at once saw, was a tele 
 scope to be used, and a definite point of view, admitting no varia 
 tion, from which to use it. Nor did I hesitate to believe that the 
 phrases, " forty-one degrees and thirteen minutes,' and ' northeast 
 and by north,' were intended as directions for the levelling of the 
 glass. Greatly excited by these discoveries, I hurried home, pro 
 cured a telescope, and returned to the rock.. 
 
 " I let myself down to the ledge, and found that it was impos 
 sible to retain a seat upon it except in one particular position. 
 This fact confirmed my preconceived idea. I proceeded to use 
 the glass. Of course, the ' forty-one degrees and thirteen minr 
 utes' could allude to nothing but elevation above the visible hori 
 zon, since the horizontal direction was clearly indicated by the 
 words, 'northeast and by north.' This latter direction I at once 
 established by means of a pocket-compass ; then, pointing the 
 glass as nearly at an angle of forty-one degrees of elevation as I 
 could do it by guess, I moved it cautiously up or down, until my 
 attention was arrested by a circular rift or opening in the foliage 
 of a large tree that overtopped its fellows in the distance. In the 
 centre of this rift \ perceived a white spot, but could not, at first, 
 distinguish what it was. Adjusting the focus of the telescope, I 
 again looked, and now made it out to be a human skull. 
 
 " Upon this discovery I was so sanguine as to consider the 
 enigma solved ; for the phrase ' main branch, seventh limb, east 
 side,' could refer only to the position of the skull upon the tree, 
 
THE GOLD-BUG. 35 
 
 while shoot from the left eye of the death's-head' admitted, also, 
 of but one interpretation, in regard to a search for buried treas 
 ure. I perceived that the design was to drop a bullet from the 
 left eye of the skull, and that a bee-line, or, in other words, a 
 straight -line, drawn from the nearest point of the trunk through 
 ' the shot,' (or the spot where the bullet fell,) and thence extended 
 to a distance of fifty feet, would indicate a definite point and be 
 neath this point I thought it at least possible that a deposit of 
 value lay concealed." 
 
 " All this," I said, " is exceedingly clear, and, although in 
 genious, still simple and explicit. When you left the Bishop's 
 Hotel, what then ?" 
 
 " Why, having carefully taken the bearings of the tree, I 
 turned homewards. The instant that I left ' the devil's seat,' how 
 ever, the circular rift vanished ; nor could I get a glimpse of it 
 afterwards, turn as I would. What seems to me the chjef inge 
 nuity in this whole business, is the fact (for repeated experiment 
 has convinced me it is a fact) that the circular opening in ques 
 tion is visible from no other attainable point of view than that af 
 forded by the narrow ledge upon the face of the rock. 
 
 " In this expedition to the ' Bishop's Hotel' I had been attended 
 by Jupiter, who had, no doubt, observed, for some weeks past, the 
 abstraction of my demeanor, and took especial care not to leave 
 me alone. But, on the next day, getting up very early, I con 
 trived to give him the slip, and went into the hills in search of 
 the tree. After much toil I found it. When I came home at 
 night my valet proposed to give me a flogging. With the rest of 
 the adventure I believe you are as well acquainted as myself." 
 
 " I suppose," said I, " you missed the spot, in the first attempt 
 at digging, through Jupiter's stupidity in letting the bug fall 
 through the right instead of through the left eye of the skull." 
 
 " Precisely. This mistake made a difference of about two 
 inches and a half in the ' shot' that is to say, in the position of 
 the peg nearest the tree ; and had the treasure been beneath the 
 ' shot,' the error would have been of little moment ; but ' the shot, 5 
 together with the nearest point of the tree, were merely two 
 points tor the establishment of a line of direction j of course the 
 error, however trivial in the beginning, increased as we proceed- 
 
36 POE'S TALES. 
 
 ed with the line, and by the time we had gone fifty feet, threw us 
 quite off the scent. But for my deep-seated impressions that 
 treasure was. here somewhere actually buried, we might have had 
 all our labor in vain.'* 
 
 " But your grandiloquence, and your conduct in swinging the 
 beetle how excessively odd ! I was sure you were mad. And 
 why did you insist upon letting fall the bug, instead of a bullet, 
 from the skull ?" 
 
 " Why, to be frank, I felt somewhat annoyed by your evident 
 suspicions touching my sanity, and so resolved to punish you 
 quietly, in my own way, by a little bit of sober mystification. 
 For this reason I swung the beetle, and for this reason I let it fall 
 it from the tree. An observation of yours about its great weight 
 suggested the latter idea." 
 
 " Yes, I perceive ; and now there is only one point which puzzles 
 me. What are we to make of the skeletons found in the hole ?" 
 
 " That is a question I am no more able to answer than yourself. 
 There seems, however, only one plausible way of accounting 
 for them and yet it is dreadful to believe in such atrocity as my 
 suggestion would imply. It is clear that Kidd if Kidd indeed se 
 creted this treasure, which I doubt not it is clear that he must 
 have had assistance in the labor. But this labor concluded, he 
 may have thought it expedient to remove all participants in his 
 secret. Perhaps a couple of blows with a mattock were suffi 
 cient, while his coadjutors were busy in the pit ; perhaps it requi 
 red a dozen who shall tell ?" 
 
THE BLACK CAT. 3? 
 
 THE BLACK CAT. 
 
 FOR the most wild, yet most homely narrative which I am about 
 to pen, I neither expect nor solicit belief. Mad indeed would I 
 be to expect it, in a case where my very senses reject their own 
 evidence. Yet, mad am I not and very surely do I not dream. 
 But to-morrow I die, and to-day I would unburthen my soul. My 
 immediate purpose is to place before the world, plainly, suc 
 cinctly, and without comment, a series of mere household events. 
 In their consequences, these events have terrified have tor 
 tured have destroyed me. Yet I will not attempt to expound 
 them. To me, they have presented little but Horror to many 
 they will seem less terrible than /barroques. Hereafter, perhaps, 
 some intellect may be found which will redupe my phantasm to 
 the common-place some intellect more calm, more logical, and 
 far less excitable than my own, which will perceive, in the cir 
 cumstances I detail with awe, nothing more than an ordinary suc 
 cession of very natural causes and effects. 
 
 From my infancy I was noted for the docility and humanity of 
 my disposition. My tenderness of heart was even so conspicuous 
 as to make me the jest of my companions. I was especially fond 
 of animals, and was indulged by my parents with a great variety 
 of pets. With these I spent most of my time, and never was so 
 happy as when feeding and caressing them. This peculiarity of 
 character grew with my growth, and, in my manhood, I derived 
 from it one of my principal sources of pleasure. To those who 
 have cherished an affection for a faithful and sagacious dog, I 
 need hardly be at the trouble of explaining the nature or the in 
 tensity of the gratification thus derivable. There is something in 
 the unselfish and self-sacrificing love of a brute, which goes di 
 rectly to the heart of him who has had frequent occasion to test 
 the paltry friendship and gossamer fidelity of mere Man. 
 
38 FOE'S TALES. 
 
 I married early, and was happy to find in my wife a disposition 
 not uncongenial with my own. Observing my partiality for do 
 mestic pets, she lost no opportunity of procuring those of the most 
 agreeable kind. We had birds, gold-fish, a fine dog, rabbits, a 
 small monkey, and a cat. 
 
 This latter was a remarkably large and beautiful animal, en 
 tirely black, and sagacious to an astonishing degree. In speaking 
 of his intelligence, my wife, who at heart was not a little tinc 
 tured with superstition, made frequent allusion to the ancient 
 popular notion, which regarded all black cats as witches in dis 
 guise. Not that she was ever serious upon this point and I 
 mention the matter at all for no better reason than that it hap 
 pens, just now, to be remembered. 
 
 Pluto this was the cat's namewas my favorite pet and play 
 mate. I alone fed him, and he attended me wherever I went 
 about the house. It was even with difficulty that I could prevent 
 him from following me through the streets. 
 
 Our friendship lasted, in this manner, for several years, during 
 which my general temperament and character through the in 
 strumentality of the Fiend Intemperance had (I blush to confess 
 it) experienced a radical alteration for the worse. I grew, day 
 by day, more moody, more irritable, more regardless of the feel 
 ings of others. I suffered myself to use intemperate language to 
 my wife. At length, I even offered her personal violence. My 
 pets, of course, were made to feel the change in my disposition. 
 I not only neglected, but ill-used them. For Pluto, however, I 
 still retained sufficient regard to restrain me from maltreating 
 him, as I made no scruple of maltreating the rabbits, the monkey, 
 or even the dog, when by accident, or through affection, they 
 came in my way. But my disease grew upon me for what dis 
 ease is like Alcohol ! ^and at length even Pluto, who was now be 
 coming old, and consequently somewhat peevish even Pluto be 
 gan to experience the effects of my ill temper. 
 
 One night, returning home, much intoxicated, from one of my 
 haunts about town, I fancied that the cat avoided my presence. 
 I seized him ; when, in his fright at my violence, he inflicted a 
 slight wound upon my hand with his teeth. The fury of a de 
 mon instantly possessed me. I knew myself no longer. My 
 
THE BLACK CAT. 39 
 
 original soul seemed, at once, to take its flight from my body ; 
 and a more than fiendish malevolence, gin-nurtured, thrilled 
 every fibre of my frame. I took from my waistcoat-pocket a 
 pen-knife, opened it, grasped the poor beast by the throat, and de 
 liberately cut one of its eyes from the socket ! I blush, I burn, I 
 shudder, while I pen the damnable atrocity. 
 
 When reason returned with the morning when I had slept off 
 the fumes of the night's debauch I experienced a sentiment half 
 of horror, half of remorse, for the crime of which I had been 
 guilty ; but it was, at best, a feeble and equivocal feeling, and 
 the soul remained untouched. I again plunged into excess, and 
 soon drowned in wine all memory of the deed. 
 
 In the meantime the cat slowly recovered. The socket of the 
 lost eye presented, it is true, a frightful appearance, but he no 
 longer appeared to suffer any pain. He went about the house as 
 usual, but, as might be expected, fled in extreme terror at my ap 
 proach. I had iso much of my old heart left, as to be at first 
 grieved by this evident dislike on the part of a creature which 
 had once so loved me. But this feeling soon gave place to irri 
 tation. And then came, as if to my final and irrevocable over 
 throw, the spirit of PERVERSENESS. Of this spirit philosophy 
 takes no account. Yet I am not more sure that my soul lives, 
 than I am that perverseness is one of the primitive impulses of 
 the human heart one of the indivisible primary faculties, or sen 
 timents, which give direction to the character of Man. Who 
 has not, a hundred times, found himself committing a vile or a 
 silly action, for no other reason than because he knows he should 
 not ? Have we not a perpetual inclination, in the teeth of our 
 best judgment, to violate that which is Law, merely because we 
 understand it to be such ? This spirit of perverseness, I say, 
 came to my final overthrow. It was this unfathomable longing 
 of the soul to vex itself to offer violence to its own nature- to do 
 wrong for the wrong's sake only that urged me to continue and 
 finally to consummate the injury I had inflicted upon the unoffend 
 ing brute. One morning, in cool blood, I slipped a noose about 
 its neck and hung it to the limb of a tree ; hung it with the 
 tears streaming from my eyes, and with the bitterest remorse at 
 my heart ; hung it because I knew that it had loved me, and le- 
 
40 FOE'S TALES. 
 
 cause I felt it had given me no reason of offence ; hung it be 
 cause I knew that in so doing I was committing a sin a deadly 
 sin that would so jeopardize my immortal soul as to place it if 
 such a thing were possible even beyond the reach of the infinite 
 mercy of the Most Merciful and Most Terrible God. 
 
 On the night of the day on which this cruel deed was done, I 
 was aroused from sleep by the cry of fire. The curtains of my 
 bed were in flames. The whole house was blazing. It was 
 with great difficulty that my wife, a servant, and myself, made 
 our escape from the conflagration. The destruction was com 
 plete. My entire worldly wealth was swallowed up, and I re 
 signed myself thenceforward to despair. 
 
 I am above the weakness of seeking to establish a sequence of 
 cause and effect, between the disaster and the atrocity. But I 
 am detailing a chain of facts and wish not to leave even a possi 
 ble link imperfect. On the day succeeding the fire, I visited the 
 ruins. The walls, with one exception, had fallSi in. This ex 
 ception was found in a compartment wall, not very thick, which 
 stood about the middle of the house, and against which had rested 
 the head of my bed. The plastering had here, in great measure, 
 resisted the action of the fire a fact which I attributed to its hav 
 ing been recently spread. About this wall a dense crowd were 
 collected, and many persons seemed to be examining a particular 
 portion of it with very minute and eager attention. The words 
 " strange !" " singular !" and other similar expressions, excited 
 my curiosity. I approached and saw, as if graven in bas relief 
 upon the white surface, the figure of a gigantic cat. The im 
 pression was given with an accuracy truly marvellous. There 
 was a rope about the animal's neck. 
 
 When I first beheld this apparition for I could scarcely re 
 gard it as less my wonder and my terror were extreme. But 
 at length reflection came to my aid. The cat, I remembered, had 
 been hung in a garden adjacent to the house. Upon the alarm of 
 fire, this garden had been immediately filled by the crowd by 
 some one of whom the animal must have been cut from the tree 
 and thrown, through an open window, into my chamber. This 
 had probably been done with the view of arousing me from sleep. 
 The falling of other walls had compressed the victim of my cruel- 
 
THE BLACK CAT. 41 
 
 ty into the substance of the freshly-spread plaster ; the lime of 
 which, with the flames, and the ammonia from the carcass, had 
 then accomplished the portraiture as I saw it. 
 
 Although I thus readily accounted to my reason, if not alto 
 gether to my conscience, for the startling fact just detailed, it did 
 not the less fail to make a deep impression upon my fancy. For 
 months I could not rid myself of the phantasm of the cat ; and, 
 during this period, there came back into my spirit a half-senti 
 ment that seemed, but was not, remorse. I went so far as to re 
 gret the loss of the animal, and to look about me, among the vile 
 haunts which I now habitually frequented, for another pet of the 
 same species, and of somewhat similar appearance, with which to 
 supply its place. 
 
 One night as I sat, half stupified, in a den of more than infa 
 my, my attention was suddenly drawn to some black object, re 
 posing upon the head of one of the immense hogsheads of Gin, or 
 of Rum, which constituted the chief furniture of the apartment. 
 I had been looking steadily at the top of this hogshead for sc&ne 
 minutes, and what now caused me surprise was the fact that I 
 had not sooner perceived the object thereupon. I approached it, 
 and touched it with my hand. It was a black cat a very large 
 one fully as large as Pluto, and closely resembling him in every 
 respect but one. Pluto had not a white hair upon any portion of 
 his body but this cat had a large, although indefinite splotch of 
 white, covering nearly the whole region of the breast. 
 
 Upon my touching him, he immediately arose, purred loudly, 
 rubbed against my hand, and appeared delighted with my notice. 
 This, then, was the very creature of which I was in search. I 
 at once offered to purchase it of the landlord ; but this person 
 made no claim to it knew nothing of it had never seen it be 
 fore. 
 
 I continued my caresses, and, when I prepared to go home, 
 the animal evinced a disposition to accompany me. I permitted 
 it to do so ; occasionally stooping and patting it as I proceeded. 
 When it reached the house it domesticated itself at once, and be 
 came immediately a great favorite with my wife. 
 
 For my own part, I soon found a dislike to it arising within 
 me. This was just the reverse of what I had anticipated ; but 
 
42 FOE'S TALES. 
 
 I know not how or why it was its evident fondness for myself 
 rather disgusted and annoyed. By slow degrees, these feelings 
 of disgust and annoyance rose into the bitterness of hatred. I 
 avoided the creature ; a certain sense of shame, and the remem 
 brance of my former deed of cruelty, preventing me from physi 
 cally abusing it. I did not, for some weeks, strike, or otherwise 
 violently ill use it ; but gradually very gradually I came to 
 look upon it with unutterable loathing, and 10 flee silently from 
 its odious presence, as from the breath of a pestilence. 
 
 What added, no doubt, to my hatred of the beast, was the dis 
 covery, on the morning after I brought it home, that, like Pluto, 
 it also had been deprived of one of its eyes. This circumstance, 
 however, only endeared it to my wife, who, as I have already 
 said, possessed, in a high degree, that humanity of feeling which 
 had once been my distinguishing trait, and the source of many of 
 my simplest and purest pleasures. ^ 
 
 With my aversion to this cat, however, its partiality for myself 
 seemed to increase. It followed my footsteps with a pertinacity 
 which it would be difficult to make the reader comprehend. 
 Whenever I sat, it would crouch beneath my chair, or spring 
 upon my knees, covering me with its loathsome caresses. If I 
 arose to walk it would get between my feet and thus nearly throw 
 me down, or, fastening its long and sharp claws in my dress, 
 clamber, in this manner, to my breast. At such times, although 
 I longed to destroy it with a blow, I was yet withheld from so do 
 ing, partly by a memory of my former crime, but chiefly let me 
 confess it at once by absolute dread of the beast. 
 
 This dread was not exactly a dread of physical evil and yet 
 I should be at a loss how otherwise to define it. I am almost 
 ashamed to own yes, even in this felon's cell, I am almost 
 ashamed to own that the terror and horror with which the ani 
 mal inspired me, had been heightened by one of the merest chi- 
 mseras it would be possible to conceive. My wife had called my 
 attention, more than once, to the character of the mark of white 
 hair, of which I have spoken, and which constituted the sole visi 
 ble difference between the strange beast and the one I had de 
 stroyed. The reader will remember that this mark, although 
 large, had been originally very indefinite ; but, by slow degrees 
 
THE BLACK CAT. 43 
 
 degrees nearly imperceptible, and which for a long time my Reason 
 struggled to reject as fanciful it had, at length, assumed a rigor- 
 ous distinctness of outline. It was now the representation of an 
 object that I shudder to name and for this, above all, I loathed, 
 and dreaded, and would have rid myself of the monster had 1 
 dared it was now, I say, the image of a hideous of a ghastly 
 thing of the GALLOWS ! oh, mournful and terrible engine of 
 Horror and of Crime of Agony and of Death ! 
 
 And now was I indeed wretched beyond the wretchedness of 
 mere Humanity. And a brute beast whose fellow I had con 
 temptuously destroyed a brute beast to work out for me for me 
 a man, fashioned in the image of the High God so much of in 
 sufferable wo ! Alas ! neither by day nor by night knew I the 
 blessing of Rest any more ! During the former the creature left 
 me no moment alone ; and, in the latter, I started, hourly, from 
 dreams of unutterable fear, to find the hot breath of the thing upon 
 my face, and its vast weight an incarnate Night-Mare that I 
 had no power to shake off incumbent eternally upon my heart ! 
 
 Beneath the pressure of torments such as these, the feeble rem 
 nant of the good within me succumbed. Evil thoughts became 
 my sole intimates the darkest and most evil of thoughts. 
 The moodiness of my usual temper increased to hatred of all 
 things and of all mankkid ; while, from the sudden, frequent, and 
 ungovernable outbursts of a fury to which I now blindly aban 
 doned myself, my uncomplaining wife, alas ! was the most usual 
 and the most patient of sufferers. 
 
 One day she accompanied me, upon some household errand, 
 into the cellar of the old building which our poverty compelled us 
 to inhabit. The cat followed me down the steep stairs, and, 
 nearly throwing me headlong, exasperated me to madness. Up 
 lifting an axe, and forgetting, in my wrath, the childish dread 
 which had hitherto stayed my hand, I aimed a blow at the animal 
 which, of course, would have proved instantly fatal had it de 
 scended as I wished. But this blow was arrested by the hand of 
 my wife. Goaded, by the interference, into a rage more than 
 demoniacal, I withdrew my arm from her grasp and buried the 
 axe in her brain. She fell dead upon the spot, without a groan. 
 
 This hideous murder accomplished, I set myself forthwith, and 
 
44 FOE'S TALES. 
 
 with entire deliberation, to the task of concealing the body. I 
 knew that I could not remove it from the house, either by day or 
 by night, without the risk of being observed by the neighbors. 
 Many projects entered my mind. At one period I thought of cut 
 ting the corpse into minute fragments, and destroying them by 
 fire. At another, I resolved to dig a grave for it in the floor of 
 the cellar. Again, I deliberated about casting it in the well in 
 the yard about packing it in a box, as if merchandize, with the 
 usual arrangements, and so getting a porter to take it from the 
 house. Finally I hit upon what I considered a far better expe 
 dient than either of these. I determined to wall it up in the cel 
 lar as the monks of the middle ages are recorded to have walled 
 up their victims. 
 
 For a purpose such as this the cellar was well adapted. Its 
 walls were loosely constructed, and had lately been plastered 
 throughout with a rough plaster, which the dampness of the 
 atmosphere had prevented from hardening. ]V^5reover, in one of 
 the walls was a projection, caused by a false chimney, or fire 
 place, that had been filled up, and made to resemble the rest of 
 the cellar. I made no doubt that I could readily displace the 
 bricks at this point, insert the corpse, and wall the whole up as 
 before, so that no eye could detect any thing suspicious. 
 
 And in this calculation I was not deceived. By means of a 
 crow-bar I easily dislodged the bricks, and, having carefully de 
 posited the body against the inner wall, I propped it in that posi 
 tion, while, with little trouble, I re-laid the whole structure as it 
 originally stood. Having procured mortar, sand, and hair, with 
 every possible precaution, I prepared a plaster which could not 
 be distinguished from the old, and with this I very carefully went 
 over the new brick-work. When I had finished, I felt satisfied 
 that all was right. The wall did not present the slightest ap 
 pearance of having been disturbed. The rubbish on the floor 
 was picked up with the minutest care. I looked around trium 
 phantly, and said to myself" Here at least, then, my labor has 
 not been in vain." 
 
 My next step was to look for the beast which had been the 
 cause of so much wretchedness ; for I had, at length, firmly re 
 solved to put it to death. Had I been able to meet with it, at the 
 
 
THE BLACK CAT. 45 
 
 moment, there could have been no doubt of its fate ; but it ap 
 peared that the crafty animal had been alarmed at the violence of 
 my previous anger, and forebore to present itself in my present 
 mood. It is impossible to describe, or to imagine, the deep, the 
 blissful sense of relief which the absence of the detested creature 
 occasioned in my bosom. It did not make its appearance during 
 the night and thus for one night at least, since its introduction 
 into the house, I soundly and tranquilly slept ; aye, slept even 
 with the burden of murder upon my soul ! 
 
 The second and the third day passed, and still my tormentor 
 came not. Once again I breathed as a freeman. The monster, 
 in terror, had fled the premises forever ! I should behold it no 
 more ! My happiness was supreme ! The guilt of my dark 
 deed disturbed me but little. Some few inquiries had been made, 
 but these had been readily answered. Even a search had been 
 instituted but of course nothing was to be discovered. I looked 
 upon my future felicity as secured. 
 
 Upon the fourth day of the assassination, a party of the police 
 came, very unexpectedly, into the house, and proceeded again to 
 make rigorous investigation of the premises. Secure, however, 
 in the inscrutability of my place of concealment, I felt no embar 
 rassment whatever. The officers bade me accompany them in 
 their search. They left no nook or corner unexplored. At 
 length, for the third or fourth time, they descended into the eel- 
 lar. I quivered not in a muscle. My heart beat calmly as that 
 of one who slumbers in innocence. I walked the cellar from end 
 to end. I folded my arms upon my bosom, and roamed easily to 
 and fro. The police were thoroughly satisfied and prepared to 
 depart. The glee at my heart was too strong to be restrained. 
 I burned to say if but one word, by way of triumph, and to ren 
 der doubly sure their assurance of my guiltlessness. 
 
 " Gentlemen," I said at last, as the party ascended the steps; 
 "I delight to have allayed your suspicions. I wish you all 
 health, and a little more courtesy. By the bye, gentlemen, this 
 this is a very well constructed house." [In the rabid desire to 
 say something easily, I scarcely knew what I uttered at all.] 
 " I may say an excellently well constructed house. These walls 
 are you going, gentlemen ? these walls are solidly put togeth- 
 
46 POE'S TALES. 
 
 er ;" and here, through the mere phrenzy of bravado, I rapped 
 heavily, with a cane which I held in my hand, upon that very 
 portion of the brick- work behind which stood the corpse of the 
 wife of my bosom. 
 
 But may God shield and deliver me from the fangs of the 
 Arch-Fiend ! No sooner had the reverberation of my blows sunk 
 into silence, than I was answered by a voice from within the 
 tomb ! by a cry, at first muffled and broken, like the sobbing of 
 a child, and then quickly swelling into one long, loud, and con 
 tinuous scream, utterly anomalous and inhuman a howl a 
 wailing shriek, half of horror and half of triumph, such as might 
 have arisen only out of hell, conjointly from the throats of the 
 damned in their agony and of the demons that exult in the dam 
 nation. 
 
 Of my own thoughts it is folly to, speak. Swooning, I stagger 
 ed to the opposite wall. For one instant the party upon the stairs 
 remained motionless, through extremity of terror and of awe. In 
 the next, a dozen stout arms were toiling at the wall. It fell 
 bodily. The corpse, already greatly decayed and clotted with 
 gore, stood erect before the eyes of the spectators. Upon its 
 head, with red extended mouth and solitary eye of fire, sat the 
 hideous beast whose craft had seduced me into murder, and whose 
 informing voice had consigned me to the hangman. I had walled 
 the monster up within the tomb ! 
 
MESMERIC REVELATION. 47 
 
 MESMERIC REVELATION. 
 
 WHATEVER doubt may still envelop the rationale of mesmerism, 
 its startling facts are now almost universally admitted. Of these 
 latter, those who doubt, are your mere doubters by profession 
 an unprofitable and disreputable tribe. There can be no more 
 absolute waste of time than the attempt to prove, at the present 
 day, that man, by mere exercise of will, can so impress his fel 
 low, as to cast him into an abnormal condition, of which the 
 phenomena resemble very closely those of death, or at least re 
 semble them more nearly than they do the phenomena of any 
 other normal condition within our cognizance ; that, while in this 
 state, the person so impressed employs only with effort, and then 
 feebly, the external organs of sense, yet perceives, with keenly 
 refined perception, and through channels supposed unknown, mat 
 ters beyond the scope of the physical organs ; that, moreover, 
 his intellectual faculties are wonderfully exalted and invigorated ; 
 that his sympathies with the person so impressing him are pro 
 found ; and, finally, that his susceptibility tq the impression in 
 creases with its frequency, while, in the same proportion, the pe 
 culiar phenomena elicited are more extended and more pronounced. 
 
 I say that these which are the laws of mesmerism in its gen 
 eral features it would be supererogation to demonstrate ; nor shall 
 I inflict upon my readers so needless a demonstration to-day. My 
 purpose at present is a very different one indeed. I am impelled, 
 even in the teeth of a world of prejudice, to detail without com. 
 ment the very remarkable substance of a colloquy, occurring be 
 tween a sleep- waker and myself. 
 
 I had been long in the habit of mesmerizing the person in 
 
48 FOE'S TALES. 
 
 question, (Mr. Vankirk,) and the usual acute susceptibility and 
 exaltation of the mesmeric perception had supervened. For many 
 months he had been laboring under confirmed phthisis, the more 
 distressing effects of which had been relieved by my manipula 
 tions ; and on the night of Wednesday, the fifteenth instant, I 
 was summoned to his bedside. 
 
 The invalid was suffering with acute pain in the region of the 
 heart, and breathed with great difficulty, having all the ordinary 
 symptoms of asthma. In spasms such as these he had usually 
 found relief from the application of mustard to the nervous cen 
 tres, but to-night this had been attempted in vain. 
 
 As I entered his room he greeted me with a cheerful smile, and 
 although evidently in much bodily pain, appeared to be, mentally, 
 quite at ease. 
 
 " I sent for you to-night," he said, " not so much to administer 
 to my bodily ailment, as to satisfy me concerning certain psychal 
 impressions which, of late, have occasioned me much anxiety 
 and surprise. I need not tell you how sceptical I have hitherto 
 been on the topic of the soul's immortality. I cannot deny that 
 there has always existed, as if in that very soul which I have 
 been denying, a vague half-sentiment of its own existence. But 
 this half-sentiment at no time amounted to conviction. With it 
 my reason had nothing to do. All attempts at logical inquiry re- 
 suited, indeed, in leaving me more sceptical than before. I had 
 been advised to study Cousin. I studied him in his own works 
 as well as in those of his European and American echoes. The 
 ' Charles Elwood ' of Mr. Brownson, for example, was placed in 
 my hands. I read it with profound attention. Throughout I 
 found it logical, but the portions which were not merely logical 
 were unhappily the initial arguments of the disbelieving hero of 
 the book. In his summing up it seemed evident to me that the 
 reasoner had not even succeeded in convincing himself. His end 
 had plainly forgotten his beginning, like the government of Trin- 
 culo. In short, I was not long in perceiving that if man is to be 
 intellectually convinced of his own immortality, he will never be 
 so convinced by the mere abstractions which have been so long 
 the fashion of the moralists of England, of France, and of Ger 
 many. Abstractions may amuse and exercise, but take no hold 
 
MESMERIC REVELATION. 49 
 
 on the mind. Here upon earth, at least, philosophy, I am per 
 suaded, will always in vain call upon us to look upon qualities as 
 things. The will may assent the soul the intellect, never. 
 
 " I repeat, then, that I only half felt, and never intellectually 
 believed, But latterly there has been a certain deepening of the 
 feeling, until it has come so nearly to resemble the acquiescence 
 of reason, that I find it difficult to distinguish between the two. 
 I am enabled, too, plainly to trace this effect to the mesmeric in 
 fluence. I cannot better explain my meaning than by the hy 
 pothesis that the mesmeric exaltation enables me to perceive a 
 train of ratiocination which, in my abnormal existence, convinces, 
 but which, in full accordance with the mesmeric phenomena, 
 does not extend, except through its effect, into my normal condition. 
 In sleep- waking, the reasoning and its conclusion the cause and 
 its effect are present together. In my natural state, the cause 
 vanishing, the effect only, and perhaps only partially, remains. 
 
 " These considerations have led me to think that some good re 
 sults might ensue from a series of well-directed questions pro 
 pounded to me while mesmerized. You have often observed the 
 profound self-cognizance evinced by the sleep-waker the exten 
 sive knowledge he displays upon all points relating to the mes 
 meric condition itself; and from this self-cognizance may be de 
 duced hints for the proper conduct of a catechism." 
 
 I consented of course to make this experiment. A few passes 
 threw Mr. Vankirk into the mesmeric sleep. His breathing be 
 came immediately more easy, and he seemed to suffer no physical 
 uneasiness. The following conversation then ensued : V. in the 
 dialogue representing the patient, and P. myself. 
 
 P. Are you asleep ? 
 
 V. Yes no ; I would rather sleep more soundly. 
 
 P. [After a few more passes.'] Do you sleep now ? 
 
 F Yes. 
 
 P. How do you think your present illness will result ? 
 
 V. [After a long hesitation and speaking as if with effort.'] I 
 must die. 
 
 P. Does the idea of death afflict you ? 
 
 F. [ Very quickly,] No no ! 
 
 P. Are you pleased with the prospect ? 
 
 5 
 
50 FOE'S TALES. 
 
 V. If I were awake I should like to die, but now it is no mat 
 ter. The mesmeric condition is so near death as to content me. 
 
 P. I wish you would explain yourself, Mr. Vankirk. 
 
 V. I am willing to do so, but it requires more effort than I feel 
 able to make. You do not question me properly. 
 
 P. What then shall I ask ? 
 
 V. You must begin at the beginning. 
 
 P. The beginning ! but where is the beginning ? 
 
 V. You know that the beginning is GOD. [This was said in a 
 tow, fluctuating tone, and with every sign of the most profound 
 veneration.'] 
 
 P. What then is God ? 
 
 V. [Hesitating for many minutes.'] I cannot tell. 
 
 P. Is not God spirit ? 
 
 V. While I was awake I knew what you meant by " spirit," 
 but now it seems only a word such for instance as truth ; beauty 
 a quality, I mean. 
 
 P. Is not God immaterial ? 
 
 V. There is no immateriality it is a mere word. That which 
 is not matter, is not at all unless qualities are things. 
 
 P. Is God, then, material ? 
 
 V. No. [This reply startled me very much.] 
 
 P. What then is he ? 
 
 V. [After a long pause, and mutteringly.~] I see but it is a 
 thing difficult to tell. [Another long pause.] He is not spirit, 
 for he exists. Nor is he matter, as you understand it. But there 
 are gradations of matter of which man knows nothing ; the grosser 
 impelling the finer, the finer pervading the grosser. The atmos 
 phere, for example, impels the electric principle, while the elec 
 tric principle permeates the atmosphere. These gradations of 
 matter increase in rarity or fineness, until we arrive at a matter 
 unparticled without particles indivisible one; and here the 
 law of impulsion and permeation is modified. The ultimate, or 
 unparticled matter, not only permeates all things but impels all 
 things and thus is all things within itself. This matter is God. 
 What men attempt ,o embody in the word " thought," is this mat 
 ter in motion. 
 
 P. The metaphysicians maintain that all action is reducible 
 
MESMERIC REVELATION. 51 
 
 to motion and thinking, and that the latter is the origin of the 
 former. 
 
 T. Yes ; and I now see the confusion of idea. Motion is the 
 action of mind not of thinking. The unparticled matter, or God, 
 in quiescence, is (as nearly as we can conceive it) what men call 
 mind. And the power of self-movement (equivalent in effect to 
 human volition) is, in the unparticled matter, the result of its 
 unity and omniprevalence ; how I know not, and now clearly see 
 that I shall never know. But the unparticled matter, set in mo 
 tion by a law, or quality, existing within itself, is thinking. 
 
 P. Can you give me no more precise idea of what you term 
 the unparticled matter ? 
 
 V. The matters of which man is cognizant, escape the sepses 
 in gradation. We have, for example, a metal, a piece of wood, 
 a drop of water, the atmosphere, a gas, caloric, electricity, the lu- 
 miniferous ether. Now we call all these things matter, and em 
 brace all matter in one general definition ; but in spite of this, 
 there can be no two ideas more essentially distinct than that 
 which we attach to a metal, and that which we attach to the lu- 
 miniferous ether. When we reach the latter, we feel an almost 
 irresistible inclination to class it with spirit, or with nihility. The 
 only consideration which restrains us is our conception of its 
 atomic constitution ; and here, even, we have to seek aid from 
 our notion of an atom, as something possessing in infinite minute 
 ness, solidity, palpability, weight. Destroy the idea of the atomic 
 constitution and we should no longer be able to regard the ether 
 as an entity, or at least as matter. For want of a better word 
 we might term it spirit. Take, now, a step beyond the luminifer- 
 ous ether conceive a matter as much more rare than the ether, 
 as this ether is more rare than the metal, and we arrive at once 
 (in spite of all the school dogmas) at a unique mass an unparti 
 cled matter. For although we may admit infinite littleness in the 
 atoms themselves, the infinitude of littleness, in the spaces between 
 them is an absurdity. There will be a point there will be a de 
 gree of rarity, at which, if the atoms are sufficiently numerous, 
 the interspaces must vanish, and the mass absolutely coalesce. 
 But the consideration of the atomic constitution being now taken 
 away, the nature of the mass inevitably glides into what we con- 
 
52 FOE'S TALES. 
 
 ceive of spirit. It is clear, however, that it is as fully matter as 
 before. The truth is, it is impossible to conceive spirit, since it 
 is impossible to imagine what is not. When we flatter ourselves 
 that we have formed its conception, we have merely deceived our 
 understanding by the consideration of infinitely rarified matter. 
 
 P. There seems to me an insurmountable objection to the idea 
 of absolute coalescence ; and that is the Very slight resistance 
 experienced by the heavenly bodies in their revolutions through 
 space a resistance now ascertained, it is true, to exist in some 
 degree, but which is, nevertheless, so slight as to have been quite 
 overlooked by the sagacity even of Newton. We know that the 
 resistance of bodies is, chiefly, in proportion to their density. 
 Absolute coalescence is absolute density. Where there are no 
 interspaces, there can be no yielding. An ether, absolutely 
 dense, would put an infinitely more effectual stop to the progress 
 of a star than would an ether of adamant or of iron. 
 
 V. Your objection is answered with an ease which is nearly in 
 the ratio of its apparent unanswerabilityj As regards the prog* 
 ress of the star, it can make no difference whether the star passes 
 through the ether or the ether through it. There is no astro 
 nomical error more unaccountable than that which reconciles the 
 known retardation of the comets with the idea of their passage 
 through an ether : for, however rare this ether be supposed, it 
 would put a stop to all sidereal revolution in a very far briefer 
 period than has been admitted by those astronomers who have en 
 deavored to slur over a point which they found it impossible to 
 comprehend. The retardation actually experienced is, on the 
 other hand, about that which might be expected from the friction 
 of the ether in the instantaneous passage through the orb. In 
 the one case, the retarding force is momentary and complete 
 within itself in the other it is endlessly accumulative. 
 
 P. But in all this in this identification of mere matter with 
 God is there nothing of irreverence ? [ I was forced to repeat 
 this question before the sleep-waker fully comprehended my mean 
 ing.} 
 
 V. Can you say why matter should be less reverenced than 
 mind ? But you forget that the matter of which I speak is, in 
 all respects, the very " mind" or " spirit" of the schools, so far as 
 
MESMERIC REVELATION. 53 
 
 regards its high capacities, and is, moreover, the " matter" of these 
 schools at the same time. God, with all the powers attributed to 
 spirit, is but the perfection of matter. 
 
 P. You assert, then, that the unparticled matter, in motion, is 
 thought ? 
 
 V. In general, this motion is the universal thought of the uni 
 versal mind. This thought creates. All created things are 
 but the thoughts of God. 
 
 P. You say, " in general." 
 
 V. Yes. The universal mind is God. For new individual, 
 ities, matter is necessary. 
 
 P. But you now speak of " mind" and " matter" as do the 
 metaphysicians. 
 
 V. Yes to avoid confusion. When I say " mind," I mean the 
 unparticled or ultimate matter ; by " matter," I intend all else. 
 
 P. You were saying that " for new individualities matter is 
 necessary." 
 
 V. Yes ; for mind, existing unincorporate, is merely God. 
 To create individual, thinking beings, it was necessary to incar 
 nate portions of the divine mind. Thus man is individualized. 
 Divested of corporate investiture, he were God. Now, the par 
 ticular motion of the incarnated portions of the unparticled mat 
 ter is the thought of man ; as the motion of the whole is that of 
 God. 
 
 P. You say that divested of the body man will be God ? 
 
 V. [After much hesitation.'] I could not have said this ; it is 
 an absurdity. 
 
 P. [Referring to my notes.] You did say that f f divested of 
 corporate investiture man were God." 
 
 V. And this is true. Man thus divested would be God would 
 be unindividualized. But he can never be thus divested at 
 least never will be else we must imagine an action of God re 
 turning upon itself a purposeless and futile action. Man is a 
 creature. Creatures are thoughts of God. It is the nature of 
 thought to be irrevocable. 
 
 P. I do not comprehend. You say that man will never put 
 off the body ? 
 
 V. I say that he will never be bodiless. 
 
54 FOE'S TALES. 
 
 P. Explain. 
 
 V. There are two bodies the rudimental and the complete ; 
 corresponding with the two conditions of the worm and the butter 
 fly. What we call " death," is but the painful metamorphosis. 
 Our present incarnation is progressive, preparatory, temporary. 
 Our future is perfected, ultimate, immortal. The ultimate life is 
 the full design. 
 
 P. But of the worm's metamorphosis we are palpably cog 
 nizant. 
 
 V. We, certainly but not the worm. The matter of which 
 our rudimental body is composed, is within the ken of the organs 
 of that body ; or, more distinctly, our rudimental organs are 
 adapted to the matter of which is formed the rudimental body ; 
 but not to that of which the ultimate is composed. The ultimate 
 body thus escapes our rudimental senses, and we perceive only 
 the shell which falls, in decaying, from the inner form ; not that 
 inner form itself; but this inner form, as well as the shell, is ap 
 preciable by those who have already acquired the ultimate life. 
 
 P. You have often said that the mesmeric state very nearly 
 resembles death. How is this ? 
 
 V. When I say that it resembles death, I mean that it resem 
 bles the ultimate life ; for when I am entranced the senses of my 
 rudimental life are in abeyance, and I perceive external things 
 directly, without organs, through a medium which I shall employ 
 in the ultimate, unorganized life* 
 
 P. Unorganized ? 
 
 V. Yes ; organs are contrivances by which the individual is 
 brought into sensible relation with particular classes and forms of 
 matter, to the exclusion of other classes and forms. The organs 
 of man are adapted to his rudimental condition, and to that only ; 
 his ultimate condition, being unorganized, is of unlimited com 
 prehension in all points but one the nature of the volition of God 
 that is to say, the motion of the unparticled matter. You will 
 have a distinct idea of the ultimate body by conceiving it to be 
 entire brain. This it is not ; but a conception of this nature will 
 bring you near a comprehension of what it is. A luminous body 
 imparts vibration to the luminiferous ether. The vibrations gen 
 erate similar ones within the retina ; these again communicate 
 
MESMERIC REVELATION. 55 
 
 similar ones to the optic nerve. The nerve conveys similar ones 
 to the brain ; the brain, also, similar ones to the unparticled mat 
 ter which permeates it. The motion of this latter is thought, of 
 which perception is the first undulation. This is the mode by 
 which the mind of the rudimental life communicates with the ex 
 ternal world ; and this external world is, to the rudimental life, 
 limited, through the idiosyncrasy of its organs. But in the ul 
 timate, unorganized life, the external world reaches the whole 
 body, (which is of a substance having affinity to brain, as I 
 have said,) with no other intervention than that of an infinitely 
 rarer ether than even the luminiferous ; and to this ether in 
 unison with it the whole body vibrates, setting in motion the 
 unparticled matter which permeates it. It is to the absence of 
 idiosyncratic organs, therefore, that we must attribute the nearly 
 unlimited perception of the ultimate life. To rudimental beings, 
 organs are the cages necessary to confine them until fledged. 
 
 P. You speak of rudimental " beings." Are there other rudi 
 mental thinking beings than man ? 
 
 V. The multitudinous conglomeration of rare matter into 
 nebulae, planets, suns, and other bodies which are neither nebulae, 
 suns, nor planets, is for the sole purpose of supplying pabulum 
 for the idiosyncrasy of the organs of an infinity of rudimental 
 beings. But for the necessity of the rudimental, prior to the ul 
 timate life, there would have been no bodies such as these. Each 
 of these is tenanted by a distinct variety of organic, rudimental, 
 thinking creatures. In all, the organs vary with the features of 
 the place tenanted. At death, or metamorphosis, these creatures, 
 enjoying the ultimate life immortality and cognizant of all 
 secrets but the one, act all things and pass everywhere by mere 
 volition : indwelling, not the stars, which to us seem the sole 
 palpabilities, and for the accommodation of which we blindly deem 
 space created but that SPACE itself that infinity of which the 
 truly substantive vastness swallows up the star-shadows blotting 
 them out as non-entities from the perception of the angels. 
 
 P. You say that " but for the necessity of the rudimental life" 
 there would have been no stars. But why this necessity ? 
 
 V. In the inorganic life, as well as in the inorganic matter 
 generally, there is nothing to impede the action of one simple 
 
56 FOE'S TALES. 
 
 unique law the Divine Volition. With the view of producing 
 impediment, the organic life and matter, (complex, substantial, 
 and law-encumbered,) were contrived. 
 
 P. But again why need this impediment have been produced ? 
 
 V. The result of law inviolate is perfection right negative 
 happiness. The result of law violate is imperfection, wrong, 
 positive pain. Through the impediments afforded by the num 
 ber, complexity, and substantiality of the laws of organic life 
 and matter, the violation of law is rendered, to a certain extent, 
 practicable. Thus pain, which in the inorganic life is impossible, 
 is possible in the organic. 
 
 P. But to what good end is pain thus rendered possible ? 
 
 V. All things are either good or bad by comparison. A suffi 
 cient analysis will show that pleasure, in all cases, is but the 
 contrast of pain. Positive pleasure is a mere idea. To be 
 happy at any one point we must have suffered at the same. 
 Never to suffer would have been never to have been blessed. 
 But it has been shown that, in the inorganic life, pain cannot be ; 
 thus the necessity for the organic. The pain of the primitive 
 life of Earth, is the sole basis of the bliss of the ultimate life in 
 Heaven. 
 
 P. Still, there is one of your expressions which I find it impos 
 sible to comprehend " the truly substantive vastness of infinity." 
 
 V. This, probably, is because you have no sufficiently generic 
 conception of the term " substance" itself. We must not regard 
 it as a quality, but as a sentiment : it is the perception, in think 
 ing beings, of the adaptation of matter to their organization. 
 There are many things on the Earth, which would be nihility to 
 the inhabitants of Venus many things visible and tangible in 
 Venus, which we could not be brought to appreciate as exist 
 ing at all. But to the inorganic beings to the angels the whole 
 of the unparticled matter is substance ; that is to say, the whole 
 of what we term " space" is to them the truest substantiality ; 
 the stars, meantime, through what we consider their materiality, 
 escaping the angelic sense, just in proportion as the unparticled 
 matter, through what we consider its immateriality, eludes the 
 organic. 
 
 As the sleep-waker pronounced these latter words, in a feeble 
 
MESMERIC REVELATION. 57 
 
 tone, I observed on his countenance a singular expression, 
 which somewhat alarmed me, and induced me to awake him at 
 once. No sooner had I done this, than, with a bright smile irra 
 diating all his features, he fell back upon his pillow and expired. 
 I noticed that in less than a minute afterward his corpse had all 
 the stern rigidity of stone. His brow was of the coldness of ice. 
 Thus, ordinarily, should it have appeared, only after long pres 
 sure from Azrael's hand. Had the sleep-waker, indeed, during 
 the latter portion of his discourse, been addressing me from out 
 the region of the shadows ? 
 
58 POE'S TALES. 
 
 LIONIZING, 
 
 all people went 
 
 Upon their ten toes in wild wonderment. 
 
 Bishop HaWs 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, I be 
 lieve, is Robert Jones, 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 presented me with a treatise on Nosology. 
 This I mastered before I was breeched. 
 
 I now began to feel my way in the science, and soon came to 
 understand that, provided a man had a nose sufficiently conspic 
 uous, he might, by merely following it, arrive at a Lionship. 
 But my attention was not confined to theories alone. Every 
 morning I gave my proboscis a couple of pulls and swallowed a 
 half dozen of drams. 
 
 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 were seated, "what is the chief 
 end of your existence ?" 
 
 " My father," I answered, " it is the study of Nosology." 
 
 "And what, Robert," he inquired, " is Nosology ?" 
 
 "Sir," I said, " it is the Science of Noses." 
 
 " And can you tell me," he demanded, " what is the meaning 
 of a nose?" 
 
 " A nose, my father," I replied, greatly softened, " has been 
 variously defined by about a thousand different authors." [Here 
 
LIONIZING. 59 
 
 I pulled out my watch.] " It is now noon or thereabouts we 
 shall have time enough to get through with them all before mid- 
 night. To commence then : The nose, according to Bartholi- 
 nus, is that protuberance that bump that excrescence 
 that " 
 
 " Will do, Robert," interrupted the good old gentleman. " I 
 am thunderstruck at the extent of your information I am posi 
 tively upon my soul." [Here he closed his eyes and placed his 
 hand upon his heart.] " Come here !" [Here he took me by 
 the arm.] "Your education may now be considered as finished 
 it is high time you should scuffle for yourself- and you cannot 
 do a better thing than merely follow your nose 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. I resolved to be guided by the 
 paternal advice. I determined to follow my nose. I gave it a 
 pull or two upon the spot, and wrote a pamphlet on Nosology 
 forthwith. 
 
 All Fum-Fudge was in an uproar. 
 
 " Wonderful genius !" said the Quarterly. 
 
 " Superb physiologist !" said the Westminster. 
 
 " Clever fellow !" said the Foreign. 
 
 " Fine writer !" said the Edinburgh. 
 
 " Profound thinker !" said the Dublin. 
 
 " Great man !" said Bentley. 
 
 " Divine soul !" said Fraser. 
 
 " One of us !" said Black wood. 
 
 " 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 
 these people no attention whatever I just stepped into the shop 
 of an artist. 
 
 The Duchess of Bless-my-Soul was sitting for her portrait; 
 the Marquis of So-and-So was holding the Duchess' poodle ; the 
 Earl of This-and-That was flirting with her salts ; and his Royal 
 Highness of Touch-me-Not was leaning upon the back of her 
 chair. 
 
60 FOE'S TALES. 
 
 I approached the artist and turned up my nose. 
 
 " Oh, beautiful !" sighed her Grace. 
 
 " Oh my !" lisped the Marquis. 
 
 " Oh, shocking !" groaned the Earl. 
 
 " Oh, abominable !" growled his Royal Highness. 
 
 " What will you take for it ?" asked the artist. 
 
 " For his nose /" shouted her Grace. 
 
 " A thousand pounds," said I, sitting down. 
 
 " A thousand pounds ?" inquired the artist, musingly. 
 
 " A thousand pounds," said I. 
 
 " Beautiful !" said he, entranced. 
 
 " A thousand pounds," said I. 
 
 " Do you warrant it ?" he asked, turning the nose to the light. 
 
 "I do," said I, blowing it well. 
 
 " Is it quite original ?" he inquired, touching it with reverence. 
 
 " Humph !" said I, twisting it to one side. 
 
 "Has ?io copy been taken?" he demanded, surveying it 
 through a microscope. 
 
 " None," said I, turning it up. 
 
 " Admirable /" he ejaculated, thrown qmte off his guard by 
 the beauty of the manoeuvre. 
 
 " A thousand pounds," said I. 
 
 "A thousand pounds?" said he. 
 
 " Precisely," said I. 
 
 " A thousand pounds . ? " said he. 
 
 " Just so," said I. 
 
 " You shall have them," said he. " What a piece of virtu /" 
 So he drew me a check upon the spot, and took a sketch of my 
 nose. I engaged rooms in Jermyn street, and sent her Majesty 
 the ninety -ninth edition of the " Nosology," with a portrait of the 
 proboscis. That sad little rake, the Prince of Wales, invited me 
 to dinner. 
 
 We were all lions and recherches. 
 
 There was a modern Platonist. He quoted Porphyry, lambli- 
 cus, Plotinus, Proclus, Hierocles, Maximus Tyrius, and Syria- 
 nus. 
 
 There was a human-perfectibility man. He quoted Turgot, 
 
LIONIZING. 61 
 
 Price, Priestly, Condorcet, De Stael, and the " Ambitious Student 
 in 111 Health." 
 
 There was Sir Positive Paradox. He observed that all fools 
 were philosophers, and that all philosophers were fools. 
 
 There was ^Estheticus Ethix. He spoke of fire, unity, and 
 atoms ; bi-part and pre-existent soul ; affinity and discord ; prim 
 itive intelligence and homoomeria. 
 
 There was Theologos Theology. He talked of Eusebius and 
 Arianus ; heresy and the Council of Nice ; Puseyism and con- 
 substantialism ; Homousios and Homouioisios. 
 
 There was Fricassee from the Rocher de Cancale. He men- 
 tioned Muriton of red tongue ; cauliflowers with veloute sauce ; 
 veal a la St. Menehoult ; marinade a la St. Florentin ; and 
 orange jellies en mosdiques. 
 
 There was Bibulus O'Bumper. He touched upon Latour and 
 Markbrunnen ; upon Mousseux and Chambertin ; upon Rich- 
 bourg and St. George ; upon Haubrion, Leonville, and Medoc ; 
 upon Barac and Preignac ; upon Grave, upon Sauterne, upon 
 Lafitte, and upon St. Peray. He shook his head at Clos de Vou- 
 geot, and told, with his eyes shut, the difference between Sherry 
 and Amontillado. 
 
 There was Signer Tintontintino from Florence. He discoursed 
 of Cimabue, Arpino, Carpaccio, and Argostino of the gloom of 
 Caravaggio, of the amenity of Albano, of the colors of Titian, of 
 the frows of Rubens, and of the waggeries of Jan Steen. 
 
 There was the President of the Fum-Fudge University. He 
 was of opinion that the moon was called Bendis in Thrace, Bil- 
 bastis in Egypt, Dian in Rome, and Artemis in Greece. 
 
 There was a Grand Turk from Stamboul. He could not help 
 thinking that the angels were horses, cocks, and bulls ; that some 
 body in the sixth heaven had seventy thousand heads ; and that 
 the earth was supported by a sky-blue cow with an incalculable 
 number of green horns. 
 
 There was Delphinus Polygldtt. He told us what had become 
 of the eighty-three lost tragedies of jEschylus ; of the fifty-four 
 orations of Isoeus ; 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 
 
62 FOE'S TALES. 
 
 hymns and dithyrambics ; and of the five and forty tragedies of 
 Homer Junior. 
 
 There was Ferdinand Fitz-Fossillus Feltspar. He informed 
 us all about internal fires and tertiary formations ; about aeri- 
 forms, fluidiforms, and solidiforms ; about quartz and marl ; 
 about schist and schorl ; about gypsum and trap ; about talc and 
 calc ; about blende and horn-blende ; about mica-slate and pud 
 ding-stone ; about cyanite and lepidolite ; about haematite and 
 tremolite ; about antimony and calcedony ; about manganese and 
 whatever you please. 
 
 There was myself. I spoke of myself; of myself, of myself, 
 of myself; of Nosology, of my pamphlet, and of myself. I 
 turned up my nose, and I spoke of myself. 
 
 " Marvellous clever man !" said the Prince. 
 
 " Superb !" said his guests : and next morning her Grace of 
 Bless-my-Soul paid me a visit. 
 
 " Will you go to Almack's, pretty creature ?" she said, tap 
 ping 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 twist 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 farther up. 
 
 " He is coming !" said somebody farther still. 
 
 " He is come !" exclaimed the Duchess. " He is come, the 
 little love !" and, seizing me firmly by both hands, she kissed 
 me thrice upon the nose. 
 
 A marked sensation immediately ensued. 
 
 " Diavolo /" cried Count Capricornutti. 
 
 " Dios guarda /" muttered Don Stiletto. 
 
 " Mille lonnerres /" ejaculated the Prince de Grenouille. 
 
LIONIZING. 63 
 
 " Tousand teufel !" growled the Elector of Bluddennuff. 
 
 It was not to be borne. I grew angry. I turned short upon 
 Bluddennuff. 
 
 " Sir !" said I to him, " you are a baboon." 
 
 " Sir," he replied, after a pause, " Donner und Blitzen /" 
 
 This was all that could be desired. We exchanged cards. 
 At Chalk-Farm, the next morning, I shot off his nose and then 
 called upon my friends. 
 
 " Bete /" said the first. 
 
 " Fool !" said the second. 
 
 " Dolt !" said the third. 
 
 " Ass !" said the fourth. 
 
 " Ninny !" said the fifth. 
 
 " Noodle !" said the sixth. 
 
 " Be off!" said the seventh. 
 
 At all this I felt mortified, and so called upon my father. 
 
 " Father," I asked, " what is the chief end of my existence ?" 
 
 " My son," he replied, " it is still the study of Nosology ; but 
 in hitting the Elector upon the nose you have overshot your mark. 
 You have a fine nose, it is true ; but then Bluddennuff has none. 
 You are damned, and he has become the hero of the day. I grant 
 you that in Fum-Fudge the greatness of a lion is in proportion to 
 the size of his proboscis but, good heavens ! there is no com 
 peting with a lion who has no proboscis at all." 
 
64 POE'S TALES. 
 
 THE FALL 
 
 OP 
 
 THE HOUSE OF USHER 
 
 Son coeur est un luth suspendu ; 
 Sitot qu'on le touche il rfesonne. 
 
 De Beranger. 
 
 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 win- 
 dows upon a few rank sedges and upon a few white trunks 
 of decayed treeswith 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 every 
 day life the 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 
 
THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER. 65 
 
 pondered. I was forced to fall back upon the unsatisfactory con 
 clusion, that while, beyond doubt, there are combinations of very 
 simple natural objects which have the power of thus affecting us, 
 still the analysis of this power lies among considerations beyond 
 our depth. It was possible, I reflected, that a mere different ar 
 rangement 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 nry\ 
 self 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 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 mental disorder 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 alle 
 viation 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 ac 
 cordingly obeyed forthwith what I still considered a very singu- 
 lar summons. 
 
 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 pecu 
 liar sensibility of temperament, displaying itself, through long 
 ages, in many works of exalted art, and manifested, of late, in 
 repeated deeds of munificent yet unobtrusive charity, as well as 
 in a passionate devotion to the intricacies, perhaps even more 
 than to the orthodox and easily recognisable beauties, of musical 
 
 6 
 
66 FOE'S TALES. 
 
 science. I had learned, too, the very remarkable fact, that the 
 stem of the Usher race, all time-honored as it was, had put 
 forth, at no period, any enduring branch ; in other words, that 
 the entire family lay in the direct line of descent, and had always, 
 with very trifling and very temporary variation, so lain. It was 
 this deficiency, I considered, while running over in thought the 
 perfect keeping of the character of the premises with the accred 
 ited character of the people, and while speculating upon the pos 
 sible influence which the one, in the long lapse of centuries, might 
 have exercised upon the other it was this deficiency, perhaps, 
 of collateral issue, and the consequent undeviating transmission, 
 from sire to son, of the patrimony with the name, which had, at 
 length, so identified the two as to merge the original title of the 
 estate in the quaint and equivocal appellation of the " House of 
 Usher" an appellation which seemed to include, in the minds 
 of the peasantry who used it, both the family and the family 
 mansion. 
 
 I have said that the sole effect of my somewhat childish ex 
 periment that of looking down within the tarn had been to 
 deepen the first singular impression. There can be no doubt 
 that the consciousness of the rapid increase of my superstition 
 for why should I not so term it ? served mainly to accelerate the 
 increase itself. Such, I have long known, is the paradoxical law 
 of all sentiments having terror as a basis. And it might have 
 been for this reason only, that, when I again uplifted my eyes to 
 the house itself, from its image in the pool, there grew in my 
 mind a strange fancy a fancy so ridiculous, indeed, that I but 
 mention it to show the vivid force of the sensations which op 
 pressed me. I had so worked upon my imagination as really to 
 believe that about the whole mansion and domain there hung an 
 atmosphere peculiar to themselves and their immediate vicinity 
 an atmosphere which had no affinity with the air of heaven, 
 but which had reeked up from the decayed trees, and the gray 
 wall, and the silent tarn a pestilent and mystic vapor, dull, slug 
 gish, faintly discernible, and leaden-hued. 
 
 Shaking off from my spirit what must have been a dream, I 
 scanned more narrowly the real aspect of the building. Its 
 principal feature seemed to be that of an excessive antiquity. 
 
THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER. 67 
 
 The discoloration of ages had been great. Minute fungi over- 
 spread the whole exterior, hanging in a fine tangled web- work 
 from the eaves. Yet all this was apart from any extraordinary 
 dilapidation. No portion of the masonry had fallen ; and there 
 appeared to be a wild inconsistency between its still perfect adap 
 tation of parts, and the crumbling condition of the individual 
 stones. In this there was much that reminded me of the specious 
 totality of old wood-work which has rotted for long years in some 
 neglected vault, with no disturbance from the breath of the ex 
 ternal air. Beyond this indication of extensive decay, however, 
 the fabric gave little token of instability. Perhaps the eye of a 
 scrutinizing observer might have discovered a barely perceptible 
 fissure, which, extending from the roof of the building in front, 
 made its way down the wall in a zigzag direction, until it became 
 lost in the sullen waters of the tarn. 
 
 Noticing these things, I rode over a short causeway to the 
 house. A servant in waiting took my horse, and I entered the 
 Gothic archway of the hall. A valet, of stealthy step, thence 
 conducted me, in silence, through many dark and intricate pas 
 sages in my progress to the studio of his master. Much that I 
 encountered on the way contributed, I know not how, to heighten 
 the vague sentiments of which I have already spoken. While 
 the objects around me while the carvings of the ceilings, the 
 sombre tapestries of the walls, the ebon blackness of the floors, 
 and the phantasmagoric armorial trophies which rattled as I 
 strode, were but matters to which, or to such as whiph, I had 
 been accustomed from my infancy while I hesitated not to ac 
 knowledge how familiar was all this I still wondered to find how 
 unfamiliar were the fancies which ordinary images were stirring 
 up. On one of the staircases, I met the physician of the family. 
 His countenance, I thought, wore a mingled expression of low 
 cunning and perplexity. He accosted me with trepidation and 
 passed on. The valet now threw open 3, door and ushered me 
 into the presence of his master. 
 
 The room in which \ found myself was very large and lofty. 
 The windows were long, narrow, and pointed, and at so vast a 
 distance from the black oaken floor as to be altogether inaccessi 
 ble from within. Feeble gleams of encrimsoned light made their 
 
POE'S TALES. 
 
 way through the trellissed panes, and served to render sufficiently 
 distinct the more prominent objects around ; the eye, however, 
 struggled in vain to reach the remoter angles of the chamber, or 
 the recesses of the vaulted and fretted ceiling. Dark draperies 
 hung upon the walls. The general furniture was profuse, com 
 fortless, antique, and tattered. Many books and musical instru 
 ments lay scattered about, but failed to give any vitality to the 
 scene. I felt that I breathed an atmosphere of sorrow. An air 
 of stern, deep, and irredeemable gloom hung over and pervaded 
 all. 
 
 Upon my entrance, Usher arose from a sofa on which he had 
 been lying at full length, and greeted me with a vivacious warmth 
 which had much in it, I at first thought, of an overdone cordiality 
 of the constrained effort of the ennuy'e man of the world. A 
 glance, however, at his countenance, convinced me of his perfect 
 sincerity. We sat down ; and for some moments, while he spoke 
 not, I gazed upon him with a feeling half of pity, half of awe. 
 Surely, man had never before so terribly altered, in so brief a 
 period, as had Roderick Usher ! It was with difficulty that I 
 could bring myself to admit the identity of the wan being before 
 me with the companion of my early boyhood. Yet the character 
 of his face had been at all times remarkable. A cadaverousness 
 of complexion; an eye large, liquid, and luminous beyond com 
 parison ; lips somewhat thin and Very pallid, but of a surpassingly 
 beautiful curve ; a nose of a delicate Hebrew model, but with a 
 breadth of nostril unusual in similar formations ; a finely moulded 
 chin, speaking, in its want of prominence, of a want of moral 
 energy ; hair of a more than web-like softness and tenuity ; these 
 features, with an inordinate expansion above the regions of the 
 temple, made up altogether a countenance not easily to be for 
 gotten. And now in the mere exaggeration of the prevailing char 
 acter of these features, and of the expression they were wont to 
 convey, lay so much of change that I doubted to whom I spoke. 
 The now ghastly pallor of the skin, and the now miraculous lus 
 tre of the eye, above all things startled and even awed me. The 
 silken hair, too, had been suffered to grow all unheeded, and as, 
 in its wild gossamer texture, it floated rather than fell about the 
 
THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER. 69 
 
 face, I could not, even with effort, connect its Arabesque expres 
 sion with any idea of simple humanity. 
 
 In the manner of my friend I was at once struck with an inco 
 herence an inconsistency ; and I soon found this to arise from a 
 series of feeble and futile struggles to overcome an habitual trepi- 
 dancy an excessive nervous agitation. For something of this 
 nature I had indeed been prepared, no less by his letter, than by 
 reminiscences of certain boyish traits, and by conclusions deduced 
 from his peculiar physical conformation and temperament. His 
 action was alternately vivacious and sullen. His voice varied 
 rapidly from a tremulous indecision (when the animal spirits 
 seemed utterly in abeyance) to that species of energetic concision 
 that abrupt, weighty, unhurried, and hollow-sounding enuncia 
 tion that leaden, self-balanced and perfectly modulated guttural 
 utterance, which may be observed in the lost drunkard, or the ir 
 reclaimable eater of opium, during the periods of his most intense 
 excitement. 
 
 It was thus that he spoke of the object of my visit, of his ear 
 nest desire to see me, and of the solace he expected me to afford 
 him. He entered, at some length, into what he conceived to be 
 the nature of his malady. It was, he said, a constitutional and a 
 family evil, and one for which he despaired to find a remedy a 
 mere nervous affection, he immediately added, which would un 
 doubtedly soon pass off. It displayed itself in a host of unnatural 
 sensations. Some of these, as he detailed them, interested and 
 bewildered me ; although, perhaps, the terms, and the general 
 manner of the narration had their weight. He suffered much 
 from a morbid acuteness of the senses ; the most insipid food was 
 alone endurable ; he could wear only garments of certain texture j 
 the odors of all flowers were oppressive ; his eyes were tortured 
 by even a faint light ; and there were but peculiar sounds, and 
 these from stringed instruments, which did not inspire him with 
 horror. 
 
 To an anomalous species of terror I found him a bounden 
 slave. " I shall perish," said he, " I must perish in this deplo 
 rable folly. Thus, thus, and not otherwise, shall I be lost. I 
 dread the events of the future, not in themselves, but in their re 
 sults. I shudder at the thought of any, even the most trivial, in- 
 
70 FOE'S TALES. 
 
 cident, which may operate upon this intolerable agitation of soul. 
 I have, indeed, no abhorrence of danger, except in its absolute ef 
 fect in terror. In this unnerved in this pitiable condition I 
 feel that the period will sooner or later arrive when I must aban 
 don life and reason together, in some struggle with the grim phan 
 tasm, FEAR." 
 
 I learned, moreover, at intervals, and through broken and 
 equivocal hints, another singular feature of his mental condition. 
 He was enchained by certain superstitious impressions in regard 
 to the dwelling which he tenanted, and whence, for many years, 
 he had never ventured forth in regard to an influence whose 
 supposititious force was conveyed in terms too shadowy here to 
 be re-stated an influence which some peculiarities in the mere 
 form and substance of his family mansion, had, by dint of long 
 sufferance, he said, obtained over his spirit an effect which the 
 physique of the gray walls and turrets, and of the dim tarn into 
 which they all looked down, had, at length, brought about upon 
 the morale of his existence. 
 
 He admitted, however, although with hesitation, that much of 
 the peculiar gloom which thus afflicted him could be traced to a 
 more natural and far more palpable origin to the severe and 
 long-continued illness indeed to the evidently approaching disso 
 lution of a tenderly beloved sister his sole companion for long 
 years his last and only relative on earth. " Her decease," he 
 said, with a bitterness which I can never forget, " would leave 
 him (him the hopeless and the frail) the last of the ancient race 
 of the Ushers." While he spoke, the lady Madeline (for so was 
 she called) passed slowly through a remote portion of the apart 
 ment, and, without having noticed my presence, disappeared. I 
 regarded her with an utter astonishment not unmingled with 
 dread and yet I found it impossible to account for such feelings. 
 A sensation of stupor oppressed me, as my eyes followed her re 
 treating steps. When a door, at length, closed upon her, my 
 glance sought instinctively and eagerly the countenance of the 
 brother but he had buried his face in his hands, and I could only 
 perceive that a far more than ordinary wanness had overspread 
 the emaciated fingers through which trickled many passionate 
 tears. 
 
THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER. 71 
 
 The disease of the lady Madeline had long baffled the skill of 
 her physicians. A settled apathy, a gradual wasting away of 
 the person, and frequent although transient affections of a par 
 tially cataleptical character, were the unusual diagnosis. Hither, 
 to she had steadily borne up against the pressure of her malady, 
 and had not betaken herself finally to bed ; but, on the closing in 
 of the evening of my arrival at the house, she succumbed (as her 
 brother told me at night with inexpressible agitation) to the pros 
 trating power of the destroyer ; and I learned that the glimpse I 
 had obtained of her person would thus probably be the last I 
 should obtain that the lady, at least while living, would be seen 
 by me no more. 
 
 For several days ensuing, her name was unmentioned by either 
 Usher or myself: and during this period I was busied in earnest 
 endeavors to alleviate the melancholy of my friend. We painted 
 and read together ; or I listened, as if in a dream, to the wild 
 improvisations of his speaking guitar. And thus, as a closer 
 and still closer intimacy admitted me more unreservedly into 
 the recesses of his spirit, the more bitterly did I perceive the 
 futility of all attempt at cheering a mind from which darkness, as 
 if an inherent positive quality, poured forth upon all objects 
 of the moral and physical universe, in one unceasing radiation 
 of gloom. 
 
 I shall ever bear about me a memory of the many solemn 
 hours I thus spent alone with the master of the House of Usher. 
 Yet I should fail in any attempt to convey an idea of the exact 
 character of the studies, or of the occupations, in which he in 
 volved me, or led me the way. An excited and highly dis 
 tempered ideality threw a sulphureous lustre over all. His long 
 improvised dirges will ring forever in my ears. Among other 
 things, I hold painfully in mind a certain singular perversion and 
 amplification of the wild air of the last waltz of Von Weber, 
 from the paintings over which his elaborate fancy brooded, and 
 which grew, touch by touch, into vaguenesses at which I shud 
 dered the more thrillingly, because I shuddered knowing not 
 why ; from these paintings (vivid as their images now are be 
 fore me) I would in vain endeavor to educe more than a small 
 portion which should lie within the compass of merely written 
 
72 FOE'S TALES. 
 
 words. By the utter simplicity, by the nakedness of his designs, 
 he arrested and overawed attention. If ever mortal painted an 
 idea, that mortal was Roderick Usher. For me at least in the 
 circumstances then surrounding me there arose out of the pure 
 abstractions which the hypochondriac contrived to throw upon 
 his canvass, an intensity of intolerable awe, no shadow of which 
 felt I ever yet in the contemplation of the certainly glowing yet 
 too concrete reveries of Fuseli. 
 
 One of the phantasmagoric conceptions of my friend, parta 
 king not so rigidly of the spirit of abstraction, may be shadowed 
 forth, although feebly, in words. A small picture presented the 
 interior of an immensely long and rectangular vault or tunnel, 
 with low walls, smooth, white, and without interruption or device. 
 Certain accessory points of the design served well to convey the 
 idea that this excavation lay at an exceeding depth below the sur 
 face of the earth. No outlet was observed in any portion of its 
 vast extent, and no torch, or other artificial source of light was 
 discernible ; yet a flood of intense rays rolled throughout, and 
 bathed the whole in a ghastly and inappropriate splendor. 
 
 I have just spoken of that morbid condition of the auditory 
 nerve which rendered all music intolerable to the sufferer, with 
 the exception of certain effects of stringed instruments. It was, 
 perhaps, the narrow limits to which he thus confined himself upon 
 the guitar, which gave birth, in great measure, to the fantastic 
 character of his performances. But the fervid facility of his im 
 promptus could not be so accounted for. They must have been, 
 and were, in the notes, as well as in the words of his wild fan 
 tasias (for he not unfrequently accompanied himself with rhym 
 ed verbal improvisations), the result of that intense mental col- 
 lectedness and concentration to which I have previously alluded 
 as observable only in particular moments of the highest artificial 
 excitement. The words of one of these rhapsodies I have easily 
 remembered. I was, perhaps, the more forcibly impressed with 
 it, as he gave it, because, in the under or mystic current of its 
 meaning, I fancied that I perceived, and for the first time, a full 
 consciousness on the part of Usher, of the tottering of his lofty 
 reason upon her throne. The verses, which were entitled " The 
 Haunted Palace," ran very nearly, if not accurately, thus: 
 
THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER. 73 
 
 I. 
 
 In the greenest of our valleys, 
 
 By good angels tenanted, 
 Once a fair and stately palace 
 
 Radiant palace reared its head. 
 In the monarch Thought's dominion 
 
 It stood there! 
 Never seraph spread a pinion 
 
 Over fabric half so fair. 
 
 II. 
 
 Banners yellow, glorious, golden, 
 
 On its roof did float and flow ; 
 (This all this was in the olden 
 
 Time long ago) 
 And every gentle air that dallied, 
 
 In that sweet day, 
 Along the ramparts plumed and pallid, 
 
 A winged odor went away. 
 
 III. 
 
 Wanderers in that happy valley 
 
 Through two luminous windows saw 
 Spirits moving musically 
 
 To a lute's well-tune'd law, 
 Round about a throne, where sitting 
 
 (Porphyrogene !) 
 In state his glory well befitting, 
 
 The ruler of the realm was seen. 
 
 IV. 
 
 And all with pearl and ruby glowing 
 
 Was the fair palace door, 
 Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing, 
 
 And sparkling evermore, 
 A troop of Echoes whose sweet duty 
 
 Was but to sing, 
 In voices of surpassing beauty, 
 
 The wit and wisdom of their king. 
 
 V. 
 
 But evil things, in robes of sorrow, 
 
 Assailed the monarch's high estate ; 
 (Ah, let us mourn, for never morrow 
 
 Shall dawn upon him, desolate !) 
 
74 POE'S TALES. 
 
 And, round about his home, the glory 
 
 That blushed and bloomed 
 Is but a dim-remembered story 
 
 Of the old time entombed. 
 
 VI. 
 
 And travellers now within that valley, 
 
 Through the red-litten windows, see 
 Vast forms that move fantastically 
 
 To a discordant melody ; 
 While, like a rapid ghastly river, 
 
 Through the pale door, 
 A hideous throng rush out forever, 
 
 And laugh but smile no more. 
 
 I well remember that suggestions arising from this ballad, led 
 us into a train of thought wherein there became manifest an 
 opinion of Usher's which I mention not so much on account of its 
 novelty, (for other men* have thought thus,) as on account of the 
 pertinacity with which he maintained it. This opinion, in its 
 general form, was that of the sentience of all vegetable things. 
 But, in his disordered fancy, the idea had assumed a more daring 
 character, and trespassed, under certain conditions, upon the 
 kingdom of inorganization. I lack words to express the full ex 
 tent, or the earnest abandon of his persuasion. The belief, how. 
 ever, was connected (as I have previously hinted) with the gray 
 stones of the home of his forefathers. The conditions of the sen 
 tience had been here, he imagined, fulfilled in the method of col 
 location of these stones in the order of their arrangement, as 
 well as in that of the many fungi which overspread them, and of 
 the decayed trees which stood around above all, in the long un 
 disturbed endurance of this arrangement, and in its reduplication 
 in the still waters of the tarn. Its evidence the evidence of the 
 sentience was to be seen, he said, (and I here started as he 
 spoke,) in the gradual yet certain condensation of an atmosphere 
 of their own about the waters and the walls. The result was 
 discoverable, he added, in that silent, yet importunate and terri 
 ble influence which for centuries had moulded the destinies of his 
 
 * Watson, Dr. Percival, Spallanzani, and especially the Bishop of Landaff. 
 See " Chemical Essays," vol v. 
 
THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER. 75 
 
 family, and which made him what I now saw him what he was. 
 Such opinions need no comment, and I will make none. 
 
 Our books the books which, for years, had formed no small 
 portion of the mental existence of the invalid were, as might be 
 supposed, in strict keeping with this character of phantasm. We 
 pored together over such works as the Ververt et Chartreuse of 
 Gresset ; the Belphegor of Machiavelli ; the Heaven and Hell of 
 Swedenborg ; the Subterranean Voyage of Nicholas Klimm by 
 Holberg the Chiromancy of Robert Flud, of Jean D'lndagine, 
 and of De la Chambre ; the Journey into the Blue Distance of 
 Tieck ; and the City of the Sun of Campanella. One favorite 
 volume was a small octavo edition of the Directorium Inquisito- 
 rium, by the Dominican Eymeric de Gironne ; and there were 
 passages in Pomponius Mela, about the old African Satyrs and 
 (Egipans, over which Usher would sit dreaming for hours. His 
 chief delight, however, was found in the perusal of an exceed 
 ingly rare and curious book in quarto Gothic the manual of a 
 forgotten church the Vigiliae Mortuorum secundum Chorum Ec- 
 clesiae Maguntinae. 
 
 I could not help thinking of the wild ritual of this work, and of 
 its probable influence upon the hypochondriac, when, one even 
 ing, having informed me abruptly that the lady Madeline was no 
 more, he stated his intention of preserving her corpse for a fort 
 night, (previously to its final interment,) in one of the numerous 
 vaults within the main walls of the building. The worldly rea 
 son, however, assigned for this singular proceeding, was one 
 which I did not feel at liberty to dispute. The brother had been 
 led to his resolution (so he told me) by consideration of the unusual 
 character of the malady of the deceased, of certain obtrusive and 
 eager inquiries on the part of her medical men, and of the remote 
 and exposed situation of the burial-ground of the family. I will 
 not deny that when I called to mind the sinister countenance of 
 the person whom I met upon the staircase, on the day of my arri 
 val at the house, I had no desire to oppose what I regarded as at 
 best but a harmless, and by no means an unnatural, precaution. 
 
 At the request of Usher, I personally aided him in the arrange 
 ments for the temporary entombment. The body having been 
 encoffined, we two alone bore it to its rest. The vault in which 
 
76 FOE'S TALES. 
 
 we placed it (and which had been so long unopened that our 
 torches, half smothered in its oppressive atmosphere, gave us lit 
 tle opportunity for investigation) was small, damp, and entirely 
 without means of admission for light ; lying, at great depth, im 
 mediately beneath that portion of the building in which was my 
 own sleeping apartment. It had been used, apparently, in remote 
 feudal times, for the worst purposes of a donjon-keep, and, in 
 later days, as a place of deposit for powder, or some other highly 
 combustible substance, as a portion of its floor, and the whole 
 interior of a long archway through which we reached it, were 
 carefully sheathed with copper. The door, of massive iron, had 
 been, also, similarly protected. Its immense weight caused an 
 unusually sharp grating sound, as it moved upon its hinges. 
 
 Having deposited our mournful burden upon tressels within this 
 region of horror, we partially turned aside the yet unscrewed lid 
 of the coffin, and looked upon the face of the tenant. A striking 
 similitude between the brother and sister now first arrested my 
 attention ; and Usher, divining, perhaps, my thoughts, murmured 
 out some few words from which I learned that the deceased and 
 himself had been twins, and that sympathies of a scarcely intelli 
 gible nature had always existed between them. Our glances, 
 however, rested not long upon the dead for we could not regard 
 her unawed. The disease which had thus entombed the lady in 
 the maturity of youth, had left, as usual in all maladies of a 
 strictly cataleptical character, the mockery of a faint blush upon 
 the bosom and the face, and that suspiciously lingering smile upon 
 the lip which is so terrible in death. We replaced and screwed 
 down the lid, and, having secured the door of iron, made our w~ay, 
 with toil, into the scarcely less gloomy apartments of the upper 
 portion of the house. 
 
 And now, some days of bitter grief having elapsed, an observa- 
 ble change came over the features of the mental disorder of my 
 friend. His ordinary manner had vanished. His ordinary occu 
 pations were neglected or forgotten. He roamed from chamber 
 to chamber with hurried, unequal, and objectless step. The pal 
 lor of his countenance had assumed, if possible, a more ghastly 
 hue but the luminousness of his eye had utterly gone out. The 
 once occasional huskiness of his tone was heard no more ; and a 
 
THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER. 77 
 
 tremulous quaver, as if of extreme terror, habitually character, 
 ized his utterance. There were times, indeed, when I thought 
 his unceasingly agitated mind was laboring with some oppressive 
 secret, to divulge which he struggled for the necessary courage. 
 At times, again, I was obliged to resolve all into the mere inex 
 plicable vagaries of madness, for I beheld him gazing upon va 
 cancy for long hours, in an attitude of the profoundest attention, 
 as if listening to some imaginary sound. It was no wonder that 
 his condition terrified that it infected me. I felt creeping upon 
 me, by slow yet certain degrees, the wild influences of his own 
 fantastic yet impressive superstitions. 
 
 It was, especially, upon retiring to bed late in the night of the 
 seventh or eighth day after the placing of the lady Madeline with 
 in the donjon, that I experienced the full power of such feelings. 
 Sleep came not near my couch while the hours waned and 
 waned away. I struggled to reason off the nervousness which 
 had dominion over me. I endeavored to believe that much, if not 
 all of what I felt, was due to the bewildering influence of the 
 gloomy furniture of the room of the dark and tattered draperies, 
 which, tortured into motion by the breath of a rising tempest, 
 swayed fitfully to and fro upon the walls, and rustled uneasily 
 about the decorations of the bed. But my efforts were fruitless. 
 An irrepressible tremor gradually pervaded my frame ; and, at 
 length, there sat upon my very heart an incubus of utterly cause 
 less alarm. Shaking this off with a gasp and a struggle, I up 
 lifted myself upon the pillows, and, peering earnestly within the 
 intense darkness of the chamber, barkened I know not why> 
 except that an instinctive spirit prompted me to certain low and 
 indefinite sounds which came, through the pauses of the storm, at 
 long intervals, I knew not whence. Overpowered by an intense 
 sentiment of horror, unaccountable yet unendurable, I threw on 
 my clothes with haste (for I felt that I should sleep no more du 
 ring the night), and endeavored to arouse myself from the pitiable 
 condition into which I had fallen, by pacing rapidly to and fro 
 through the apartment. 
 
 I had taken but few turns in this manner, when a light step on 
 an adjoining staircase arrested my attention. I presently recog 
 nised it as that of Usher. In an instant afterward he rapped, 
 
78 POE'S TALES. 
 
 with a gentle touch, at my door, and entered, bearing a lamp. 
 His countenance was, as usual, cadaverously wan but, more 
 over, there was a species of mad hilarity in his eyes an evidently 
 restrained hysteria in his whole demeanor. His air appalled me 
 but anything was preferable to the solitude which I had so long 
 endured, and I even welcomed his presence as a relief. 
 
 " And you have not seen it ?" he said abruptly, after having 
 stared about him for some moments in silence " you have not 
 then seen it ? but, stay ! you shall." Thus speaking, and hav 
 ing carefully shaded his lamp, he hurried to one of the case 
 ments, and threw it freely open to the storm. 
 
 The impetuous fury of the entering gust nearly lifted us from 
 our feet. It was, indeed, a tempestuous yet sternly beautiful 
 night, and one wildly singular in its terror and its beauty. A 
 whirlwind had apparently collected its force in our vicinity ; for 
 there were frequent and violent alterations in the direction of the 
 wind ; and the exceeding density of the clouds (which hung so 
 low as to press upon the turrets of the house) did not prevent our 
 perceiving the life-like velocity with which they flew careering 
 from all points against each other, without passing away into the 
 distance. I say that even their exceeding density did not prevent 
 our perceiving this yet we had no glimpse of the moon or stars 
 nor was there any flashing forth of the lightning. But the un 
 der surfaces of the huge masses of agitated vapor, as well as all 
 terrestrial objects immediately around us, were glowing in the 
 unnatural light of a faintly luminous and distinctly visible gaseous 
 exhalation which hung about and enshrouded the mansion. 
 
 " You must not you shall not behold this !" said I, shudder- 
 ingly, to Usher, as I led him, with a gentle violence, from the 
 window to a seat. " These appearances, which bewilder you, 
 are merely electrical phenomena not uncommon or it may be 
 that they have their ghastly origin in the rank miasma of the tarn, 
 Let us close this casement ; the air is chilling and dangerous to 
 your frame. Here is one of your favorite romances. I will read, 
 and you shall listen ; and so we will pass away this terrible 
 night together." 
 
 The antique volume which I had taken up was the "Mad 
 Trist" of Sir Launcelot Canning ; but I had called it a favorite 
 
THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER. 79 
 
 of Usher's more in sad jest than in earnest ; for, in truth, there is 
 little in its uncouth and unimaginative prolixity which could have 
 had interest for the lofty and spiritual ideality of my friend. It 
 was, however, the only book immediately at hand ; and I in 
 dulged a vague hope that the excitement which now agitated the 
 hypochondriac, might find relief (for the history of mental disor 
 der is full of similar anomalies) even in the extremeness of the 
 folly which I should read. Could I have judged, indeed, by the 
 wild overstrained air of vivacity with which he harkened, or ap 
 parently harkened, to the words of the tale, I might well have 
 congratulated myself upon the success of my design. 
 
 I had arrived at that well-known portion of the story where 
 Ethelred, the hero of the Trist, having sought in vain for peacea 
 ble admission into the dwelling of the hermit, proceeds to make 
 good an entrance by force. Here, it will be remembered, the 
 words of the narrative run thus : 
 
 " And Ethelred, who was by nature of a doughty heart, and 
 who was now mighty withal, on account of the powerfulness of 
 the wine which he had drunken, waited no longer to hold parley 
 with the hermit, who, in sooth, was of an obstinate and maliceful 
 turn, but, feeling the rain upon his shoulders, and fearing the ri 
 sing of the tempest, uplifted his mace outright, and, with blows, 
 made quickly room in the plankings of the door for his gauntleted 
 hand ; and now pulling therewith sturdily, he so cracked, and 
 ripped, and tore all asunder, that the noise of the dry and hollow- 
 sounding wood alarummed and reverberated throughout the for 
 est." 
 
 At the termination of this sentence I started, and for a moment, 
 paused ; for it appeared to me (although I at once concluded that 
 my excited fancy had deceived me) it appeared to me that, from 
 some very remote portion of the mansion, there came, indistinct 
 ly, to my ears, what might have been, in its exact similarity of 
 character, the echo (but a stifled and dull one certainly) of the 
 V3ry cracking and ripping sound which Sir Launcelot had so 
 particularly described. It was, beyond doubt, the coincidence 
 alone which had arrested my attention ; for, amid the rattling of 
 the sashes of the casements, and the ordinary commingled noises 
 of the still increasing storm, the sound, in itself, had nothing, 
 
80 POE'S TALES. 
 
 surely, which should have interested or disturbed me. I con- 
 tinued the story : 
 
 " But the good champion Ethelred, now entering within the 
 door, was sore enraged and amazed to perceive no signal of the 
 maliceful hermit ; but, in the stead thereof, a dragon of a scaly 
 and prodigious demeanor, and of a fiery tongue, which sate in 
 guard before a palace of gold, with a floor of silver ; and upon 
 the wall there hung a shield of shining brass with this legend en- 
 written 
 
 Who entereth herein, a conqueror hath bin ; 
 Who slayeth the dragon, the shield he shall win ; 
 
 And Ethelred uplifted his mace, and struck upon the head of the 
 dragon, which fell before him, and gave up his pesty breath, with 
 a shriek so horrid and harsh, and withal so piercing, that Ethel- 
 red had fain to close his ears with his hands against the dread 
 ful noise of it, the like whereof was never before heard." 
 
 Here again I paused abruptly, and now with a feeling of wild 
 amazement for there could be no doubt whatever that, in this 
 instance, I did actually hear (although from what direction it 
 proceeded I found it impossible to say) a low and apparently dis 
 tant, but harsh, protracted, and most unusual screaming or gra 
 ting sound the exact counterpart of what my fancy had already 
 conjured up for the dragon's unnatural shriek as described by the 
 romancer. 
 
 Oppressed, as I certainly was, upon the occurrence of this 
 second and most extraordinary coincidence, by a thousand con 
 flicting sensations, in which wonder and extreme terror were pre 
 dominant, I still retained sufficient presence of mind to avoid ex 
 citing, by any observation, the sensitive nervousness of my com. 
 panion. I was by no means certain that he had noticed the 
 sounds in question ; although, assuredly, a strange alteration had, 
 during the last few minutes, taken place in his demeanor. From 
 a position fronting my own, he had gradually brought round his 
 chair, so as to sit with his face to the door of the chamber ; and 
 thus I could but partially perceive his features, although I saw 
 that his lips trembled as if he were murmuring inaudibly. His 
 head had dropped upon his breast yet I knew that he was not 
 
THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER. 81 
 
 asleep, from the wide and rigid opening of the eye as I caught a 
 glance of it in profile. The motion of his body, too, was at 
 variance with this idea for he rocked from side to side with a 
 gentle yet constant and uniform sway. Having rapidly taken 
 notice of all this, I resumed the narrative of Sir Launcelot, 
 which thus proceeded : 
 
 "And now, the champion, having escaped from the terrible 
 fury of the dragon, bethinking himself of the brazen shield, and 
 of the breaking up of the enchantment which was upon it, re 
 moved the carcass from out of the way before him, and ap 
 proached valorously over the silver pavement of the castle to 
 where the shield was upon the wall ; which in sooth tarried not 
 for his full coming, but fell down at his feet upon the silver floor, 
 with a mighty great and terrible ringing sound." 
 
 No sooner had these syllables passed my lips, than as if a 
 shield of brass had indeed, at the moment, fallen heavily upon a 
 floor of silver I became aware of a distinct, hollow, metallic, 
 and clangorous, yet apparently muffled reverberation. Com 
 pletely unnerved, I leaped to my feet ; but the measured rocking 
 movement of Usher was undisturbed. I rushed to the chair in 
 which he sat. His eyes were bent fixedly before him, and 
 throughout his whole countenance there reigned a stony rigid 
 ity. But, as I placed my hand upon his shoulder, there came a 
 strong shudder over his whole person ; a sickly smile quivered 
 about his lips ; and I saw that he spoke in a low, hurried, and 
 gibbering murmur, as if unconscious of my presence. Bending 
 closely over him, I at length drank in the hideous import of his 
 words. 
 
 " Not hear it ? yes, I hear it, and have heard it. Long 
 long long many minutes, many hours, many days, have I 
 heard it yet I dared not oh, pity me, miserable wretch that I 
 am ! I dared not I dared not speak ! We have put her living 
 in the tomb ! Said I not that my senses were acute ? I now tell 
 you that I heard her first feeble movements in the hollow coffin. 
 I heard them many, many days ago yet I dared not / dared 
 not speak f And now to-night Ethelred ha ! ha ! the break 
 ing of the hermit's door, and the death-cry of the dragon, and 
 the clangor of the shield ! say, rather, the rending of her coffin, 
 
 7 
 
82 POE'S TALES. 
 
 and the grating of the iron hinges of her prison, and her strug 
 gles within the coppered archway of the vault ! Oh whither shall I 
 fly ? Will she not be here anon ? Is she not hurrying to upbraid 
 me for my haste ? Have I not heard her footstep on the stair 1 
 Do I not distinguish that heavy and horrible beating of her heart ? 
 Madman !" here he sprang furiously to his feet, and shrieked 
 out his syllables, as if in the effort he were giving up his soul 
 " Madman I I tell you that she now stands without the door /" 
 
 As if in the superhuman energy of his utterance there had 
 been found the potency of a spell the huge antique pannels to 
 which the speaker pointed, threw slowly back, upon the instant, 
 their ponderous and ebony jaws. It was the work of the rushing 
 gust but then without those doors there did stand the lofty and 
 enshrouded figure of the lady Madeline of Usher. There was 
 blood upon her white robes, and the evidence of some bitter strug. 
 gle upon every portion of her emaciated frame. For a moment 
 she remained trembling and reeling to and fro upon the threshold 
 then, with a low moaning cry, fell heavily inward upon the 
 person of her brother, and in her violent and now final death-ago 
 nies, bore him to the floor a corpse, and a victim to the terrors he 
 had anticipated. 
 
 From that chamber, and from that mansion, I fled aghast. The 
 storm was still abroad in all its wrath as I found myself crossing 
 the old causeway. Suddenly there shot along the path a wild 
 light, and I turned to see whence a gleam so unusual could have 
 issued ; for the vast house and its shadows were alone behind me. 
 The radiance was that of the full, setting, and blood-red moon, 
 which now shone vividly through that once barely-discernible fis 
 sure, of which I have before spoken as extending from the roof of 
 the building, in a zigzag direction, to the base. While I gazed, this 
 fissure rapidly widened there came a fierce breath of the whirl 
 wind the entire orb of the satellite burst at once upon my sight 
 my brain reeled as I saw the mighty walls rushing asunder 
 there was a long tumultuous shouting sound like the voice of a 
 thousand waters and the deep and dank tarn at my feet closed 
 sullenly and silently over the fragments of the " House of Usher." 
 
A DESCENT INTO THE MAELSTROM. 
 
 A DESCENT INTO THE MAELSTROM 
 
 The ways of God in Nature, as in Providence, are not as our ways ; nor 
 are the models that we frame any way commensurate to the vastness, profun 
 dity, and unsearchableness of His works, which have a depth in them greater 
 than the well of Democritus. 
 
 Joseph Glanville. 
 
 WE had now reached the summit of the loftiest crag. For 
 some minutes the old man seemed too much exhausted to speak. 
 
 " Not long ago," said he at length, " and I could have guided 
 you on this route as well as the youngest of my sons ; but, about 
 three years past, there happened to me an event such as never 
 happened before to mortal man or at least such as no man ever 
 survived to tell of and the six hours of deadly terror which I 
 then endured have broken me up body and soul. You suppose me 
 a very old man but I am not. It took less than a single day to 
 change these hairs from a jetty black to white, to weaken my 
 limbs, and to unstring my nerves, so that I tremble at the least 
 exertion, and am frightened at a shadow. Do you know I can 
 scarcely look over this little cliff without getting giddy ?" 
 
 The " little cliff," upon whose edge he had so carelessly thrown 
 himself down to rest that the weightier portion of his body hung 
 over it, while he was only kept from falling by the tenure of his 
 elbow on its extreme and slippery edge this " little cliff" arose, 
 a sheer unobstructed precipice of black shining rock, some fifteen 
 or sixteen hundred feet from the world of crags beneath us. No 
 thing would have tempted me to within half a dozen yards of its 
 brink. In truth so deeply was I excited by the perilous position 
 of my companion, that I fell at full length upon the ground, clung 
 
84 POE'S TALES. 
 
 to the shrubs around me, and dared not even glance upward at 
 the sky while I struggled in vain to divest myself of the idea 
 that the very foundations of the mountain were in danger from 
 the fury of the winds. It was long before I could reason myself 
 into sufficient courage to sit up and look out into the distance. 
 
 " You must get over these fancies," said the guide, " for I 
 have brought you here that you might have the best possible view 
 of the scene of that event I mentioned and to tell you the whole 
 story with the spot just under your eye." 
 
 " We are now," he continued, in that particularizing manner 
 which distinguished him " we are now close upon the Nor 
 wegian coast in the sixty-eighth degree of latitude in the great 
 province of Nordland and in the dreary district of Lofoden. 
 The mountain upon whose top we sit is Helseggen, the Cloudy. 
 Now raise yourself up a little higher hold on to the grass if you 
 feel giddy so and look out, beyond the belt of vapor beneath 
 us, into the sea." 
 
 I looked dizzily, and beheld a wide expanse of ocean, whose 
 waters wore so inky a hue as to bring at once to my mind the 
 Nubian geographer's account of the Mare Tenelrarum. A pan 
 orama more deplorably desolate no human imagination can con 
 ceive. To the right and left, as far as the eye could reach, there 
 lay outstretched, like ramparts of the world, lines of horridly 
 black and beetling cliff, whose character of gloom was but the 
 more forcibly illustrated by the surf which reared high up 
 against it its white and ghastly crest, howling and shrieking for 
 ever. Just opposite the promontory upon whose apex we were 
 placed, and at a distance of some five or six miles out at sea, 
 there was visible a small, bleak-looking island ; or, more proper 
 ly, its position was discernible through the wilderness of surge in 
 which it was enveloped. About two miles nearer the land, arose 
 another of smaller size, hideously craggy and barren, and en 
 compassed at various intervals by a cluster of dark rocks. 
 
 The appearance of the ocean, in the space between the more 
 distant island and the shore, had something very unusual about it. 
 Although, at the time, so strong a gale was blowing landward that 
 a brig in the remote offing lay to under a double-reefed trysail, 
 and constantly plunged her whole hull out of sight, still there was 
 
A DESCENT INTO THE MAELSTROM. 85 
 
 here nothing like a regular swell, but only a short, quick, angry 
 cross dashing of water in every directiqn-^as well in the teeth 
 of the wind as otherwise* Of foam there was little except in the 
 immediate vicinity of the rocks. 
 
 " The island in the distance," resumed the old man, " is called 
 by the Norwegians Vurrgh. The one midway is Moskoe, That 
 a mile to the northward is Ambaaren. Yonder are Islesen, Ho- 
 tholm, Keildhelm, Suarven, and Buckholm. Farther off between 
 Moskoe and Vurrgh are Otterholm, Flimen, Sandflesen, and 
 Stockholm. These are the true names of the places but why 
 it has been thought necessary to name them at all, is more than 
 either you or I can understand. Do you hear any thing ? Do 
 you see any change in the water ?" 
 
 We had now been about ten minutes upon the top of Helseg- 
 gen, to which we had ascended from the interior of Lofoden, so 
 that we had caught no glimpse of the sea until it had burst upon 
 us from the summit. As the old man spoke, I became aware of 
 a loud and gradually increasing sound, like the moaning of a vast 
 herd of buffaloes upon an American prairie ; and at the same mo 
 ment I perceived that what seamen term the chopping character 
 of the ocean beneath us, was rapidly changing into a current 
 which set to the eastward. Even while I gazed, this current ac 
 quired a monstrous velocity. Each moment added to its speed 
 to its headlong impetuosity. In five minutes the whole sea, as 
 far as Vurrgh, was lashed into ungovernable fury ; but it was 
 between Moskoe and the coast that the main uproar held its sway. 
 Here the vast bed of the waters, seamed and scarred into a thou 
 sand conflicting channels, burst suddenly into phrensied convul 
 sion heaving, boiling, hissing gyrating in gigantic and innu 
 merable vortices, and all whirling and plunging on to the east 
 ward with a rapidity which water never elsewhere assumes ex 
 cept in precipitous descents. 
 
 In a few minutes more, there came over the scene another 
 radical alteration. The general surface grew somewhat more 
 smooth, and the whirlpools, one by one, disappeared, while pro 
 digious streaks of foam became apparent where none had been 
 seen before. These streaks, at length, spreading out to a great 
 distance, and entering into combination, took unto themselves the 
 
86 POE'S TALES. 
 
 gyratory motion of the subsided vortices, and seemed to form the 
 germ of another more vast. Suddenly very suddenly this as 
 sumed a distinct and definite existence, in a circle of more than 
 a mile in diameter. The edge of the whirl was represented by a 
 broad belt of gleaming spray ; but no particle of this slipped into 
 the mouth of the terrific funnel, whose interior, as far as the eye 
 could fathom it, was a smooth, shining, and jet-black wall of wa 
 ter, inclined to the horizon at an angle of some forty-five degrees, 
 speeding dizzily round and round with a swaying and sweltering 
 motion, and sending forth to the winds an appalling voice, half 
 shriek, half roar, such as not even the mighty cataract of Niagara 
 ever lifts up in its agony to Heaven. 
 
 The mountain trembled to its very base, and the rock rocked. 
 I threw myself upon my face, and clung to the scant herbage in 
 an excess of nervous agitation. 
 
 " This," said I at length, to the old man " this can be nothing 
 else than the great whirlpool of the Maelstrom." 
 
 " So it is sometimes termed," said he. " We Norwegians call 
 it the Moskoe-strom, from the island of Moskoe in the midway." 
 
 The ordinary accounts of this vortex had by no means prepared 
 me for what I saw. That of Jonas Ramus, which is perhaps the 
 most circumstantial of any, cannot impart the faintest conception 
 either of the magnificence, or of the horror of the scene or of 
 the wild bewildering sense of the novel which confounds the be 
 holder. I am not sure from what point of view the writer in 
 question surveyed it, nor at what time ; but it could neither have 
 been from the summit of Helseggen, nor during a storm. There 
 are some passages of his description, nevertheless, which may be 
 quoted for their details, although their effect is exceedingly feeble 
 in conveying an impression of the spectacle. 
 
 " Between Lofoden and Moskoe," he says, " the depth of the wa 
 ter is between thirty-six and forty fathoms ; but on the other side, 
 toward Ver (Vurrgh) this depth decreases so as not to afford a 
 convenient passage for a vessel, without the risk of splitting on 
 the rocks, which happens even in the calmest weather. When it 
 is flood, the stream runs up the country between Lofoden and 
 Moskoe with a boisterous rapidity ; but the roar of its impetuous 
 ebb to the sea is scarce equalled by the loudest and most dreadful 
 
A DESCENT INTO THE MAELSTROM. 87 
 
 cataracts ; the noise being heard several leagues off, and the vor 
 tices or pits are of such an extent and depth, that if a ship comes 
 within its attraction, it is inevitably absorbed and carried down to 
 the bottom, and there beat to pieces against the rocks ; and when 
 the water relaxes, the fragments thereof are thrown up again. 
 But these intervals of tranquillity are only at the turn of the ebb 
 and flood, and in calm weather, and last but a quarter of an hour, 
 its violence gradually returning. When the stream is most 
 boisterous, and its fury heightened by a storm, it is dangerous to 
 come within a Norway mile of it. Boats, yachts, and ships have 
 been carried away by not guarding against it before they were 
 within its rea*h. It likewise happens frequently, that whales 
 come too near the stream, and are overpowered by its violence ; 
 and then it is impossible to describe their bowlings and bellowings 
 in their fruitless struggles to disengage themselves. A bear 
 once, attempting to swim from Lofoden to Moskoe, was caught by 
 the stream and borne down, while he roared terribly, so as to 
 be heard on shore. Large stocks of firs and pine trees, after 
 being absorbed by the current, rise again broken and torn to such 
 a degree as if bristles grew upon them. This plainly shows the 
 bottom to consist of craggy rocks, among which they are whirled 
 to and fro. This stream is regulated by the flux and reflux of 
 the sea it being constantly high and low water every six hours. 
 In the year 1645, early in the morning of Sexagesima Sunday, 
 it raged with such noise and impetuosity that the very stones of 
 the houses on the coast fell to the ground." 
 
 In regard to the depth of the water, I could not see how this 
 could have been ascertained at all in the immediate vicinity of 
 the vortex. The " forty fathoms" must have reference only to 
 portions of the channel close upon the shore either of Moskoe or 
 Lofoden. The depth in the centre of the Moskoe-strom must be 
 immeasurably greater ; and no better proof of this fact is ne 
 cessary than can be obtained from even the sidelong glance into 
 the abyss of the whirl which may be had from the highest crag 
 of Helseggen. Looking down from this pinnacle upon the howl 
 ing Phlegethon below, I could not help smiling at the simplicity 
 with which the honest Jonas Ramus records, as a matter difficult 
 of belief, the anecdotes of the whales and the bears ; for it ap- 
 
FOE'S TALES. 
 
 peared to me, in fact, a self-evident thing, that the largest ship of 
 the line in existence, coming within the influence of that deadly 
 attraction, could resist it as little as a feather the hurricane, and 
 must disappear bodily and at once. 
 
 The attempts to account for the phenomenon some of which, I 
 remember, seemed to me sufficiently plausible in perusal now 
 wore a very different and unsatisfactory aspect. The idea gen 
 erally received is that this, as well as three smaller vortices 
 among the Ferroe islands, " have no other cause than the collision 
 of waves rising and falling, at flux and reflux, against a ridge of 
 rocks and shelves, which confines the water so that it precipitates 
 itself like a cataract ; and thus the higher the flood rises, the 
 deeper must the fall be, and the natural result of all is a whirl 
 pool or vortex, the prodigious suction of which is sufficiently 
 known by lesser experiments." These are the words of the En 
 cyclopaedia Britannica. Kircher and others imagine that in the 
 centre of the channel of the Maelstrom is an abyss penetrating 
 the globe, and issuing in some very remote part the Gulf of 
 Bothnia being somewhat decidedly named in one instance. This 
 opinion, idle in itself, was the one to which, as I gazed, my ima 
 gination most readily assented ; and, mentioning it to the guide, 
 I was rather surprised to hear him say that, although it was the 
 view almost universally entertained of the subject by the Nor 
 wegians, it nevertheless was not his own. As to the former no 
 tion he confessed his inability to comprehend it ; and here I agreed 
 with him for, however conclusive on paper, it becomes altogether 
 unintelligible, and even absurd, amid the thunder of the abyss. 
 
 " You have had a good look at the whirl now," said the old 
 man, " and if you will creep round this crag, so as to get in its 
 lee, and deaden the roar of the water, I will tell you a story that 
 will convince you I ought to know something of the Moskoe- 
 strOm." 
 
 I placed myself as desired, and he proceeded. 
 
 " Myself and my two brothers once owned a schooner-rigged 
 smack of about seventy tons burthen, with which we were in the 
 habit of fishing among the islands beyond Moskoe, nearly to 
 Vurrgh. In all violent eddies at sea there is good fishing, at 
 proper opportunities, if one has only the courage to attempt it j 
 
A DESCENT INTO THE MAELSTROM. 89 
 
 but among the whole of the Lofoden coastmen, we three were the 
 only ones who made a regular business of going out to the is 
 lands, as I tell you. The usual grounds are a great way lower 
 down to the .southward. There fish can be got at all hours, 
 without much risk, and therefore these places are preferred. 
 The choice spots over here among the rocks, however, not only 
 yield the finest variety, but in far greater abundance ; so that we 
 often got in a single day, what the more timid of the craft could 
 not scrape together in a week. In fact, we made it a matter of 
 desperate speculation the risk of life standing instead of labor, 
 and courage answering for capital. 
 
 " We kept the smack in a cove about five miles higher up the 
 coast than this ; and it was our practice, in fine weather, to take 
 advantage of the fifteen minutes' slack to push across the main 
 channel of the Moskoe-strom, far above the pool, and then drop 
 down upon anchorage somewhere near Otterholm, or Sandflesen, 
 where the eddies are not so violent as elsewhere. Here we used 
 to remain until nearly time for slack-water again, when we 
 weighed and made for home. We never set out upon this expe 
 dition without a steady side wind for going and coming one that 
 we felt sure would not fail us before our return and we seldom 
 made a mis-calculation upon this point. Twice, during six years, 
 we were forced to stay all night at anchor on account of a dead 
 calm, which is a rare thing indeed just about here ; and once we 
 had to remain on the grounds nearly a week, starving to death, 
 owing to a gale which blew up shortly after our arrival, and made 
 the channel too boisterous to be thought of. Upon this occasion 
 we should have been driven out to sea in spite of everything, (for 
 the whirlpools threw us round and round so violently, that, at 
 length, we fouled our anchor and dragged it) if it had not been 
 that we drifted into one of the innumerable cross currents here 
 to-day and gone to-morrow which drove us under the lee of 
 Flimen, where, by good luck, we brought up. 
 
 " I could not tell you the twentieth part of the difficulties we 
 encountered ' on the grounds ' it is a bad spot to be in, even in 
 good weather but we made shift always to run the gauntlet of 
 the Moskoe-strom itself without accident ; although at times my 
 heart has been in my mouth when we happened to be a minute 
 
90 POE'S TALES. 
 
 or so behind or before the slack. The wind sometimes was not 
 as strong as we thought it at starting, and then we made rather 
 less way than we could wish, while the current rendered the 
 smack unmanageable. My eldest brother had a son eighteen 
 years old, and I had two stout boys of my own. These would 
 have been of great assistance at such times, in using the sweeps, 
 as well as afterward in fishing but, somehow, although we ran the 
 risk ourselves, we had not the heart to let the young ones get into 
 the danger for, after all is said and done, it was a horrible 
 danger, and that is the truth. 
 
 " It is now within a few days of three years since what I am 
 going to tell you occurred. It was on the tenth day of July, 18 , 
 a day which the people of this part of the world will never forget 
 for it was one in which blew the most terrible hurricane that 
 ever came out of the heavens. And yet all the morning, and in 
 deed until late in the afternoon, there was a gentle and steady 
 breeze from the south-west, while the sun shone brightly, so that 
 the oldest seaman among us could not have foreseen what was to 
 follow. 
 
 " The three of us my two brothers and myself had crossed 
 over to the islands about two o'clock P. M., and had soon nearly 
 loaded the smack with fine fish, which, we all remarked, were 
 more plenty that day than we had ever known them. It was 
 just seven, by my watch, when we weighed and started for home, 
 so as to make the worst of the Strom at slack water, which we 
 knew would be at eight. 
 
 " We set out with a fresh wind on our starboard quarter, and 
 for some time spanked along at a great rate, never dreaming of 
 danger, for indeed we saw not the slightest reason to apprehend it. 
 All at once we were taken aback by a breeze from over Helseg- 
 gen. This was most unusual something that had never hap 
 pened to us before and I began to feel a little uneasy, without 
 exactly knowing why. We put the boat on the wind, but could 
 make no headway at all for the eddies, and I was upon the point 
 of proposing to return to the anchorage, when, looking astern, we 
 saw the whole horizon covered with a singular copper-colored 
 cloud that rose with the most amazing velocity. 
 
 " In the meantime the breeze that had headed us off fell away, 
 
A DESCENT INTO THE MAELSTROM. 91 
 
 and we were dead becalmed, drifting about in every direction. 
 This state of things, however, did not last long enough to give us 
 time to think about it. In less than a minute the storm was upon 
 us in less than two the sky was entirely overcast and what 
 with this and the driving spray, it became suddenly so dark that 
 we could not see each other in the smack. 
 
 " Such a hurricane as then blew it is folly to attempt describ 
 ing. The oldest seaman in Norway never experienced any thing 
 like it. We had let our sails go by the run before it cleverly 
 took us ; but, at the first puff, both our masts went by the board 
 as if they had been sawed off the mainmast taking with it my 
 youngest brother, who had lashed himself to it for safety. 
 
 " Our boat was the lightest feather of a thing that ever sat 
 upon water. It had a complete flush deck, with only a small 
 hatch near the bow, and this hatch it had always been our cus 
 tom to batten down when about to cross the Strom, by way of 
 precaution against the chopping seas. But for this circumstance 
 we should have foundered at once for we lay entirely buried 
 for some moments. How my elder brother escaped destruction 
 I cannot say, for I never had an opportunity of ascertaining. For 
 my part, as soon as I had let the foresail run, I threw myself flat 
 on deck, with my feet against the narrow gunwale of the bow, 
 and with my hands grasping a ring-bolt near the foot of the fore 
 mast. It was mere instinct that prompted me to do this which 
 was undoubtedly the very best thing I could have done for I was 
 too much flurried to think. 
 
 " For some moments we were completely deluged, as I say, 
 and all this time I held my breath, and clung to the bolt. When 
 I could stand it no longer I raised myself upon my knees, still 
 keeping hold with my hands, and thus got my head clear. Pres 
 ently our little boat gave herself a shake, just as a dog does in 
 coming out of the water, and thus rid herself, in some measure, 
 of the seas. I was now trying to get the better of the stupor that 
 had come over me, and to collect my senses so as to see what was 
 to be done, when I felt somebody grasp my arm. It was my elder 
 brother, and my heart leaped for joy, for I had made sure that he 
 was overboard but the next moment all this joy was turned into 
 
92 FOE'S TALES. 
 
 for he put his mouth close to my ear, and screamed out 
 the word ' Moskoe-strom !' 
 
 " No one ever will know what my feelings were at that mo 
 ment. I shook from head to foot as if I had had the most violent 
 fit of the ague. I knew what he meant by that one word well 
 enough I knew what he wished to make me understand. With 
 the wind that now drove us on, we were bound for the whirl of 
 the Strom, and nothing could save us ! 
 
 " You perceive that in crossing the Strom channel, we always 
 went a long way up above the whirl, even in the calmest weather, 
 and then had to wait and watch carefully for the slack but now 
 we were driving right upon the pool itself, and in such a hurricane 
 as this ! ' To be sure,' I thought, ' we shall get there just about 
 the slack there is some little hope in that ' but in the next mo 
 ment I cursed myself for being so great a fool as to dream of 
 hope at all. I knew very well that we were doomed, had we 
 been ten times a ninety-gun ship. 
 
 " By this time the first fury of the tempest had spent itself, or 
 perhaps we did not feel it so much, as we scudded before it, but 
 at all events the seas, which at first had been kept down by the 
 wind, and lay fiat and frothing, now got up into absolute moun 
 tains. A singular change, too, had come over the heavens. 
 Around in every direction it was still as black as pitch, but nearly 
 overhead there burst out, all at once, a circular rift of clear sky 
 as clear as I ever saw and of a deep bright blue and through 
 it there blazed forth the full moon with a lustre that I never before 
 knew her to wear. She lit. up every thing about us with the great 
 est distinctness but, oh God, what a scene it was to light up ! 
 
 " I now made one or two attempts to speak to my brother but, 
 in some manner which I could not understand, the din had so in 
 creased that I could not make him hear a single word, although 
 I screamed at the top of my voice in his ear. Presently he shook 
 his head, looking as pale as death, and held up one of his fingers, 
 as if to say listen /' 
 
 " At first I could not make out what he meant but soon a 
 hideous thought flashed upon me. I dragged my watch from its 
 fob. It was not going. I glanced at its face by the moonlight, 
 and then burst into tears as I flung it far away into the ocean. 
 
A DESCENT INTO THE MAELSTROM. 93 
 
 It had run down at seven o'clock ! We were behind the time of 
 the slack, and the whirl of the Strom was in full fury f 
 
 " When a boat is well built, properly trimmed, and not deep 
 laden, the waves in a strong gale, when she is going large, seem 
 always to slip from beneath her which appears very strange to 
 a landsman and this is what is called riding, in sea phrase. 
 Well, so far we had ridden the swells very cleverly ; but pres 
 ently a gigantic sea happened to take us right under the counter, 
 and bore us with it as it rose up up as if into the sky. I 
 would not have believed that any wave could rise so high. And 
 then down we came with a sweep, a slide, and a plunge, that 
 made me feel sick and dizzy, as if I was falling from some lofty 
 mountain-top in a dream. But while we were up I had thrown 
 a quick glance around and that one glance was all sufficient. 
 I saw our exact position in an instant. The Moskoe-strom whirl 
 pool was about a quarter of a mile dead ahead but no more like 
 the every-day Moskoe-strom, than the whirl as you now see it is 
 like a mill-race. If I had not known where we were, and what we 
 had to expect, I should not have recognised the place at all. As 
 it was, I involuntarily closed my eyes in horror. The lids clenched 
 themselves together as if in a spasm. 
 
 " It could not have been more than two minutes afterward until 
 we suddenly felt the waves subside, and were enveloped in foam. 
 The boat made a sharp half turn to larboard, and then shot off 
 in its new direction like a thunderbolt. At the same moment the 
 roaring noise of the water was completely drowned in a kind of 
 shrill shriek such a sound as you might imagine given out by 
 the waste-pipes of many thousand 'steam-vessels, letting off their 
 steam all together* We were now in the belt of surf that always 
 surrounds the whirl ; and I thought, of course, that another mo 
 ment would plunge us into the abyss down which we could only- 
 see indistinctly on account of the amazing velocity with which 
 we were borne along. The boat did not seem to sink into the 
 water at all, but to skim like an air-bubble upon the surface of 
 the surge. Her starboard side was next the whirl, and on the 
 larboard arose the world of ocean we had left. It stood like a 
 huge writhing wall between us and the horizon. 
 
 " It may appear strange, but now, when we were in the very 
 
94 FOE'S TALES. 
 
 jaws of the gulf, I felt more composed than when we were only 
 approaching it. Having made up my mind to hope no more, I 
 got rid of a great deal of that terror which unmanned me at first. 
 I suppose it was despair that strung my nerves. 
 
 " It may look like boasting but what I tell you is truth I 
 began to reflect how magnificent a thing it was to die in such a 
 manner, and how foolish it was in me to think of so paltry a con 
 sideration as my own individual life, in view of so wonderful a 
 manifestation of God's power. I do believe that I blushed with 
 shame when this idea crossed my mind. After a little while I 
 became possessed with the keenest curiosity about the whirl 
 itself. I positively felt a wish to explore its depths, even at the 
 sacrifice I was going to make ; and my principal grief was that I 
 should never be able to tell my old companions on shore about the 
 mysteries I should see. These, no doubt, were singular fancies 
 to occupy a man's mind in such extremity and I have often 
 thought since, that the revolutions of the boat around the pool 
 might have rendered me a little light-headed. 
 
 " There was another circumstance which tended to restore my 
 self-possession ; and this was the cessation of the wind, which 
 could not reach us in our present situation for, as you saw 
 yourself, the belt of surf is considerably lower than the general 
 bed of the ocean, and this latter now towered above us, a high, 
 black, mountainous ridge. If you have never been at sea in a 
 heavy gale, you can form no idea of the confusion of mind occa 
 sioned by the wind and spray together. They blind, deafen, and 
 strangle you, and take away all power of action or reflection. 
 But we were now, in a great measure, rid of these annoyances 
 just as death-condemned felons in prison are allowed petty indul 
 gences, forbidden them while their doom is yet uncertain. 
 
 " How often we made the circuit of the belt it is impossible to 
 say. We careered round and round for perhaps an hour, flying 
 rather than floating, getting gradually more and more into the 
 middle of the surge, and then nearer and nearer to its horrible 
 inner edge. All this time I had never let go of the ring-bolt. 
 My brother was at the stern, holding on to a small empty water- 
 cask which had been securely lashed under the coop of the coun 
 ter, and was the only thing on deck that h^d not been swept over- 
 
A DESCENT INTO THE MAELSTROM. 95 
 
 board when the gale first took us. As we approached the brink 
 of the pit he let go his hold upon this, and made for the ring, from 
 which, in the agony of his terror, he endeavored to force my 
 hands, as it was not large enough to afford us both a secure 
 grasp. I never felt deeper grief than when I saw him attempt 
 this act although I knew he was a madman when he did it a 
 raving maniac through sheer fright. I did not care, however, to 
 contest the point with him.. I knew it could make no difference 
 whether either of us held on at all ; so I let him have the bolt, 
 and went astern to the cask. This there was no great difficulty 
 in doing ; for the smack flew round steadily enough, and upon an 
 even keel only swaying to and fro, with the immense sweeps 
 and swelters of the whirl. Scarcely had I secured myself in my 
 new position, when we gave a wild lurch to starboard, and rush 
 ed headlong into the abyss, I muttered a hurried prayer to God, 
 and thought all was over. 
 
 " As I felt the sickening sweep of the descent, I had instinc 
 tively tightened my hold upon the barrel, and closed my eyes. 
 For some seconds I dared not open them while I expected in 
 stant destruction, and wondered that I was not already in my 
 death-struggles with the water. But moment after moment 
 elapsed. I still lived. The sense of falling had ceased ; and 
 the motion of the vessel seemed much as it had been before, while 
 in the belt of foam, with the exception that she now lay more 
 along. I took courage, and looked once again upon the scene. 
 
 " Never shall I forget the sensations of awe, horror, and admi 
 ration with which I gazed about me. The boat appeared to be 
 hanging, as if by magic, midway down, upon the interior surface 
 of a funnel vast in circumference, prodigious in depth, and whose 
 perfectly smooth sides might have been mistaken for ebony, but 
 for the bewildering rapidity with which they spun around, and 
 for the gleaming and ghastly radiance they shot forth, as the rays 
 of the full moon, from that circular rift amid the clouds which I 
 have already described, streamed in a flood of golden glory along 
 the black walls, and far away down into the inmost recesses of 
 the abyss. 
 
 " At first I was too much confused to observe anything accu 
 rately. The general burst of terrific grandeur was all that 1 be- 
 
96 FOE'S TALES. 
 
 held. When I recovered myself a little, however, my gaze fell 
 instinctively downward. In this direction I was able to obtain an 
 unobstructed view, from the manner in which the smack hung on 
 the inclined surface of the pool. She was quite upon an even keel 
 that is to say, her deck lay in a plane parallel with that of the 
 water but this latter sloped at an angle of more than forty-five de 
 grees, so that we seemed to be lying upon our beam-ends. I 
 could not help observing, nevertheless, that I had scarcely more 
 difficulty in maintaining my hold and footing in this situation, 
 than if we had been upon a dead level ; and this, I suppose, was 
 owing to the speed at which We revolved. 
 
 " The rays of the moon seemed to search the very bottom of 
 the profound gulf; but still I could make out nothing distinctly, 
 on account of a thick mist in which everything there was en 
 veloped, and over which there hung a magnificent rainbow, like 
 that narrow and tottering bridge which Mussulmen say is the 
 only pathway between Time and Eternity. This mist, or spray, 
 was no doubt occasioned by the clashing of the great walls of the 
 funnel, as they all met together at the bottom but the yell that 
 went up to the Heavens from out of that mist, I dare not attempt 
 to describe. 
 
 " Our first slide into the abyss itself, from the belt of foam 
 above, had carried us a great distance down the slope ; but our 
 farther descent was by no means proportionate. Round and 
 round we swept not with any uniform movement but in dizzy 
 ing swings and jerks^ that sent us sometimes only a few hundred 
 yards sometimes nearly the complete circuit of the whirl. Our 
 progress downward, at each revolution, was slow, but very per 
 ceptible. 
 
 " Looking about me upon the wide waste of liquid ebony on 
 which we were thus borne, I perceived that our boat was not the 
 only object in the embrace of the whirl. Both above and below 
 us were visible fragments of vessels, large masses of building tim 
 ber and trunks of trees, with many smaller articles, such as pieces 
 of house furniture, broken boxes, barrels and staves. I have 
 already described the unnatural curiosity which had taken the 
 place of my original terrors. It appeared to grow upon me as I 
 drew nearer and nearer to my dreadful doom. I now began to 
 
A DESCENT INTO THE MAELSTROM. 97 
 
 watch, with a strange interest, the numerous things that floated 
 in our company. I must have been delirious for I even soughl 
 amusement in speculating upon the relative velocities of their sev 
 eral descents toward the foam below. * This fir tree,' I found 
 myself at one time saying, ' will certainly be the next thing that 
 takes the awful plunge and disappears,' and then I was disap 
 pointed to find that the wreck of a Dutch merchant ship overtook 
 it and went down before. At length, after making several 
 guesses of this nature, and being deceived in all this fact the 
 fact of my invariable miscalculation set me upon a train of re 
 flection that made my limbs again tremble, and my heart beat 
 heavily once more. 
 
 " It was not a new terror that thus affected me, but the dawn of 
 a more exciting hope. This hope arose partly from memory, 
 and partly from present observation. I called to mind the great 
 variety of buoyant matter that strewed the coast of Lofoden, hav 
 ing been absorbed and then thrown forth by the Moskoe-strom. 
 By far the greater number of the articles were shattered in the 
 most extraordinary way so chafed and roughened as to have 
 the appearance of being stuck full of splinters but then I dis 
 tinctly recollected that there were some of them which were not 
 disfigured at all. Now I could not account for this difference ex 
 cept by supposing that the roughened fragments were the only 
 ones which had been completely absorbed that the others had 
 entered the whirl at so late a period of the tide, or, for some rea 
 son, had descended so slowly after entering, that they did not 
 reach the bottom before the turn of the flood came, or of the ebb, 
 as the case might be. I conceived it possible, in either instance, 
 that they might thus be whirled up again to the level of the 
 ocean, without undergoing the fate of those which had been 
 drawn in more early, or absorbed more rapidly. I made, also, 
 three important observations. The first was, that, as a general 
 rule, the larger the bodies were, the more rapid their descent 
 the second, that, between two masses of equal extent, the one 
 spherical, and the other of any other shape, the superiority in 
 speed of descent was with the sphere the third, that, between 
 two masses., of equal size, the one cylindrical, and the other of 
 any other shape, the cylinder was absorbed the more slowly. 
 
 8 
 
8 FOE'S TALES. 
 
 Since my escape, I have had several conversations on this subject 
 with an old school-master of the district ; and it was from him 
 that I learned the use of the words ' cylinder' and ' sphere.' He 
 explained to me although I have forgotten the explanation 
 how what I observed was, in fact, the natural consequence of the 
 forms of the floating fragments and showed me how it happened 
 that a cylinder, swimming in a vortex, offered more resistance to 
 its suction, and was drawn in with greater difficulty than an 
 equally bulky body, of any form whatever.* 
 
 " There was one startling circumstance which went a great 
 way in enforcing these observations, and rendering me anxious to 
 turn them to account, and this was that, at every revolution, we 
 passed something like a barrel, or else the yard or the mast of a 
 vessel, while many of these things, which had been on our level 
 when I first opened my eyes upon the wonders of the whirlpool, 
 were now high up above us, and seemed to have moved but little 
 from their original station. 
 
 " I no longer hesitated what to do. I resolved to lash myself se 
 curely to the water cask upon which I now held, to cut it loose 
 from the counter, and to throw myself with it into the water. I at 
 tracted my brother's attention by signs, pointed to the floating barrels 
 that came near us, and did everything in my power to make him 
 understand what I was about to do. I thought at length that he 
 comprehended my design but, whether this was the case or not, 
 he shook his head despairingly, and refused to move from his sta 
 tion by the ring-bolt. It was impossible to reach him ; the emer 
 gency admitted of no delay ; and so, with a bitter struggle, I re 
 signed him to his fate, fastened myself to the cask by means of 
 the lashings which secured it to the counter, and precipitated my 
 self with it into the sea, without another moment's hesitation. 
 
 " The result was precisely what I had hoped it might be. As 
 it is myself who now tell you this tale as you see that I did 
 escape and as you are already in possession of the mode in 
 which this escape was effected, and must therefore anticipate all 
 that I have farther to say I will bring my story quickly to con 
 clusion. It might have been an hour, or thereabout, after my 
 
 * See Archimedes, " De Incidentibus in Fluido." lib. 2. 
 
A DESCENT INTO THE MAELSTROM. 99 
 
 quitting the smack, when, having descended to a vast distance be 
 neath me, it made three or four wild gyrations in rapid succes 
 sion, and, bearing my loved brother with it, plunged headlong, at 
 once and forever, into the chaos of foam below. The barrel to 
 which I was attached sunk very little farther than half the dis 
 tance between the bottom of the gulf and the spot at which I leap 
 ed overboard, before a great change took place in the character 
 of the whirlpool. The slope of the sides of the vast funnel be 
 came momently less and less steep. The gyrations of the whirl 
 grew, gradually, less and less violent. By degrees, the froth and 
 the rainbow disappeared, and the bottom of the gulf seemed slowly 
 to uprise. The sky was clear, the winds had gone dqwn, and 
 the full moon was setting radiantly in the west, when I found 
 myself on the surface of the ocean, in full view of the shores of 
 Lofoden, and above the spot where the pool of the Moskoe-strom 
 had been. It was the hour of the slack but the sea still heaved 
 in mountainous waves from the effects of the hurricane. I was 
 borne violently into the channel of the Strom, and in a few min 
 utes was hurried down the coast into the ' grounds' of the fisher 
 men. A boat picked me up exhausted from fatigue and (now 
 that the danger was removed) speechless from the memory qf its 
 horror. Those who drew me on board were my old mates and 
 daily companions but they knew me no more than they wpuld 
 have known a traveller from the spirit-land. My hair which had 
 been raven-black the day before, was as white as you see it now. 
 They say too that the whole expression of my countenance had 
 changed. I told them my story they did not believe it. I now 
 tell it to you and I can scarcely expect you to put more faith 
 in it than did the merry fishermen of Lofoden." 
 
100 FOE'S TALES. 
 
 THE COLLOQUY OF MONOS AND UNA. 
 
 rawro* 
 
 Sophocles Antig : 
 These things are in the future. 
 
 Una. "Born again?" 
 
 Monos. Yes, fairest and best beloved Una, "born again." 
 These were the words upon whose mystical meaning I had so 
 long pondered, rejecting the explanations of the priesthood, until 
 Death himself resolved for me the secret. 
 
 Una. Death ! 
 
 Monos. How strangely, sweet Una, you echo my words ! I 
 observe, too, a vacillation in your step a joyous inquietude in 
 your eyes. You are confused and oppressed by the majestic 
 novelty of the Life Eternal. Yes, it was of Death I spoke. And 
 here how singularly sounds that word which of old was wont to 
 bring terror to all hearts throwing a mildew upon all pleas 
 ures ! 
 
 Una. Ah, Death, the spectre which sate at all feasts ! How 
 often, Monos, did we lose ourselves in speculations upon its na- 
 ture ! How mysteriously did it act as a check to human bliss 
 saying unto it " thus far, and no farther !" That earnest mutual 
 love, my own Monos, which burned within our bosoms how 
 vainly did we flatter ourselves, feeling happy in its first up- 
 springing, that our happiness would strengthen with its strength ! 
 Alas ! as it grew, so grew in our hearts the dread of that evil 
 hour which was hurrying to separate us forever! Thus, in 
 time, it became painful to love. Hate would have been mercy 
 then. 
 
THE COLLOQUY OF MONOS AND UNA. 101 
 
 Monos. Speak not here of these griefs, dear Una mine, 
 mine forever now ! 
 
 Una, But the memory of past sorrow -is it not present joy ? 
 I have much to say yet of the things which have been. Above 
 all, 1 burn to know the incidents of your own passage through 
 the dark Valley and Shadow. 
 
 Monos. And when did the radiant Una ask anything of her 
 Monos in vain ? I will be minute in relating all but at what 
 point shall the weird narrative begin ? 
 
 Una. At what point ? 
 
 Mono. You have said. 
 
 Una. Monos, I comprehend you. In Death we have both 
 learned the propensity of man to define the indefinable. I will 
 not say, then, commence with the moment of life's cessation 
 but commence with that sad, sad instant when, the fever having 
 abandoned you, you sank into a breathless and motionless torpor, 
 and I pressed down your pallid eyelids with the passionate fingers 
 of love. 
 
 Monos. One word first, my Una, in regard to man's general 
 condition at this epoch. You will remember that one or two of 
 the wise among our forefathers wise in fact, although not in the 
 world's esteem had ventured to doubt the propriety of the term 
 " improvement/' as applied to the progress of our civilization. 
 There were periods in each of the five or six centuries im 
 mediately preceding our dissolution, when arose some vigorous in 
 tellect, boldly contending for those principles whose truth appears 
 now, to our disenfranchised reason, so utterly obvious principles 
 which should have taught our race to submit to the guidance of 
 the natural laws, rather than attempt their control. At long in- 
 tervals some master-minds appeared, looking upon each advance 
 in practical science as a retro-gradation in the true utility. Oc 
 casionally the poetic intellect that intellect which we now feel to 
 have been the most exalted of all since those truths which to us 
 were of the most enduring importance could only be reached by 
 that analogy which speaks in proof-tones to the imagination alone, 
 and to the unaided reason bears no weight occasionally did this 
 poetic intellect proceed a step farther in the evolving of the vague 
 ide,a of the philosophic, and find in the mystic parable that tells 
 
102 FOE'S TALES. 
 
 of the tree of knowledge, and of its forbidden fruit, death-pro 
 ducing, a distinct intimation that knowledge was not meet for 
 man in the infant condition of his soul. And these men the 
 poets- living and perishing amid the scorn of the " utilitarians" 
 of rough pedants, who arrogated to themselves a title which 
 could have been properly applied only to the scorned these men, 
 the poets, pondered piningly, yet not unwisely, upon the ancient 
 days when our wants were not more simple than our enjoyments 
 were keen days when mirth was a word unknown, so solemnly 
 deep-toned was happiness holy, august and blissful days, when 
 blue rivers ran undammed, between hills unhewn, into far forest 
 solitudes, primaeval; bdorous, and unexplored. 
 
 Yet these noble exceptions from the general misrule served but 
 to strengthen it by opposition. Alas! we had fallen upon the 
 most evil of all our evil days; The great " movement" that 
 was the cant term went on : a diseased commotion, moral and 
 physical. Art the Arts arose supreme, and, once enthroned, 
 cast chains upon the intellect which had elevated them to power. 
 Man, because he could not but acknowledge the majesty of Na 
 ture, fell into childish exultation at his acquired and still-in 
 creasing dominion over her elements. Even while he stalked 
 a God in his own fancy, an infantine imbecility came over him. 
 As might be supposed from the origin of his disorder, he grew in 
 fected with system, and with abstraction. He enwrapped himself 
 in generalities. Among other odd ideas, that of universal equal 
 ity gained ground ; and in the face of analogy and of God in 
 despite of the loud warning voice of the laws of gradation so 
 visibly pervading all things in Earth and Heaven wild attempts 
 at an omni-prevalent Democracy were made. Yet this evil 
 sprang necessarily from the leading evil, Knowledge. Man 
 could not both know and succumb. Meantime huge smoking 
 cities arose, innumerable. Green leaves shrank before the hot 
 breath of furnaces. The fair face of Nature was deformed as 
 with the ravages of some loathsome disease. And methinks, 
 sweet Una, even our slumbering sense of the forced and of the- 
 far-fetched might have arrested us here. But now it appears 
 that we had worked out our own destruction in the perversion of 
 our taste, or rather in the blind neglect of its culture in the 
 
THE COLLOQUY OF MONOS AND UNA. 103 
 
 schools. For, in truth, it was at this crisis that taste alone that 
 faculty which, holding a middle position between the pure intel 
 lect and the moral sense, could never safely have been disregard 
 ed it was now that taste alone could have led us gently back to 
 Beaut}r, to Nature, and to Life. But alas for the pure con 
 templative spirit and majestic intuition of Plato ! Alas for the 
 ftovfftur; which he justly regarded as an all-sufficient education for 
 the soul ! Alas for him and for it ! since both were most des 
 perately needed when both were most entirely forgotten or 
 despised.* 
 
 Pascal, a philosopher whom we both love, has said, how truly ! 
 " que tout notre raisonnement se reduit a ceder au sentiment;" 
 and it is not impossible that the sentiment of the natural, had time 
 permitted it, would have regained its old ascendancy over the 
 harsh mathematical reason of the schools. But this thing was 
 not to be. Prematurely induced by intemperance of knowledge, 
 .the old age of the world drew on. This the mass of mankind saw 
 not, or, living lustily although unhappily, affected not to see. 
 But, for myself, the Earth's records had taught me to look for 
 widest ruin as the price of highest civilization. I had imbibed a 
 prescience of our Fate from comparison of China the simple and 
 enduring, with Assyria the architect, with Egypt the astrologer, 
 with Nubia, more crafty than either, the turbulent mother of all 
 Arts. In historyf of these regions I met with a ray from the Fu- 
 
 * " It will be hard to discover a better [method of education] than that 
 which the experience of so many ages has already discovered ; and this may be 
 summed up as consisting in gymnastics for the body, and music for the soul." 
 Repub. lib. 2. " For this reason is a musical education most essential ; since 
 it causes Rhythm and Harmony to penetrate most intimately into the soul, ta 
 king the strongest hold upon it, filling it with beauty and making the man beau 
 tiful-minded He will praise and admire the beautiful; will receive it 
 
 with joy into his soul, will feed upon it, and assimilate his own condition with 
 it." Ibid. lib. 3. Music (novaiKrj) had, however, among the Athenians, a far 
 more comprehensive signification than with us. It included not only the har 
 monies of time and of tune, but the poetic diction, sentiment and creation, 
 each in its widest sense. The study of music was with them, in fact, the gen 
 eral cultivation of the taste of that which recognizes the beautiful in con- 
 tra-distinction from reason, whieh deals only with the true. 
 
 t " History," from taTopeiv, to contemplate. 
 
104 FOE'S TALES. 
 
 ture. The individual artificialities of the three latter were local 
 diseases of the Earth, and in their individual overthrows we had 
 seen local remedies applied ; but for the infected world at large I 
 could anticipate no regeneration save in death. That man, as a 
 race, should not become extinct, I saw that he must be " born 
 again." 
 
 And now it was, fairest and dearest, that we wrapped our spir 
 its, daily, in dreams. Now it \vas that, in twilight, we discoursed 
 of the clays to come, when the Art-scarred surface of the Earth, 
 having undergone that purification* which alone could efface its 
 rectangular obscenities, should clothe itself anew in the verdure 
 and the mountain-slopes and the smiling waters of Paradise, and 
 be rendered at length a fit dwelling-place for man : for man the 
 Death-purged for man to whose now exalted intellect there 
 should be poison in knowledge no more for the redeemed, regen 
 erated, blissful, and now immortal, but still for the material, man. 
 
 Una. Well do I remember these conversations, dear Monos ; 
 but the epoch of the fiery overthrow was not so near at hand as 
 we believed, and as the corruption you indicate did surely war 
 rant us in believing. Men lived ; and died individually. You 
 yourself sickened, and passed into the grave ; and thither your 
 constant Una speedily followed you. And though the century 
 which has since elapsed, and whose conclusion brings us thus to 
 gether once more, tortured our slumbering senses with no impa 
 tience of duration, yet, my Monos, it was a century still. 
 
 Monos. Say, rather, a point in the vague infinity. Unques 
 tionably, it was in the Earth's dotage that I died. Wearied at 
 neart with anxieties which had their origin in the general turmoil 
 and decay, I succumbed to the fierce fever. After some few days 
 of pain, and many of dreamy delirium replete with ecstasy, the 
 manifestations of which you mistook for pain, while I longed but 
 was impotent to undeceive you after some days there came upon 
 me, as you have said, a breathless and motionless torpor ; and 
 this was termed Death by those who stood around me. 
 
 Words are vague things. My condition did not deprive me of 
 
 * The word "purification" seems here to be used with reference to its root 
 in the Greek rrup, fire. 
 
THE COLLOQUY OF MONOS AND UNA. 105 
 
 sentience. It appeared to me not greatly dissimilar to the ex- 
 treme quiescence of him, who, Having slumbered long and pro 
 foundly, lying motionless and fully prostrate in a midsummer 
 noon, begins to steal slowly back into consciousness, through the 
 mere sufficiency of his sleep, and without being awakened by ex 
 ternal disturbances. 
 
 I breathed no longer. The pulses were still. The heart had 
 ceased to beat. Volition had not departed, but was powerless. 
 The senses were unusually active, although eccentrically so as 
 suming often each other's functions at random. The taste and 
 the smell were inextricably confounded, and became one senti 
 ment, abnormal and intense. The rose-water with which your 
 tenderness had moistened my lips to the last, affected me with 
 sweet fancies of flowers fantastic flowers, far more lovely than 
 any of the old Earth, but whose prototypes we have here bloom 
 ing* around us. The eyelids, transparent and bloodless, offered 
 no complete impediment to vision. As volition was in abeyance, 
 the balls could not roll in their sockets but all objects within the 
 range of the visual hemisphere were seen with more or less dis 
 tinctness ; the rays which fell upon the external retina, or into 
 the corner of the eye, producing a more vivid effect than those 
 which struck the front or interior surface. Yet, in the former 
 instance, this effect was so far anomalous that I appreciated it 
 only as sound sound sweet or discordant as the matters present 
 ing themselves at my side were light or dark in shade curved 
 or angular in outline. The hearing, at the same time, although 
 excited in degree, was not irregular in action estimating real 
 sounds with an extravagance of precision, not less than of sensi 
 bility. Touch had undergone a modification more peculiar. Its 
 impressions were tardily received, but pertinaciously retained, 
 and resulted always in the highest physical pleasure. Thus the 
 pressure of your sweet fingers upon my eyelids, at first only rec 
 ognised through vision, at length, long after their removal, filled 
 my whole being with a sensual delight immeasurable. I say 
 with a sensual delight. All my perceptions were purely sensual. 
 The materials furnished the passive brain by the senses were not 
 in the least degree wrought into shape by the deceased under 
 standing. Of pain there was some little ; of pleasure there was 
 
106 POE'S TALES. 
 
 much ; but of moral pain or pleasure none at all. Thus your 
 wild sobs floated into my ear with all their mournful cadences, 
 and were appreciated in their every variation of sad tone ; but 
 they were soft musical sounds and no more ; they conveyed to 
 the extinct reason no intimation of the sorrows which gave them 
 birth ; while the large and constant tears which fell upon my 
 face, telling the bystanders of a heart which broke, thrilled every 
 fibre of my frame with ecstasy alone. And this was in truth the 
 Death of which these bystanders spoke reverently, in low whis 
 pers you, sweet Una, gaspingly, with loud cries. 
 
 They attired me for the coffin three or four dark figures 
 which flitted busily to and fro. As these crossed the direct line 
 of my vision they affected me as forms ; but upon passing to my 
 side their images impressed me with the idea of shrieks, groans, 
 and other dismal expressions of terror, of horror, or of wo. You 
 alone, habited in a white robe, passed in all directions musically 
 about me. 
 
 The day waned ; and, as its light faded away, I became pos 
 sessed by a vague uneasiness an anxiety such as the sleeper 
 feels when sad real sounds fall continuously within his ear low 
 distant bell-tones, solemn, at long but equal intervals, and com 
 mingling with melancholy dreams. Night arrived ; and with its 
 shadows a heavy discomfort. It oppressed my limbs with the op 
 pression of some dull weight, and was palpable. There was also 
 a moaning sound, not unlike the distant reverberation of surf, but 
 more continuous, which, beginning with the first twilight, had 
 grown in strength with the darkness. Suddenly lights were 
 brought into the room, and this reverberation became forthwith 
 interrupted into frequent unequal bursts of the same sound, but 
 less dreary and less distinct. The ponderous oppression was in 
 a great measure relieved ; and, issuing from the flame of each 
 lamp, (for there were many,) there flowed unbrokenly into my 
 ears a strain of melodious monotone. And when now, dear Una, 
 approaching the bed upon which I lay outstretched, you sat gently 
 by my side, breathing odor from your sweet lips, and pressing 
 them upon my brow, there arose tremulously within my bosom, 
 and mingling with the merely physical sensations which circum 
 stances had called forth, a something akin to sentiment itself a 
 
THE COLLOQUY OF MONOS AND UNA. 107 
 
 feeling that, half appreciating, half responded to your earnest love 
 and sorrow ; but this feeling took no root in the pulseless heart, 
 and seemed indeed rather a shadow than a reality, and faded 
 quickly away, first into extreme quiescence, and then into a purely 
 sensual pleasure as before. 
 
 And now, from the wreck and the chaos of the usual senses, 
 there appeared to have arisen within me a sixth, all perfect. In 
 its exercise I found a wild delight yet a delight still physical, in 
 asmuch as the understanding had in it no part. Motion in the 
 animal frame had fully ceased. No muscle quivered ; no nerve 
 thrilled ; no artery throbbed. But there seemed to have sprung 
 up in the brain, that of which no words could convey to the merely 
 human intelligence even an indistinct conception. Let me term 
 it a mental pendulous pulsation. It was the moral embodiment 
 of man's abstract idea of Time. By the absolute equalization 
 of this movement or of such as this had the cycles of the fir- 
 mamental orbs themselves, been adjusted. By its aid I measured 
 the irregularities of the clock upon the mantel, and of the watches 
 of the attendants. Their tickings came sonorously to my ears. 
 The slightest deviations from the true proportion and these devi 
 ations were omni-prsevalent affected me just as violations of ab 
 stract truth were wont, on earth, to affect the moral sense. Al 
 though no two of the time-pieces in the chamber struck the indi 
 vidual seconds accurately together, yet I had no difficulty in hold 
 ing steadily in mind the tones, and the respective momentary 
 errors of each. And this this keen, perfect, self-existing senti 
 ment of duration this sentiment existing (as man could not pos 
 sibly have conceived it to exist) independently of any succession 
 of events this idea this sixth sense, upspringing from the ashes 
 of the rest, was the first obvious and certain step of the intempo- 
 ral soul upon the threshold of the temporal Eternity. 
 
 It was midnight ; and you still sat by my side. All others 
 had departed from the chamber of Death. They had deposited 
 me in the coffin. The lamps burned flickeringly ; for this I knew 
 by the tremulousness of the monotonous strains. But, suddenly 
 these strains diminished in distinctness and in volume. Finally 
 they ceased. The perfume in my nostrils died away. Forms 
 affected my vision no longer. The oppression of the Darkness 
 
108 FOE'S TALES. 
 
 uplifted itself from my bosom. A dull shock like that of elec 
 tricity pervaded my frame, and was followed by total loss of the 
 idea of contact. All of what man has termed sense was merged 
 in the sole consciousness of entity, and in the one abiding senti 
 ment of duration. The mortal body had been at length stricken 
 with the hand of the deadly Decay. 
 
 Yet had not all of sentience departed ; for the consciousness 
 and the sentiment remaining supplied some of its functions by a 
 lethargic intuition. I appreciated the direful change now in ope 
 ration upon the flesh, and, as the dreamer is sometimes aware 
 of the bodily presence of one who leans over him, so, sweet Una, 
 I still dully felt that you sat by my side. So, too, when the 
 noon of the second day came, I was not unconscious of those 
 movements which displaced you from my side, which confined 
 me within the coffin, which deposited me within the hearse, which 
 bore me to the grave, which lowered me within it, which heaped 
 heavily the mould upon me, and which thus left me, in blackness 
 and corruption, to my sad and solemn slumbers with the worm. 
 
 And here, in the prison-house which has few secrets to disclose, 
 there rolled away days and weeks and months ; and the soul 
 watched narrowly each second as it flew, and, without effort, 
 took record of its flight without effort and without object. 
 
 A year passed. The consciousness of /being had grown hour 
 ly more indistinct, and that of mere locality had, in great meas 
 ure, usurped its position. The idea of entity was becoming 
 merged in that of place. The narrow space immediately sur 
 rounding what had been the body, was now growing to be the 
 body itself. At length, as often happens to the sleeper (by sleep 
 and its world alone is Death imaged) at length, as sometimes 
 happened on Earth to the deep slumberer, when some flitting 
 light half startled him into awaking, yet left him half enveloped 
 in dreams so to me, in the strict embrace of the Shadoiv, came 
 that light which alone might have had power to startle the light 
 of enduring Love. Men toiled at the grave in which I lay darkling. 
 They upthrew the damp earth. Upon my mouldering bones there 
 descended the coffin of Una. 
 
 And now again all was void. That nebulous light had 1>een 
 extinguished. That feeble thrill had vibrated itself into quies- 
 
THE COLLOQUY OF MONOS AND UNA. 109 
 
 cence. Many lustra had supervened. Dust had returned to 
 dust. The worm had food no more. The sense of being had at 
 length utterly departed, and there reigned in its stead instead of 
 all things- dominant and perpetual the autocrats Place and 
 Time. For that which was not for that which had no form 
 for that which had no thought for that which had no sentience 
 for that which was soulless, yet of which matter formed no por 
 tion for all this nothingness, yet for all this immortality, the 
 grave was still a home, and the corrosive hours, co-mates. 
 
HO POE'S TALES. 
 
 THE 
 
 CONVERSATION OF EIROS AND CHARMION. 
 
 TLvf> (TOl 
 
 I will bring fire to thee. 
 
 Euripides Androm : 
 
 EIROS. 
 WHY do you call me Eiros ? 
 
 CHARMION. 
 
 So henceforward will you always be called. You must forget, 
 too, my earthly name, and speak to me as Charmion. 
 
 EIROS. 
 
 This is indeed no dream ! 
 
 CHARMION. 
 
 Dreams are with us no more ; but of these mysteries anon. 
 I rejoice to see you looking life-like and rational. The film of 
 the shadow has already passed from off your eyes. Be of heart, 
 and fear nothing. Your allotted days of stupor have expired ; 
 and, to-morrow, I will myself induct you into the full joys and 
 wonders of your novel existence. 
 
 EIROS. 
 
 True I feel no stupor none at all. The wild sickness and 
 the terrible darkness have left me, and I hear no longer that mad, 
 rushing, horrible sound, like the " voice of many waters." Yet 
 my senses are bewildered, Charmion, with the keenness of their 
 perception of the new. 
 
 CHARMION. 
 
 A few days will remove all this ; but I fully understand you, 
 and feel for you. It is now ten earthly years since I underwent 
 
THE CONVERSATION OF EIROS AND CHARMION. Ill 
 
 what you undergo yet the remembrance of it hangs by me still. 
 You have now suffered all of pain, however, which you will 
 suffer in Aidenn. 
 
 EIROS. 
 In Aidenn ? 
 
 CHARMION. 
 
 In Aidenn. 
 
 EIROS. 
 
 Oh God ! pity me, Charmion ! I am overburthened with the 
 majesty of all things of the unknown now known of the spec 
 ulative Future merged in the august and certain Present. 
 
 CHARMION. 
 
 Grapple not now with such thoughts. To-morrow we will 
 speak of this. Your mind wavers, and its agitation will find re 
 lief in the exercise of simple memories. Look not around, nor 
 forward but back. I am burning with anxiety to hear the de 
 tails of that stupendous event which threw you among us. Tell 
 me of it. Let us converse of familiar things, in the old familiar 
 language of the world which has so fearfully perished. 
 
 EIROS. 
 Most fearfully, fearfully ! this is indeed no dream. 
 
 CHARMION. 
 Dreams are no more. Was I much mourned, my Eiros ? 
 
 EIROS. 
 
 Mourned, Charmion ? oh deeply. To that last hour of all, 
 there hung a cloud of intense gloonxand devout sorrow over your 
 household. 
 
 CHARMION. 
 
 And that last hour speak of it. Remember that, beyond the 
 naked fact of the catastrophe itself, I know nothing. When, 
 coming out from among mankind, I passed into Night through 
 the Grave at that period, if I remember aright, the calamity 
 which overwhelmed you was utterly unanticipated. But, in 
 deed, I knew little of the speculative philosophy of the day, 
 
 EIROS. 
 The individual calamity was, as you say, entirely unantici- 
 
J12 POE'S TALES. 
 
 pated ; but analogous misfortunes had been long a subject of dis 
 cussion with astronomers. I need scarce tell you, my friend, 
 that, even when you left us, men had agreed to understand those 
 passages in the most holy writings which speak of the final de 
 struction of all things by fire, as having reference to the orb of 
 the earth alone. But in regard to the immediate agency of the 
 ruin, speculation had been at fault from that epoch in astronom 
 ical knowledge in which the comets were divested of the terrors 
 of flame. The very moderate density of these bodies had been 
 well established. They had been observed to pass among the 
 satellites of Jupiter, without bringing about any sensible altera 
 tion either in the masses or in the orbits of these secondary 
 planets. We had long regarded the wanderers as vapory cre 
 ations of inconceivable tenuity, and as altogether incapable of 
 doing injury to our substantial globe, even in the event of con. 
 tact. But contact was not in any degree dreaded ; for the ele 
 ments of all the comets were accurately known. That among 
 them we should look for the agency of the threatened fiery de 
 struction had been for many years considered an inadmissible 
 idea. But wonders and wild fancies had been, of late days, 
 strangely rife among mankind * and, although it was only with a 
 few of the ignorant that actual apprehension prevailed, upon the 
 announcement by astronomers of a new comet, yet this announce 
 ment was generally received with I know not what of agitation 
 and mistrust. 
 
 The elements of the strange orb were immediately calculated, 
 and it was at once conceded by all observers, that its path, at 
 perihelion, would bring it into very close proximity with the 
 earth. There were two or three astronomers, of secondary note, 
 who resolutely maintained that a contact was inevitable. I can 
 not very well express to you the effect of this intelligence upon 
 the people. For a few short days they would not believe an as 
 sertion which their intellect, so long employed among worldly con 
 siderations, could not in any manner grasp. But the truth of a 
 vitally important fact soon makes its way into the understanding 
 of even the most stolid. Finally, all men saw that astronomical 
 knowledge lied not, and they awaited the comet. Its approach 
 was not, at first, seemingly rapid ; nor was its appearance of 
 
THE CONVERSATION OF EIROS AND CHARMION. 113 
 
 very unusual character. It was of a dull red, and had little per 
 ceptible train. For seven or eight days we saw no material in 
 crease in its apparent diameter, and but a partial alteration in its 
 color. Meantime, the ordinary affairs of men were discarded, 
 and all interests absorbed in a growing discussion, instituted by 
 the philosophic, in respect to the cometary nature. Even the 
 grossly ignorant aroused their sluggish capacities to such con 
 siderations. The learned now gave their intellect their soul to 
 no such points as the allaying of fear, or to the sustenance of loved 
 theory. They sought they panted for right views. They groaned 
 for perfected knowledge. Truth arose in the purity of her strength 
 and exceeding majesty, and the wise bowed down and adored. 
 
 That material injury to our globe or to its inhabitants would 
 result from the apprehended contact, was an opinion which hour 
 ly lost ground among the wise j and the wise were now freely 
 permitted to rule the reason and the fancy of the crowd. It was 
 demonstrated, that the density of the comet's nucleus was far less 
 than that of our rarest gas j and the harmless passage of a similar 
 visitor among the satellites of Jupiter was a point strongly insisted 
 upon, and which served greatly to allay terror. Theologists, with 
 an earnestness fear-enkindled, dwelt upon the biblical prophecies, 
 and expounded them to the people with a directness and simplicity 
 of which no previous instance had been known. That the final 
 destruction of the earth must be brought about by the agency of 
 fire, was urged with a spirit that enforced every where conviction ; 
 and that the comets were of no fiery nature (as all men now 
 knew) was a truth which relieved all, in a great measure, from 
 the apprehension of the great calamity foretold. It is noticeable 
 that the popular prejudices and vulgar errors in regard to pesti 
 lences and wars errors which were wont to prevail upon every 
 appearance of a comet were now altogether unknown. As if 
 by some sudden convulsive exertion, reason had at once hurled 
 superstition from her throne. The feeblest intellect had derived 
 vigor from excessive interest. 
 
 What minor evils might arise from the contact were points of 
 elaborate question. The learned spoke of slight geological dis 
 turbances, of probable alterations in climate, and consequently in 
 vegetation ; of possible magnetic and electric influences. Many 
 
 9 
 
114 FOE'S TALES. 
 
 held that no visible or perceptible effect would in any manner be 
 produced. While such discussions were going on, their subject 
 gradually approached, growing larger in apparent diameter, and 
 of a more brilliant lustre. Mankind grew paler as it came. All 
 human operations were suspended . 
 
 There was an epoch in the course of the general sentiment 
 when the comet had attained, at length, a size surpassing that of 
 any previously recorded visitation. The people now, dismissing 
 any lingering hope that the astronomers were wrong, experienced 
 all the certainty of evil. The chimerical aspect of their terror 
 was gone. The hearts of the stoutest of our race beat violently 
 within their bosoms. A very few days sufficed, however, to 
 merge even such feelings in sentiments more unendurable. We 
 could no longer apply to the strange orb any accustomed thoughts. 
 Its historical attributes had disappeared. It oppressed us with a 
 hideous novelty of emotion. We saw it not as an astronomical 
 phenomenon in the heavens, but as an incubus upon our hearts, 
 and a shadow upon our brains. It had taken, with inconceivable 
 rapidity, the character of a gigantic mantle of rare flame, extend 
 ing from horizon to horizon. 
 
 Yet a day, and men breathed with greater freedom. It was 
 clear that we were already within the influence of the comet ; 
 yet we lived. We even felt an unusual elasticity of frame and 
 vivacity of mind. The exceeding tenuity of the object of our 
 dread was apparent ; for all heavenly objects were plainly visible 
 through it. Meantime, our vegetation had perceptibly altered ; 
 and we gained faith, from this predicted circumstance, in the fore 
 sight of the wise. A wild luxuriance of foliage, utterly unknown 
 before, burst out upon every vegetable thing. 
 
 Yet another day and the evil was not altogether upon us. It 
 was now evident that its nucleus would first reach us. A wild 
 change had come over all men ; and the first sense of pain was 
 the wild signal for general lamentation and horror. This first 
 sense of pain lay in a rigorous constriction of the breast and 
 lungs, and an insufferable dryness of the skin. It could not be 
 denied that our atmosphere was radically affected ; the conforma 
 tion of this atmosphere and the possible modifications to which it 
 might be subjected, were now the topics of discussion. The re- 
 
THE CONVERSATION OF EIROS AND CHARMION. 115 
 
 suit of investigation sent an electric thrill of the intensest terror 
 through the universal heart of man. 
 
 It had been long known that the air which encircled us was a 
 compound of oxygen and nitrogen gases, in the proportion of 
 twenty-one measures of oxygen, and seventy-nine of nitrogen, in 
 every one hundred of the atmosphere. Oxygen, which was the 
 principle of combustion, and the vehicle of heat, was absolutely 
 necessary to the support of animal life, and was the most power 
 ful and energetic agent in nature. Nitrogen, on the contrary, 
 was incapable of supporting either animal life or flame. An un 
 natural excess of oxygen would result, it had been ascertained, 
 in just such an elevation of the animal spirits as we had lat 
 terly experienced. It was the pursuit, the extension of the idea, 
 which had engendered awe. What would be the result of a to 
 tal exlraction of the nitrogen ? A combustion irresistible, all- 
 devouring, omni-prevalent, immediate ; the entire fulfilment, in 
 all their minute and terrible details, of the fiery and horror-in 
 spiring denunciations of the prophecies of the Holy Book. 
 
 Why need I paint, Charmion, the now disenchained frenzy of 
 mankind ? That tenuity in the comet which had previously in 
 spired us with hope, was now the source of the bitterness of de 
 spair. In its impalpable gaseous character we clearly perceived 
 the consummation of Fate. Meantime a day again passed 
 bearing away with it the last shadow of Hope. We gasped in 
 the rapid modification of the air. The red blood bounded tumul- 
 tuously through its strict channels. A furious delirium possessed 
 all men ; and, with arms rigidly outstretched towards the threat 
 ening heavens, they trembled and shrieked aloud. But the nu 
 cleus of the destroyer was now upon us ; even here in Aidenn, 
 I shudder while I speak. Let me be brief brief as the ruin that 
 overwhelmed. For a moment there was a wild lurid light alone, 
 visiting and penetrating all things. Then let us bow down, 
 Charmion, before the excessive majesty of the great God ! then, 
 there came a shouting and pervading sound, as if from the mouth 
 itself of HIM ; while the whole incumbent mass of ether in which 
 we existed, burst at once into a species of intense flame, for whose 
 surpassing brilliancy and all-fervid heat even the angels in the 
 high Heaven of pure knowledge have no name. Thus ended all. 
 
116 FOE'S TALES. 
 
 THE MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE. 
 
 What song the Syrens sang, or what name Achilles assumed when he hid 
 himself among women, although puzzling questions, are not beyond all con 
 jecture. , 
 
 Sir TTiomas Browne. 
 
 THE mental features discoursed of as the analytical, are, in 
 themselves, but little susceptible of analysis. We appreciate 
 them only in their effects. We know of them, among other 
 things, that they are always to their possessor, when inordinately 
 possessed, a source of the liveliest enjoyment. As the strong 
 man exults in his physical ability, delighting in such exercises as 
 call his muscles into action, so glories the analyst in that moral 
 activity which disentangles. He derives pleasure from even the 
 most trivial occupations bringing his talent into play. He is fond 
 of enigmas, of conundrums, of hieroglyphics ; exhibiting in his 
 solutions of each a degree of acumen which appears to the ordi 
 nary apprehension preternatural. His results, brought about by 
 the very soul and essence of method, have, in truth, the whole air 
 of intuition. 
 
 The faculty of re-solution is possibly much invigorated by 
 mathematical study, and especially by that highest branch of it 
 which, unjustly, and merely on account of its retrograde opera 
 tions, has been called, as if par excellence, analysis. Yet to cal 
 culate is not in itself to analyse. A chess-player, for example, 
 does the one without effort at the other. It follows that the game 
 of chess, in its effects upon mental character, is greatly misun 
 derstood. I am not now writing a treatise, but simply prefacing 
 a somewhat peculiar narrative by observations yery much at ran- 
 
THE MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE. 117 
 
 dom ; I will, therefore, take occasion to assert that the higher 
 powers of the reflective intellect are more decidedly and more 
 usefully tasked by the unostentatious game of draughts than by all 
 the elaborate frivolity of chess. In this latter, where the pieces 
 have different and bizarre motions, with various and variable 
 values, what is only complex is mistaken (a not unusual error) 
 for what is profound. The attention is here called powerfully 
 into play. If it flag for an instant, an oversight is committed, 
 resulting in injury or defeat. The possible moves being not only 
 manifold but involute, the chances of such oversights are multi 
 plied ; and in nine cases out of ten it is the more concentrative 
 rather than the more acute player who conquers. In draughts, on 
 the contrary, where the moves are unique and have but little va 
 riation, the probabilities of inadvertence are diminished, and the 
 mere attention being left comparatively unemployed, what advan 
 tages are obtained by either party are obtained by superior acumen. 
 To be less abstract Let us suppose a game of draughts where 
 the pieces are reduced to four kings, and where, of course, no 
 oversight is to be expected. It is obvious that here the victory can 
 be decided (the players being at all equal) only by some recher 
 che movement, the result of some strong exertion of the intellect. 
 Deprived of ordinary resources, the analyst throws himself into 
 the spirit of his opponent, identifies himself therewith, and not un- 
 frequently sees thus, at a glance, the sole methods (sometimes 
 indeed absurdly simple ones) by which he may seduce into error 
 or hurry into miscalculation. 
 
 Whist has long been noted for its influence upon what is 
 termed the calculating power ; and men of the highest order of 
 intellect have been known to take an apparently unaccountable 
 delight in it, while eschewing chess as frivolous. Beyond doubt 
 there is nothing of a similar nature so greatly tasking the faculty 
 of analysis. The best chess-player in Christendom may be little 
 more than the best player of chess ; but proficiency in whist im 
 plies capacity for success in all those more important undertakings 
 where mind struggles with mind. When I say proficiency, I 
 mean that perfection in the game which includes a comprehension 
 of all the sources whence legitimate advantage may be derived. 
 These are not only manifold but multiform, and lie frequently 
 
118 FOE'S TALES. 
 
 among recesses of thought altogether inaccessible to the ordinary 
 understanding. To observe attentively is to remember distinctly ; 
 and, so far, the concentrative chess-player will do very well at 
 whist; while the rules of Hoyle (themselves based upon the mere 
 mechanism of the game) are sufficiently and generally compre 
 hensible. Thus to have a retentive memory, and to proceed by 
 " the book," are points commonly regarded as the sum total of 
 good playing. But it is in matters beyond the limits of mere rule 
 that the skill of the analyst is evinced. He makes, in silence, a 
 host of observations and inferences. So, perhaps, do his com 
 panions ; and the difference in the extent of the information ob 
 tained, lies not so much in the validity of the inference as in the 
 quality of the observation. The necessary knowledge is that of 
 what to observe. Our player confines himself not at all ; nor, 
 because the game is the object, does he reject deductions from 
 things external to the game. He examines the countenance of 
 his partner, comparing it carefully with that of each of his oppo 
 nents. He considers the mode of assorting the cards in each 
 hand ; often counting trump by trump, and honor by honor, through 
 the glances bestowed by their holders upon each. He notes every 
 variation of face as the play progresses, gathering a fund of 
 thought from the differences in the expression of certainty, of 
 surprise, of triumph, or of chagrin. From the manner of gather 
 ing up a trick he judges whether the person taking it can make 
 another in the suit. He recognises what is played through feint, 
 by the air with which it is thrown upon the table, A casual or 
 inadvertent word ; the accidental dropping or turning of a card, 
 with the accompanying anxiety or carelessness in regard to its 
 concealment ; the counting of the tricks, with the order of their 
 arrangement ; embarrassment, hesitation, eagerness or trepidation 
 all afford, to his apparently intuitive perception, indications of 
 the true state of affairs. The first two or three rounds having 
 been played, he is in full possession of the contents of each hand, 
 and thenceforward puts down his cards with as absolute a precision 
 of purpose as if the rest of the party had turned outward the 
 faces of their own. 
 
 The analytical power should not be confounded with simple in 
 genuity ; for while the analyst is necessarily ingenious, the inge- 
 
THE MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE. 119 
 
 nious man is often remarkably incapable of analysis. The con 
 structive or combining power, by which ingenuity is usually 
 manifested, and to which the phrenologists (I believe erroneously) 
 have assigned a separate organ, supposing it a primitive faculty, 
 has been so frequently seen in those whose intellect bordered other 
 wise upon idiocy, as to have attracted general observation among 
 writers on morals. Between ingenuity and the analytic ability 
 there exists a difference far greater, indeed, than that between the 
 fancy and the imagination, but of a character very strictly anal 
 ogous. It will be found, in fact, that the ingenious are always 
 fanciful, and the truly imaginative never otherwise than ana 
 lytic. 
 
 The narrative which follows will appear to the reader some 
 what in the light of a commentary upon the propositions just ad 
 vanced. 
 
 Residing in Paris during the spring and part of the summer of 
 18 , I there became acquainted with a Monsieur C. Auguste 
 Dupin. This young gentleman was of an excellent indeed of an 
 illustrious family, but, by a variety of untoward events, had been 
 reduced to such poverty that the energy of his character suc 
 cumbed beneath it, and he ceased to bestir himself in the world, 
 or to care for the retrieval of his fortunes. By courtesy of his 
 creditors, there still remained in his possession a small remnant 
 of his patrimony ; and, upon the income arising from this, he 
 managed, by means of a rigorous economy, to procure the neces 
 saries of life, without troubling himself about its superfluities. 
 Books, indeed, were his sole luxuries, and in Paris these are 
 easily obtained. 
 
 Our first meeting was at an obscure library in the Rue Mont- 
 martre, where the accident of our both being in search of the 
 same very rare and very remarkable volume, brought us into 
 closer communion. We saw each other again and again. I was 
 deeply interested in the little family history which he detailed to 
 me with all that candor which a Frenchman indulges whenever 
 mere self is his theme. I was astonished, too, at the vast extent 
 of his reading ; and, above all, I felt my soul enkindled within 
 me by the wild fervor, and the vivid freshness of his imagination. 
 Seeking in Paris the objects I then sought, I felt that the society 
 
120 FOE'S TALES. 
 
 of such a man would be to me a treasure beyond price ; and this 
 feeling I frankly confided to him. It was at length arranged that 
 we should live together during my stay in the city ; and as my 
 worldly circumstances were somewhat less embarrassed than his 
 own, I was permitted to be at the expense of renting, and furnish, 
 ing in a style which suited the rather fantastic gloom of our 
 common temper, a time-eaten and grotesque mansion, long de 
 serted through superstitions into which we did not inquire, and 
 tottering to its fall in a retired and desolate portion of the Fau 
 bourg St. Germain. 
 
 Had the routine of our life at this place been known to the 
 world, we should have been regarded as madmen although, per 
 haps, as madmen of a harmless nature. Our seclusion was per 
 fect. We admitted no visitors. Indeed the locality of our re 
 tirement had been carefully kept a secret from my own former 
 associates ; and it had been many years since Dupin had ceased 
 to know or be known in Paris. We existed within ourselves 
 alone. 
 
 It was a freak of fancy in my friend (for what else shall I call 
 it ?) to be enamored of the Night for her own sake ; and into 
 this bizarrerie, as into all his others, I quietly fell ; giving myself 
 up to his wild whims with a perfect abandon. The sable divinity 
 would not herself dwell with us always ; but we could counter 
 feit her presence. At the first dawn of the morning we closed 
 all the massy shutters of our old building ; lighting a couple of 
 tapers which, strongly perfumed, threw out only the ghastliest 
 and feeblest of rays. By the aid of these we then busied our 
 souls in dreams reading, writing, or conversing, until warned 
 by the clock of the advent of the true Darkness. Then we 
 sallied forth into the streets, arm in arm, continuing the topics of 
 the day, or roaming far and wide until a late hour, seeking, amid 
 the wild lights and shadows of the populous city, that infinity of 
 mental excitement which quiet observation can afford. 
 
 At such times I could not help remarking and admiring (al 
 though from his rich ideality I had been prepared to expect it) a 
 peculiar analytic ability in Dupin. He seemed, too, to take an 
 eager delight in its exercise if not exactly in its display and 
 did not hesitate to confess the pleasure thus derived. He boasted 
 
THE MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE. 121 
 
 to me, with a low chuckling laugh, that most men, in respect to 
 himself, wore windows in their bosoms, and was wont to follow 
 up such assertions by direct and very startling proofs of his in 
 timate knowledge of my own. His manner at these moments 
 was frigid and abstract ; his eyes were vacant in expression ; 
 while his voice, usually a rich tenor, rose into a treble which 
 would have sounded petulantly but for the deliberateness and en 
 tire distinctness of the enunciation. Observing hirn in these 
 moods, I often dwelt meditatively upon the old philosophy of the 
 Bi-Part Soul, and amused myself with the fancy of a double 
 Dupin the creative and the resolvent. 
 
 Let it not be supposed, from what I have just said, that I am 
 detailing any mystery, or penning any romance. What I have 
 described in the Frenchman, was merely the result of an ex 
 cited, or perhaps of a diseased intelligence. But of the charac 
 ter of his remarks at the periods in question an example will best 
 convey the idea. 
 
 We were strolling one night down a long dirty street, in the 
 vicinity of the Palais Royal. Being both, apparently, occupied 
 with thought, neither of us had spoken a syllable for fifteen min 
 utes at least. All at once Dupin broke forth with these words: 
 
 " He is a very little fellow, that's true, and would do better for 
 the Theatre des Varietes" 
 
 " There can be no doubt of that," I replied unwittingly, and 
 not at first observing (so much had I been absorbed in reflection) 
 the extraordinary manner in which the speaker had chimed in 
 with my meditations. In an instant afterward I recollected my 
 self, and my astonishment was profound. 
 
 " Dupin," said I, gravely, " this is beyond my comprehension. 
 I do not hesitate to say that I am amazed, and can scarcely 
 credit my senses. How was it possible you should know I was 
 
 thinking of ?'"' Here I paused, to ascertain beyond a 
 
 doubt whether he really knew of whom I thought. 
 
 " of Chantilly," said he, " why do you pause ? You 
 
 were remarking to yourself that his diminutive figure unfitted 
 him for tragedy." 
 
 This was precisely what had formed the subject of my reflec 
 tions. Chantilly was a quondam cobbler of the Rue St. Denis, 
 
122 POE'S TALES. 
 
 who, becoming stage-mad, had attempted the role of Xerxes, in 
 Crebillon's tragedy so called, and been notoriously Pasquinaded 
 for his pains. 
 
 " Tell me, for Heaven's sake," I exclaimed, " the method if 
 method there is by which you have been enabled to fathom my 
 soul in this matter." In fact I was even more startled than I 
 would have been willing to express. 
 
 " It was the fruiterer," replied my friend, " who brought you 
 to the conclusion that the mender of soles was not of sufficient 
 height for Xerxes et id genus omne." 
 
 " The fruiterer ! you astonish me I know no fruiterer whom- 
 soever." 
 
 " The man who ran up against you as we entered the street 
 it may have been fifteen minutes ago." 
 
 I now remembered that, in fact, a fruiterer, carrying upon his 
 head a large basket of apples, had nearly thrown me down, by 
 accident, as we passed from the Rue C into the thorough 
 fare where we stood ; but what this had to do with Chantilly I 
 could not possibly understand. 
 
 There was not a particle of charlatanerie about Dupin. " I 
 will explain," he said, " and that you may comprehend all 
 clearly, we will first retrace the course of your meditations, from 
 the moment in which I spoke to you until that of the rencontre 
 with the fruiterer in question. The larger links of the chain run 
 thus Chantilly, Orion, Dr. Nichols, Epicurus, Stereotomy, the 
 street stones, the fruiterer." 
 
 There are few persons who have not, at some period of their 
 lives, amused themselves in retracing the steps by which particu 
 lar conclusions of their own minds have been attained. The oc 
 cupation is often full of interest ; and he who attempts it for the 
 first time is astonished by the apparently illimitable distance and 
 incoherence between the starting-point and the goal. What, then, 
 must have been my amazement when I heard the Frenchman 
 speak what he had just spoken, and when I could not help ac 
 knowledging that he had spoken the truth. He continued : 
 
 " We had been talking of horses, if I remember aright, just 
 
 before leaving the Rue C . This was the last subject we 
 
 discussed. As we crossed into this street, a fruiterer, with a 
 
THE MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE. 123 
 
 large basket upon his head, brushing quickly past us, thrust you 
 upon a pile of paving-stones collected at a spot where the cause 
 way is undergoing repair. You stepped upon one of the loose 
 fragments, slipped, slightly strained your ankle, appeared vexed 
 or sulky, muttered a few words, turned to look at the pile, and 
 then proceeded in silence. I was not particularly attentive to 
 what you did ; but observation has become with me, of late, a 
 species of necessity. 
 
 "You kept your eyes upon the ground glancing, with a petu 
 lant expression, at the holes and ruts in the pavement, (so that I 
 saw you were still thinking of the stones,) until we reached the 
 little alley called Lamartine, which has been paved, by way of 
 experiment, with the overlapping and riveted blocks. Here your 
 countenance brightened up, and, perceiving your lips move, I 
 could not doubt that you murmured the word ' stereotomy,' a 
 term very affectedly applied to this species of pavement. I knew 
 that you could not say to yourself ' stereotomy ' without being 
 brought to think of atomies, and thus of the theories of Epicurus ; 
 and since, when we discussed this subject not very long ago, I 
 mentioned to you how singularly, yet with how little notice, the 
 vague* guesses of that noble Greek had met with confirmation in 
 the late nebular cosmogony, I felt that you could not avoid cast 
 ing your eyes upward to the great nebula in Orion, and I cer 
 tainly expected that you would do so. You did look up ; and I 
 was now assured that I had correctly followed your steps. But 
 in that bitter tirade upon Chantilly, which appeared in yester 
 day's ' Musee,' the satirist, making some disgraceful allusions 
 to the cobbler's change of name upon assuming the buskin, quoted 
 a Latin line about which we have often conversed. I mean the 
 line 
 
 Perdidit antiquum litera prima sonum 
 
 I had told you that this was in reference to Orion, formerly writ 
 ten Urion ; and, from certain pungencies connected with this ex 
 planation, I was aware that you could not have forgotten it. It 
 was clear, therefore, that you would not fail to combine the two 
 ideas of Orion and Chantilly. That you did combine them I saw 
 by the character of the smile which passed over your lips. You 
 
124 FOE'S TALES. 
 
 thought of the poor cobbler's immolation. So far, you had been 
 stooping in your gait j but now I saw you draw yourself up to 
 your full height. I was then sure that you reflected upon the 
 diminutive figure of Chantilly. At this point I interrupted your 
 meditations to remark that as, in fact, he was a very little fellow 
 that Chantilly he would do better at the Theatre des Va- 
 rietes." 
 
 Not long after this, we were looking over an evening edition 
 of the " Gazette des Tribunaux," when the following paragraphs 
 arrested our attention. 
 
 " EXTRAORDINARY MURDERS. This morning, about three 
 o'clock, the inhabitants of the Quartier St. Roch were aroused 
 from sleep by a succession of terrific shrieks, issuing, apparently, 
 from the fourth story of a house in the Rue Morgue, known to be 
 in the sole occupancy of one Madame L'Espanaye, and her 
 daughter, Mademoiselle Camille L'Espanaye. After some delay, 
 occasioned by a fruitless attempt to procure admission in the 
 usual manner, the gateway was broken in with a crowbar, and 
 eight or ten of the neighbors entered, accompanied by two gen 
 darmes. By this time the cries had ceased ; but, as the party 
 rushed up the first flight of stairs, two or more rough voices, in 
 angry contention, were distinguished, and seemed to proceed from 
 the upper part of the house. As the second landing was reached, 
 these sounds, also, had ceased, and everything remained perfectly 
 quiet. The party spread themselves, and hurried from room to 
 room. Upon arriving at a large back chamber in the fourth 
 story, (the door of which, being found locked, with the key in 
 side, was forced open,) a spectacle presented itself which struck 
 every one present not less with horror than with astonishment. 
 
 " The apartment was in the wildest disorder the furniture 
 broken and thrown about in all directions. There was only one 
 bedstead ; and from this the bed had been removed, and thrown 
 into the middle of the floor. On a chair lay a razor, besmeared 
 with blood. On the hearth were two or three long and thick tresses 
 of grey human hair, also dabbled in blood, and seeming to have 
 been pulled out by the roots. Upon the floor were found four 
 Napoleons, an ear-ring of topaz, three large silver spoons, three 
 smaller of metal d'Alger, and two bags, containing nearly four 
 
* 
 
 THE MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE. 125 
 
 thousand francs in gold. The drawers of a bureau, which stood 
 in one corner, were open, and had been, apparently, rifled, al 
 though many articles still remained in them. A small iron safe 
 was discovered under the bed (not under the bedstead). It was 
 open, with the key still in the door. It had no contents beyond 
 a few old letters, and other papers of little consequence. 
 
 " Of Madame L'Espanaye no traces were here seen ; but an 
 unusual quantity of soot being observed in the fire-place, a 
 search was made in the chimney, and (horrible to relate !) the 
 corpse of the daughter, head downward, was dragged therefrom ; 
 it having been thus forced up the narrow aperture for a consider 
 able distance. The body was quite warm. Upon examining 
 it, many excoriations were perceived, no doubt occasioned by the 
 violence with which it had been thrust up and disengaged. Upon 
 the face were many severe scratches, and, upon the throat, dark 
 bruises, and deep indentations of finger nails, as if the deceased 
 had been throttled to death. 
 
 " After a thorough investigation of every portion of the house, 
 without farther discovery, the party made its way into a small 
 paved yard in the rear of the building, where lay the corpse of 
 the old lady, with her throat so entirely cut that, upon an attempt 
 to raise her, the head fell off. The body, as well as the head, was 
 fearfully mutilated the former so much so as scarcely to retain 
 any semblance of humanity. 
 
 " To this horrible mystery there is not as yet, we believe, the 
 slightest clew." 
 
 The next day's paper had these additional particulars. 
 
 " The Tragedy in the Rue Morgue. Many individuals have 
 been examined in relation to this most extraordinary and frightful 
 affair." [The word i affaire' has not yet, in France, that levity 
 of import which it conveys with us,] " but nothing whatever has 
 transpired to throw light upon it. We give below all the mate- 
 rial testimony elicited. 
 
 "Pauline Dubourg, laundress, deposes that she has known 
 both the deceased for three years, having washed for them during 
 that period. The old lady and her daughter seemed on good 
 terms very affectionate towards each other. They were excel 
 lent pay. Could not speak in regard to their mode or means of 
 
126 POE'S TALES. 
 
 living. Believed that Madame L. told fortunes for a living. 
 Was reputed to have money put by. Never met any persons 'in 
 the house when she called for the clothes or took them home. 
 Was sure that they had no servant in employ. There appeared 
 to be no furniture in any part of the building except in the fourth 
 story. 
 
 " Pierre Moreau, tobacconist, deposes that he has been in the 
 habit of selling small quantities of tobacco and snuff to Madame 
 L'Espanaye for nearly four years. Was born in the neighbor 
 hood, and has always resided there. The deceased and her 
 daughter had occupied the house in which the corpses were found, 
 for more than six years. It was formerly occupied by a jeweller, 
 who under-let the upner rooms to various persons. The house 
 was the property of Madame L. She became dissatisfied with 
 the abuse of the premises by her tenant, and moved into them 
 herself, refusing to let any portion. The old lady was childish. 
 Witness had seen the daughter some five or six times during the 
 six years. The two lived an exceedingly retired life were reputed 
 to have money. Had heard it said among the neighbors that 
 Madame L. told fortunes did not believe it. Had never seen 
 any person enter the door except the old lady and her daugh 
 ter, a porter once or twice, and a physician some eight or ten 
 times. 
 
 " Many other persons, neighbors, gave evidence to the same 
 effect. No one was spoken of as frequenting the house. It was 
 not known whether there were any living connexions of Madame 
 L. and her daughter. The shutters of the front windows were 
 seldom opened. Those in the rear were always closed, with the 
 exception of the large back room, fourth story. The house was 
 a good house not very old. 
 
 " Isidore Muset, gendarme, deposes that he was called to the 
 house about three o'clock in the morning, and found some twenty 
 or thirty persons at the gateway, endeavoring to gain admittance. 
 Forced it open, at length, with a bayonet not with a crowbar. 
 Had but little difficulty in getting it open, on account of its being 
 a double or folding gate, and bolted neither at bottom nor top. 
 The shrieks were continued until the gate was forced and then 
 suddenly ceased. They seemed to be screams of some person 
 
THE MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE. 127 
 
 (or persons) in great agony were loud and drawn out, not short 
 and quick. Witness led the way up stairs. Upon reaching the 
 first landing, heard two voices in loud and angry contention the 
 one a gruff voice, the other much shriller a very strange voice. 
 Could distinguish some words of the former, which was that of a 
 Frenchman. Was positive that it was not a woman's voice. 
 Could distinguish the words ' sacre' and '(Liable.' The shrill 
 voice was that of a foreigner. Could not be sure whether it was 
 the voice of a man or of a woman. Could not make out what 
 was said, but believed the language to be Spanish. The state of 
 the room and of the bodies was described by this witness as we 
 described them yesterday. 
 
 " Henri Duval, a neighbor, and by trade a silver-smith, de 
 poses that he was one of the party who first entered the house. 
 Corroborates the testimony of Muset in general. As soon as 
 they forced an entrance, they reclosed the door, to keep out the 
 crowd, which collected very fast, notwithstanding the lateness of 
 the hour. The shrill voice, this witness thinks, was that of an 
 Italian. Was certain it was not French. Could not be sure that 
 it was a man's voice. It might have been a woman's. Was not 
 acquainted with the Italian language. Could not distinguish the 
 words, but was convinced by the intonation that the speaker was 
 an Italian. Knew Madame L. and her daughter. Had con 
 versed with both frequently. Was sure that the shrill voice was 
 not that of either of the deceased. 
 
 " Odenheimer, restaurateur. This witness volunteered 
 
 his testimony. Not speaking French, was examined through an 
 interpreter. Is a native of Amsterdam. Was passing the house 
 at the time of the shrieks. They lasted for several minutes 
 probably ten. They were long and loud very awful and dis 
 tressing. Was one of those who entered the building. Corrob 
 orated the previous evidence in every respect but one. Was sure 
 that the shrill voice was that of a man of a Frenchman. Could 
 not distinguish the words uttered. They were loud and quick 
 unequal spoken apparently in fear as well as in anger. The 
 voice was harsh not so much shrill as harsh. Could not call it 
 a shrill voice. The gruff voice said repeatedly ( sacre,' ' (liable, 9 
 and once ' mon DieuS 
 
128 POE'S TALES. 
 
 " Jules Mignaud, banker, of the firm of Mignaud et Fils, 
 Rue Deloraine. Is the elder Mignaud. Madame L'Espanaye 
 had some property. Had opened an account with his banking 
 
 house in the spring of the year (eight years previously). 
 
 Made frequent deposits in small sums. Had checked for nothing 
 until the third day before her death, when she took out in person 
 the sum of 4000 francs. This sum was paid in gold, and a 
 clerk sent home with the money. 
 
 " Adolphe Le Bon, clerk to Mignaud et Fils, deposes that on the 
 day in question, about noon, he accompanied Madame L'Espanaye 
 to her residence with the 4000 francs, put up in two bags. Upon 
 the door being opened, Mademoiselle L. appeared and took from 
 his hands one of the bags, while the old lady relieved him of the 
 other. He then bowed and departed. Did not see any person 
 in the street at the time. It is a bye-street very lonely. 
 
 " William Bird, tailor, deposes that he was one of the party 
 who entered the house. Is an Englishman. Has lived in Paris 
 two years. Was one of the first to ascend the stairs. Heard 
 the voices in contention. The gruff voice was that of a French 
 man. Could make out several words, but cannot now remember 
 all. Heard distinctly ' sacre? and ' mon Dieu.' There was a 
 sound at the moment as if of several persons struggling a scra 
 ping and scuffling sound. The shrill voice was very loud louder 
 than the gruff one. Is sure that it was not the voice of an Eng 
 lishman. Appeared to be that of a German. Might have been 
 a woman's voice. Does not understand German. 
 
 " Four of the above-named witnesses, being recalled, deposed 
 that the door of the chamber in which was found the body of 
 Mademoiselle L. was locked on the inside when the party reach 
 ed it. Every thing was perfectly silent no groans or noises of 
 any kind. Upon forcing the door no person was seen. The 
 windows, both of the back and front room, were down and firmly 
 fastened from within. A door between the two rooms was closed, 
 but not locked. The door leading from the front room into the 
 passage was locked, with the key on the inside. A small room 
 in the front of the house, on the fourth story, at the head of the 
 passage, was open, the door being ajar. This room was crowded 
 with old beds, boxes, and so forth. These were carefully remov- 
 
THE MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE. 129 
 
 ed and searched. There was not an inch of any portion of the 
 house which was not carefully searched. Sweeps were sent up 
 and down the chimneys. The house was a four story one, with 
 garrets (inansardes.} A trap-door on the roof was nailed down 
 very securely did not appear to have been opened for years. 
 The time elapsing between the hearing of the voices in contention 
 and the breaking open of the room door, was variously stated by 
 the witnesses. Some made it as short as three minutes some as 
 long as five. The door was opened with difficulty. 
 
 " Alfonzo Gar do, undertaker, deposes that he resides in the 
 Rue Morgue. Is a native of Spain. Was one of the party who 
 entered the house. Did not proceed up stairs. Is nervous, and 
 was apprehensive of the consequences of agitation. Heard the 
 voices in contention. The gruff voice was that of a Frenchman. 
 Could not distinguish what was said. The shrill voice was that 
 of an Englishman is sure of this. Does not understand the 
 English language, but judges by the intonation. 
 
 " Alberto Montani, confectioner, deposes that he was among the 
 first to ascend the stairs. Heard the voices in question. The 
 gruff* voice was that of a Frenchman. Distinguished several 
 words. The speaker appeared to be expostulating. Could not 
 make out the words of the shrill voice. Spoke quick and une 
 venly. Thinks it the voice of a Russian. Corroborates the 
 general testimony. Is an Italian. Never conversed with a na 
 tive of Russia. 
 
 " Several witnesses, recalled, here testified that the chimneys 
 of all the rooms on the fourth story were too narrow to admit the 
 passage of a human being. By ' sweeps' were meant cylindrical 
 sweeping-brushes, such as are employed by those who clean 
 chimneys. These brushes were passed up and down every flue 
 in the house. There is no back passage by which any one could 
 have descended while the party proceeded up stairs. The body 
 of Mademoiselle L'Espanaye was so firmly wedged in the chim 
 ney that it could not be got down until four or five of the party 
 united their strength. 
 
 " Paul Dumas, physician, deposes that he was called to view 
 the bodies about day-break. They were both then lying on the 
 sacking of the bedstead in the chamber where Mademoiselle L. 
 
 10 
 
130 FOE'S TALES. 
 
 was found. The corpse of the young lady was much bruised 
 and excoriated. The fact that it had been thrust up the chimney 
 would sufficiently account for these appearances. The throat 
 was greatly chafed. There were several deep scratches just below 
 the chin, together with a series of livid spots which were evi. 
 dently the impression of fingers. The face was fearfully discol 
 ored, and the eye-balls protruded. The tongue had been partial 
 ly bitten through. A large bruise was discovered upon the pit 
 of the stomach, produced, apparently, by the pressure of a knee. 
 In the opinion of M. Dumas, Mademoiselle L'Espanaye had been 
 throttled to death by some person or persons unknown. The 
 corpse of the mother was horribly mutilated. All the bones of 
 the right leg and arm were more or less shattered. The left tibia 
 much splintered, as well as all the ribs of the left side. Whole 
 body dreadfully bruised and discolored. It was not possible to 
 say how the injuries had been inflicted. A heavy club of wood, 
 or a broad bar of iron a chair any large, heavy, and obtuse 
 weapon would have produced such results, if wielded by the hands 
 of a very powerful man. No woman could have inflicted the 
 blows with any weapon. The head of the deceased, when afcen 
 by witness, was entirely separated from the body, and was also 
 greatly shattered. The throat had evidently been cut with some 
 very sharp instrument probably with a razor. 
 
 " Alexandre Etienne, surgeon, was called with M. Dumas to 
 view the bodies. Corroborated the testimony, and the opinions 
 of M. Dumas. 
 
 " Nothing farther of importance was elicited, although several 
 other persons were examined. A murder so mysterious, and so 
 perplexing in all its particulars, was never before committed in 
 Paris if indeed a murder has been committed at all. The po 
 lice are entirely at fault an unusual occurrence in affairs of this 
 nature. There is not, however, the shadow of a clew apparent." 
 
 The evening edition of the paper stated that the greatest ex 
 citement still continued in the Quartier St. Roch that the prem 
 ises in question had been carefully re-searched, and fresh exam 
 inations of witnesses instituted, but all to no purpose. A post 
 script, however, mentioned that Adolphe Le Bon had been arrested 
 
THE MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE. 131 
 
 and imprisoned although nothing appeared to criminate him, be 
 yond the facts already detailed. 
 
 Dupin seemed singularly interested in the progress of this affair 
 at least so I judged from his manner, for he made no comments. 
 It was only after the announcement that Le Bon had been im 
 prisoned, that he asked me my opinion respecting the murders. 
 
 I could merely agree with all Paris in considering them an in 
 soluble mystery. I saw no means by which it would be possible 
 to trace the murderer. 
 
 " We must not judge of the means," said Dupin, " by this shell 
 of an examination. The Parisian police, so much extolled for 
 acumen, are cunning, but no more. There is no method in their 
 proceedings, beyond the method of the moment. They make a 
 vast parade of measures ; but, not unfrequently, these are so ill 
 adapted to the objects proposed, as to put us in mind of Monsieur 
 Jourdain's calling for his role-de-chambre pour mieux entendre 
 la musique. The results attained by them are not unfrequently 
 surprising, but, for the most part, are brought about by simple 
 diligence and activity. When these qualities are unavailing, 
 tKeir schemes fail. Vidocq, for example, was a good guesser, 
 and a persevering man. But, without educated thought, he erred 
 continually by the very intensity of his investigations. He im 
 paired his vision by holding the object too close. He might see, 
 perhaps, one or two points with unusual clearness, but in so do 
 ing he, necessarily, lost sight of the matter as a whole. Thus 
 there is such a thing as being too profound. Truth is not always 
 in a well. In fact, as regards the more important knowledge, I 
 do believe that she is invariably superficial. The depth lies in the 
 valleys where we seek her, and not upon the mountain-tops where 
 she is found. The modes and sources of this kind of error are 
 well typified in the contemplation of the heavenly bodies. To 
 look at a star by glances to view it in a side-long way, by turn 
 ing toward it the exterior portions of the retina (more susceptible 
 of feeble impressions of light than the interior), is to behold the 
 star distinctly is to have the best appreciation of its lustre a 
 lustre which grows dim just in proportion as we turn our vision 
 fully upon it. A greater number of rays actually fall upon the 
 eye in the latter case, but, in the former, there is the more refined 
 
132 FOE'S TALES. 
 
 capacity for comprehension. By undue profundity we perplex 
 and enfeeble thought ; and it is possible to make even Venus her 
 self vanish from the firmament by a scrutiny too sustained, too 
 concentrated, or too direct. 
 
 " As for these murders, let us enter into some examinations for 
 ourselves, before we make up an opinion respecting them. An 
 inquiry will afford us amusement," [I thought this an odd term, 
 so applied, but said nothing] " and, besides, Le Bon once ren 
 dered me a service for which I am not ungrateful. We will go 
 
 and see the premises with our own eyes. I know G , the 
 
 Prefect of Police, and shall have no difficulty in obtaining the ne 
 cessary permission." 
 
 The permission was obtained, and we proceeded at once to the 
 Rue Morgue. This is one of those miserable thoroughfares 
 which intervene between the Rue Richelieu and the Rue St. 
 Roch. It was late in the afternoon when we reached it ; as this 
 quarter is at a great distance from that in which we resided. 
 The house was readily found ; for there were still many persons 
 gazing up at the closed shutters, with an objectless curiosity, from 
 the opposite side of the way. It was an ordinary Parisian house, 
 with a gateway, on one side of which was a glazed watch-box, 
 with a sliding panel in the window, indicating a loge de concierge. 
 Before going in we walked up the street, turned down an alley, 
 and then, again turning, passed in the rear of the building Du- 
 pin, meanwhile, examining the whole neighborhood, as well as 
 the house, with a minuteness of attention for which I could see 
 no possible object. 
 
 Retracing our steps, we came again to the front of the dwell 
 ing, rang, and, having shown our credentials, were admitted by 
 the agents in charge. We went up stairs into the chamber 
 where the body of Mademoiselle L'Espanaye had been found, 
 and where both the deceased still lay. The disorders of the room 
 had, as usual, been suffered to exist. I saw nothing beyond what 
 had been stated in the " Gazette des Tribunaux." Dupin scru 
 tinized every thing not excepting the bodies of the victims. We 
 then went into the other rooms, and into the yard ; a gendarme 
 accompanying us throughout. The examination occupied us un 
 til dark, when we took our departure. On our way home my 
 
THE MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE. 133 
 
 companion stepped in for a moment at the office of one of the 
 daily papers. 
 
 I have said that the whims of my friend were manifold, and 
 that Je Us menagais : for this phrase there is no English equiv 
 alent. It was his humor, now, to decline all conversation on the 
 subject of the murder, until about noon the next day. He then 
 asked me, suddenly, if I had observed any thing peculiar at the 
 scene of the atrocity. 
 
 There was something in his manner of emphasizing the word 
 " peculiar," which caused me to shudder, without knowing why. 
 
 " No, nothing peculiar," I said ; " nothing more, at least, than 
 we both saw stated in the paper." 
 
 " The ' Gazette,' " he replied, " has not entered, I fear, into 
 the unusual horror of the thing. But dismiss the idle opinions of 
 this print. It appears to me that this mystery is considered in 
 soluble, for the very reason which should cause it to be regarded 
 as easy of solution I mean for the outre character of its features. 
 The police are confounded by the seeming absence of motive 
 not for the murder itself but for the atrocity of the murder. 
 They are puzzled, too, by the seeming impossibility of reconciling 
 the voices heard in contention, with the facts that no one was dis 
 covered up stairs but the assassinated Mademoiselle L'Espanaye, 
 and that there were no means of egress without the notice of the 
 party ascending. The wild disorder of the room j the corpse 
 thrust, with the head downward, up the chimney ; the frightful 
 mutilation of the body of the old lady ; these considerations, with 
 those just mentioned, and others which I need not mention, have 
 sufficed to paralyze the powers, by putting completely at fault the 
 boasted acumen, of the government agents. They have fallen 
 into the gross but common error of confounding the unusual with 
 the abstruse. But it is by these deviations from the plane of the 
 ordinary, that reason feels its way, if at all, in its search for the 
 true. In investigations such as we are now pursuing, it should 
 not be so much Loked l what has occurred,' as ' what has oc 
 curred that lias never occurred before.' In fact, the facility with 
 which I shall arrive, or have arrived, at the solution of this mys 
 tery, is in the direct ratio of its apparent insolubility in the eyes 
 of the police." 
 
134 POE'S TALES. 
 
 I stared at the speaker in mute astonishment. 
 
 " I am now awaiting," continued he, looking toward the door 
 of our apartment " I am now awaiting a person who, although 
 perhaps not the perpetrator of these butcheries, must have been 
 in some measure implicated in their perpetration. Of the worst 
 portion of the crimes committed, it is probable that he is innocent. 
 I hope that I am right in this supposition ; for upon it I build my 
 expectation of reading the entire riddle. I look for the man here 
 in this room every moment. It is true that he may not ar 
 rive ; but the probability is that he will. Should he come, it 
 will be necessary to detain him. Here are pistols ; and we both 
 know how to use them when occasion demands their use." 
 
 I took the pistols, scarcely knowing what I did, or believing 
 what I heard, while Dupin went on, very much as if in a solilo 
 quy. I have already spoken of his abstract manner at such 
 times. His discourse was addressed to myself; but his voice, 
 although by no means loud, had that intonation which is com- 
 monly employed in speaking to some one at a great distance. 
 His eyes, vacant in expression, regarded only the wall. 
 
 " That the voices heard in contention," he said, " by the party 
 upon the stairs, were not the voices of the women themselves, was 
 fully proved by the evidence. This relieves us of all doubt upon 
 the question whether the old lady could have first destroyed the 
 daughter, and afterward have committed suicide. I speak of 
 this point chiefly for the sake of method; for the strength of 
 Madame L'Espanaye would have been utterly unequal to the 
 task of thrusting her daughter's corpse up the chimney as it was 
 found ; and the nature of the wounds upon her own person en 
 tirely preclude the idea of self-destruction. Murder, then, has 
 been committed by some third party ; and the voices of this third 
 party were those heard in contention. Let me now advert not 
 to the whole testimony respecting these voices but to what was 
 peculiar in that testimony. Did you observe any thing peculiar 
 about it V 
 
 I remarked that, while all the witnesses agreed in supposing 
 the gruff voice to be that of a Frenchman, there was much dis 
 agreement in regard to the shrill, or, as one individual termed it, 
 the harsh voice. 
 
THE MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE. 135 
 
 " That was the evidence itself," said Dupin, " but it was not 
 the peculiarity of the evidence. You have observed nothing dis 
 tinctive. Yet there was something to be observed. The wit 
 nesses, as you remark, agreed about the gruff voice ; they were 
 here unanimous. But in regard to the shrill voice, the peculiar 
 ity is not that they disagreed but that, while an Italian, an 
 Englishman, a Spaniard, a Hollander, and a Frenchman at 
 tempted to describe it, each one spoke of it as that of a foreigner. 
 Each is sure that it was not the voice of one of his own country 
 men. Each likens it not to the voice of an individual of any 
 nation with whose language he is conversant but the converse. 
 The Frenchman supposes it the voice of a Spaniard, and ' might 
 have distinguished some words had he been acquainted with the 
 Spanish.' The Dutchman maintains it to have been that of a 
 Frenchman j but we find it stated that * not understanding French 
 this witness was examined through an interpreter.' The Eng 
 lishman thinks it the voice of a German, and ' does not under 
 stand German.' The Spaniard c is sure' that it was that of an 
 Englishman, but ' judges by the intonation' altogether, ' as he has 
 no knowledge of the English.' The Italian believes it the voice 
 of a Russian, but * has never conversed with a native of Russia.' 
 A second Frenchman differs, moreover, with the first, and is posi 
 tive that the voice was that of an Italian ; but, not being cognizant 
 of that tongue, is, like the Spaniard, ' convinced by the intona 
 tion.' Now, how strangely unusual must that voice have really 
 been, about which such testimony as this could have been elicit 
 ed ! in whose tones, even, denizens of the five great divisions of 
 Europe could recognise nothing familiar ! You will say that it 
 might have been the voice of an Asiatic of an African. Nei 
 ther Asiatics nor Africans abound in Paris ; but, without denying 
 the inference, I will now merely call your attention to three 
 points. The voice is termed by one witness ' harsh rather than 
 shrill.' It is represented by two others to have been * quick and 
 unequal.' No words no sounds resembling words were by 
 any witness mentioned as distinguishable. 
 
 " I know not," continued Dupin, " what impression I may 
 have made, so far, upon your own understanding ; but I do not 
 hesitate to say that legitimate deductions even from this portion of 
 
186 FOE'S TALES. 
 
 the testimony the portion respecting the gruff and shrill voices 
 are in themselves sufficient to engender a suspicion which 
 should give direction to all farther progress in the investigation of 
 the mystery. I said ' legitimate deductions ;' but my meaning is 
 not thus fully expressed. I designed to imply that the deduc 
 tions are the sole proper ones, and that the suspicion arises inevi 
 tably from them as the single result. What the suspicion is, 
 however, I will not say just yet. 1 merely wish you to bear in 
 mind that, with myself, it was sufficiently forcible to give a defi 
 nite form a certain tendency to rny inquiries in the chamber. 
 " Let us now transport ourselves, in fancy, to this chamber. 
 What shall we first seek here ? The means of egress employed 
 by the murderers. It is not too much to say that neither of us 
 believe in prseternatural events. Madame and Mademoiselle 
 L'Espanaye were not destroyed by spirits. The doers of the 
 deed were material, and escaped materially. Then how ? For 
 tunately, there is but one mode of reasoning upon the point, and 
 that mode must lead us to a definite decision. Let us examine, 
 each by each, the possible means of egress. It is clear that the 
 assassins were in the room where Mademoiselle L'Espanaye was 
 found, or at least in the room adjoining, when the party ascended 
 the stairs. It is then only from these two apartments that we 
 have to seek issues. The police have laid bare the floors, the 
 ceilings, and the masonry of the walls, in every direction. No 
 secret issues could have escaped their vigilance. But, not trust 
 ing to their eyes, I examined with my own. There were, then, 
 no secret issues. Both doors leading from the rooms into the pas 
 sage were securely locked, with the keys inside. Let us turn 
 to the chimneys. These, although of ordinary width for some 
 eight or ten feet above the hearths, will not admit, throughout 
 their extent, the body of a large cat. The impossibility of egress, 
 by means already stated, being thus absolute, we are reduced to 
 the windows. Through those of the front room no one could 
 have escaped without notice from the crowd in the street. The 
 murderers must have passed, then, through those of the back 
 room. Now, brought to this conclusion in so unequivocal a man 
 ner as we are, it is not our part, as reasoners, to reject it on ac- 
 
THE MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE. 137 
 
 count of apparent impossibilities. It is only left for us to prove 
 that these apparent ' impossibilities' are, in reality, not such. 
 
 " There are two windows in the chamber. One of them is un 
 obstructed by furniture, and is wholly visible. The lower por 
 tion of the other is hidden from view by the head of the unwieldy 
 bedstead which is thrust close up against it. The former was 
 found securely fastened from within. It resisted the utmost force 
 of those who endeavored to raise it. A large gimlet-hole had 
 been pierced in its frame to the left, and a very stout nail was 
 found fitted therein, nearly to the head. Upon examining the 
 other window, a similar nail was seen similarly fitted in it ; and 
 a vigorous attempt to raise this sash, failed also. The police 
 were now entirely satisfied that egress had not been in these 
 directions. And, therefore, it was thought a matter of superer 
 ogation to withdraw the nails and open the windows. 
 
 " My own examination was somewhat more particular, and was 
 so for the reason I have just given because here it was, I knew, 
 that all apparent impossibilities must be proved to be not such in 
 reality. 
 
 " I proceeded to think thus a posteriori. The murderers did 
 escape from one of these windows. This being so, they could 
 not have re-fastened the sashes from the inside, as they were 
 found fastened ; the consideration which put a stop, through its 
 obviousness, to the scrutiny of the police in this quarter. Yet 
 the sashes were fastened. They must, then, have the power of 
 fastening themselves. There was no escape from this conclusion. 
 I stepped to the unobstructed casement, withdrew the nail with 
 some difficulty, and attempted to raise the sash. It resisted all 
 my efforts, as I had anticipated. A concealed spring must, I now 
 knew, exist; and this corroboration of my idea convinced me 
 that my premises, at least, were correct, however mysterious still 
 appeared the circumstances attending the nails. A careful 
 search soon brought to light the hidden spring. I pressed it, and, 
 satisfied with the discovery, forbore to upraise the sash. 
 
 " I now replaced the nail and regarded it attentively. A per 
 son passing out through this window might have reclosed it, and 
 the spring would have caught but the nail could not have been 
 replaced. The conclusion was plain, and again narrowed in the 
 
138 POE'S TALES. 
 
 field of my investigations. The assassins must have escaped 
 through the other window. Supposing, then, the springs upon 
 each sash to be the same, as was probable, there must be found a 
 difference between the nails, or at least between the modes of 
 their fixture. Getting upon the sacking of the bedstead, I look 
 ed over the head-board minutely at the second casement. Pass 
 ing my hand down behind the board, I readily discovered and 
 pressed the spring, which was, as I had supposed, identical in 
 character with its neighbor. I now looked at the nail. It was 
 as stout as the other, and apparently fitted in the same manner 
 driven in nearly up to the head. 
 
 " You will say that I was puzzled ; but, if you think so, you 
 must have misunderstood the nature of the inductions. To use a 
 sporting phrase, I had not been once ' at fault.' The scent had 
 never for an instant been lost. There was no flaw in any link 
 of the chain. I had traced the secret to its ultimate result, and 
 that result was the nail. It had, I say, in every respect, the ap 
 pearance of its fellow in the other window ; but this fact was an 
 absolute nullity (conclusive as it might seem to be) when com 
 pared with the consideration that here, at this point, terminated 
 the clew. ' There must be something wrong,' I said, ' about the 
 nail.' I touched it; and the head, with about a quarter of an 
 inch of the shank, came off in my fingers. The rest of the 
 shank was in the gimlet-hole, where it had been broken off. 
 The fracture was an old one (for its edges were incrusted with 
 rust), and had apparently been accomplished by the blow of a 
 hammer, which had partially imbedded, in the top of the bottom 
 sash, the head portion of the nail. I now carefully replaced this 
 head portion in the indentation whence I had taken it, and the re 
 semblance to a perfect nail was complete the fissure was in 
 visible. Pressing the spring, I gently raised the sash for a few 
 inches; the head went up with it, remaining firm in its bed. I 
 closed the window, and the semblance of the whole nail was 
 again perfect. 
 
 " The riddle, so far, was now unriddled. The assassin had 
 escaped through the window which looked upon the bed. Drop- 
 ing of its own accord upon his exit (or perhaps purposely closed), 
 it had become fastened by the spring ; and it was the retention of 
 
THE MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE. 139 
 
 this spring which had been mistaken by the police for that of the 
 nail, farther inquiry being thus considered unnecessary. 
 
 " The next question is that of the mode of descent. Upon this 
 point I had been satisfied in my walk with you around the build 
 ing. About five feet and a half from the casement in question 
 there runs a lightning-rod. From this rod it would have been 
 impossible for any one to reach the window itself, to say nothing 
 of entering it. I observed, however, that the shutters of the fourth 
 story were of the peculiar kind called by Parisian carpenters fer- 
 rades a kind rarely employed at the present day, but frequently 
 seen upon very old mansions at Lyons and Bourdeaux. They 
 are in the form of an ordinary door, (a single, not a folding door) 
 except that the lower half is latticed or worked in open trellis 
 1 thus affording an excellent hold for the hands. In the present 
 instance these shutters are fully three feet and a half broad. 
 When we saw them from the rear of the house, they were both 
 about half open that is to say, they stood off at right angles from 
 the wall. It is probable that the police, as well as myself, ex 
 amined the back of the tenement ; but, if so, in looking at these 
 ferrades in the line of their breadth (as they must have done), 
 they did not perceive this great breadth itself, or, at all events, 
 failed to take it into due consideration. In fact, having once 
 satisfied themselves that no egress could have been made in this 
 quarter, they would naturally bestow here a very cursory exami 
 nation. It was clear to me, however, that the shutter belonging 
 to the window at the head of the bed, would, if swung fully back 
 to the wall, reach to within two feet of the lightning-rod. It was 
 also evident that, by exertion of a very unusual degree of activity 
 and courage, an entrance into the window, from the rod, might 
 have been thus effected. By reaching to the distance of two feet 
 and a half (we now suppose the shutter open to its whole extent) 
 a robber might have taken a firm grasp upon the trellis- work. 
 Letting go, then, his hold upon the rod, placing his feet securely 
 against the wall, and springing boldly from it, he might hav^ 
 swung the shutter so as to close it, and, if we imagine the window 
 open at the time, might even have swung himself into the room. 
 
 " I wish you to bear especially in mind that I have spoken of 
 a very unusual degree of activity as requisite to success in so 
 
140 FOE'S TALES. 
 
 hazardous and so difficult a feat. It is my design to show you, 
 first, that the thing might possibly have been accomplished : 
 but, secondly and chiefly, I wish to impress upon your under 
 standing the very extraordinary the almost preternatural char 
 acter of that agility which could have accomplished it. 
 
 " You will say, no doubt, using the language of the law, that 
 ' to make out my case,' I should rather undervalue, than insist 
 upon a full estimation of the. activity required in this matter. 
 This may be the practice in law, but it is not the usage of reason. 
 My ultimate object is only the truth. My immediate purpose is 
 to lead you to place in juxta-position, that very unusual activity 
 of which I have just spoken, with that very peculiar shrill (or 
 harsh) and unequal voice, about whose nationality no two persons 
 could be found to agree, and in whose utterance no syllabification 
 could be detected." 
 
 At these words a vague and half-formed conception of the 
 meaning of Dupin flitted over my mind. I seemed to be upon 
 the verge of comprehension, without power to comprehend as 
 men, at times, find themselves upon the brink of remembrance, 
 without being able, in the end, to remember. My friend went on 
 with his discourse. 
 
 " You will see," he said, " that I have shifted the question from 
 the mode of egress to that of ingress. It was my design to con- 
 vey the idea that both were effected in the same manner, at the 
 same point. Let us now revert to the interior of the room. Let 
 us survey the appearances here. The drawers of the bureau, it 
 is said, had been rifled, although many articles of apparel still re 
 mained within them. The conclusion here is absurd. It is a 
 mere guess a very silly one and no more. How are we to 
 know that the articles found in the drawers were not all these 
 drawers had originally contained ? Madame L'Espanaye and 
 her daughter lived an exceedingly retired life saw no company 
 seldom went out had little use for numerous changes of habil 
 iment. Those found were at least of as good quality as any 
 likely to be possessed by these ladies. If a thief had taken any, 
 why did he not take the best why did he not take all ? In a 
 word, why did he abandon four thousand francs in gold to encum 
 ber himself with a bundle of linen ? The gold was abandoned. 
 
THE MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE. 141 
 
 Nearly the whole sum mentioned by Monsieur Mignaud, the 
 banker, was discovered, in bags, upon the floor. I wish you, 
 therefore, to discard from your thoughts the blundering idea of 
 motive, engendered in the brains of the police by that portion of 
 the evidence which speaks of money delivered at the door of the 
 house. Coincidences ten times as remarkable as this (the de 
 livery of the money, and murder committed within three days 
 upon the party receiving it), happen to all of us every hour of 
 our lives, without attracting even momentary notice. Coinci 
 dences, in general, are great stumbling-blocks in the way of that 
 class of thinkers who have been educated to know nothing of the 
 theory of probabilities that theory to which the most glorious 
 objects of human research are indebted for the most glorious of 
 illustration. In the present instance, had the gold been gone, 
 the fact of its delivery three days before would have formed 
 something more than a coincidence. It would have been corrob 
 orative of this idea of motive. But, under the real circumstances 
 of the case, if we are to suppose gold the motive of this outrage, 
 we must also imagine the perpetrator so vacillating an idiot as to 
 have abandoned his gold and his motive together. 
 
 " Keeping now steadily in mind the points to which I have 
 drawn your attention that peculiar voice, that unusual agility, 
 and that startling absence of motive in a murder so singularly 
 atrocious as this let us glance at the butchery itself. Here is 
 a woman strangled to death by manual strength, and thrust up a 
 chimney, head downward. Ordinary assassins employ no such 
 modes of murder as this. Least of all, do they thus dispose of 
 the murdered. In the manner of thrusting the corpse up the 
 chimney, you will admit that there was something excessively 
 outre -something altogether irreconcilable with our common no 
 tions of human action, even when we suppose the actors the most 
 depraved of men. Think, too, how great must have been that 
 strength which could have thrust the body up such an aperture 
 so forcibly that the united vigor of several persons was found 
 barely sufficient to drag it down! 
 
 " Turn, now, to other indications of the employment of a vigor 
 most marvellous. On the hearth were thick tresses very thick 
 tresses of grey human hair. These had been torn out by the 
 
142 POE'S TALES. 
 
 roots. You are aware of the great force necessary in tearing 
 thus from the head even twenty or thirty hairs together. You 
 saw the locks in question as well as myself. Their roots (a 
 hideous sight !) were clotted with fragments of the flesh of the 
 scalp sure token of the prodigious power which had been ex 
 erted in uprooting perhaps half a million of hairs at a time. The 
 throat of the old lady was not merely cut, but the head absolute 
 ly severed from the body : the instrument was a mere razor. I 
 wish you also to look at the brutal ferocity of these deeds. Of 
 the bruises upon the body of Madame L'Espanaye I do not speak. 
 Monsieur Dumas, and his worthy coadjutor Monsieur Etienne, have 
 pronounced that they were inflicted by some obtuse instrument ; 
 and so far these gentlemen are very correct. The obtuse instru 
 ment was clearly the stone pavement in the yard, upon which the 
 victim had fallen from the window which looked in upon the bed. 
 This idea, however simple it may now seem, escaped the police 
 for the same reason that the breadth of the shutters escaped them 
 because, by the affair of the nails, their perceptions had been her 
 metically sealed against the possibility of the windows having 
 ever been opened at all. 
 
 " If now, in addition to all these things, you have properly re 
 flected upon the odd disorder of the chamber, we have gone so 
 far as to combine the ideas of an agility astounding, a strength 
 superhuman, a ferocity brutal, a butchery without motive, a gro- 
 tesquerie in horror absolutely alien from humanity, and a voice 
 foreign in tone to the ears of men of many nations, and devoid 
 of all distinct or intelligible syllabification. What result, then, 
 has ensued ? What impression have I made upon your fancy ?" 
 
 I felt a creeping of the flesh as Dupin asked me the question. 
 " A madman," I said, " has done this deed some raving maniac, 
 escaped from a neighboring Maison de Sante" 
 
 " In some respects," he replied, " your idea is not irrelevant. 
 But the voices of madmen, even in their wildest paroxysms, are 
 never found to tally with that peculiar voice heard upon the 
 stairs. Madmen are of some nation, and their language, how. 
 ever incoherent in its words, has always the coherence of syllab 
 ification. Besides, the hair of a madman is not such as I now 
 hold in my hand. I disentangled this little tuft from the rigidly 
 
THE MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE. 143 
 
 clutched fingers of Madame L'Espanaye. Tell me what you 
 can make of it." 
 
 " Dupin !" I said, completely unnerved ; " this hair is most 
 unusual this is no human hair." 
 
 " I have not asserted that it is," said he ; " but, before we de 
 cide this point, I wish you to glance at the little sketch I have 
 here traced upon this paper. It is a fac-simile drawing of what 
 has been described in one portion of the testimony as ' dark 
 bruises, and deep indentations of finger nails/ upon the throat of 
 Mademoiselle L'Espanaye, and in another, (by Messrs. Dumas 
 and Etienne,) as a ' series of livid spots, evidently the impression 
 of fingers.' 
 
 " You will perceive," continued my friend, spreading out the 
 paper upon the table before us, " that this drawing gives the idea 
 of a firm and fixed hold. There is no slipping apparent. Each 
 finger has retained possibly until the death of the victim the 
 fearful grasp by which it originally imbedded itself. Attempt, 
 now, to place all your fingers, at the same time, in the respective 
 impressions as you see them." 
 
 I made the attempt in vain. 
 
 " We are possibly not giving this matter a fair trial," he said. 
 " The paper is spread out upon a plane surface ; but the human 
 throat is cylindrical. Here is a billet of wood, the circumference 
 of which is about that of the throat. Wrap the drawing around 
 it, and try the experiment again." 
 
 I did so ; but the difficulty was even more obvious than before. 
 " This," I said, " is the mark of no human hand." 
 
 " Read now," replied Dupin, " this passage from Cuvier." 
 
 It was a minute anatomical and generally descriptive account 
 of the large fulvous Ourang-Outang of the East Indian Islands. 
 The gigantic stature, the prodigious strength and activity, the 
 wild ferocity, and the imitative propensities of these mammalia* 
 are sufficiently well known to all. I understood the full horrors 
 of the murder at once. 
 
 " The description of the digits," said I, as I made an end of 
 reading, " is in exact accordance with this drawing. 1 see that 
 no animal but an Ourang-Outang, of the species here mentioned, 
 could have impressed the indentations as you have traced them. 
 
144 FOE'S TALES. 
 
 This tuft of tawny hair, too, is identical in character with that of 
 the beast of Cuvier. But I cannot possibly comprehend the par 
 ticulars of this frightful mystery. Besides, there were two voices 
 heard in contention, and one of them was unquestionably the 
 voice of a Frenchman." 
 
 "True; and you w r ill remember an expression attributed al 
 most unanimously, by the evidence, to this voice, the expression, 
 1 mon Dieu /' This, under the circumstances, has been justly 
 characterized by one of the witnesses (Montani, the confectioner,) 
 as an expression of remonstrance or expostulation. Upon these 
 two words, therefore, I have mainly built my hopes of a full so 
 lution of the riddle. A Frenchman was cognizant of the murder. 
 It is possible indeed it is far more than probable that he was 
 innocent of all participation in the bloody transactions which took 
 place. The Ourang-Outang may have escaped from him. He 
 may have traced it to the chamber ; but, under the agitating cir 
 cumstances which ensued, he could never have re-captured it. 
 It is still at large. I will not pursue these guesses for I have no 
 right to call them more since the shades of reflection upon 
 which they are based are scarcely of sufficient depth to be appre 
 ciable by my own intellect, and since I could not pretend to make 
 them intelligible to the understanding of another. We will call 
 them guesses then, and speak of them as such. If the French 
 man in question is indeed, as I suppose, innocent of this atrocity, 
 this advertisement, which I left last night, upon our return home, 
 at the office of ' Le Monde,' (a paper devoted to the shipping in 
 terest, and much sought by sailors,) will bring him to our resi 
 dence." 
 
 He handed me a paper, and I read thus : 
 
 CAUGHT In the Bois de Boulogne, early in the morning of 
 
 ithe inst., (the morning of the murder,) a very large, tawny 
 
 Ourang-Outang of the Bornese species. The owner, (who is as 
 certained to be a sailor, belonging to a Maltese vessel,) may have 
 the animal again, upon identifying it satisfactorily, and paying a 
 few charges arising from its capture and keeping. Call at No. 
 , Rue , Faubourg St. Germain au troisieme. 
 
THE MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE. 145 
 
 " How was it possible," I asked, " that you should know the 
 man to be a sailor, and belonging to a Maltese vessel ?" 
 
 " I do not know it," said Dupin. " I am not sure of it. Here, 
 however, is a small piece of ribbon, which from its form, and from 
 its greasy appearance, has evidently been used in tying the hair 
 in one of those long queues of which sailors are so fond. More 
 over, this knot is one which few besides sailors can tie, and is pe 
 culiar to the Maltese. I picked the ribbon up at the foot of the 
 lightning-rod. It could not have belonged to either of the deceas 
 ed. Now if, after all, I am Wrong in my induction from this 
 ribbon, that the Frenchman was a sailor belonging to a Maltese 
 vessel, still I can have done no harm in saying what I did in the 
 advertisement. If I am in error, he will merely suppose that I 
 have been misled by some circumstance into which he will not 
 take the trouble to inquire. But if I am right, a great point is 
 gained. Cognizant although innocent of the murder, the French 
 man will naturally hesitate about replying to the advertisement 
 about demanding the Ourang-Outang. He will reason thus : 
 * I am innocent ; I am poor ; my Ourang-Outang is of great value 
 to one in my circumstances a fortune of itself why should I 
 lose it through idle apprehensions of danger ? Here it is, within 
 my grasp. It was found in the Bois de Boulogne at a vast dis 
 tance from the scene of that butchery. How can it ever be sus 
 pected that a brute beast should have done the deed ? The po 
 lice are at fault they have failed to procure the slightest clew. 
 Should they even trace the animal, it would be impossible to 
 prove me cognizant of the murder, or to implicate me in guilt on 
 account of that cognizance. Above all, / am known. The ad 
 vertiser designates me as the possessor of the beast. I am not 
 sure to what limit his knowledge may extend. Should I avoid 
 claiming a property of so great value, which it is known that I 
 possess, I will render the animal at least, liable to suspicion. It 
 is not my policy to attract attention either to myself or to the 
 beast. I will answer the advertisement, get the Ourang-Outang, 
 and keep it close until this matter has blown over.' ' 
 
 At this moment we heard a step upon the stairs. 
 
 " Be ready," said Dupin, " with your pistols, but neither use 
 them nor show them until at a signal from myself." 
 
 11 
 
146 POE'S TALES. 
 
 The front door of the house had been left open, and the visiter 
 had entered, without ringing, and advanced several steps upon the 
 staircase. Now, however, he seemed to hesitate. Presently we 
 heard him descending. Dupin was moving quickly to the door, 
 when we again heard him coming up. He did not turn back a 
 second time, but stepped up with decision, and rapped at the door 
 of our chamber. 
 
 " Come in," said Dupin, in a cheerful and hearty tone. 
 
 A man entered. He was a sailor, evidently, a tall, stout, 
 and muscular-looking person, with a certain dare-devil expression 
 of countenance, not altogether unprepossessing. His face, greatly 
 sunburnt, was more than half hidden by whisker and mustachio. 
 He had with him a huge oaken cudgel, but appeared to be other 
 wise unarmed. He bowed awkwardly, and bade us " good even 
 ing," in French accents, which, although somewhat Neufchatel- 
 ish, were still sufficiently indicative of a Parisian origin. 
 
 "Sit down, my freind," said Dupin. " I suppose you have 
 called about the Ourang-Outang. Upon my word, I almost envy 
 you the possession of him; a remarkably fine, and no doubt a 
 very valuable animal. How old do you suppose him to be ?" 
 
 The sailor drew a long breath, with the air of a man relieved 
 of some intolerable burden, and then replied, in an assured tone : 
 
 " I have no way of telling but he can't be more than four or 
 five years old. Have you got him here 1" 
 
 " Oh no; we had no conveniences for keeping him here. He 
 is at a livery stable in the Rue Dubourg, just by. You can get 
 him in the morning. Of course you are prepared to identify the 
 property ?" 
 
 " To be sure I am, sir." 
 
 " I shall be sorry to part with him," said Dupin. 
 
 "I don't mean that you should be at all this trouble for no 
 thing, sir," said the man. "Couldn't expect it. Am very will 
 ing to pay a reward for the finding of the animal that is to say, 
 any thing in reason." 
 
 "Well," replied my friend, "that is all very fair, to be sure. 
 Let me think! what should I have? Oh! I will tell you. My 
 reward shall be this. You shall give me all the information in 
 your power about these murders in the Rue Morgue." 
 
THE MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE. 147 
 
 Dupin said the last words in a very low tone, and very qui 
 etly. Just as quietly, too, he walked toward the door, locked it, 
 and put the key in his pocket. He then drew a pistol from his 
 bosom and placed it, without the least flurry, upon the table. 
 
 The sailor's face flushed up as if he were struggling with suf 
 focation. He started to his feet and grasped his cudgel ; but the 
 next moment he fell back into his seat, trembling violently, and 
 with the countenance of death itself. He spoke not a word. I 
 pitied him from the bottom of my heart. 
 
 " My friend," said Dupin, in a kind tone, " you are alarming 
 yourself unnecessarily you are indeed. We mean you no 
 harm whatever. I pledge you the honor of a gentleman, and of 
 a Frenchman, that we intend you no injury. I perfectly well 
 know that you are innocent of the atrocities in the Rue Morgue. 
 It will not do, however, to deny that you are in some measure 
 implicated in them. From what I have already said, you must 
 know that I have had means of information about this matter- 
 means of which you could never have dreamed. Now the thing 
 stands thus. You have done nothing which you could have 
 avoided nothing, certainly, which renders you culpable. You 
 were not even guilty of robbery, when you might have robbed 
 with impunity. You have nothing to conceal. You have no 
 reason for concealment. On the other hand, you are bound by 
 every principle of honor to confess all you know. An innocent 
 man is now imprisoned, charged with that crime of which you 
 can point out the perpetrator." 
 
 The sailor had recovered his presence of mind, in a great 
 measure, while Dupin uttered these words ; but his original bold 
 ness of bearing was all gone. 
 
 " So help me God," said he, after a brief pause, " I will tell 
 you all I know about this affair ; but I do not expect you to be 
 lieve one half I say I would be a fool indeed if I did. Still, I 
 am innocent, and I will make a clean breast if I die for it." 
 
 What he stated was, in substance, this. He had lately made 
 a voyage to the Indian Archipelago. A party, of which he formed 
 one, landed at Borneo, and passed into the interior on an excur 
 sion of pleasure. Himself and a companion had captured the 
 Ourang-Outang. This companion dying, the animal fell into h'_ 
 
148 FOE'S TALES. 
 
 own exclusive possession. After great trouble, occasioned by the 
 intractable ferocity of his captive during the home voyage, he at 
 length succeeded in lodging it safely at his own residence in Paris, 
 where, not to attract toward himself the unpleasant curiosity of 
 his neighbors, he kept it carefully secluded, until such time as 
 it should recover from a wound in the foot, received from a splin 
 ter on board ship. His ultimate design was to sell it. 
 
 Returning home from some sailors' frolic on the night, or rather 
 in the morning of the murder^ he found the beast occupying his 
 own bed-room, into which it had broken from a closet adjoining, 
 where it had been, as was thought, securely confined. Razor in 
 hand, and fully lathered, it was sitting before a looking-glass, at 
 tempting the operation of shaving, in which it had no doubt pre 
 viously watched its master through the key-hole of the closet. 
 Terrified at the sight of so dangerous a weapon in the possession 
 of an animal so ferocious, and so well able to use it, the man, for 
 some moments, was at a loss what to do. He had been accus 
 tomed, however, to quiet the creature, even in its fiercest moods, 
 by the use of a whip, and to this he now resorted. Upon sight 
 of it, the Ourang-Outang sprang at once through the door of the 
 chamber, down the stairs, and thence, through a window, unfor 
 tunately open, into the street. 
 
 The Frenchman followed in despair ; the ape, razor still in 
 hand, occasionally stopping to look back and gesticulate at its 
 pursuer, until the latter had nearly come up with it; It then 
 again made off. In this manner the chase continued for a long 
 time. The streets were profoundly quiet, as it was nearly three 
 o'clock in the morning. In passing down an alley in the rear of 
 the Rue Morgue, the fugitive's attention was arrested by a light 
 gleaming from the open window of Madame L'Espanaye's chamber, 
 in the fourth story of her house. Rushing to the building, it per 
 ceived the lightning-rod, clambered up with inconceivable agility, 
 grasped the shutter, which was thrown fully back against the wall, 
 and, by its means, swung itself directly upon the headboard of the 
 bed. The whole feat did not occupy a minute. The shutter was 
 kicked open again by the Ourang-Outang as it entered the room. 
 
 The sailor, in the meantime, was both rejoiced and perplexed. 
 He had strong hopes of now recapturing the brute, as it could 
 
THE MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE. 149 
 
 scarcely escape from the trap into which it had ventured, except 
 by the rod, where it might be intercepted as it came down. On 
 the other hand, there was much cause for anxiety as to what it 
 might do in the house. This latter reflection urged the man still 
 to follow the fugitive. A lightning-rod is ascended without diffi 
 culty, especially by a sailor ; but, when he had Arrived as high as 
 the window, which lay far to his left, his career was stopped ; the 
 most that he could accomplish was to reach over so as to obtain 
 a glimpse of the interior of the room. At this glimpse he nearly 
 fell from his hold through excess of horror. Now it was that 
 those hideous shrieks arose upon the night, which had startled 
 from slumber the inmates of the Rue Morgue. Madame L'Es- 
 panaye and her daughter, habited in their night clothes, had ap 
 parently been occupied in arranging some papers in the iron chest 
 already mentioned, which had been wheeled into the middle of 
 the room. It was open, and its contents lay beside it on the floor. 
 The victims must have been sitting with their backs toward the 
 window ; and, from the time elapsing between the ingress of the 
 beast and the screams, it seems probable that it was not immedi 
 ately perceived. The flapping-to of the shutter would naturally 
 have been attributed to the wind. 
 
 As the sailor looked in, the gigantic animal had seized Ma 
 dame L'Espanaye by the hair, (which was loose, as she had been 
 combing it,) and was flourishing the razor about her face, in im 
 itation of the motions of a barber. The daughter lay prostrate 
 and motionless ; she had swooned. The screams and struggles 
 of the old lady (during which the hair was torn from her head) 
 had the effect of changing the probably pacific purposes of the 
 Ourang-Outang into those of wrath. With one determined sweep 
 of its muscular arm it nearly severed her head from her body. 
 The sight of blood inflamed its anger into phrenzy. Gnashing 
 its teeth, and flashing fire from its .eyes, it flew upon the body of 
 the girl, and imbedded its fearful talons in her throat, retaining 
 its grasp until she expired. Jts wandering and wild glances fell 
 at this moment upon the head of the bed, oyer which the face of 
 its master, rigid with horror, was just discernible. The fury of 
 the beast, who no doubt bore still in mind the dreade4 whip, was 
 instantly converted into fear. Conscious of having deserved pun. 
 
150 FOE'S TALES. 
 
 ishment, it seemed desirous of concealing its bloody deeds, and 
 skipped about the chamber in an agony of nervous agitation ; 
 throwing down and breaking the furniture as it moved, and 
 dragging the bed from the bedstead. In conclusion, it seized first 
 the corpse of the daughter, and thrust it up the chimney, as it 
 was found ; then that of the old lady, which it immediately 
 hurled through the window headlong. 
 
 As the ape approached the casement with its mutilated burden, 
 the sailor shrank aghast to the rod, and, rather gliding than clam 
 bering down it, hurried at once home dreading the consequences 
 of the butchery, and gladly abandoning, in his terror, all solicitude 
 about the fate of the Ourang-Outang. The words heard by the party 
 upon the staircase were the Frenchman's exclamations of horror 
 and affright, commingled with the fiendish jabberings of the brute. 
 
 I have scarcely anything to add. The Ourang-Outang must 
 have escaped from the chamber, by the rod, just before the break 
 ing of the door. It must have closed the window as it passed 
 through it. It was subsequently caught by the owner himself, 
 who obtained for it a very large sum at the Jardin des Plantes. 
 Le Bon was instantly released, upon our narration of the circum 
 stances (with some comments from Dupin) at the bureau of the 
 Prefect of Police. This functionary, however well disposed to 
 my friend, could not altogether conceal his chagrin at the turn 
 which affairs had taken, and was fain to indulge in a sarcasm or 
 two, about the propriety of every person minding his own business. 
 
 " Let him talk," said Dupin, who had not thought it necessary 
 to reply. " Let him discourse ; it will ease his conscience. I 
 am satisfied with having defeated him in his own castle. Never 
 theless, that he failed in the solution of this mystery, is by no 
 means that matter for wonder which he supposes it ; for, in truth, 
 our friend the Prefect is somewhat too cunning to be profound. 
 In his wisdom is no stamen. It is all head and no body, like the 
 pictures of the Goddess Laverna, or, at best, all head and 
 shoulders, like a codfish. But he is a good creature after all. 
 I like him especially for one master stroke of cant, by which he 
 has attained his reputation for ingenuity. I mean the way he 
 has ' de nier ce qui est, et d'exptiquer ce quin'est pas.' "* 
 
 * Rousseau-^Nouvelle Heloise. 
 
THE MYSTERY OF MARIE ROGET. 151 
 
 THE MYSTERY OF MARIE ROGET.' 
 
 A 8EQUEL TO " THE MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE. 
 
 Es giebt eine Reihe idealischer Begebenheiten, die der Wirklichkeit parallel 
 lauft. Selten fallen sie zusammen. Menschen und zufalle modificireri gewo- 
 hulich die idealische Begebenheit, so dass sie unvollkommen erscheint, und 
 ihre Folgen gleichfalls unvollkommen sind. So bei der Reformation ; statt 
 des Protestantismus kam das Lutherthum hervor. 
 
 There are ideal series o^ events which run parallel with the real ones. They 
 rarely coincide. Men and circumstances generally modify the ideal train of 
 events, so that it seems imperfect, and its consequences are equally imper 
 fect. Thus with the Reformation ; instead of Protestantism came Lutheran- 
 ism. Novalis.t Moral Ansichten. 
 
 THERE are few persons, even among the calmest thinkers, who 
 have not occasionally been startled into a vague yet thrilling half- 
 credence in the supernatural, by coincidences of so seemingly 
 marvellous a character that, as mere coincidences, the intellect 
 has been unable to receive them. Such sentiments for the half- 
 
 * Upon the original publication of " Marie Roget," the foot-notes now ap 
 pended were considered unnecessary ; but the lapse of several years since the 
 tragedy upon which the tale is based, renders it expedient to give them, and 
 also to say a few words in explanation of the general design. A young girl, 
 Mary Cecilia Rogers, was murdered in the vicinity of New York ; and, al 
 though her death occasioned an intense and long-enduring excitement, the 
 mystery attending it had remained unsolved at the period when the present 
 paper was written and published (November, 1842). Herein, under pretence 
 of relating the fate of a Parisian grisette, the author has followed, in minute 
 detail, the essential, while merely paralleling the inessential facts of the real 
 murder of Mary Rogers. Thus all argument founded upon the fiction is appli 
 cable to the truth : and the investigation of the truth was the object. 
 
 The " Mystery of Marie Roget" was composed at a distance from the scene 
 of the atrocity, and with no other means of investigation than the newspapers 
 
 t The nom de plume of Von Hardenburg. 
 
152 FOE'S TALES. 
 
 credences of which I speak have never the full force of thought 
 such sentiments are seldom thoroughly stifled unless by reference 
 to the doctrine of chance, or, as it is technically termed, the Cal 
 culus of Probabilities. Now this Calculus is, in its essence, 
 purely mathematical ; and thus we have the anomaly of the 
 most rigidly exact in science applied to the shadow and spiritu 
 ality of the most intangible in speculation. 
 
 The extraordinary details which I am now called upon to 
 make public, will be found to form, as regards sequence of time, 
 the primary branch of a series of scarcely intelligible coinci 
 dences, whose secondary or concluding branch will be recognized 
 by all readers in the late murder of MARY CECILIA ROGERS, at 
 New York. 
 
 When, in an article entitled " The Murders in the Rue Mor 
 gue," I endeavored, about a year ago, to depict some very re 
 markable features in the mental character of my friend, the Chev 
 alier C. Auguste Dupin, it did not occur to me that I should ever 
 resume the subject. This depicting of character constituted my 
 design ; and this design was thoroughly fulfilled in the wild train 
 of circumstances brought to instance Dupin's idiosyncrasy. I 
 might have adduced other examples, but I should have proven 
 no more. Late events, however, in their surprising development, 
 have startled me into some farther details, which will carry with 
 them the air of extorted confession. Hearing what I have lately 
 heard, it would be indeed strange should I remain silent in regard 
 to what I both heard and saw so long ago. 
 
 Upon the winding up of the tragedy involved in the deaths of 
 Madame L'Espanaye and her daughter, the Chevalier dismissed 
 the affair at once from his attention, and relapsed into his old 
 habits of moody reverie. Prone, at all times, to abstraction, I 
 readily fell in with his humor ; and, continuing to occupy our 
 
 afforded. Thus much escaped the writer of which he could have availed him 
 self had he been upon the spot, and visited the localities. It may not be im 
 proper to record, nevertheless, that the confessions of two persons, (one of 
 them the Madame Deluc of the narrative) made, at different periods, long sub 
 sequent to the publication, confirmed, in full, not only the general conclusion, 
 but absolutely all the chief hypothetical details by which that conclusion was 
 attained. 
 
THE MYSTERY OF MARIE ROGET. 153 
 
 chambers in the Faubourg Saint Germain, we gave the Future to 
 the winds, and slumbered tranquilly in the Present, weaving the 
 dull world around us into dreams. 
 
 But these dreams were not altogether uninterrupted. It may 
 readily be supposed that the part played by my friend, in the 
 drama at the Rue Morgue, had not failed of its impression upon 
 the fancies of the Parisian police. With its emissaries, the name 
 of Dupin had grown into a household word. The simple charac 
 ter of those inductions by which he had disentangled the mystery 
 never having been explained even to the Prefect, or to any other 
 individual than myself, of course it is not surprising that the affair 
 was regarded as little less than miraculous, or that the Cheva 
 lier's analytical abilities acquired for him the credit of intuition. 
 His frankness would have led him to disabuse every inquirer of 
 such prejudice ; but his indolent humor forbade all farther agita 
 tion of a topic whose interest to himself had long ceased. It thus 
 happened that he found himself the cynosure of the policial 
 eyes ; and the cases were not few in which attempt was made to 
 engage his services at the Prefecture. One of the most remark 
 able instances was that of the murder of a young girl named 
 Marie Roget. 
 
 This event occurred about two years after the atrocity in the 
 Rue Morgue. Marie, whose Christian and family name will at 
 once arrest attention from their resemblance to those of the unfor 
 tunate " cigar-girl," was the only daughter of the widow Estelle 
 Roget. The father had died during the child's infancy, and 
 from the period of his death, until within eighteen months before 
 the assassination which forms the subject of our narrative, the 
 mother and daughter had dwelt together in the Rue Pavee Saint 
 Andree ;* Madame there keeping a pension, assisted by Marie. 
 Affairs went on thus until the latter had attained her twenty-sec 
 ond year, when her great beauty attracted the notice of a perfu 
 mer, who occupied one of the shops in the basement of the Palais 
 Royal, and whose custom lay chiefly among the desperate adven 
 turers infesting that neighborhood. Monsieur Le Blancf was not 
 unaware of the advantages to be derived from the attendance of 
 the fair Marie in his perfumery ; and his liberal proposals were 
 * Nassau Street. t Anderson. 
 
154 FOE'S TALES. 
 
 accepted eagerly by the girl, although with somewhat more of 
 hesitation by Madame. 
 
 The anticipations of the shopkeeper were realized, and his 
 rooms soon became notorious through the charms of the sprightly 
 grisette. She had been in his employ about a year, when her ad 
 mirers were thrown into confusion by her sudden disappearance 
 from the shop. Monsieur Le Blanc was unable to account for 
 her absence, and Madame Roget was distracted with anxiety and 
 terror. The public papers immediately took up the theme, and 
 the police were upon the point of making serious investigations, 
 when, one fine morning, after the lapse of a week, Marie, in good 
 health, but with a somewhat saddened air, made her re-appear 
 ance at her usual counter in the perfumery. All inquiry, except 
 that of a private character, was of course immediately hushed. 
 Monsieur Le Blanc professed total ignorance, as before. Marie, 
 with Madame, replied to all questions, that the last week had 
 been spent at the house of a relation in the country. Thus the 
 affair died away, and was generally forgotten ; for the girl, osten 
 sibly to relieve herself from the impertinence of curiosity, soon 
 bade a final adieu to the perfumer, and sought the shelter of her 
 mother's residence in the Rue Pavee Saint Andree. 
 
 It was about five months after this return home, that her friends 
 were alarmed by her sudden disappearance for the second time. 
 Three days elapsed, and nothing was heard of her. On the 
 fourth her corpse was found floating in the Seine,* near the shore 
 which is opposite the Quartier of the Rue Saint Andree, and at a 
 point not very far distant from the secluded neighborhood of the 
 Barriere du Roule.f 
 
 The atrocity of this murder, (for it was at once evident that 
 murder had been committed,) the youth and beauty of the victim, 
 and, above all, her previous notoriety, conspired to produce in 
 tense excitement in the minds of the sensitive Parisians. I can 
 call to mind no similar occurrence producing so general and so 
 intense an effect. For several weeks, in the discussion of this 
 one absorbing theme, even the momentous political topics of the 
 day were forgotten. The Prefect made unusual exertions ; and 
 
 * The Hudson. t Weehawken. 
 
THE MYSTERY OF MARIE ROGET. 155 
 
 the powers of the whole Parisian police were, of course, tasked 
 to the utmost extent. 
 
 Upon the first discovery of the corpse, it was not supposed that 
 the murderer would be able to elude, for more than a very brief 
 period, the inquisition which was immediately set on foot. It 
 was not until the expiration of a week that it was deemed neces 
 sary to offer a reward ; and even then this reward was limited to 
 a thousand francs. In the mean time the investigation proceeded 
 with vigor, if not always with judgment, and numerous individu 
 als were examined to no purpose ; while, owing to the continual 
 absence of all clue to the mystery, the popular excitement greatly 
 increased. At the end of the tenth day it was thought advisable 
 to double the sum originally proposed ; and, at length, the second 
 week having elapsed without leading to any discoveries, and the 
 prejudice which always exists in Paris against the Police having 
 given vent to itself in several serious ententes, the Prefect took it 
 upon himself to offer the sum of twenty thousand francs " for the 
 conviction of the assassin," or, if more than one should prove to 
 have been implicated, " for the conviction of any one of the assas 
 sins." In the proclamation setting forth this reward, a full par 
 don was promised to any accomplice who should come forward in 
 evidence against his fellow ; and to the whole was appended, 
 wherever it appeared, the private placard of a committee of citi 
 zens, offering ten thousand francs, in addition to the amount pro 
 posed by the Prefecture. The entire reward thus stood at no less 
 than thirty thousand francs, which will be regarded as an extra 
 ordinary sum when we consider the humble condition of the girl, 
 and the great frequency, in large cities, of such atrocities as the 
 one described. 
 
 No one doubted now that the mystery of this murder would be 
 immediately brought to light. But although, in one or two in 
 stances, arrests were made which promised elucidation, yet no 
 thing was elicited which could implicate the parties suspected ; 
 and they were discharged forthwith. Strange as it may appear, 
 the third week from the discovery of the body had passed, and 
 passed without any light being thrown upon the subject, before 
 even a rumor of the events which had so agitated the public 
 mind, reached the ears of Dupin and myself. Engaged in re- 
 
156 POE'S TALES. 
 
 searches which had absorbed our whole attention, it had been 
 nearly a month since either of us had gone abroad, or received a 
 visiter, or more than glanced at the leading political articles in 
 one of the daily papers. The first intelligence of the murder was 
 
 brought us by G , in person. He called upon us early in the 
 
 afternoon of the thirteenth of July, 18 , and remained with us 
 until late in the night. He had been piqued by the failure of all 
 his endeavors to ferret out the assassins. His reputation so he 
 said with a peculiarly Parisian air was at stake. Even his 
 honor was concerned. The eyes of the public were upon him ; 
 and there was really no sacrifice which he would not be willing 
 to make for the development of the mystery. He concluded a 
 somewhat droll speech with a compliment upon what he was 
 pleased to term the tact of Dupin, and made him a direct, and cer 
 tainly a liberal proposition, the precise nature of which I do not 
 feel myself at liberty to disclose, but which has no bearing upon 
 the proper subject of my narrative. 
 
 The compliment my friend rebutted as best he could, but the 
 proposition he accepted at once, although its advantages were 
 altogether provisional. This point being settled, the Prefect broke 
 forth at once into explanations of his own views, interspersing 
 them with long comments upon the evidence ; pf which latter we 
 were not yet in possession. He discoursed much, and beyond 
 doubt, learnedly ; while I hazarded an occasional suggestion as 
 the night wore drowsily away. Dupin, sitting steadily in his ac 
 customed arm-chair, was the embodiment of respectful attention. 
 He wore spectacles, during the whole interview ; and an occa 
 sional glance beneath their green glasses, sufficed to convince me 
 that he slept not the less soundly, because silently, throughout the 
 seven or eight leaden-footed hours which immediately preceded 
 the departure of the Prefect. 
 
 In the morning, I procured, at the Prefecture, a full report of 
 all the evidence elicited, and, at the various newspaper offices, a 
 copy of every paper in which, from first to last, had been pub 
 lished any decisive information in regard to this sad affair. 
 Freed from all that was positively disproved, this mass of infor 
 mation stood thus : 
 
 Marie Roget left the residence of her mother, in the Rue Pa- 
 
THE MYSTERY OF MARIE ROGET. 157 
 
 vee St. Andree, about nine o'clock in the morning of Sunday, 
 June the twenty-second, 18 . In going out, she gave notice to 
 a Monsieur Jacques St. Eustache,* and to him only, of her inten 
 tion to spend the day with an aunt who resided in the Rue des 
 Dromes. The Rue des Dromes is a short and narrow but popu 
 lous thoroughfare, not far from the banks of the river, and at a 
 distance of some two miles, in the most direct course possible, 
 from the pension of Madame Roget. St. Eustache was the ac 
 cepted suitor of Marie, and lodged, as well as took his meals, at 
 the pension. He was to have gone for his betrothed at dusk, and 
 to have escorted her home. In the afternoon, however, it came 
 on to rain heavily; and, supposing that she would remain all 
 night at her aunt's, (as she had done under similar circumstances 
 before,) he did not think it necessary to keep his promise. As 
 night drew on, Madame Roget (who was an infirm old lady, sev 
 enty years of age,) was heard to express a fear "that she should 
 never see Marie again ;" but this observation attracted little at 
 tention at the time* 
 
 On Monday, it was ascertained that the girl had not been to 
 the Rue des Drdmes ; and when the day elapsed without tidings 
 of her, a tardy search was instituted at several points in the city, 
 and its environs. It was not, however, until the fourth day from 
 the period of her disappearance that arty thing satisfactory was 
 ascertained respecting her. On this day, (Wednesday, the twenty- 
 fifth of June,) a Monsieur Beauvais,f who, with a friend^ had been 
 making inquiries for Marie near the Barriere du Roule, on the 
 shore of the Seine which is opposite the Rue Pavee St. Andree, 
 was informed that a corpse had just been towed ashore by some 
 fishermen, who had found it floating in the river. Upon seeing 
 the body, Beauvais, after some hesitation, identified it as that of 
 the perfumery -girl. His friend recognized it more promptly. 
 
 The face was suffused with dark blood, some of which issued 
 from the mouth. No foam was seen, as in the case of the merely 
 drowned. There was no discoloration in the cellular tissue. 
 About the throat were bruises and impressions of fingers. The 
 arms were bent over on the chest and were rigid. The right 
 
 * Payne. t Crommelin. 
 
158 FOE'S TALES. 
 
 hand was clenched ; the left partially open. On the left wrist 
 were two circular excoriations, apparently the effect of ropes, or 
 of a rope in more than one volution. A part of the right wrist, 
 also, was much chafed, as well as the back throughout its extent, 
 but more especially at the shoulder-blades. In bringing the body 
 to the shore the fishermen had attached to it a rope ; but none of 
 the excoriations had been effected by this. The flesh of the neck 
 was much swollen. There were no cuts apparent, or bruises 
 which appeared the effect of blows. A piece of lace was found 
 tied so tightly around the neck as to be hidden from sight ; it was 
 completely buried in the flesh, and was fastened by a knot which 
 lay just under the left ear. This alone would have sufficed to 
 produce death. The medical testimony spoke confidently of the 
 virtuous character of the deceased. She had been subjected, it 
 said, to brutal violence. The corpse was in such condition when 
 found, that there could have been no difficulty in its recognition 
 by friends. 
 
 The dress was much torn and otherwise disordered. In the 
 outer garment, a slip, about a foot wide, had been torn upward 
 from the bottom hem to the waist, but not torn off. It was wound 
 three times around the waist, and secured by a sort of hitch in the 
 back. The dress immediately beneath the frock was of fine 
 muslin ; and from this a slip eighteen inches wide had been torn 
 entirely out torn very evenly and with great care. It was found 
 around her neck, fitting loosely, and secured with a hard knot. 
 Over this muslin slip and the slip of lace, the strings of a bonnet 
 were attached ; the bonnet being appended. The knot by which 
 the strings of the bonnet were fastened, was not a lady's, but a 
 slip or sailor's knot. 
 
 After the recognition of the corpse, it was not, as usual, taken 
 to the Morgue, (this formality being superfluous,) but hastily in 
 terred not far from the spot at which it was brought ashore. 
 Through the exertions of Beauvais, the matter was industriously 
 hushed up, as far as possible ; and several days had elapsed be 
 fore any public emotion resulted. A weekly paper,* however, 
 at length took up the theme ; the corpse was disinterred, and a 
 
 The "N.Y.Mercury." 
 
THE MYSTERY OF MARIE ROGET. 159 
 
 re-examination instituted ; but nothing was elicited beyond what 
 has been already noted. The clothes, however, were now sub 
 mitted to the mother and friends of the deceased, and fully identi 
 fied as those worn by the girl upon leaving home. 
 
 Meantime, the excitement increased hourly. Several individ 
 uals were arrested and discharged. St. Eustache fell especially 
 under suspicion ; and he failed, at first, to give an intelligible 
 account of his whereabouts during the Sunday on which Marie 
 left home. Subsequently, however, he submitted to Monsieur 
 
 G , affidavits, accounting satisfactorily for every hour of the 
 
 day in question. As time passed and no discovery ensued, a 
 thousand contradictory rumors were circulated, and journalists 
 busied themselves in suggestions. Among these, the one which 
 attracted the most notice, was the idea that Marie Roget still lived 
 that the corpse found in the Seine was that of some other un 
 fortunate. It will be proper that I submit to the reader some 
 passages which embody the suggestion alluded to. These pas 
 sages are literal translations from L'Etoile,* a paper conducted, 
 in general, with much ability. 
 
 " Mademoiselle Rogdt left her mother's house on Sunday morning, June 
 the twenty -second, 18 , with the ostensible purpose of going to see her aunt, 
 or some other connexion, in the Ruo des Dr&mes. From that hour, nobody is 
 proved to have seen her. There is no trace or tidings of her at all. * * * 
 
 * There has no person, whatever, come forward, so far, who saw her at all, 
 on that day, after she left her mother's door. * * * * Now, though we 
 have no evidence that Marie RogSt was in the land of the living after nine 
 o'clock on Sunday, June the twenty-second, we have proof that, up to that 
 hour, she was alive. On Wednesday noon, at twelve, a female body was dis 
 covered afloat on the shore of the Barriere du Roule. This was, even if we 
 presume that Marie Roget was thrown into the river within three hours after 
 she left her mother's house, only three days from the time she left her home 
 three days to an hour. But it is folly to suppose that the murder, if murder 
 was committed on her body, could have been consummated soon enough to 
 have enabled her murderers to throw the body into the river before midnight. 
 Those who are guilty of such horrid crimes, choose darkness rather than light* 
 
 * * * * Thus we see that if the body found in the river was that of 
 Marie Roget, it could only have been in the water two and a half days, or three 
 at the outside. All experience has shown that drowned bodies, or bodies thrown 
 into the water immediately after death by violence, require from six to ten 
 
 * The N. Y. Brother Jonathan," edited by II. Hastings Weld, Esq. 
 
160 FOE'S TALES. 
 
 days for sufficient decomposition to take place to bring them to the top of the 
 water. Even where a cannon is fired over a corpse, and it rises before at least 
 five or six days' immersion, it sinks again, if let alone. Now, we ask, what 
 was there in this case to cause a departure from the ordinary course of nature ? 
 * * * * If the body had been kept in its mangled state on shore until 
 Tuesday night, some trace would be found on shore of the murderers. It is a 
 doubtful point, also, whether the body would be so soon afloat, even were it 
 thrown in after having been dead two days. And, furthermore, it is exceed 
 ingly improbable that any villains who had committed such a murder as is here 
 supposed, would have thrown the body in without weight to sink it, when such 
 a precaution could have so easily been taken." 
 
 The editor here proceeds to argue that the body must have 
 been in the water " not three days merely, but, at least, five times 
 three days," because it was so far decomposed that Beauvais had 
 great difficulty in recognizing it. This latter point, however, was 
 fully disproved. I continue the translation : 
 
 " What, then, are the facts on which M. Beauvais says that he has no 
 doubt the body was that of Marie Roget ? He ripped up the gown sleeve, and 
 says he found marks which satisfied him of the identity. The public general 
 ly supposed those marks to have consisted of some description of scars. He 
 rubbed the arm and found hair upon it something as indefinite, we think, as 
 can readily be imagined as little conclusive as finding an arm in the sleeve. 
 M. Beauvais did not return that night, but sent word to Madame Roget, at 
 seven o'clock, on Wednesday evening, that an investigation was still in pro 
 gress respecting her daughter. If We allow that Madame Roget, from her 
 age and grief, could not go over, (which is allowing a great deal,) there cer 
 tainly must have been some one who would have thought it worth while to go 
 over and attend the investigation, if they thought the body was that of Marie 
 Nobody Went over. There was nothing said or heard about the matter in the 
 Rue Pavee St. Andree, that reached even the occupants of the same building. 
 M. St. Eustache, the lover and intended husband of Marie, who boarded in 
 her mother's house, deposes that he did not hear of the discovery of the body 
 of his intended until the next morning, when M. Beauvais came into his cham 
 ber and told him of it. For an item of news like this, it strikes us it was very 
 coolly received." 
 
 In this way the journal endeavored to create the impression of 
 an apathy on the part of the relatives of Marie, inconsistent with 
 the supposition that these relatives believed the corpse to be hers. 
 Its insinuations amount to this : that Marie, with the connivance 
 of her friends, had absented herself from the city for reasons in 
 volving a charge against her chastity ; and that these friends, 
 
THE MYSTERY OF MARIE ROGET. 161 
 
 upon the discovery of a corpse in the Seine, somewhat resembling 
 that of the girl, had availed themselves of the opportunity to im 
 press the public with the belief of her death. But L'Etoile was 
 again over- hasty. It was distinctly proved that no apathy, such 
 as was imagined, existed ; that the old lady was exceedingly 
 feeble, and so agitated as to be unable to attend to any duty ; that 
 St. Eustache, so far from receiving the news coolly, was dis 
 tracted with grief, and bore himself so frantically, that M. Beau- 
 vais prevailed upon a friend and relative to take charge of him, 
 and prevent his attending the examination at the disinterment. 
 Moreover, although it was stated by L'Etoile, that the corpse was 
 re-interred at the public expense that an advantageous offer of 
 private sepulture was absolutely declined by the family and 
 that no member of the family attended the ceremonial : although, 
 I say, all this was asserted by L'Etoile in furtherance of the 
 impression it designed to convey yet all this was satisfactorily 
 disproved. In a subsequent number of the paper, an attempt 
 was made to throw suspicion upon Beauvais himself. The editor 
 says : 
 
 " Now, then, a change comes over the matter. We are told that, on one 
 occasion, while a Madame B was at Madame Roget's house, M. Beau 
 vais, who was going out, told her that a gendarme was expected there, sard 
 that she, Madame B., must not say anything to the gendarme until he re 
 turned, but let the matter be for him. * * * * In the present posture 
 of affairs, M. Beauvais appears to have the whole matter locked up in his 
 head. A single step cannot be taken without M. Beauvais ; for, go which 
 way you will, you run against him. ***** For some reason, he 
 determined that nobody shall have any thing to do with the proceedings but 
 himself, and he has elbowed the male relatives out of the way, according to 
 their representations, in a very singular manner. He seems to have been very 
 much averse to permitting the relatives to see the body." 
 
 By the following fact, some color was given to the suspicion 
 thus thrown upon Beauvais. A visiter at his office, a few days 
 prior to the girl's disappearance, and during the absence of its 
 occupant, had observed a rose in the key-hole of the door, and 
 the name " Marie " inscribed upon a slate which hung near at 
 hand. 
 
 The general impression, so far as we were enabled to glean it 
 from the newspapers, seemed to be, that Marie had been the vic- 
 
 12 
 
162 FOE'S TALES. 
 
 tim of a gang of desperadoes that by these she had been borne 
 across the river, maltreated and murdered. Le Commerciel,* 
 however, a print of extensive influence, was earnest in combating 
 this popular idea. I quote a passage or two from its columns : 
 
 " We are persuaded that pursuit has hitherto been on a false scent, so far 
 as it has been directed to the Barriere du Roule. It is impossible that a person 
 so well known to thousands as this young woman was, should have passed 
 three blocks without some one having seen her ; and any one who saw her 
 would have remembered it, for she interested all who knew her. It was when 
 the streets were full of people, when she went out. * * * It is impossible 
 that she could have gone to the Barriere du Roule, or to the Rue des Dr&mes, 
 without being recognized by a dozen persons ; yet no one has come forward 
 who saw her outside of her mother's door, and there is no evidence, except the 
 testimony concerning her expressed intentions, that she did go out at all. 
 Her gown was torn, bound round her, and tied ; and by that the body was 
 carried as a bundle. If the murder had been committed at the Barriere da 
 Roule, there would have been no necessity for any such arrangement. The 
 fact that the body was found floating near the Barriere, is no proof as to where 
 it was thrown into the water. ***** A piece of one of the unfortu 
 nate girl's petticoats, two feet long and one foot wide, was torn out and tied 
 under her chin around the back of her head, probably to prevent screams. This 
 was done by fellows who had no pocket-handkerchief." 
 
 A day or two before the Prefect called upon us, however, some 
 important information reached the police, which seemed to over 
 throw, at least, the chief portion of Le Commerciel 's argument. 
 Two small boys, sons of a Madame Deluc, while roaming among 
 the woods near the Barriere du Roule, chanced to penetrate a 
 close thicket, within which were three or four large stones, form 
 ing a kind of seat, with a back and footstool. On the upper stone 
 lay a white petticoat ; on the second a silk scarf. A parasol, 
 gloves, and a pocket-handkerchief were also here found. The 
 handkerchief bore the name " Marie Roget." Fragments of 
 dress were discovered on the brambles around. The earth was 
 trampled, the bushes were broken, and there was every evidence 
 of a struggle. Between the thicket and the river, the fences were 
 found taken down, and the ground bore evidence of some heavy 
 burthen having been dragged along it. 
 
 * N Y. " Journal of Commerce." 
 
THE MYSTERY TF MARIE ROGET 163 
 
 A weekly paper, Le Soleil,* had the following comments upon 
 this discovery comments which merely echoed the sentiment of 
 the whole Parisian press : 
 
 " The things had all evidently been there at least three or four weeks ; they 
 were all mildewed down hard with the action of the rain, and stuck together 
 from mildew. The grass had grown around and over some of them. The 
 silk on the parasol was strong, but the threads of it were run together within. 
 The upper part, where it had been double.d and folded, was all mildewed and 
 rotten, and tore on its being opened. * * * * The pieces of her frock 
 torn out by the bushes were about three inches wide and six inches long. One 
 part was the hem of the frock, and it had been mended ; the other piece was 
 part of the skirt, not the hem. They looked like strips torn off, and were on 
 the thorn bush, about a foot from the ground. ***** There can be 
 no doubt, therefore, that the spot of this appalling outrage has been discovered." 
 
 Consequent upon this discovery, new evidence appeared. Ma 
 dame Deluc testified that she keeps a roadside inn not far from 
 the bank of the river, opposite the Barriere du Roule. The 
 neighborhood is secluded particularly so. It is the usual Sun 
 day resort of blackguards from the city, who cross the river in 
 boats. About three o'clock, in the afternoon of the Sunday in 
 questiqn, a young girl arrived at the inn, accompanied by a 
 young man of dark complexion. The two remained here for 
 some time. On their departure, they took the road to some thick 
 woods in the vicinity. Madame Deluc's attention was called to. 
 the dress worn by the girl, on account of its resemblance to one 
 worn by a deceased relative. A scarf was particular^ noticed. 
 3oon after the departure of the couple, a gang qf miscreants 
 made their appearance, behaved boisterously, ate and drank with 
 out making payment, followed in the route of the young man 
 and girl, returned to the inn about dusk, and re-crossed the river 
 as if in great haste. 
 
 It was soon after dark, upon this same evening, that Madame 
 Deluc, as well as her eldest son, heard the screams of a female 
 in the vicinity of the inn. The screams were violent but brief. 
 Madame D. recognized not only the scarf which was found in 
 the thicket, but the dress which was discovered upon the corpse, 
 
 * Phil. " Sat. Evening Post," edited by C. I. Peterson, Esq. 
 
164 FOE'S TALES. 
 
 An omnibus-driver, Valence,* now also testified that he saw 
 Marie Roget cross a ferry on the Seine, on the Sunday in ques 
 tion, in company with a young man of dark complexion. He, 
 Valence, knew Marie, and could not be mistaken in her identity. 
 The articles found in the thicket were fully identified by the rel 
 atives of Marie. 
 
 The items of evidence and information thus collected by my 
 self, from the newspapers, at the suggestion of Dupin, embraced 
 only one more point but this was a point of seemingly vast con 
 sequence. It appears that, immediately after the discovery of the 
 clothes as above described, the lifeless, or nearly lifeless body of 
 St. Eustache, Mane's betrothed, was found in the vicinity of 
 what all now supposed the scene of the outrage. A phial label 
 led " laudanum," and emptied, was found near him. His breath 
 gave evidence of the poison. He died without speaking. Upon 
 his person was found a letter, briefly stating his love for Marie, 
 with his design of self-destruction. 
 
 " I need scarcely tell you," said Dupin, as he finished the pe 
 f iisal of my notes, " that this is a far more intricate case thari 
 that of the Rue Morgue ; from which it differs in one important 
 respect. This is an ordinary, although an atrocious instance of 
 crime. There is nothing peculiarly outre about it. You will ob 
 serve that, for this reason, the mystery has been considered easy, 
 when, for this reason, it should have been considered difficult, of 
 solution. Thus, at first, it was thought unnecessary to offer a 1 
 reward. The myrmidons of G were able at once to com 
 prehend how and why such an atrocity might have been commit 
 ted. They could picture to their imaginations a mode many 
 modes' and a motive many motives ; and because it was not im 
 possible that either of these numerous modes and motives could have 
 been 1 the actual one, they have taken it for granted that one of 
 them must. But the ease with which these variable fancies were 
 entertained, and the very plausibility which each assumed, should 
 have been understood as indicative rather of the difficulties than 
 of the facilities which must attend elucidation. I have before 
 observed that it is by prominences above the plane of the ordi- 
 
 * Adam. 
 
THE MYSTERY OF MARIE ROGET. 165 
 
 nary, that reason feels her way, if at all, in her search for the 
 true, and that the proper question in cases such as this, is not so 
 much ' what has occurred ?' as ' what has occurred that has 
 never occurred before ?' In the investigations at the house of 
 
 Madame L'Espanaye,* the agents of G were discouraged 
 
 and confounded by that very unusualness which, to a properly reg 
 ulated intellect, would have afforded the surest omen of success ; 
 while this same intellect might have been plunged in despair at 
 the ordinary character of all that met the eye in the case of the 
 perfumery-girl, and yet told of nothing but easy triumph to the 
 functionaries of the Prefecture. 
 
 " In the case of Madame L'Espanaye and her daughter, there 
 was, even at the beginning of our investigation, no doubt that 
 murder had been committed. The idea of suicide was excluded 
 at once. Here, too, we are freed, at the commencement, from 
 all supposition of self-murder. The body found at the Barriere 
 du Roule, was found under such circumstances as to leave us no 
 room for embarrassment upon this important point. But it has 
 been suggested that the corpse discovered, is not that of the Marie 
 Roget for the conviction of whose assassin, or assassins, the re 
 ward is offered, and respecting whom, solely, our agreement has 
 been arranged with the Prefect. We both know this gentleman 
 well. It will not do to trust him too far. If, dating our inqui 
 ries from the body found, and thence tracing a murderer, we yet 
 discover this body to be that of some other individual than Marie ; 
 or, if starting from the living Marie, we find her, yet find her 
 unassassinated in either case we lose our labor ; since it is Mon 
 sieur G with whom we have to deal. For our own purpose, 
 
 therefore, if not for the purpose of justice, it is indispensable that 
 our first step should be the determination of the identity of the 
 corpse with the Marie Roget who is missing. 
 
 " With the public the arguments of L'Etoile have had weight ; 
 and that the journal itself is convinced of their importance 
 would appear from the manner in which it commences one of its 
 essays upon the subject ' Several of the morning papers of the 
 day,' it says, 'speak of the conclusive article in Monday's Etoile.' 
 
 * See " Murders in the Rue Morgue." 
 
166 POE'S TALES. 
 
 To me, this article appears conclusive of little beyond the zeal 
 of its inditer. We should bear in mind that, in general, it is the 
 object of our newspapers rather to create a sensation to make a 
 point than to further the cause of truth. The latter end is only 
 pursued when it seems coincident with the former. The print 
 which merely falls in with ordinary opinion (however well found 
 ed this opinion may be) earns for itself no credit with the mob. 
 The mass of the people regard as profound only him who sug 
 gests pungent contradictions of the general idea. In ratiocination, 
 not less than in literature, it is the epigram which is the most im 
 mediately and the most universally appreciated. In both, it is of 
 the lowest order of merit. 
 
 " What I mean to say is, that it is the mingled epigram and 
 melodrame of the idea, that Marie Roget still lives, rather than 
 any true plausibility in this idea, which have suggested it to 
 L'Etoile, and secured it a favorable reception with the public. 
 Let us examine the heads of this journal's argument ; endeavor 
 ing to avoid the incoherence with which it is originally set forth. 
 
 " The first aim of the writer is to show, from the brevity of 
 the interval between Marie's disappearance and the finding of the 
 floating corpse, that this corpse cannot be that of Marie. The 
 reduction of this interval to its smallest possible dimension, be 
 comes thus, at once, an object with the reasoner. In the rash 
 pursuit of this object, he rushes into mere assumption at the out 
 set. ' It is folly to suppose,' he says, ' that the murder, if murder 
 was committed on her body, could have been consummated soon 
 enough to have enabled her murderers to throw the body into the 
 river before midnight.' We demand at once, and very naturally, 
 why ? Why is it folly to suppose that the murder was com 
 mitted within jive minutes after the girl's quitting her moth 
 er's house ? Why is it folly to suppose that the murder was 
 committed at any given period of the day ? There have been as 
 sassinations at all hours. But, had the murder taken place at any 
 moment between nine o'clock in the morning of Sunday, and a 
 quarter before midnight, there would still have been time enough 
 ' to throw the body into the river before midnight.' This assump 
 tion, then, amounts precisely to this that the murder was not 
 committed on Sunday at all and, if we allow L'Etoile to as- 
 
THE MYSTERY OF MARIE ROGET. 167 
 
 sume this, we may permit it any liberties whatever. The par 
 agraph beginning ' It is folly to suppose that the murder, etc.,' 
 however it appears as printed in L'Etoile, may be imagined to 
 have existed actually thus in the brain of its inditer ' It is folly 
 to suppose that the murder, if murder was committed on the body, 
 could have been committed soon enough to have enabled her 
 murderers to throw the body into the river before midnight ; it is 
 folly, we say, to suppose all this, and to suppose at the same time, 
 (as we are resolved to suppose,) that the body was not thrown in 
 until after midnight' a sentence sufficiently inconsequential in 
 itself, but not so utterly preposterous as the one printed. 
 
 " Were it my purpose," continued Dupin, " merely to make out 
 a case against this passage of L'Etoile's argument, I might safe 
 ly leave it where it is. It is not, however, with L'Etoile that we 
 have to do, but with the truth. The sentence in question has but 
 one meaning, as it stands ; and this meaning I have fairly stated : 
 but it is material that we go behind the mere words, for an idea 
 which these words have obviously intended, and failed to convey. 
 It was the design of the journalist to say that, at whatever period 
 of the day or night of Sunday this murder was committed, it was 
 improbable that the assassins would have ventured to bear the 
 corpse to the river before midnight. And herein lies, really, the 
 assumption of which I complain. It is assumed that the murder 
 was committed at such a position, and under such circumstances, 
 that the bearing it to the river became necessary. Now, the as 
 sassination might have taken place upon the river's brink, or on 
 the river itself; and, thus, the throwing the corpse in the water 
 might have been resorted to, at any period of the day or night, as 
 the most obvious and most immediate mode of disposal. You will 
 understand that I suggest nothing here as probable, or as coin 
 cident with my own opinion. My design, so far, has no reference 
 to the facts of the case. I wish merely to caution you against 
 the whole tone of L'Etoile's suggestion, by calling your attention 
 to its ex parte character at the outset. 
 
 " Having prescribed thus a limit to suit its own preconceived 
 notions ; having assumed that, if this were the body of Marie, it 
 could have been in the water but a very brief time ; the journal 
 goes on to say : 
 
168 FOE'S TALES. 
 
 ' All experience has shown that drowned bodies, or bodies thrown into the 
 water immediately after death by violence, require from six to ten days for suf 
 ficient decomposition to take place to bring them to the top of the water. Even 
 when a cannon is fired over a corpse, and it rises before at least five or six 
 days' immersion, it sinks again if let alone.' 
 
 " These assertions have been tacitly received by every paper 
 in Paris, with the exception of Le Moniteur.* This latter print 
 endeavors to combat that portion of the paragraph which has ref 
 erence to ' drowned bodies' only, by citing some five or six in 
 stances in which the bodies of individuals known to be drowned 
 were found floating after the lapse of less time than is insisted 
 upon by L'Etoile. But there is something excessively unphilo- 
 sophical in the attempt on the part of Le Moniteur, to rebut the 
 general assertion of L'Etoile, by a citation of particular in 
 stances militating against that assertion. Had it been possible to 
 adduce fifty instead of^five examples of bodies found floating at 
 the end of two or three days, these fifty examples could still have 
 been properly regarded only as exceptions to L'Etoile's rule, un 
 til such time as the rule itself should be confuted. Admitting the 
 rule, (and this Le Moniteur does not deny, insisting merely upon 
 its exceptions,) the argument of L'Etoile is suffered to remain in 
 full force ; for this argument does not pretend to involve more 
 than a question of the probability of the body having risen to the 
 surface in less than three days ; and this probability will be in 
 favor of L'Etoile's position until the instances so childishly ad 
 duced shall be sufficient in number to establish an antagonistical 
 rule. 
 
 " You will see at once that all argument upon this head should 
 be urged, if at all, against the rule itself; and for this end we 
 must examine the rationale of the rule. Now the human body, 
 in general, is neither much lighter nor much heavier than the 
 water of the Seine ; that is to say, the specific gravity of the hu 
 man body, in its natural condition, is about equal to the bulk of 
 fresh water which it displaces. The bodies of fat and fleshy per 
 sons, with small bones, and of women generally, are lighter thau 
 those of the lean and large-boned, and of men ; and the specific 
 gravity of the water of a river is somewhat influenced by the 
 
 * The " N. Y. Commercial Advertiser," edited by Col. Stone. 
 
THE MYSTERY" OF MARIE ROGET. 169 
 
 presence of the tide from sea. But, leaving this tide out of ques 
 tion, it may be said that very few human bodies will sink at all, 
 even in fresh water, of their own accord. Almost any one, fall 
 ing into a river, will be enabled to float, if he suffer the specific 
 gravity of the water fairly to be adduced in comparison with his 
 own that is to say, if he suffer his whole person to be immersed, 
 with as little exception as possible. The proper position for one 
 who cannot swim, is the upright position of the walker on land, 
 with the head thrown fully back, and immersed ; the mouth and 
 nostrils alone remaining above the surface. Thus circumstanced, 
 we shall find that we float without difficulty and without exertion. 
 It is evident, however, that the gravities of the body, and of the 
 bulk of water displaced, are very nicely balanced, and that a trifle 
 will cause either to preponderate. An arm, for instance, uplifted 
 from the water, and thus deprived of its support, is an additional 
 weight sufficient to immerse the whole head, while the accidental 
 aid of the smallest piece of timber will enable us to elevate the 
 head so as to look about. Now, in the struggles of one unused 
 to swimming, the arms are invariably thrown upwards, while an 
 attempt is made to keep the head in its usual perpendicular posi 
 tion. The result is the immersion of the mouth and nostrils, and 
 the inception, during efforts to breathe while beneath the surface, 
 of water into the lungs. Much is also received into the stomach, 
 and the whole body becomes heavier by the difference between 
 the weight of the air originally distending these cavities, and that 
 of the fluid which now fills them. This difference is sufficient to 
 cause the body to sink, as a general rule ; but is insufficient in 
 the cases of individuals with small bones and an abnormal quan 
 tity of flaccid or fatty matter. Such individuals float even after 
 drowning. 
 
 " The corpse, being supposed at the bottom of the river, will 
 there remain until, by some means, its specific gravity a'gain be 
 comes less than that of the bulk of water which it displaces. 
 This effect is brought about by decomposition, or otherwise. The 
 result of decomposition is the generation of gas, distending the cel 
 lular tissues and all the cavities, and giving the puffed appear 
 ance which is to horrible. When this distension has so far pro 
 gressed that the bulk of the corpse is materially increased with- 
 
170 FOE'S TALES. 
 
 out a corresponding increase of mass or weight, its specific gravity 
 becomes less than that of the water displaced, and it forthwith 
 makes its appearance at the surface. But decomposition is modi 
 fied by innumerable circumstances is hastened or retarded by 
 innumerable agencies ; for example, by the heat or cold of the 
 season, by the mineral impregnation or purity of the water, by its 
 depth or shallowness, by its currency or stagnation, by the tem 
 perament of the body, by its infection or freedom from disease be 
 fore death. Thus it is evident that we can assign no period, with 
 any thing like accuracy, at which the corpse shall rise through 
 decomposition. Under certain conditions this result would be 
 brought about within an hour ; under others, it might not take 
 place at all. There are chemical infusions by which the animal 
 frame can be preserved forever from corruption ; the Bi-chloride 
 of Mercury is one. But, apart from decomposition, there may 
 be, and very usually is, a generation of gas within the stomach, 
 from the acetous fermentation of vegetable matter (or within other 
 cavities from other causes) sufficient to induce a distension which 
 will bring the body to the surface. The effect produced by the 
 firing of a cannon is that of simple vibration. This may either 
 loosen the corpse from the soft mud or ooze in which it is imbed 
 ded, thus permitting it to rise when other agencies have already 
 prepared it for so doing ; or it may overcome the tenacity of some 
 putrescent portions of the cellular tissue ; allowing the cavities to 
 distend under the influence of the gas. 
 
 " Having thus before us the whole philosophy of this subject, 
 we can easily test by it the assertions of L'Etoile. ' All expe 
 rience shows,' says this paper, * that drowned bodies, or bodies 
 thrown into the water immediately after death by violence, re 
 quire from six to ten days for sufficient decomposition to take place 
 to bring them to the top of the water. Even when a cannon is 
 fired over a corpse, and it rises before at least five or six days' 
 immersion, it sinks again if let alone.' 
 
 " The whole of this paragraph must now appear a tissue of in 
 consequence and incoherence. All experience does not show that 
 1 drowned bodies ' require from six to ten days for sufficient de 
 composition to take place to bring them to the surface. Both 
 science and experience show that the period of their rising is, and 
 
THE MYSTERY OF MARIE ROGET. 171 
 
 necessarily must be, indeterminate. If, moreover, a body ha* 
 risen to the surface through firing of cannon, it will not ' sink 
 again if let alone,' until decomposition has so far progressed as to 
 permit the escape of the generated gas. But I wish to call your 
 attention to the distinction which is made between ' drowned 
 bodies/ and ' bodies thrown into the water immediately after 
 death by violence.' Although the writer admits the distinction, 
 he yet includes them all in the same category. I have shown 
 how it is that the body of a drowning man becomes specifically 
 heavier than its bulk of water, and that he would not sink at all, 
 except for the struggles by which he elevates his arms above the 
 surface, and his gasps for breath while beneath the surface 
 gasps which supply by water the place of the original air in the 
 lungs. But these struggles and these gasps would not occur in 
 the body ' thrown into the water immediately after death by vio 
 lence.' Thus, in the latter instance, the body, as a general rule, 
 would not sink at all a fact of which L'Etoile is evidently igno 
 rant. When decomposition had proceeded to a very great extent 
 when the flesh had in a great measure left the bones then, 
 indeed, but not till then, should we lose sight of the corpse. 
 
 " And now what are we to make of the argument, that the body 
 found could not be that of Marie Roget, because, three days only 
 having elapsed, this body was found floating ? If drowned, being 
 a woman, she might never haVe sunk ; or having sunk, might 
 have re-appeared in twenty-four hours, or less. But no one sup 
 poses her to have been drowned and, dying before being thrown 
 into the river, she might have been found floating at any period 
 afterwards whatever. 
 
 " ' But,' says L'Etoile, ' if the body had been kept in its man 
 gled state on shore until Tuesday night, some trace would be 
 found on shore of the murderers.' Here it is at first difficult to 
 perceive the intention of the reasoner. He means to anticipate 
 what he imagines would be an objection to his theory viz : that 
 the body was kept on shore two days, suffering rapid decomposi 
 tion more rapid than if immersed in water. He supposes that, 
 had this been the case, it might have appeared at the surface on 
 the Wednesday, and thinks that only under such circumstances it 
 could so have appeared. He is accordingly in haste to show that 
 
172 POE'S TALES. 
 
 it was not kept on shore ; for, if so, ' some trace would be found 
 on shore of the murderers.' I presume you smile at the sequitur. 
 You cannot be made to see how the mere duration of the corpse 
 on the shore could operate to multiply traces of the assassins. 
 Nor can I. 
 
 " ' And furthermore it is exceedingly improbable,' continues our 
 journal, ' that any villains who had committed such a murder as 
 is here supposed, would have thrown the body in without weight 
 to sink it, when such a precaution could have so easily been 
 taken.' Observe, here, the laughable confusion of thought ! No 
 one not even L'Etoile disputes the murder committed on the 
 body found. The marks of violence are too obvious. It is our 
 reasoner's object merely to show that this body is not Marie's. 
 He wishes to prove that Marie is not assassinated not that the 
 corpse was not. Yet his observation proves only the latter point. 
 Here is a corpse without weight attached. Murderers, casting it 
 in, would not have failed to attach a weight. Therefore it was 
 not thrown in by murderers. This is all which is proved, if any 
 thing is. The question of identity is not even approached, and 
 L'Etoile has been at great pains merely to gainsay now what it 
 has admitted only a moment before. ' We are perfectly con 
 vinced,' it says, ' that the body found was that of a murdered fe 
 male.' 
 
 " Nor is this the sole instance, even in this division of his sub 
 ject, where our reasoner unwittingly reasons against himself. 
 His evident object, I have already said, is to reduce, as much as 
 possible, the interval between Marie's disappearance and the find 
 ing of the corpse. Yet we find him urging the point that no 
 person saw the girl from the moment of her leaving her mother's 
 house. ' We have no evidence,' he says, 'that Marie Roget was 
 in the land of the living after nine o'clock on Sunday, June the 
 twenty-second/ As his argument is obviously an ex parte one, 
 he should, at least, have left this matter out of sight ; for had any 
 one been known to see Marie, say on Monday, or on Tuesday, 
 the interval in question would have been much reduced, and, by 
 his own ratiocination, the probability much diminished of the 
 corpse being that of the grisette. It is, nevertheless, amusing to 
 
THE MYSTERY OF MARIE ROGET. 173 
 
 observe that L'Etoile insists upon its point in the full belief of its 
 furthering its general argument. 
 
 " Reperuse now that portion of this argument which has refer 
 ence to the identification of the corpse by Beauvais. In regard 
 lo the hair upon the arm, L'Etoile has been obviously disingen 
 uous. M. Beauvais, not being an idiot, could never have urged, 
 in identification of the corpse, simply hair upon its arm. No arm 
 is ivitliout hair. The generality of the expression of L'Etoile is 
 a mere perversion of the witness' phraseology. He must have 
 spoken of some peculiarity in this hair. It must have been a 
 peculiarity of color, of quantity, of length, or of situation. 
 
 " ' Her foot, 3 says the journal, ; was smallso are thousands 
 of feet. Her garter is no proof whatever nor is her shoe for 
 shoes and garters are sold in packages. The same may be said 
 of the flowers in her hat. One thing upon which M. Beauvais 
 strongly insists is, that the clasp on the garter foundj had been 
 set back to take it in. This amounts to nothing ; for most women 
 find it proper to take a pair of garters home and fit them to the 
 size of the limbs they are to encircle, rather than to try them in 
 the store where they purchase.' Here it is difficult to suppose 
 the reasoner in earnest. Had M. Beauvais, in his search for the 
 body of Marie, discovered a corpse corresponding in general size 
 and appearance to the missing girl, he would have been warranted 
 (without reference to the question of habiliment at all) in forming 
 an opinion that his search had been successful. If, in addition 
 to the point of general size and contour, he had found upon the 
 arm a peculiar hairy appearance which he had observed upon 
 the living Marie, his opinion might have been justly strengthened; 
 and the increase of positiveness might well have been in the ratio 
 of the peculiarity, or unusualness, of the hairy mark. If, the 
 feet of Marie being small, those of the corpse were also small, 
 the increase of probability that the body was that of Marie would 
 not be an increase in a ratio merely arithmetical, but in one highly 
 geometrical, or accumulative. Add to all this shoes such as she 
 had been known to wear upon the day of her disappearance, and, 
 although these shoes may be ( sold in packages/ you so far aug 
 ment the probability as to verge upon the certain. What, of 
 
174 FOE'S TALES. 
 
 itself, would be no evidence of identity, becomes through its cor 
 roborative position, proof most sure. Give us, then, flowers in 
 the hat corresponding to those worn by the missing girl, and we 
 seek for nothing farther. If only one flower, we seek for nothing 
 farther what then if two or three, or more ? Each successive 
 one is multiple evidence proof not added to proof, but multiplied 
 by hundreds or thousands. Let us now discover, upon the de 
 ceased, garters such as the living used, and it is almost folly to 
 proceed. But these garters are found to be tightened, by the 
 setting back of a clasp, in just such a manner as her own had 
 been tightened by Marie, shortly previous to her leaving home. 
 It is now madness or hypocrisy to doubt. What L'Etoile says 
 in respect to this abbreviation of the garter's being an usual oc 
 currence, shows nothing beyond its own pertinacity in error. The 
 elastic nature of the clasp-garter is self-demonstration of the un- 
 usualness of the abbreviation. What is made to adjust itself, 
 must of necessity require foreign adjustment but rarely. It must 
 have been by an accident, in its strictest sense, that these garters 
 of Marie needed the tightening described. They alone would 
 have amply established her identity. But it is not that the corpse 
 was found to have the garters of the missing girl, or found to have 
 her shoes, or her bonnet, or the flowers of her bonnet, or her feet, 
 or a peculiar mark upon the arm, or her general size and appear 
 ance it is that the corpse had each, and all collectively. Could 
 it be proved that the editor of L'Etoile really entertained a doubt, 
 under the circumstances, there would be no need, in his case, of 
 a commission de lunatico inq-uirendo. He has thought it sagacious 
 to echo the small talk of the lawyers, who, for the most part, con 
 tent themselves with echoing the rectangular precepts of the 
 courts. I would here observe that very much of what is rejected 
 as evidence by a court, is the best of evidence to the intellect. 
 For the court, guiding itself by the general principles of evidence 
 the recognized and looked principles is averse from swerving 
 at particular instances. And this steadfast adherence to principle, 
 with rigorous disregard of the conflicting exception, is a sure 
 mode of attaining the maximum of attainable truth, in any long 
 sequence of time. The practice, in mass, is therefore philosoph- 
 
THE MYSTERY OF MARIE ROGET. 175 
 
 ical ; but it is not the less certain that it engenders vast individ 
 ual error.* 
 
 " In respect to the insinuations levelled at Beauvais, you will 
 be willing to dismiss them in a breath. You have already fa 
 thomed the true character of this good gentleman. He is a busy 
 body, with much of romance and little of wit. Any one so con 
 stituted will readily so conduct himself, upon occasion of real ex 
 citement, as to render himself liable to suspicion on the part of 
 the over-acute, or the ill-disposed. M. Beauvais (as it appears 
 from your notes) had some personal interviews with the editor of 
 L'Etoile, and offended him by venturing an opinion that the 
 corpse, notwithstanding the theory of the editor, was, in sober fact, 
 that of Marie. ' He persists,' says the paper, ' in asserting the 
 corpse to be that of Marie, but cannot give a circumstance, in 
 addition to those which we have commented upon, to make others 
 believe.' Now, without re-adverting to the fact that stronger evi 
 dence ' to make others believe,' could never have been adduced, 
 it may be remarked that a man may very well be understood to 
 believe, in a case of this kind, without the ability to advance a 
 single reason for the belief of a second party. Nothing is more 
 vague than impressions of individual identity. Each man recog 
 nizes his neighbor, yet there are few instances in which any one 
 is prepared to give a reason for his recognition. The editor of 
 L'Etoile had no right to be offended at M. Beauvais' unreasoning 
 belief. 
 
 " The suspicious circumstances which invest him, will be found 
 to tally much better with my hypothesis of romantic busy-body- 
 ism, than with the reasoner's suggestion of guilt. Once adopting 
 the more charitable interpretation, we shall find no difficulty in 
 comprehending the rose in the key-hole ; the * Marie' upon the 
 
 * " A theory based on the qualities of an object, will prevent its being un 
 folded according to its objects ; and he who arranges topics in reference to 
 their causes, will cease to value them according to their results. Thus the 
 jurisprudence of every nation will show that, when law becomes a science and 
 a system, it ceases to be justice. The errors into which a blind devotion to 
 principles of classification has led the common law, will be seen by observing 
 how often the legislature has been obliged to come forward to restore the 
 equity its scheme had lost." Landor. 
 
176 FOE'S TALES. 
 
 slate; the 'ejbowing the male relatives out of the way;' the 
 1 aversion to permitting them to see the body ;' the caution given 
 
 to Madame B , that she must hold no conversation with the 
 
 gendarme until his return (Beauvais') ; and, lastly, his apparent 
 determination ' that nobody should have anything to do with the 
 proceedings except himself. 7 It seems to me unquestionable that 
 Beauvais was a suitor of Marie's ; that she coquetted with him ; 
 and that he was ambitious of being thought to enjoy her fullest 
 intimacy and confidence. I shall say nothing more upon this 
 point ; and, as the evidence fully rebuts the assertion of L'Etoile, 
 touching the matter of apathy on the part of the mother and other 
 relatives an apathy inconsistent with the supposition of their 
 believing the corpse to be that of the perfumery-girl we shal 1 
 now proceed as if the question of identity were settled to our per- 
 feet satisfaction." 
 
 " And what," I here demanded, " do you think of the opinions 
 of Le Commerciel ?" 
 
 " That, in spirit, they are far more worthy of attention than 
 any which have been promulgated upon the subject. The de 
 ductions from the premises are philosophical and acute ; but the 
 premises, in two instances, at least, are founded in imperfect 
 observation. Le Commerciel wishes to intimate that Marie was 
 seized by some gang of low ruffians not far from her mother's 
 door. ' It is impossible,' it urges, * that a person so well known 
 to thousands as this young woman was, should have passed three 
 blocks without some one having seen her.' This is the idea of a 
 man long resident in Paris a public man '-and one whose walks 
 to and fro in the city, have been mostly limited to the vicinity of 
 the public offices. He is aware that lie seldom passes so far as 
 a dozen blocks from his own bureau, without being recognized 
 and accosted. And, knowing the extent of his personal acquaint 
 ance with others, and of others with him, he compares his notoriety 
 with that of the perfumery-girl, finds no great difference between 
 them, and reaches at once the conclusion that she, in her walks, 
 Would be equally liable to recognition with himself in his. This 
 could only be the case were her walks of the same unvarying, 
 methodical character, and within the same species of limited 
 region as are his own. He passes to and fro, at regular intervals, 
 
THE MYSTERY OF MARIE ROGET. 177 
 
 within a confined periphery, abounding in individuals who are led 
 to observation of his person through interest in the kindred nature 
 of his occupation with their own. But the walks of Marie may, 
 in general, be supposed discursive. In this particular instance, 
 it will be understood as most probable, that she proceeded upon a 
 route of more than average diversity from her accustomed ones. 
 The parallel which we imagine to have existed in the mind of Le 
 Commerciel would only be sustained in the event of the two indi 
 viduals' traversing the whole city. In this case, granting the 
 personal acquaintances to be equal, the chances would be also 
 equal that an equal number of personal rencounters would be 
 made. For my own part, I should hold it not only as possible, 
 but as very far more than probable, that Marie might have pro 
 ceeded, at any given period, by any one of the many routes be 
 tween her own residence and that of her aunt, without meeting a 
 single individual whom she knew, or by whom she was known. 
 In viewing this question in its full and proper light, we must hold 
 steadily in mind the great disproportion between the personal ac 
 quaintances of even the most noted individual in Paris, and the 
 entire population of Paris itself. 
 
 " But whatever force there may still appear to be in the sug 
 gestion of Le Commerciel, will be much diminished when we take 
 into consideration the hour at which the girl went abroad. ' It 
 was when the streets were full of people/ says Le Commerciel, 
 1 that she went out.' But not so. It was at nine o'clock in the 
 morning. Now at nine o'clock of every morning in the week, 
 with the exception of Sunday, the streets of the city are, it is true, 
 thronged with people. At nine on Sunday, the populace are 
 chiefly within doors preparing for church. No observing person 
 can have failed to notice the peculiarly deserted air of the town, 
 from about eight until ten on the morning of every Sabbath. Be 
 tween ten and eleven the streets are thronged, but not at so early 
 a period as that designated. 
 
 " There is another point at which there seems a deficiency of 
 observation on the part of Le Commerciel. ' A piece,' it says, 
 ' of one of the unfortunate girl's petticoats, two feet long, and one 
 foot wide, was torn out and tied under her chin, and around the 
 back of her head, probably to prevent screams. This was done 
 
 13 
 
178 POE'S TALES 
 
 by fellows who had no pocket-handkerchiefs.' Whether this idea 
 is, or is not well founded, we will endeavor to see hereafter ; but 
 by ' fellows who have no pocket-handkerchiefs,' the editor intends 
 the lowest class of ruffians. These, however, are the very de 
 scription of people who will always be found to have handker 
 chiefs even when destitute of shirts. You must have had occasion 
 to observe how absolutely indispensable, of late years, to the 
 thorough blackguard, has become the pocket-handkerchief." 
 
 " And what are we to think," I asked, " of the article in Le 
 Soleil ?" 
 
 " That it is a vast pity its inditer was not born a parrot in 
 which case he would have been the most illustrious parrot of his 
 race. He has merely repeated the individual items of the alrea 
 dy published opinion ; collecting them, with a laudable industry, 
 from this paper and from that. ' The things had all evidently 
 been there,' he says, ' at least, three or four weeks, and there can 
 be no doubt that the spot of fhis appalling outrage has been dis 
 covered.' The facts here re-stated by Le Soleil, are very far 
 indeed from removing my own doubts upon this subject, and we 
 will examine them more particularly hereafter in connexion with 
 another division of the theme. 
 
 " At present we must occupy ourselves with other investiga 
 tions. You cannot fail to have remarked the extreme laxity of 
 the examination of the corpse. To be sure, the question of iden 
 tity was readily determined, or should have been ; hut there were 
 other points to b3 ascertained. Had the body been in any respect 
 despoiled ? H id the deceased any articles of jewelry about her 
 person upon ' eaving home ? if so, ha4 she any when found ? 
 These are in portant questions utterly untouched by the evidence ; 
 and there are others of equal moment, which have met with no 
 attention. We must endeavor to satisfy ourselves by personal in 
 quiry. The case of St. Eustache must be re-examined. I have 
 no suspicion of this person ; but let us proceed methodically. 
 We will ascertain beyond a doubt the validity of the affidavits in 
 regard to his whereabouts on the Sunday. Affidavits of this 
 character are readily made matter of mystification. Should 
 there be nothing wrong here, however, we will dismiss St. Eu 
 stache from our investigations. His suicide, however corrobora- 
 
THE MYSTERY OF MARIE ROGET. 170 
 
 live of suspicion, were there found to be deceit in the affidavits, 
 is, without such deceit, in no respect an unaccountable circum 
 stance, or one which need cause us to deflect from the line of or 
 dinary analysis. 
 
 " In that which I now propose, we will discard the interior points 
 of this tragedy, and concentrate our attention upon its outskirts. 
 Not the least usual error, in investigations such as this, is the 
 limiting of inquiry to the immediate, with total disregard of the 
 collateral or circumstantial events. It is the mal-practice of the 
 courts to confine evidence and discussion to the bounds of appa 
 rent relevancy. Yet experience has shown, and a true philoso 
 phy will always show, that a vast, perhaps the larger portion of 
 truth, arises from the seemingly irrelevant. It is through the 
 spirit of this principle, if not precisely through its letter, that 
 modern science has resolved to calculate upon the unforeseen. 
 But perhaps you do not comprehend me. The history of human 
 knowledge has so uninterruptedly shown that to collateral, or in 
 cidental, or accidental events we are indebted for the most nume 
 rous and most valuable discoveries, that it has at length become 
 necessary, in any prospective view of improvement, to make not 
 only large, but the largest allowances for inventions that shall 
 arise by chance, and quite out of the range of ordinary expecta 
 tion. It is no longer philosophical to base, upon what has been, 
 a vision of what is to be. Accident is admitted as a portion of 
 the substructure. We make chance a matter of absolute calcu 
 lation. We subject the unlocked for and unimagined, to the 
 mathematical formulae of the schools. 
 
 " I repeat that it is no more than fact, that the larger portion of 
 all truth has sprung from the collateral ; and it is but in accord 
 ance with the spirit of the principle involved in this fact, that I 
 would divert inquiry, in the present case, from the trodden and 
 hitherto unfruitful ground of the event itself, to the cotemporary 
 circumstances which surround it. While you ascertain the va 
 lidity of the affidavits, I will examine the newspapers more gene 
 rally than you have as yet done. So far, we have only recon 
 noitred the field of investigation ; but it will be strange indeed if 
 a comprehensive survey, such as I propose, of the public prints, 
 
180 POE'S TALES. 
 
 will not afford us some minute points which shall establish a di 
 rection for inquiry." 
 
 In pursuance of Dupin's suggestion, I made scrupulous exam 
 ination of the affair of the affidavits. The result was a firm con 
 viction of their validity, and of the consequent innocence of St. 
 Eustache. In the mean time my friend occupied himself, with 
 what seemed to me a minuteness altogether objectless, in a scru 
 tiny of the various newspaper files. At the end of a week he 
 placed before me the following extracts : 
 
 " About three years and a half ago, a disturbance very similar to the pres 
 ent, was caused by the disappearance of this same Marie Roget, from the 
 parfumerie of Monsieur Le Blanc, in the Palais Royal. At the end of a week, 
 however, she re-appeared at her customary comptoir, as well as ever, with the 
 exception of a slight paleness not altogether usual. It was given out by Mon 
 sieur Le Blanc and her mother, that she had merely been on a visit to some 
 friend in the country ; and the affair was speedily hushed up. We presume 
 that the present absence is a freak of the same nature, and that, at the expi 
 ration of a week, or perhaps of a month, we shall have her among us again." 
 Evening Paper Monday, June 23.* 
 
 " An evening journal of yesterday, refers to a former mysterious disappear 
 ance of Mademoiselle RogSt. It is well known that, during the week of her 
 absence from Le Blanc's parfumerie, she was in the company of a young 
 naval officer, much noted for his debaucheries. A quarrel, it is supposed^ provi 
 dentially led to her return home. We have the name of the Lothario in ques 
 tion, who is, at present, stationed in Paris, but, for obvious reasons, forbear to 
 make it public." Le Mercuric Tuesday Morning, June 24.t 
 
 " An outrage of the most atrocious character was perpetrated near this city 
 the day before yesterday. A gentleman, with his wife and daughter, engaged, 
 about dusk, the services of six young men, who were idly rowing a boat to and 
 fro near the banks of the Seine, to convey him across the river. Upon- reach 
 ing the opposite shore, the three passengers stepped out, and had proceeded so 
 far as to be beyond the view of the boat, when the daughter discovered that 
 she had left in it her parasol. She returned for it, was seized by the gang, 
 carried out into the stream, gagged, brutally treated, and finally taken to the 
 shore at a point not far from that at which she had originally entered the boat 
 with her parents. The villains have escaped for the time, but the police are 
 upon their trail, and some of them will soon be taken." Morning Paper June 
 254 
 
 " We have received one or two communications, the object of which is to 
 
 * N. Y. Express." t " N. Y. Herald." 
 
 t N. Y. Courier and Inquirer." 
 
THE MYSTERY OF MARIE ROGET. 181 
 
 fasten the crime of the late atrocity upon Mennais ;* but as this gentleman 
 has been fully exonerated by a legal inquiry, and as the arguments of our sev 
 eral correspondents appear to be more zealous than profound, we do not think 
 it advisable to make them public." Morning Paper June 28.t 
 
 " We have received several forcibly written communications, apparently 
 from various sources, and which go far to render it a matter of certainty that 
 the unfortunate Marie Roget has become a victim of one of the numerous 
 bands of blackguards which infest the vicinity of the city upon Sunday. Our 
 own opinion is decidedly in favor of this supposition. We shall endeavor to 
 make room for some of these arguments hereafter." Evening Paper Tues 
 day, June 31.t 
 
 " On Monday, one of the bargemen connected with the revenue service, 
 saw an empty boat floating down the Seine. Sails were lying in the bottom 
 of the boat. The bargeman towed it under the barge office. The next morn 
 ing it was taken from thence, without the knowledge of any of the officers. 
 The rudder is now at the barge office." Le Diligence Thursday, June 26. 
 
 Upon reading these various extracts, they not only seemed to 
 me irrelevant, but I could perceive no mode in which any one of 
 them could be brought to bear upon the matter in hand. I wait 
 ed for some explanation from Dupin. 
 
 " It is not my present design," he said, " to dwell upon the first 
 and second of these extracts. I have copied them chiefly to show 
 you the extreme remissness of the police, who, as far as I can 
 understand from the Prefect, have not troubled themselves, in any 
 respect, with an examination of the naval officer alluded to. Yet 
 it is mere folly to say that between the first and second disap 
 pearance of Marie, there is no supposable connection. Let us 
 admit the first elopement to have resulted in a quarrel between 
 the lovers, and the return home of the betrayed. We are now 
 prepared to view a second elopement (if we know that an elope 
 ment has again taken place) as indicating a renewal of the be 
 trayer's advances, rather than as the result of new proposals by 
 a second individual we are prepared to regard it as a ' making 
 up ' of the old amour, rather than as the commencement of a new 
 one. The chances are ten to one, that he who had once eloped 
 
 * Mennais was one of the parties originally suspected and arrested, but dis 
 charged through total lack of evidence. 
 t " N. Y. Courier and Inquirer." 
 t " N. Y. Evening Post." 
 N, Y. Standard." 
 
182 FOE'S TALES. 
 
 with Marie, would again propose an elopement, rather than that 
 she to whom proposals of elopement had been made by one indi 
 vidual, should have them made to her by another. And here let 
 me call your attention to the fact, that the time elapsing between 
 the first ascertained, and the second supposed elopement, is a few 
 months more than the general period of the cruises of our men-of- 
 war. Had the lover been interrupted in his first villany by the 
 necessity of departure to sea, and had he seized the first moment 
 of his return to renew the base designs not yet altogether accom 
 plished or not yet altogether accomplished by him ? Of all 
 these things we know nothing. 
 
 " You will say, however, that, in the second instance, there was 
 no elopement as imagined. Certainly not but are we prepared 
 to say that there was not the frustrated design ? Beyond St. 
 Eustache, and perhaps Beauvais, we find no recognized, no open, 
 no honorable suitors of Marie. Of none other is there any thing 
 said. Who, then, is the secret lover, of whom the relatives (at 
 least most of them) know nothing, but whom Marie meets upon 
 the morning of Sunday, and who is so deeply in her confidence, 
 that she hesitates not to remain with him until the shades of the 
 evening descend, amid the solitary groves of the Barriere du 
 Roule ? Who is that secret lover, I ask, of whom, at least, most 
 of the relatives know nothing ? And what means the singular 
 prophecy of Madame Roget on the morning of Marie's departure ? 
 ' I fear that I shall never see Marie again.' 
 
 " But if we cannot imagine Madame Roget privy to the design 
 of elopement, may we not at least suppose this design entertained 
 by the girl ? Upon quitting home, she gave it to be understood 
 that she was about to visit her aunt in the Rue des- Dromes, and 
 St. Eustache was requested to call for her at dark. Now, at first 
 glance, this fact strongly militates against my suggestion ; but 
 let us reflect. That she did meet some companion, and proceed 
 with him across the river, reaching the Barriere du Roule at so 
 late an hour as three o'clock in the afternoon, is known. But in 
 consenting so to accompany this individual, (for whatever pur 
 pose to her mother known or unknown,) she must have thought 
 of her expressed intention when leaving home, and of the surprise 
 and suspicion aroused in the bosom of her affianced suitor, St. 
 
THE MYSTERY OF MARIE ROGET. 183 
 
 Eustache, when, calling for her, at the hour appointed, in the 
 Rue des Dromes, he should find that she had not been there, and 
 when, moreover, upon returning to the pension with this alarming 
 intelligence, he should become aware of her continued absence 
 from home. She must have thought of these things, I say. She 
 must have foreseen the chagrin of St. Eustache, the suspicion of 
 all. She could not have thought of returning to brave this suspi 
 cion ; but the suspicion becomes a point of trivial importance to 
 her, if we suppose her not intending to return. 
 
 " We may imagine her thinking thus < I am to meet a certain 
 person for the purpose of elopement, or for certain other purposes 
 known only to myself. It is necessary that there be no chance of 
 interruption there must be sufficient time given us to elude pur 
 suit I will give it to be understood that I shall visit and spend 
 the day with my aunt at the Rue des Dromes I well tell St. Eu 
 stache not to call for me until dark in this way, my absence 
 from home for the longest possible period, without causing suspi 
 cion or anxiety, will be accounted for, and I shall gain more time 
 than in any other manner. If I bid St. Eustache call for me at 
 dark, he will be sure not to call before ; but, if I wholly neglect 
 to bid him call, my time for escape will be diminished, since it 
 will be expected that I return the earlier, and my absence will 
 the sooner excite anxiety. Now, if it were my design to return 
 at all if I had in contemplation merely a stroll with the individ 
 ual in question it would not be my policy to bid St. Eustache 
 call ; for, calling, he will be sure to ascertain that I have played 
 him false a fact of which I might keep him for ever in igno 
 rance, by leaving home without notifying him of my intention, by 
 returning before dark, and by then stating that I had been to visit 
 my aunt in the Rue des Dromes. But, as it is my design never 
 to return or not for some weeks or not until certain conceal 
 ments are effected the gaining of time is the only point about 
 which I need give myself any concern. 7 
 
 " You have observed, in your notes, that the most general opin 
 ion in relation to this sad affair is, and was from the first, that the 
 girl had been the victim of a gang of blackguards. Now, the 
 popular opinion, under certain conditions, is not to be disregarded. 
 When arising of itself when manifesting itself in a strictly 
 
184 FOE'S TALES. 
 
 spontaneous manner we should look upon it as analogous with 
 that intuition which is the idiosyncrasy of the individual man of 
 genius. In ninety-nine cases from the hundred I would abide by 
 its decision. But it is important that we find no palpable traces 
 of suggestion. The opinion must be rigorously the public '5 own; 
 and the distinction is often exceedingly difficult to perceive and 
 to maintain. In the present instance, it appears to me that this 
 * public opinion,' in respect to a gang, has been superinduced by 
 the collateral event which is detailed in the third of my extracts. 
 All Paris is excited by the discovered corpse of Marie, a girl 
 young, beautiful and notorious. This corpse is found, bearing 
 marks of violence, and floating in the river. But it is now made 
 known that, at the very period, or about the very period, in which 
 it is supposed that the girl was assassinated, an outrage similar in 
 nature to that endured by the deceased, although less in extent, 
 was perpetrated, by a gang of young ruffians, upon the person of 
 a second young female. Is it wonderful that the one known atro 
 city should influence the popular judgment in regard to the other 
 unknown ? This judgment awaited direction, and the known out 
 rage seemed so opportunely to afford it ! Marie, too, was found 
 in the river ; and upon this very river was this known outrage 
 committed. The connexion of the two events had about it so 
 much of the palpable, that the true wonder would have been a 
 failure of the populace to appreciate and to seize it. But, in 
 fact, the one atrocity, known to be so committed, is, if any thing, 
 evidence that the other, committed at a time nearly coincident, 
 was not so committed. It would have been a miracle indeed, if, 
 while a gang of ruffians were perpetrating, at a given locality, a 
 most unheard-of wrong, there should have been another similar 
 gang, in a similar locality, in the same city, under the same cir 
 cumstances, with the same means and appliances, engaged in a 
 wrong of precisely the same aspect, at precisely the same period 
 of time ! Yet in what, if not in this marvellous train of coinci 
 dence, does the accidentally suggested opinion of the populace 
 call upon us to believe ? 
 
 " Before proceeding farther, let us consider the supposed scene 
 of the assassination, in the thicket at the Barriere du Roule. This 
 thicket, although dense, was in the close vicinity of a public road. 
 
THE MYSTERY OF MARIE ROGET. 185 
 
 Within were three or four large stones, forming a kind of seat 
 with a back and footstool. On the upper stone was discovered a 
 white petticoat ; on the second, a silk scarf. A parasol, gloves, 
 and a pocket-handkerchief, were also here found. The hand 
 kerchief bore the name, ' Marie Roget.' Fragments of dress were 
 seen on the branches around. The earth was trampled, the 
 bushes were broken, and there was every evidence of a violent 
 struggle. 
 
 " Notwithstanding the acclamation with which the discovery of 
 this thicket was received by the press, and the unanimity with 
 which it was supposed to indicate the precise scene of the outrage, 
 it must be admitted that there was some very good reason for 
 doubt. That it was the scene, I may or I may not believe but 
 there was excellent reason for doubt. Had the true scene been, 
 as Le Commerciel suggested, in the neighborhood of the Rue 
 Pavee St. Andree, the perpetrators of the crime, supposing them 
 still resident in Paris, would naturally have been stricken with 
 terror at the public attention thus acutely directed into the proper 
 channel ; and, in certain classes of minds, there would have 
 arisen, at once, a sense of the necessity of some exertion to re- 
 divert this attention. And thus, the thicket of the Barriere du 
 Roule having been already suspected, the idea of placing the arti 
 cles where they were found, might have been naturally enter 
 tained. There is no real evidence, although Le Soleil so supposes, 
 that the articles discovered had been more than a very few days 
 in the thicket ; while there is much circumstantial proof that they 
 could not have remained there, without attracting attention, during 
 the twenty days elapsing between the fatal Sunday and the after 
 noon upon which they were found by the boys. ' They were all 
 mildewed down hard,' says Le Soleil, adopting the opinions of its 
 predecessors, ' with the action of the rain, and stuck together from 
 mildew. The grass had grown around and over some of them. 
 The silk of the parasol was strong, but the threads of it were run 
 together within. The upper part, where it had been doubled and 
 folded, was all mildewed and rotten, and tore on being opened.' 
 In respect to the grass having 'grown around and over some of 
 them,' it is obvious that the fact could only have been ascertained 
 from the words, and thus from the recollections, of two small boys j 
 
186 FOE'S TALES. 
 
 for these boys removed the articles and took them home before 
 they had been seen by a third party. But grass will grow, es 
 pecially in warm and damp weather, (such as was that of the 
 period of the murder,) as much as two or three inches in a single 
 day. A parasol lying upon a newly turfed ground, might, in a 
 single week, be entirely concealed from sight by the upspririging 
 grass. And touching that mildew upon which the editor of Le 
 Soleil so pertinaciously insists, that he employs the word no less 
 than three times in the brief paragraph just quoted, is he really 
 unaware of the nature of this mildew ? Is he to be told that it is 
 one of the many classes of fungus, of which the most ordinary 
 feature is its upspringing and decadence within twenty-four hours ? 
 " Thus we see, at a glance, that what has been most trium 
 phantly adduced in support of the idea that the articles had been 
 4 for at least three or four weeks' in the thicket, is most absurdly 
 null as regards any evidence of that fact. On the other hand, it 
 is exceedingly difficult to believe that these articles could have 
 remained in the thicket specified, for a longer period than a sin 
 gle week for a longer period than from one Sunday to the next. 
 Those who know any thing of the vicinity of Paris, know the ex 
 treme difficulty of finding seclusion, unless at a great distance 
 from its suburbs. Such a thing as an unexplored, or even an un- 
 frequently visited recess, amid its woods or groves, is not for a 
 moment to be imagined. Let any one who, being at heart a 
 lover of nature, is yet chained by duty to the dust and heat of this 
 great metropolis let any such one attempt, even during the week 
 days, to slake his thirst for solitude amid the scenes of natural 
 loveliness which immediately surround us. At every second step, 
 he will find the growing charm dispelled by the voice and per 
 sonal intrusion of some ruffian or party of carousing blackguards. 
 He will seek privacy amid the densest foliage, all in vain. Here 
 are the very nooks where the unwashed most abound here are 
 the temples most desecrate. With sickness of the heart the wan 
 derer will flee back to the polluted Paris as to a less odious because 
 less incongruous sink of pollution. But if the vicinity of the city 
 is so beset during the working days of the week, how much more 
 so on the Sabbath ! It is now especially that, released from the 
 claims of labor, or deprived of the customary opportunities of 
 
THE MYSTERY OF MARIE ROGET. 187 
 
 crime, the town blackguard seeks the precincts of the town, not 
 through love of the rural, which in his heart he despises, but by 
 way of escape from the restraints and conventionalities of society. 
 He desires less the fresh air and the green trees, than the utter 
 license, of the country. Here, at the road-side inn, or beneath the 
 foliage of the woods, he indulges, unchecked by any eye except 
 those of his boon companions, in all the mad excess of a counter 
 feit hilarity the joint offspring of liberty and of rum. I say no 
 thing more than what must be obvious to every dispassionate ob 
 server, when I repeat that the circumstance of the articles in 
 question having remained undiscovered, for a longer period than 
 from one Sunday to another, in any thicket in the immediate 
 neighborhood of Paris, is to be looked upon as little less than 
 miraculous. 
 
 " But there are not wanting other grounds for the suspicion that 
 the articles were placed in the thicket with the view of diverting 
 attention from the real scene of the outrage. And, first, let me 
 direct your notice to the date of the discovery of the articles. 
 Collate this with the date of the fifth extract made by myself from 
 the newspapers. You will find that the discovery followed, al 
 most immediately, the urgent communications sent to the evening 
 paper. These communications, although various, and apparently 
 from various sources, tended all to the same point viz., the di 
 recting of attention to a gang as the perpetrators of the outrage, 
 and to the neighborhood of the Barriere du Roule as its scene. 
 Now here, of course, the suspicion is not that, in consequence of 
 these communications, or of the public attention by them directed, 
 the articles were found by the boys ; but the suspicion might and 
 may well have been, that the articles were not before found by 
 the boys, for the reason that the articles had not before been in 
 the thicket ; having been deposited there only at so late a period 
 as at the date, or shortly prior to the date of the communications 3 
 by the guilty authors of these communications themselves. 
 
 " This thicket was a singular an exceedingly singular one. 
 It was unusually dense. Within its naturally walled enclosure 
 were three extraordinary stones, forming a seat with a back and 
 footstool. And this thicket, so full of a natural art, was in the 
 immediate vicinity, within a few rods., of the dwelling of Madame 
 
188 FOE'S TALES. 
 
 Deluc, whose boys were in the habit of closely examining the 
 shrubberies about them in search of the bark of the sassafras. 
 Would it be a rash wager a wager of one thousand to one that 
 a day never passed over the heads of these boys without finding 
 at least one of them ensconced in the umbrageous hall, and en- 
 throned upon its natural throne ? Those who would hesitate at 
 such a wager, have either never been boys themselves, or have 
 forgotten the boyish nature. I repeat it is exceedingly hard to 
 comprehend how the articles could have remained in this thicket 
 undiscovered, for a longer period than one or two days ; and that 
 thus there is good ground for suspicion, in spite of the dogmatic 
 ignorance of Le Soleil, that they were, at a comparatively late 
 date, deposited where found. 
 
 " But there are still other and stronger reasons for believing 
 them so deposited, than any which I have as yet urged. And, 
 now, let me beg your notice to the highly artificial arrangement 
 of the articles. On the upper stone lay a white petticoat ; on the 
 second a silk scarf; scattered around, were a parasol, gloves, and 
 a pocket-handkerchief bearing the name, ' Marie Roget.' Here is 
 just such an arrangement as would naturally be made by a not- 
 over-acute person wishing to dispose the articles naturally. But 
 it is by no means a really natural arrangement. I should rather 
 have looked to see the things all lying on the ground and tram 
 pled under foot. In the narrow limits of that bower, it would 
 have been scarcely possible that the petticoat and scarf should 
 have retained a position upon the stones, when subjected to the 
 brushing to and fro of many struggling persons. * There was 
 evidence,' it is said, ' of a struggle ; and the earth was trampled, 
 the bushes were broken,' but the petticoat and the scarf are 
 found deposited as if upon shelves. ' The pieces of the frock torn 
 out by the bushes were about three inches wide and six inches 
 long. One part was the hem of the frock and it had been mended. 
 They looked like strips torn off.' Here, inadvertently, Le Soleil 
 has employed an exceedingly suspicious phrase. The pieces, as 
 described, do indeed 'look like strips torn off;' but purposely and 
 by hand. It is one of the rarest of accidents that a piece is ' torn 
 off,' from any garment such as is now in question, by the agency 
 of a thorn. From the very nature of such fabrics, a thorn or 
 
THE MYSTERY OF MARIE ROGET. 189 
 
 nail becoming entangled in them, tears them rectangularly di 
 vides them into two longitudinal rents, at right angles with each 
 other, and meeting at an apex where the thorn enters but it is 
 scarcely possible to conceive the piece ' torn off.' I never so 
 knew it, nor did you. To tear a piece off from such fabric, two 
 distinct forces, in different directions, will be, in almost every 
 case, required. If there be two edges to the fabric if, for ex 
 ample, it be a pocket-handkerchief, and it is desired to tear from 
 it a slip, then, and then only, will the one force serve the purpose. 
 But in the present case the question is of a dress, presenting but 
 one edge. To tear a piece from the interior, where no edge is 
 presented, could only be effected by a miracle through the agency 
 of thorns, and no one thorn could accomplish it. But, even where 
 an edge is presented, two thorns will be necessary, operating, the 
 one in two distinct directions, and the other in one. And this in 
 the supposition that the edge is unhemmed. If hemmed, the mat 
 ter is nearly out of the question. We thus see the numerous and 
 great obstacles in the way of pieces being ' torn off' through the 
 simple agency of ' thorns ;' yet we are required to believe not 
 only that one piece but that many have been so torn. ' And one 
 part,' too, ' was the hem of the frock /' Another piece was 'part 
 of the skirt, not the he?n,' that is to say, was torn completely out, 
 through the agency of thorns, from the unedged interior of the 
 dress ! These, I say, are things which one may well be pardoned 
 for disbelieving ; yet, taken collectedly, they form, perhaps, less 
 of reasonable ground for suspicion, than the one startling circum 
 stance of the articles' having been left in this thicket at all, by 
 any murderers who had enough precaution to think of removing 
 the corpse. You will not have apprehended me rightly, however, 
 if you suppose it my design to deny this thicket as the scene of 
 the outrage. There might have been a wrong here, or, more pos 
 sibly, an accident at Madame Deluc's. But, in fact, this is a 
 point of minor importance. We are not engaged in an attempt 
 to discover the scene, but to produce the perpetrators of the mur 
 der. What I have adduced, notwithstanding the minuteness with 
 which I have adduced it, has been with the view, first, to show 
 the folly of the positive and headlong assertions of Le Soleil, but 
 secondly and chiefly, to bring you, by the most natural route, to 
 
190 FOE'S TALES. 
 
 a further contemplation of the doubt whether this assassination 
 has, or has not been, the work of a gang. 
 
 " We will resume this question by mere allusion to the revolt 
 ing details of the surgeon examined at the inquest. It is only 
 necessary to say that his published inferences, in regard to the 
 number of the ruffians, have been properly ridiculed as unjust 
 and totally baseless, by all the reputable anatomists of Paris. 
 Not that the matter might not have been as inferred, but that there 
 was no ground for the inference : was there not much for an 
 other ? 
 
 " Let us reflect now upon ' the traces of a struggle ;' and let 
 me ask what these traces have been supposed to demonstrate. A 
 gang. But do they not rather demonstrate the absence of a 
 gang? What struggle could have taken place what struggle 
 so violent and so enduring as to have left its ' traces' in all direc 
 tions between a weak and defenceless girl and the gang of ruffians 
 imagined ? The silent grasp of a few rough arms and all would 
 have been over. The victim must have been absolutely passive 
 at their will. You will here bear in mind that the arguments urg 
 ed against the thicket as the scene, are applicable, in chief part, only 
 against it as the scene of an outrage committed by more than a 
 single individual. If we imagine but one violator, we can con 
 ceive, and thus only conceive, the struggle of so violent and so 
 obstinate a nature as to have left the ' traces' apparent. 
 
 " And again. I have already mentioned the suspicion to be 
 excited by the fact that the articles in question were suffered to 
 remain at all in the thicket where discovered. It seems almost 
 impossible that these evidences of guilt should have been acciden 
 tally left where found. There was sufficient presence of mind (it 
 is supposed) to remove the corpse ; and yet a more positive 
 evidence than the corpse itself (whose features might have been 
 quickly obliterated by decay,) is allowed to lie conspicuously in 
 the scene of the outrage I allude to the handkerchief with the 
 name of the deceased. If this was accident, it was not the acci 
 dent of a gang. We can imagine it only the accident of an indi 
 vidual. Let us see. An individual has committed the murder. 
 He is alone with the ghost of the departed. He is appalled by 
 what lies motionless before him. The fury of his passion is over, 
 
THE MYSTERY OF MARIE ROGET. 191 
 
 and there is abundant room in his heart for the natural awe of 
 the deed. His is none of that confidence which the presence of 
 numbers inevitably inspires. He is alone with the dead. He 
 trembles and is bewildered. Yet there is a necessity for disposing 
 of the corpse. He bears it to the river, but leaves behind him 
 the other evidences of guilt; for it is difficult, if not impossible to 
 carry all the burthen at once, and it will be easy to return for 
 what is left. But in his toilsome journey to the water his 
 fears redouble within him. The sounds of life encompass his 
 path. A dozen times he hears or fancies the step of an observer. 
 Even the very lights from the city bewilder him. Yet, in time, 
 and by long and frequent pauses of deep agony, he reaches the 
 river's brink, and disposes of his ghastly charge perhaps through 
 the medium of a boat. But now what treasure does the world 
 hold what threat of vengeance could it hold out which would 
 have power to urge the return of that lonely murderer over that 
 toilsome and perilous path, to the thicket and its blood-chilling 
 recollections 1 He returns not, let the consequences be what 
 they may. He could not return if he would. His sole thought 
 is immediate escape. He turns his back forever upon those 
 dreadful shrubberies, and flees as from the wrath to come. 
 
 " But how with a gang ? Their number would have inspired 
 them with confidence ; if, indeed, confidence is ever wanting in 
 the breast of the arrant blackguard ; and of arrant blackguards 
 alone are the supposed gangs ever constituted. Their number, I 
 say, would have prevented the bewildering and unreasoning terror 
 which I have imagined to paralyze the single man. Could we 
 suppose an oversight in one, or two, or three, this oversight would 
 have been remedied by a fourth. They would have left nothing 
 behind them ; for their number would have enabled them to carry 
 all at once. There would have been no need of return. 
 
 " Consider now the circumstance that, in the outer garment of 
 the corpse when found, ' a slip, about a foot wide, had been torn 
 upward from the bottom hem to the waist, wound three times round 
 the waist, and secured by a sort of hitch in the back.' This was 
 done with the obvious design of affording a handle by which to 
 carry the body. But would any number of men have dreamed 
 of resorting to such an expedient ? To three or four, the limbs of 
 
192 FOE'S TALES. 
 
 the corpse would have afforded not only a sufficient, but the best 
 possible hold. The device is that of a single individual ; and this 
 brings us to the fact that ' between the thicket and the river, the 
 rails of the fences were found taken down, and the ground bore 
 evident traces of some heavy burden having been dragged along 
 it !' But would a number of men have put themselves to the su 
 perfluous trouble of taking down a fence, for the purpose of drag, 
 ging through it a corpse which they might have lifted over any 
 fence in an instant ? Would a number of men have so dragged, 
 a corpse at all as to have left evident traces of the dragging 1 
 
 " And here we must refer to an observation of Le Commerciel ; 
 an observation upon which I have already, in some measure, com 
 mented. 'A piece/ says this journal, 'of one of the unfortunate 
 girl's petticoats was torn out and tied under her chin, and around 
 the back of her head, probably to prevent screams. This was 
 done by fellows who had no pocket-handkerchiefs.' 
 
 " I have before suggested that a genuine blackguard is never 
 without a pocket-handkerchief. But it is not to this fact that I 
 now especially advert. That it was not through want of a hand 
 kerchief for the purpose imagined by Le Commerciel, that this 
 bandage was employed, is rendered apparent by the handker 
 chief left in the thicket ; and that the object was not ' to prevent 
 screams' appears, also, from the bandage having been employed 
 in preference to what would so much better have answered the 
 purpose. But the language of the evidence speaks of the strip in 
 question as ' found around the neck, fitting loosely, and secured 
 with a hard knot.' These words are sufficiently vague, but differ 
 Materially from those of Le Commerciel. The slip was eighteen 
 inches wide, and therefore, although of muslin, would form a 
 strong band when folded or rumpled longitudinally. And thus 
 rumpled it was discovered. My inference is this. The solitary 
 murderer, having borne the corpse, for some distance, (whether 
 from the thicket or elsewhere) by means of the bandage hitched 
 around its middle, found the weight, in this mode of procedure, too 
 much for his strength. He resolved to drag the burthen the evi 
 dence goes to show that it was dragged. With this object in view, 
 it became necessary to attach something like a rope to one of the 
 extremities* It could be best attached about the neck, where tht 
 
THE MYSTERY OF MARIE ROGET. 193 
 
 head would prevent its slipping off. And, now, the murderer be 
 thought him, unquestionably, of the bandage about the loins. He 
 would have used this, but for its volution about the corpse, the 
 hitch which embarrassed it, and the reflection that it had not been 
 1 torn off' from the garment. It was easier to tear a new slip 
 from the petticoat. He tore it, made it fast about the neck, and 
 so dragged his victim to the brink of the river. That this ' ban 
 dage,' only attainable with trouble and delay, and but imperfectly 
 answering its purpose that this bandage was employed at all, de 
 monstrates that the necessity for its employment sprang from cir 
 cumstances arising at a period when the handkerchief was no 
 longer attainable that is to say, arising, as we have imagined, 
 after quitting the thicket, (if the thicket it was), and on the road 
 between the thicket and the river. 
 
 " But the evidence, you will say, of Madame Deluc, (!) points 
 especially to the presence of a gang, in the vicinity of the thicket, 
 at or about the epoch of the murder. This I grant. I doubt if 
 there were not a dozen gangs, such as described by Madame Deluc, 
 in and about the vicinity of the Barriere du Roule at or about the 
 period of this tragedy. But the gang which has drawn upon 
 itself the pointed animadversion, although the somewhat tardy 
 and very suspicious evidence of Madame Deluc, is the only gang 
 which is represented by that honest and scrupulous old lady as 
 having eaten her cakes and swallowed her brandy, without put 
 ting themselves to the trouble of making her payment. Et hinc 
 ill(R ir& ? 
 
 "But what is the precise evidence of Madame Deluc? 'A 
 gang of miscreants made their appearance, behaved boisterously, 
 ate and drank without making payment, followed in the route of 
 the young man and girl, returned to the inn about dusk, and re- 
 crossed the river as if in great haste.' 
 
 " Now this ' great haste' very possibly seemed greater haste in 
 the eyes of Madame Deluc, since she dwelt lingeringly and 
 lamentingly upon her violated cakes and ale cakes and ale for 
 which she might still have entertained a faint hope of compen 
 sation. Why, otherwise, since it was about dusk, should she 
 make a point of the haste ? It is no cause for wonder, surely, 
 that even a gang of blackguards should make haste to get home, 
 
 14 
 
194 FOE'S TALES. 
 
 when a wide river is to be crossed in small boats, when storm im 
 pends, and when night approaches. 
 
 " I say approaches ; for the night had not yet arrived. It was 
 only about dusk that the indecent haste of these * miscreants' 
 offended the sober eyes of Madame Deluc. But we are told that 
 it was upon this very evening that Madame Deluc, as well as her 
 eldest son, * heard the screams of a female in the vicinity of the 
 inn.' And in what words does Madame Deluc designate the 
 period of the evening at which these screams were heard ? ' It 
 was soon after dark,' she says. But 'soon after dark,' is, at 
 least, dark ; and ' about dusk' is as certainly daylight. Thus it 
 is abundantly clear that the gang quitted the Barriere du Roule 
 prior to the screams overheard (?) by Madame Deluc. And 
 although, in all the many reports of the evidence, the relative ex 
 pressions in question are distinctly and invariably employed just 
 as I have employed them in this conversation with yourself, no 
 notice whatever of the gross discrepancy has, as yet, been taken 
 by any of the public journals, or by any of the Myrmidons of 
 police. 
 
 " I shall add but one to the arguments against a gang ; but 
 this one has, to my own understanding at least, a weight alto 
 gether irresistible. Under the circumstances of large reward 
 offered, and full pardon to any King's evidence, it is not to be 
 imagined, for a moment, that some member of a gang of low 
 ruffians, or of any body of men, would not long ago have betray 
 ed his accomplices. Each one of a gang so placed, is not so 
 much greedy of reward, or anxious for escape, as fearful of be 
 trayal. He betrays eagerly and early that he may not himself be, 
 betrayed. That the secret has not been divulged, is the very best 
 of proof that it is, in fact, a secret. The horrors of this dark 
 deed are known only to one, or two, living human beings, and to 
 God. 
 
 " Let us sum up now the meagre yet certain fruits of our long 
 analysis. We have attained the idea either of a fatal accident 
 under the roof of Madame Deluc, or of a murder perpetrated, 
 in the thicket at the Barriere du Roule, by a lover, or at least by 
 an intimate and secret associate of the deceased. This associate 
 is of swarthy complexion. This complexion, the ' hitch' in the 
 
THE MYSTERY OF MARIE ROGET. 195 
 
 bandage, and the < sailor's knot,' with which the bonnet-ribbon is 
 tied, point to a seaman. His companionship with the deceased, a 
 gay, but not an abject young girl, designates him as above the 
 grade of the common sailor. Here the well written and urgent 
 communications to the journals are much in the way of cor- 
 roboration. The circumstance of the first elopement, as men 
 tioned by Le Mercuric, tends to blend the idea of this seaman 
 with that of the l naval officer' who is first known to have led the 
 unfortunate into crime. 
 
 " And here, most fitly, comes the consideration of the con- 
 tinued absence of him of the dark complexion. Let me pause 
 to observe that the complexion of this man is dark and swarthy ; 
 it was no common swarthiness which constituted the sole point 
 of remembrance, both as regards Valence and Madame Deluc. 
 But why is this man absent ? Was he murdered by the gang ? 
 If so, why are there only traces of the assassinated girl ? The 
 scene of the two outrages will naturally be supposed identical. 
 And where is his corpse ? The assassins would most probably 
 have disposed of both in the same way. But it may be said that 
 this man lives, and is deterred from making himself known, 
 through dread of being charged with the murder. This consider 
 ation might be supposed to operate upon him now at this late 
 period since it has been given in evidence that he was seen with 
 Marie but it would have had no force at the period of the deed. 
 The first impulse of an innocent man would have been to an 
 nounce the outrage, and to aid in identifying the ruffians. This, 
 policy would have suggested. He had been seen with the girl. 
 He had crossed the river with her in an open ferry-boat. The 
 denouncing of the assassins would have appeared, even to an 
 idiot, the surest and sole means of relieving himself from sus 
 picion. We cannot suppose him, on the night of the fatal Sun 
 day, both innocent himself and incognizant of an outrage com 
 mitted. Yet only under such circumstances is it possible to 
 imagine that he would have failed, if alive, in the denouncement 
 of the assassins. 
 
 " And what means are ours, of attaining the truth ? We 
 shall find these means multiplying and gathering distinctness as 
 we proceed. Let us sift to the bottom this affair of the first elope 
 
196 FOE'S TALES 
 
 ment. Let us know the full history of l the officer,' with his 
 present circumstances, and his whereabouts at the precise period 
 of the murder. Let us carefully compare with each other the 
 various communications sent to the evening paper, in which the 
 object was to inculpate a gang. This done, let us compare these 
 communications, both as regards style and MS., with those sent 
 to the morning paper, at a previous period, and insisting so vehe 
 mently upon the guilt of Mennais. And, all this done, let us 
 again compare these various communications with the known 
 MSS. of the officer. Let us endeavor to ascertain, by repeated 
 questionings of Madame Deluc and her boys, as well as of the 
 omnibus-driver, Valence, something more of the personal appear 
 ance and bearing of the l man of dark complexion.' Queries, 
 skilfully directed, will not fail to elicit, from some of these par 
 ties, information on this particular point (or upon others) infor 
 mation which the parties themselves may not even be aware of 
 possessing. And let us now trace the boat picked up by the barge 
 man on the morning of Monday the twenty-third of June, and 
 which was removed from the barge-office, without the cognizance 
 of the officer in attendance, and without the- rudder, at some period 
 prior to the discovery of the corpse. With a proper caution and 
 perseverance we shall infallibly trace this boat ; for not only can 
 the bargeman who picked it up identify it, but the rudder is at 
 hand. The rudder of a sail-boat would not have been abandon 
 ed, without inquiry, by one altogether at ease in heart. And 
 here let me pause to insinuate a question. There was no adver 
 tisement of the picking up of this boat. It was silently taken to 
 the barge-office, and as silently removed. But its owner or 
 employer how happened he, at so early a period as Tuesday 
 morning, to be informed, without the agency of advertisement, of 
 the locality of the boat taken up on Monday, unless we imagine 
 some connexion with the navy some personal permanent n ^r. 
 nexion leading to cognizance of its minute in' ,iests its petty 
 local news ? 
 
 " In speaking of the lonely assassin dra f -ing his burden to the 
 shore, I have already suggested the p ^ability of his availing 
 himself of a boat. Now we are to ir uerstand that Marie Roget 
 was precipitated from a boat. Thi c< would naturally have been 
 
THE MYSTERY OF MARIE ROGET. 197 
 
 the case. The corpse could not have been trusted to the shallow 
 waters of the shore. The peculiar marks on the back and 
 shoulders of the victim tell of the bottom ribs of a boat. That 
 the body was found without weight is also corroborative of the 
 idea. If thrown from the shore a weight would have been at 
 tached. We can only account for its absence by supposing the 
 murderer to have neglected the precaution of supplying himself 
 with it before pushing off. In the act of consigning the corpse to 
 the water, he would unquestionably have noticed his oversight ; 
 but then no remedy would have been at hand. Any risk would 
 have been preferred to a return to that accursed shore. Having 
 rid himself of his ghastly charge, the murderer would have 
 hastened to the city. There, at some obscure wharf, he would 
 have leaped on land. But the boat would he have secured it ? 
 He would have been in too great haste for such things as securing 
 a boat. Moreover, in fastening it to the wharf, he would have 
 felt as if securing evidence against himself. His natural thought 
 would have been to cast from him, as far as possible, all that had 
 held connection with his crime. He would not only have fled 
 from the wharf, but he would not have permitted the boat to re 
 main. Assuredly he would have cast it adrift. Let us pursue 
 our fancies. In the morning, the wretch is stricken with unutter 
 able horror at finding that the boat has been picked up and de 
 tained at a locality which he is in the daily habit of frequenting 
 at a locality, perhaps, which his duty compels him to frequent. 
 The next night, without daring to ask for the rudder, he removes 
 it. Now where is that rudderless boat ? Let it be one of our 
 first purposes to discover. With the first glimpse we obtain of it, 
 the dawn of our success shall begin. This boat shall guide us, 
 with a rapidity which will surprise even ourselves, to him who 
 employed it in the midnight of the fatal Sabbath. Corroboration 
 will rise upon corroboration, and the murderer will be traced." 
 
 [For reasons which we shall not specify, but which to many 
 readers will appear obvious, we have taken the liberty of here 
 omitting, from the MSS. placed in our hands, such portion as 
 details the following up of the apparently slight clew obtained by 
 Dupin. We feel it advisable only to state, in brief, that the re 
 sult desired was brought to pass ; and that the Prefect fulfilled 
 
198 POE'S TALES. 
 
 punctually, although with reluctance, the terms of his compact 
 with the Chevalier. Mr. Poe's article concludes with the follow, 
 ing words. Eds.*] 
 
 It will be understood that I speak of coincidences and no more. 
 What I have said above upon this topic must suffice. In my 
 own heart there dwells no faith in prseter-nature. That Nature 
 and its God are two, no man who thinks, will deny. That the 
 latter, creating the former, can, at will, control or modify it, is 
 also unquestionable. I say " at will ;" for the question is of will, 
 and not, as the insanity of logic has assumed, of power. It is 
 not that the Deity cannot modify his laws, but that we insult him 
 in imagining a possible necessity for modification. In their origin 
 these laws were fashioned to embrace all contingencies which 
 could lie in the Future. With God all is Now. 
 
 I repeat, then, that I speak of these things only as of coincidences. 
 And farther : in what I relate it will be seen that between the 
 fate of the unhappy Mary Cecilia Rogers, so far as that fate is 
 known, and the fate of one Marie Roget up to a certain epoch in 
 her history, there has existed a parallel in the contemplation of 
 whose wonderful exactitude the reason becomes embarrassed. I 
 say all this will be seen. But let it not for a moment be sup 
 posed that, in proceeding with the sad narrative of Marie from the 
 epoch just mentioned, and in tracing to its denouement the myste 
 ry which enshrouded her, it is my covert design to hint at an ex 
 tension of the parallel, or even to suggest that the measures 
 adopted in Paris for the discovery of the assassin of a grisette, or 
 measures founded in any similar ratiocination, would produce any 
 similar result. 
 
 For, in respect to the latter branch of the supposition, it should 
 be considered that the most trifling variation in the facts of the 
 two cases might give rise to the most important miscalculations, 
 by diverting thoroughly the two courses of events ; very much as, 
 in arithmetic, an error which, in its own individuality, may be in 
 appreciable, produces, at length, by dint of multiplication at all 
 points of the process, a result enormously at variance with truth. 
 And, in regard to the former branch, we must not fail to hold in 
 
 * Of the Magazine in which the article was originally published 
 
THE MYSTERY OF MARIE ROGET. 199 
 
 view that the very Calculus of Probabilities to which I have re 
 ferred, forbids all idea of the extension of the parallel : forbids it 
 with a positiveness strong and decided just in proportion as this 
 parallel has already been long-drawn and exact* This is one of 
 those anomalous propositions which^ seemingly appealing to 
 thought altogether apart from the mathematical, is yet one which 
 only the mathematician can fully entertain^ Nothing, for exam 
 ple, is more difficult than to convince the merely general reader 
 that the fact of sixes having been thrown twice in succession by 
 a player at dice, is sufficient cause for betting the largest odds 
 that sixes will not be thrown in the third attempt. A suggestion 
 to this effect is usually rejected by the intellect at once. It does 
 not appear that the two throws which have been completed, and 
 which lie now absolutely in the Past, can have influence upon the 
 throw which exists only in the Future. The chance for throw 
 ing sixes seems to be precisely as it was at any ordinary time 
 that is to say, subject only to the influence of the various other 
 throws which may be made by the dice. And this is a reflection 
 which appears so exceedingly obvious that attempts to controvert 
 it are received more frequently with a derisive smile than with 
 anything like respectful attention. The error here involved a 
 gross error redolent of mischief I cannot pretend to expose within 
 the limits assigned me at present ; and with the philosophical it 
 needs no exposure. It may be sufficient here to say that it forms 
 one of an infinite series of mistakes which arise in the path 01 
 Reason through her propensity for seeking truth in detail. 
 
200 FOE'S TALES. 
 
 THE PURLOINED LETTER. 
 
 Nil sapient! ae odiosius acumine nimio. 
 
 Seneca. 
 
 AT Paris, just after dark one gusty evening in the autumn of 
 18 , I was enjoying the twofold luxury of meditation and a 
 meerschaum, in company with my friend C. Auguste Dupin, in 
 his little back library, or book-closet, au troisieme, No. 33, Rue 
 Dunot, Faubourg St. Germain. For one hour at least we had 
 maintained a profound silence ; while each, to any casual ob 
 server, might have seemed intently and exclusively occupied 
 with the curling eddies of smoke that oppressed the atmosphere 
 of the chamber. For myself, however, I was mentally discuss 
 ing certain topics which had formed matter for conversation 
 between us at an earlier period of the evening ; I mean the affair 
 of the Rue Morgue, and the mystery attending the murder of 
 Marie Roget. I looked upon it, therefore, as something of a 
 coincidence, when the door of our apartment was thrown open 
 
 and admitted our old acquaintance, Monsieur G , the Prefect 
 
 of the Parisian police. 
 
 We gave him a hearty welcome ; for there was nearly half as 
 much of the entertaining as of the contemptible about the man, 
 and we had not seen him for several years. We had been 
 sitting in the dark, and Dupin now arose for the purpose of 
 lighting a lamp, but sat down again, without doing so, upon G.'s 
 saying that he had called to consult us, or rather to ask the 
 opinion of my friend, about some official business which had oc 
 casioned a great deal of trouble. 
 
THE PURLOINED LETTER. 201 
 
 " If it is any point requiring reflection," observed Dupin, as he 
 forebore to enkindle the wick, " we shall examine it to better pur 
 pose in the dark. 5 ' 
 
 " That is another of your odd notions," said the Prefect, who 
 had a fashion of calling every thing " odd " that was beyond his 
 comprehension, and thus lived amid an absolute legion of " oddi 
 ties." 
 
 " Very true," said Dupin, as he supplied his visiter with a 
 pipe, and rolled towards him a comfortable chair. 
 
 " And what is the difficulty now ?" I asked. " Nothing more 
 in the assassination way, I hope ?" 
 
 " Oh no ; nothing of that nature. The fact is, the business is 
 very simple indeed, and I make no doubt that we can manage it 
 sufficiently well ourselves ; but then I thought Dupin would like 
 to hear the details of it, because it is so excessively odd." 
 
 11 Simple and odd," said Dupin. 
 
 " Why, yes ; and not exactly that, either. The fact is, we 
 have all been a good deal puzzled because the affair is so simple, 
 and yet baffles us altogether." 
 
 " Perhaps it is the very simplicity of the thing which puts you 
 at fault," said my friend. 
 
 " What nonsense you do talk !" replied the Prefect, laughing 
 heartily. 
 
 " Perhaps the mystery is a little too plain," said Dupin. 
 
 " Oh, good heavens ! who ever heard of such an idea ?" 
 
 " A little too self-evident." 
 
 " Ha ! ha ! ha ! ha ! ha ! ha ! ho ! ho ! ho !" roared our 
 visiter, profoundly amused, " oh, Dupin, you will be the death of 
 me yet !" 
 
 " And what, after all, is the matter on hand ?" I asked. 
 
 " Why, I will tell you," replied the Prefect, as he gave a long, 
 steady, and contemplative puff, and settled himself in his chair. 
 " I will tell you in a few words ; but, before I begin, let me 
 caution you that this is an affair demanding the greatest secrecy, 
 and that I should most probably lose the position I now hold, 
 were it known that I confided it to any one." 
 
 " Proceed," said I. 
 
 " Or not," said Dupin. 
 
FOE'S TALES. 
 
 " Well, then ; I have received personal information, from a 
 very high quarter, that a certain document of the last importance, 
 has been purloined from the royal apartments. The individual 
 who purloined it is known ; this beyond a doubt ; he was seen 
 to take it. It is known, also, that it still remains in his posses 
 sion." 
 
 " How is this known ?" asked Dupin. 
 
 " It is clearly inferred," replied the Prefect, " from the nature 
 of the document, and from the non-appearance of certain results 
 which would at once arise from its passing out of the robber's 
 possession ; that is to say, from his employing it as he must 
 design in the end to employ it." 
 
 " Be a little more explicit," I said. 
 
 " Well, I may venture so far as to say that the paper gives its 
 holder a certain power in a certain quarter where such power is 
 immensely valuable." The Prefect was fond of the cant of 
 diplomacy. 
 
 " Still I do not quite understand," said Dupin. 
 
 " No ? Well ; the disclosure of the document to a third person, 
 who shall be nameless, would bring in question the honor of a 
 personage of most exalted station ; and this fact gives the holder 
 of the document an ascendancy over the illustrious personage 
 whose honor and peace are so jeopardized." 
 
 " But this ascendancy," I interposed, " would depend upon 
 the robber's knowledge of the loser's knowledge of the robber. 
 Who would dare" 
 
 " The thief," said G., " is the Minister D , who dares 
 
 all things, those unbecoming as well as those becoming a man. 
 The method of the theft was not less ingenious than bold. 
 The document in question a letter, to be frank had been 
 received by the personage robbed while alone in the royal 
 "boudoir. During its perusal she was suddenly interrupted by 
 the entrance of the other exalted personage from whom especially 
 it was her wish to conceal it. After a hurried and vain endeavor 
 to thrust it in a drawer, she was forced to place it, open as it was, 
 upon a table. The address, however, was uppermost, and, the 
 contents thus unexposed, the letter escaped notice. At this junc 
 ture enters the Minister D . His lynx eye immediately per- 
 
THE PURLOINED LETTER. 203 
 
 ceives the paper, recognises the handwriting of the address, ob 
 serves the confusion of the personage addressed, and fathoms her 
 secret. After some business transactions, hurried through in his 
 ordinary manner, he produces a letter somewhat similar to the 
 one in question, opens it, pretends to read it, and then places it in 
 close juxtaposition to the other. Again he converses, for some 
 fifteen minutes, upon the public affairs. At length, in taking 
 leave, he takes also from the table the letter to which he had no 
 claim. Its rightful owner saw, but, of course, dared not call at 
 tention to the act, in the presence of the third personage who 
 stood at her elbow. The minister decamped ; leaving his own 
 letter one of no importance upon the table." 
 
 "Here, then," said Dupin to me, "you have precisely what 
 you demand to make the ascendancy complete the robber's 
 knowledge of the loser's knowledge of the robber." 
 
 "Yes," replied the Prefect; "and the power thus attained has, 
 for some months past, been wielded, for political purposes, to a 
 very dangerous extent. The personage robbed is more thorough 
 ly convinced, every day, of the necessity of reclaiming her letter. 
 But this, of course, cannot be done openly. In fine, driven to 
 despair, she has committed the matter to me." 
 
 " Than whom," said Dupin, amid a perfect whirlwind of smoke, 
 " no more sagacious agent could, I suppose, be desired, or even 
 imagined." 
 
 " You flatter me," replied the Prefect ; " but it is possible that 
 some such opinion may have been entertained." 
 
 " It is clear," said I, " as you observe, that the letter is still in 
 possession of the minister \ since it is this possession, and not any 
 employment of the letter, which bestows the power. With the 
 employment the power departs." 
 
 " True," said G. ; " and upon this conviction I proceeded. 
 My first care was to make thorough search of the minister's 
 hotel ; and here my chief embarrassment lay in the necessity of 
 searching without his knowledge. Beyond all things, I have 
 been warned of the danger which would result from giving him 
 reason to suspect our design." 
 
 "But," said I, "you are quite aufait in these investigations. 
 The Parisian police have done this thing often before." 
 
204 FOE'S TALES. 
 
 " O yes ; and for this reason I did not despair. The habits of 
 the minister gave me, too, a great advantage. He is frequently 
 absent from home all night. His servants are by no means 
 numerous. They sleep at a distance from their master's apart 
 ment, and, being chiefly Neapolitans, are readily made drunk. 
 I have keys, as you know, with which I can open any chamber 
 or cabinet in Paris. For three months a night has not passed, 
 during the greater part of which I have not been engaged, per 
 sonally, in ransacking the D Hotel. My honor is interest 
 ed, and, to mention a great secret, the reward is enormous. So I 
 did not abandon the search until I had become fully satisfied that 
 the thief is a more astute man than myself. I fancy that I have 
 investigated every nook and corner of the premises in which it is 
 possible that the paper can be concealed." 
 
 " But is it not possible," I suggested, "that although the letter 
 may be in possession of the minister, as it unquestionably is, he 
 may have concealed it elsewhere than upon his own premises ?" 
 
 " This is barely possible," said Dupin. " The present pecu 
 liar condition of affairs at court, and especially of those intrigues 
 in which D is known to be involved, would render the in 
 stant availability of the document its susceptibility of being 
 produced at a moment's notice a point of nearly equal impor 
 tance with its possession." 
 
 " Its susceptibility of being produced ?" said I. 
 
 " That is to say, of being destroyed" said Dupin. 
 
 " True," I observed ; " the paper is clearly then upon the 
 premises. As for its being upon the person of the minister, we 
 may consider that as out of the question." 
 
 " Entirely," said the Prefect. " He has been twice waylaid, 
 as if by footpads, and his person rigorously searched under my 
 own inspection." 
 
 " You might have spared yourself this trouble," said Dupin. 
 
 " D , I presume, is not altogether a fool, and, if not, must 
 
 have anticipated these waylayings, as a matter of course." 
 
 " Not altogether a fool," said G., " but then he's a poet, which 
 I take to be only one remove from a fool." 
 
 " True," said Dupin, after a long and thoughtful whiff from 
 
THE PURLOINED LETTER. 205 
 
 his meerschaum, " although I have been guilty of certain doggrel 
 myself." 
 
 " Suppose you detail," said I, "the particulars of your search." 
 
 " Why the fact is, we took our time, and we searched every 
 where. I have had long experience in these affairs. I took the 
 entire building, room by room ; devoting the nights of a whole 
 week to each. We examined, first, the furniture of each apart 
 ment. We opened every possible drawer j and I presume you 
 know that, to a properly trained police agent, such a thing as a 
 secret drawer is impossible. Any man is a dolt who permits a 
 ' secret ' drawer to escape him in a search of this kind. The 
 thing is 50 plain. There is a certain amount of bulk of space 
 to be accounted for in every cabinet. Then we have accurate 
 rules. The fiftieth part of a line could not escape us. After 
 the cabinets we took the chairs. The cushions we probed with 
 the fine long needles you have seen me employ. From the tables 
 we removed the tops." 
 
 "Why so?" 
 
 " Sometimes the top of a table, or other similarly arranged 
 piece of furniture, is removed by the person wishing to conceal 
 an article ; then the leg is excavated, the article deposited within 
 the cavity, and the top replaced. The bottoms and tops of bed 
 posts are employed in the same way." 
 
 " But could not the cavity be detected by sounding ?" I asked. 
 
 " By no means, if, when the article is deposited, a sufficient 
 wadding of cotton be placed around it. Besides, in our case, we 
 were obliged to proceed without noise." 
 
 " But you could not have removed you could not have taken 
 to pieces all articles of furniture in which it would have been 
 possible to make a deposit in the manner you mention. A letter 
 may be compressed into a thin spiral roll, not differing much in 
 shape or bulk from a large knitting-needle, and in this form it 
 iiii fe __. v = inserted into the rung of a chair, for example. You did 
 not take to pieuc. : 1] the chairs ?" 
 
 " Certainly not ; but We. /^ better we examined the rungs of 
 every chair in the hotel, and, iriuv- J -. the jointings of every de 
 scription of furniture, by the aid of a moo. "owerful microscope. 
 Had there been any traces of recent disturbance ~VQ should not 
 
206 POE'S TALES. 
 
 have failed to detect it instantly. A single grain of gimlet-dust, 
 for example, would have been as obvious as an apple. Any dis 
 order in the glueing any unusual gaping in the joints would 
 have sufficed to insure detection." 
 
 " I presume you looked to the mirrors, between the boards and 
 the plates, and you probed the beds and the bed-clothes, as well 
 as the curtains and carpets." 
 
 " That of course ; and when we had absolutely completed 
 every particle of the furniture in this way, then we examined the 
 house itself. We divided its entire surface into compartments, 
 which we numbered, so that none might be missed ; then we 
 scrutinized each individual square inch throughout the premises, 
 including the two houses immediately adjoining, with the micro 
 scope, as before." 
 
 " The two houses adjoining !" I exclaimed ; " you must have 
 had a great deal of trouble." 
 
 " We had ; but the reward offered is prodigious." 
 
 " You include the grounds about the houses ?" 
 
 " All the grounds are paved with brick. They gave us com 
 paratively little trouble. We examined the moss between the 
 bricks, and found it undisturbed." 
 
 " You looked among D 's papers, of course, and into the 
 
 books of the library ?" 
 
 " Certainly ; we opened every package and parcel ; we not 
 only opened every book, but we turned over every leaf in each 
 volume, not contenting ourselves with a mere shake, according 
 to the fashion of some of our police officers. We also measured 
 the thickness of every book-cover, with the most accurate ad 
 measurement, and applied to each the most jealous scrutiny of 
 the microscope. Had any of the bindings been recently meddled 
 with, it would have been utterly impossible that the fact should 
 have escaped observation. Some five or six volumes, just from 
 the hands of the binder, we carefully probed, longitudinally, with 
 the needles." 
 
 " You explored the floors beneath the carpets ?" 
 
 " Beyond doubt. We removed every carpet, and examined 
 the boards with the microscope." 
 
 " And the paper on the walls ?" 
 
THE PURLOINED LETTER 207 
 
 Yes." 
 
 " You looked into the cellars ?" 
 
 " We did." 
 
 " Then," I said, "you have been making a miscalculation, and 
 the letter is not upon the premises, as you suppose." 
 
 " I fear you are right there," said the Prefect. " And now, 
 Dupin, what would you advise me to do ?" 
 
 " To make a thorough re-search of the premises." 
 
 " That is absolutely needless," replied G . " I am not 
 
 more sure that I breathe than I am that the letter is not at the 
 Hotel." 
 
 " I have no better advice to give you," said Dupin. " You 
 have, of course, an accurate description of the letter ?" 
 
 " Oh yes !" And here the Prefect, producing a memorandum- 
 book, proceeded to read aloud a minute account of the internal, 
 and especially of the external appearance of the missing docu 
 ment. Soon after finishing the perusal of this description, he 
 took his departure, more entirely depressed in spirits than I had 
 ever known the good gentleman before. 
 
 In about a month afterwards he paid us another visit, and 
 found us occupied very nearly as before. He took a pipe and a 
 chair and entered into some ordinary conversation. At length I 
 said, 
 
 " Well, but G , what of the purloined letter ? I presume 
 
 you have at last made up your mind that there is no such thing 
 as overreaching the Minister ?" 
 
 " Confound him, say I yes ; I made the re-examination, how 
 ever, as Dupin suggested but it was all labor lost, as I knew it 
 would be." 
 
 " How much was the reward offered, did you say ?" asked 
 Dupin. 
 
 " Why, a very great deal a very liberal reward I don't like 
 to say how much, precisely ; but one thing I will say, that I 
 wouldn't mind giving my individual check for fifty thousand 
 francs to any one who could obtain me that letter. The fact is, 
 it is becoming of more and more importance every day ; and the 
 reward has been lately doubled. If it were trebled, however, I 
 could do no more than I have done." 
 
208 FOE'S TALES. 
 
 " Why, yes," said Dupin, drawlingly, between the whiffs of 
 
 his meerschaum, "I really think, G , you have not exerted 
 
 yourself to the utmost in this matter. You might do a little 
 more, I think, eh ?" 
 
 " How ? in what way ?' 
 
 " Why puff, puff you might puff, puff employ counsel 
 in the matter, eh ? puff, puff, puff. Do you remember the story 
 they tell of Abernethy ?" 
 
 " No ; hang Abernethy !" 
 
 " To be sure ! hang him and welcome. But, once upon a 
 time, a certain rich miser conceived the design of spunging upon 
 this Abernethy for a medical opinion. Getting up, for this pur- 
 pose, an ordinary conversation in a private company, he insinu 
 ated his case to the physician, as that of an imaginary individual. 
 
 " ' We will suppose,' said the miser, ' that his symptoms are 
 such and such ; now, doctor, what would you have directed him 
 to take V 
 
 " ' Take !' said Abernethy, ' why, take advice, to be sure.' ' 
 
 " But," said the Prefect, a little discomposed, " I am perfectly 
 willing to take advice, and to pay for it. I would really give 
 fifty thousand francs to any one who would aid me in the matter." 
 
 "In that case," replied Dupin, opening a drawer, and pro- 
 ducing a check-book, " you may as well fill me up a check for 
 the amount mentioned. When you have signed it, I will hand 
 you the letter." 
 
 I was astounded. The Prefect appeared absolutely thunder- 
 stricken. For some minutes he remained speechless and mo 
 tionless, looking incredulously at my friend with open mouth, 
 and eyes that seemed starting from their sockets ; then, appa 
 rently recovering himself in some measure, he seized a pen, and 
 after several pauses and vacant stares, finally filled up and sign 
 ed a check for fifty thousand francs, and handed it across the 
 table to Dupin. The latter examined it carefully and deposited it 
 in his pocket-book ; then, unlocking an escritoire, took thence a 
 letter and gave it to the Prefect. This functionary grasped it in 
 a perfect agony of joy, opened it with a trembling hand, cast a 
 rapid glance at its contents, and then, scrambling and struggling 
 to the door, rushed at length unceremoniously from the room and 
 
I 
 
 THE PURLOINED LETTER. 209 
 
 from the house, without having uttered a syllable since Dupin 
 had requested him to fill up the check. 
 
 When he had gone, my friend entered into some explanations. 
 
 " The Parisian police," he said, " are exceedingly able in 
 their way. They are persevering, ingenious, cunning, and thor 
 oughly versed in the knowledge which their duties seem chiefly 
 
 to demand. Thus, when G detailed to us his mode of 
 
 searching the premises at the Hotel D , I felt entire confi 
 dence in his having made a satisfactory investigation so far as 
 his labors extended." 
 
 " So far as his labors extended ?" said I. 
 
 " Yes," said Dupin. " The measures adopted were not only 
 the best of their kind, but carried out to absolute perfection. 
 Had the letter been deposited within the range of their search, 
 these fellows would, beyond a question, have found it." 
 
 I merely laughed but he seemed quite serious in all that he 
 said. 
 
 " The measures, then," he continued, " were good in their 
 kind, and well executed ; their defect lay in their being inappli 
 cable to the case, and to the man. A certain set of highly inge 
 nious resources are, with the Prefect, a sort of Procrustean bed, 
 to which he forcibly adapts his designs. But he perpetually 
 errs by being too deep or too shallow, for the matter in hand ; 
 and many a schoolboy is a better reasoner than he. I knew 
 one about eight years of age, whose success at guessing in the 
 game of ' even and odd ' attracted universal admiration. This 
 game is simple, and is played with marbles. One player holds 
 in his hand a number of these toys, and demands of another 
 whether that number is even or odd. If the guess is right, the 
 guesser wins one ; if wrong, he loses one. The boy to Whom I 
 allude won all the marbles of the school. Of course he had some 
 principle of guessing ; and this lay in mere observation and ad 
 measurement of the astuteness of his opponents. For example, an 
 arrant simpleton is his opponent, and, holding up his closed hand, 
 asks, ' are they even or odd V Our schoolboy replies, odd,' 
 and loses ; but upon the second trial he wins, for he then says to 
 himself, ' the simpleton had them even upon the first trial, and 
 his amount of cunning is just sufficient to make him have them 
 
 15 
 
210 POE'S TALES. 
 
 odd upon the second; I will therefore guess odd;' he guesses 
 odd, and wins. Now, with a simpleton a degree above the first, 
 he would have reasoned thus : ' This fellow finds that in the first 
 instance I guessed odd, and, in the second, he will propose to 
 himself, upon the first impulse, a simple variation from even to 
 odd, as did the first simpleton ; but then a second thought will 
 suggest that this is too simple a variation, and finally he will de 
 cide upon putting it even as before. I will therefore guess even;' 
 he guesses even, and wins. Now this mode of reasoning in the 
 schoolboy, whom his fellows termed ' lucky,' what, in its last 
 analysis, is it?" 
 
 " It is merely," I said, " an identification of the reasoners 
 intellect with that of his opponent." 
 
 " It is," said Dupin ; " and, upon inquiring of the boy by 
 what means he effected the thorough identification in which his 
 success consisted, I received answer as follows : ' When I wish 
 to find out how wise, or how stupid, or how good, or how wicked 
 is any one, or what are his thoughts at the moment, I fashion the 
 expression of rny face, as accurately as possible, in accordance 
 with the expression of his, and then wait to see what thoughts or 
 sentiments arise in my mind or heart, as if to match or corres 
 pond with the expression.' This reponse of the schoolboy lies 
 at the bottom of all the spurious profundity which has been at 
 tributed to Rochefoucault, to La Bougive, to Machiavelli, and to 
 Campanella." 
 
 " And the identification," I said, " of the reasoner's intellect 
 with that of his opponent, depends, if I understand you aright, 
 upon the accuracy with which the opponent's intellect is admeas 
 ured." 
 
 " For its practical value it depends upon this," replied Dupin ; 
 " and the Prefect and his cohort fail so frequently, first, by de 
 fault of this identification, and, secondly, by ill-admeasurement, 
 or rather through non-admeasurement, of the intellect with which 
 they are engaged. They consider only their awn ideas of inge 
 nuity ; and, in searching for anything hidden, advert only to the 
 modes in which they would have hidden it. They are right in 
 this much that their own ingenuity is a faithful representative 
 of that of the mass; but when the cunning of the individual felon 
 
THE PURLOINED LETTER. 211 
 
 is diverse in character from their own, the felon foils them, of 
 course. This always happens when it is above their own, and 
 very usually when it is below. They have no variation of prin 
 ciple in their investigations ; at best, when urged by some un, 
 usual emergency by some extraordinary reward they extend 
 or exaggerate their old modes of practice,' without touching their 
 
 principles. What, for example, in this case of D , h'as been 
 
 done to vary the principle of action ? What is all this boring, 
 and probing, and sounding, and scrutinizing with the microscope, 
 and dividing the surface of the building into registered square 
 inches what is it all but an exaggeration of the application of 
 the one principle or set of principles of search, which are based 
 upon the one set of notions regarding human ingenuity, to which 
 the Prefect, in the long routine of his duty, has been accustomed ? 
 Do you not see he has taken it for granted that all men proceed 
 to conceal a letter, not exactly in a gimlet-hole bored in a chair- 
 leg-^but, at least, in some out-of-the-way hole or corner suggest 
 ed by the same tenor of thought which would urge a man 'to se 
 crete a letter in a gimlet-hole bored in a chair-leg ? And do you 
 not see also, that such recherches nooks for concealment are 
 adapted only for ordinary occasions, and would be adopted only 
 by ordinary intellects ; for, in all cases of concealment, a disposal 
 of the article concealed a disposal of it in this recherche manner, 
 is, in the very first instance, presumable and presumed ; and 
 thus its discovery depends, not at all upon the acumen, but alto 
 gether upon the mere care,, patience, and determination of the 
 seekers ; and where the case is of importanceor, what amounts 
 to the same thing in the policial eyes, when the reward is of mag 
 nitude, the qualities in question have never been known to fail. 
 You^will now understand what I meant in suggesting that, had 
 the purloined letter been hidden any where within the limits of the 
 Prefect's examination in other words, had the principle of its con 
 cealment been comprehended within the principles of the Prefect 
 its discovery would have been a matter altogether beyond ques 
 tion. This functionary, however, has been thoroughly mystified; 
 and the remote source of his defeat lies in the supposition that the 
 Minister is a fool, because he has acquired renown as a poet. All 
 
212 FOE'S TALES. 
 
 fools are poets ; this the Prefect feels ; and he is merely guilty of 
 a non disiributio medii in thence inferring that all poets are fools." 
 
 " But is this really the poet ?" I asked. " There are two 
 brothers, I know ; and both have attained reputation in letters. 
 The Minister I believe has written learnedly on the Differential 
 Calculus. He is a mathematician, and no poet." 
 
 " You are mistaken ; 1 know him well ; he is both. As poet 
 and mathematician, he would reason well ; as mere mathemati 
 cian, he could not have reasoned at all, and thus would have been 
 at the mercy of the Prefect." 
 
 " You surprise me," I said, " by these opinions, which have 
 been contradicted by the voice of the world. You do not mean 
 to set at naught the well-digested idea of centuries. The mathe 
 matical reason has long been regarded as the reason par excel 
 lence." 
 
 " ' II y a a parier? " replied Dupin, quoting from Chamfort, 
 " ' que toute idee publique, toute convention re^ue, est une sot- 
 tise, car elle a convenue au plus grand nombre.' The mathema 
 ticians, I grant you, have done their best to promulgate the 
 popular error to which you allude, and which is none the less an 
 error for its promulgation as truth. With an art worthy a better 
 cause, for example, they have insinuated the term ' analysis' into 
 application to algebra. The French are the originators of this 
 particular deception ; but if a term is of any importance if 
 words derive any value from applicability then f analysis' con 
 veys ' algebra ' about as much as, in Latin, ' ambitus ' implies 
 ' ambition,' ' religio ' ' religion/ or ' homines honesti,' a set of 
 honorable men." 
 
 " You have a quarrel on hand, I see," said I, " with some of 
 the algebraists of Paris ; but proceed." 
 
 " I dispute the availability, and thus the value, of that reason 
 which is cultivated in any especial form other than the abstractly 
 logical. I dispute, in particular, the reason educed by mathe 
 matical study. The mathematics are the science of form and 
 quantity ; mathematical reasoning is merely logic applied to ob 
 servation upon form and quantity. The great error lies in sup 
 posing that even the truths of what is called pure algebra, are 
 abstract or general truths. And this error is so egregious that I 
 
THE PURLOINED LETTER. 213 
 
 am confounded at the universality with which it has been receiv 
 ed. Mathematical axioms are not axioms, of general truth. 
 What is true of relation of form and quantity is often grossly 
 false in regard to morals, for example. In this latter science it 
 is very usually tmtrue that the aggregated parts are equal to the 
 whole. In chemistry also the axiom fails. In the consideration 
 of motive it fails ; for two motives, each of a given value, have 
 not, necessarily, a value when united, equal to the sum of their 
 values apart. There are numerous other mathematical truths 
 which are only truths within the limits of relation. But the 
 mathematician argues, from his finite truths, through habit, as 
 if they were of an absolutely general applicability as the world 
 indeed imagines them to be. Bryant, in his very learned * My 
 thology,' mentions an analogous source of error, when he says 
 that * although the Pagan fables are not believed, yet we forget 
 ourselves continually, and make inferences from them as existing 
 realities. 5 With the algebraists, however, who are Pagans them 
 selves, the ' Pagan fables ' are believed, and the inferences are 
 made, not so much through lapse of memory, as through an 
 unaccountable addling of the brains. In short, I never yet 
 encountered the mere mathematician who could be trusted out of 
 equal roots, or one who did not clandestinely hold it as a point of 
 his faith that x z -\- px was absolutely and unconditionally equal to 
 q. Say to one of these gentlemen, by way of experiment, if you 
 please, that you believe occasions may occur where yP+px is not 
 altogether equal to q, and, having made him understand what you 
 mean, get out of his reach as speedily as convenient, for, beyond 
 doubt, he will endeavor to knock you down. 
 
 " I mean to say," continued Dupin, while I merely laughed at 
 his last observations, " that if the Minister had been no more than 
 a mathematician, the Prefect would have been under no necessity 
 of giving me this check. I knew him, however, as both mathe 
 matician and poet, and my measures were adapted to his capacity, 
 with reference to the circumstances by which he was surrounded. 
 I knew him as a courtier, too, and as a bold intriguant. Such a 
 man, I considered, could not fail to be aware of the ordinary po- 
 licial modes of action. He could not have failed to anticipate 
 and events have proved that he did not fail to anticipate the 
 
214 POE'S TALES. 
 
 waylayings to which he was subjected. He must have foreseen, 
 I reflected, the secret investigations of his premises. His fre 
 quent absences from home at night, which were hailed by the 
 Prefect as certain aids to his success, I regarded only as ruses, 
 to afford opportunity for thorough search to the police, and thus 
 
 the sooner to impress them with the conviction to which G , in 
 
 fact, did finally arrive the conviction that the letter was not upon 
 the premises. I felt, also, that the whole train of thought, which 
 I was at some pains in detailing to you just now, concerning the 
 invariable principle of policial action in searches for articles con- 
 cealed I felt that this whole train of thought would necessarily 
 pass through the mind of the Minister. It would imperatively 
 lead him to despise all the ordinary nooks of concealment. He 
 could not, I reflected, be so weak as not to see that the most in 
 tricate and remote recess of his hotel would be as open as his 
 commonest closets to the eyes, to the probes, to the gimlets, and 
 to the microscopes of the Prefect. I saw, in fine, that he would 
 be driven, as a matter of course, to simplicity, if not deliberately 
 induced to it as a matter of choice. You will remember, per 
 haps, how desperately the Prefect laughed when I suggestedj 
 upon our first interview, that it was just possible this mystery 
 troubled him so much on account of its being so very self-ev- 
 ident." 
 
 " Yes," said I, " I remember his merriment well. I really 
 thought he would have fallen into convulsions." 
 
 " The material world," continued Dupin, " abounds with very 
 strict analogies to the immaterial ; and thus some color of truth 
 has been given to the rhetorical dogma, that metaphor, or simile^ 
 may be made to strengthen an argument, as well as to embellish 
 a description. The principle of the vis inertia, for example, 
 seems to be identical in physics and metaphysics. It is not more 
 true in the former, that a large body is with more difficulty set 
 in motion than a smaller one, and that its subsequent momentum 
 is commensurate with this difficulty, than it is, in the latter, that 
 intellects of the vaster capacity, while more forcible, more con 
 stant, and more eventful in their movements than those of inferior 
 grade, are yet the less readily moved, and more embarrassed and 
 full of hesitation in the first few steps 9f their progress. Again : 
 
 I 
 
THE PURLOINED LETTER. 215 
 
 have you ever noticed which of the street signs, over the shop- 
 doors, are the most attractive of attention ?" 
 
 " I have never given the matter a thought," I said. 
 
 " There is a game of puzzles," he resumed, " which is played 
 upon a map. One party playing requires another to find a given 
 word the name of town, river, state or empire any word, in 
 short, upon the motley and perplexed surface of the chart. A 
 novice in the game generally seeks to embarrass his opponents hy 
 giving them the most minutely lettered names ; but the adept 
 selects such words as stretch, in large characters, from one end 
 of the chart to the other. These, like the over-largely lettered 
 signs and placards of the street, escape observation by dint of be 
 ing excessively obvious ; and here the physical oversight is pre 
 cisely analogous with the moral inapprehension by which the in 
 tellect suffers to pass unnoticed those considerations which are too 
 obtrusively and too palpably self-evident. But this is a point, it 
 appears, somewhat above or beneath the understanding of the 
 Prefect. He never once thought it probable, or possible, that the 
 Minister had deposited the letter immediately beneath the nose of 
 the whole world, by way of best preventing any portion of that 
 world from perceiving it. 
 
 " But the more I reflected upon the daring, dashing, and dis 
 criminating ingenuity of D - ; upon the fact that the document 
 
 must always have been at hand, if he intended to use it to good 
 purpose ; and upon the decisive evidence, obtained by the Prefect, 
 that it was not hidden within the limits of that dignitary's ordi 
 nary search the more satisfied I became that, to conceal this 
 letter, the Minister had resorted to the comprehensive and saga 
 cious expedient of not attempting to conceal it at all. 
 
 " Full of these ideas, I prepared myself with, a pair of green 
 spectacles, and called one fine morning, quite by accident, at the 
 
 Ministerial hotel. I found D at home, yawning, lounging, 
 
 and dawdling, as usual, and pretending to be in the last extremity 
 of ennui. He is, perhaps, the most really energetic human being 
 now alive but that is only when nobody sees him. 
 
 " To be even with him, I complained of my weak eyes, and 
 lamented the necessity of the spectacles, under cover of which 
 
216 POE'S TALES. 
 
 I cautiously and thoroughly surveyed the whole apartment, while 
 seemingly intent only upon the conversation of my host. 
 
 " I paid especial attention to a large writing-table near which 
 he sat, and upon which lay confusedly, some miscellaneous letters 
 and other papers, with one or two musical instruments and a few 
 books. Here, however, after a long and very deliberate scrutiny, 
 I saw nothing to excite particular suspicion. 
 
 " At length my eyes, in going the circuit of the room, fell upon 
 a trumpery fillagree card-rack of pasteboard, that hung dangling 
 by a dirty blue ribbon, from a little brass knob just beneath the 
 middle of the mantel-piece. In this rack, which had three or 
 four compartments, were five or six visiting cards and a solitary 
 letter. This last was much soiled and crumpled. It was torn 
 nearly in two, across the middle as if a design, in the first in- 
 stance, to tear it entirely up as worthless, had been altered, or 
 stayed, in the second. It had a large black seal, bearing the 
 D cipher very conspicuously, and was addressed, in a dimin 
 utive female hand, to D , the minister, himself. It was thrust 
 
 carelessly, and even, as it seemed, contemptuously, into one of 
 the uppermost divisions of the rack. 
 
 " No sooner had I glanced at this letter, than I concluded it 
 to be that of which I was in search. To be sure, it was, to all 
 appearance, radically different from the one of which the Prefect 
 had read us so minute a description. Here the seal was large 
 
 and black, with the D cipher ; there it was small and red, 
 
 with the ducal arms of the S family. Here, the address, 
 
 to the Minister, was diminutive and feminine ; there the super 
 scription, to a certain royal personage, was markedly bold and 
 decided ; the size alone formed a point of correspondence. But, 
 then, the radicalness of these differences, which was excessive ; 
 the dirt ; the soiled and torn condition of the paper, so inconsist 
 ent with the true methodical habits of D , and so suggestive 
 
 of a design to delude the beholder into an idea of the worthless- 
 ness of the document ; these things, together with the hyper- 
 obtrusive situation of this document, full in the view of every 
 visitor, and thus exactly in accordance with the conclusions to 
 which I had previously arrived ; these things, I say, were strongly 
 
THE PURLOINED LETTER. 217 
 
 corroborative of suspicion, in one who came with the intention to 
 suspect. 
 
 " I protracted my visit as long as possible, and, while I main 
 tained a most animated discussion with the Minister, upon a topic 
 whicli I knew well had never failed to interest and excite him, I 
 kept my attention really riveted upon the letter. In this exami 
 nation, I committed to memory its external appearance and ar 
 rangement in the rack ; and also fell, at length, upon a discovery 
 which set at rest whatever trivial doubt I might have entertained. 
 In scrutinizing the edges of the paper, I observed them to be more 
 chafed than seemed necessary. They presented the broken ap 
 pearance which is manifested when a stiff paper, having been 
 once folded and pressed with a folder, is refolded in a reversed 
 direction, in the same creases or edges which had formed the 
 original fold. This discovery was sufficient. It was clear to me 
 that the letter had been turned, as a glove, inside out, re-directed, 
 and re-sealed. I bade the Minister good morning, and took my 
 departure at once, leaving a gold snuff-box upon the table. 
 
 " The next morning I called for the snuff-box, when we 
 resumed, quite eagerly, the conversation of the preceding day, 
 While thus engaged, however, a loud report, as if of a pistol, 
 was heard immediately beneath the windows of the hotel, and 
 was succeeded by a series of fearful screams, and the shoutings 
 
 of a terrified mob. D rushed to a casement, threw it open, 
 
 and looked out. In the meantime, I stepped to the card-rack, 
 took the letter, put it in my pocket, and replaced it by a fac 
 simile, (so far as regards externals,) which I had carefully pre 
 pared at my lodgings imitating the D cipher, very readily, 
 
 by means of a seal formed of bread. 
 
 " The disturbance in the street had been occasioned by the 
 frantic behavior of a man with a musket. He had fired it 
 among a crowd of women and children. It proved, however, to 
 have been without ball, and the fellow was suffered to go his 
 
 way as a lunatic or a drunkard. When he had gone, D 
 
 came from the window, whither 1 had followed him immediately 
 upon securing the object in view. Soon afterwards I bade him 
 farewell. The pretended lunatic was a man in my own pay." 
 
 " But what purpose had you," I asked, " in replacing the letter 
 
218 POE'S TALES. 
 
 by afac-simile ? Would it not have been better, at the first visit, 
 to have seized it openly, and departed ?" 
 
 " D ," replied Dupin, " is a desperate man, and a man of 
 
 nerve. His hotel, too, is not without attendants devoted to his 
 interests. Had I made the wild attempt you suggest, I might 
 never have left the Ministerial presence alive. The good people 
 of Paris might have heard of me no more. But I had an object 
 apart from these considerations. You know my political pre 
 possessions. In this matter, I act as a partisan of the lady con 
 cerned. For eighteen months the Minister has had her in his 
 power. She has now him in hers since, being unaware that 
 the letter is not in his possession, he will proceed with his ex 
 actions as if it was. Thus will he inevitably commit himself, at 
 once, to his political destruction. His downfall, too, will not be 
 more precipitate than awkward. It is all very well to talk about 
 the facilis descensus Averni ; but in all kinds of climbing, as 
 Catalani said of singing, it is far more easy to get up than to 
 come 'down. In the present instance I have no sympathy at 
 least no pity for him who descends. He is that monstrum 
 horrendum, an unprincipled man of genius. I confess, however, 
 that I should like very well to know the precise character of his 
 thoughts, when, being defied by her whom the Prefect terms ' a 
 certain personage,' he is reduced to opening the letter which I 
 left for him in the card-rack." 
 
 " How ? did you put any thing particular in it ?" 
 
 " Why it did not seem altogether right to leave the interior 
 
 blank that would have been insulting. D , at Vienna once, 
 
 did me an evil turn, which I told him, quite good-humoredly, that 
 I should remember. So, as I knew he would feel some curiosity 
 in regard to the identity of the person who had outwitted him, I 
 thought it a pity not to give him a clue. He is well acquainted 
 with my MS., and I just copied into the middle of the blank 
 ^heet the words 
 
 " ' Un deseein si funeste, 
 
 S'il n'est digne d'Atr^e, est digne de Thyeste. 
 
 They are to be found in Crebillon's < Atree.' " 
 
THE MAN OF THE CROWD. 219 
 
 THE MAN OF THE CROWD. 
 
 Ce grand malheur, de ne pouvoir etre seul. 
 
 La Bruyere. 
 
 IT was well said of a certain German book that " er lasst sich 
 niclit lesen" it does not permit itself to be read. There are 
 some secrets which do not permit themselves to be told. Men die 
 nightly in their beds, wringing the hands of ghostly confessors, 
 and looking them piteously in the eyes die with despair of heart 
 and convulsion of throat, on account of the hideousness of myste 
 ries which will not suffer themselves to be revealed. Now and 
 then, alas, the conscience of man takes up a burthen so heavy in 
 horror that it can be thrown down only into the grave. And thus 
 the essence of all crime is undivulged. 
 
 Not long ago, about the closing in of an evening in autumn, I 
 sat at the large bow window of the D Coffee-House in Lon 
 don. For some months I had been ill in health, but was now 
 convalescent, and, with returning strength, found myself in one 
 of those happy moods which are so precisely the converse of en 
 nui moods of the keenest appetency, when the film from the 
 mental vision departs the a^Xuj oj irpiv crrricv and the intellect, 
 electrified, surpasses as greatly its every-day condition, as does 
 the vivid yet candid reason of Leibnitz, the mad and flimsy 
 rhetoric of Gorgias. Merely to breathe was enjoyment; and I de 
 rived positive pleasure even from many of the legitimate sources of 
 pain. I felt a calm but inquisitive interest in every thing. With 
 a cigar in my mouth and a newspaper in my lap, I had beeu 
 amusing myself for the greater part of the afternoon, now in 
 
220 FOE'S TALES. 
 
 poring over advertisements, now in observing the promiscuous 
 company in the room, and now in peering through the smoky 
 panes into the street. 
 
 This latter is one of the principal thoroughfares of the city, 
 and had been very much crowded during the whole day. But, 
 as the darkness came on, the throng momently increased ; and, by 
 the time the lamps were well lighted, two dense and continuous 
 tides of population were rushing past the door. At this particu 
 lar period of the evening I had never before been in a similar sit 
 uation, and the tumultuous sea of human heads filled me, there 
 fore, with a delicious novelty of emotion. I gave up, at length, 
 all care of things within the hotel, and became absorbed in con 
 templation of the scene without. 
 
 At first my observations took an abstract and generalizing 
 turn. I looked at the passengers in 'masses, and thought of them 
 in their aggregate relations. Soon, however, I descended to de 
 tails, and regarded with minute interest the innumerable varie 
 ties of figure, dress, air, gait, visage, and expression of counte 
 nance. 
 
 By far the greater number of those who went by had a satis 
 fied business-like demeanor, and seemed to be thinking only of 
 making their way through the press. Their brows were knit, 
 and their eyes rolled quickly ; when pushed against by fellow- 
 wayfarers they evinced no symptom of impatience, b.ut adjusted 
 their clothes and hurried on. Others, still a numerous class, 
 were restless in their movements, had flushed faces, and talked 
 and gesticulated to themselves, as if feeling in solitude on account 
 of the very denseness of the company around. When impeded 
 in their progress, these people suddenly ceased muttering, but re 
 doubled their gesticulations, and awaited, with an absent and 
 overdone smile upon the lips, the course of the persons impeding 
 them. If jostled, they bowed profusely to the jostlers, and ap 
 peared overwhelmed with confusion. There was nothing very 
 distinctive about these two large classes beyond what I have noted. 
 Their habiliments belonged to that order which is pointedly term 
 ed the decent. They were undoubtedly noblemen, merchants, 
 attorneys, tradesmen, stock-jobbers the Eupatrids and the com 
 mon-places of society men of leisure and men actively engaged 
 
THE MAN OF THE CROWD. 221 
 
 in affairs of their own conducting business upon their own re 
 sponsibility. They did not greatly excite my attention. 
 
 The tribe of clerks was an obvious one and here I discerned 
 two remarkable divisions. There were the junior clerks of flash 
 houses young gentlemen with tight coats, bright boots, well-oiled 
 hair, and supercilious lips. Setting aside a certain dapperness of 
 carriage, which may be termed deskism for want of a better 
 word, the manner of these persons seemed to me an exact fac 
 simile of what had been the perfection of bon ton about twelve or 
 eighteen months before. They wore the cast-off graces of the 
 gentry ; and this, I believe, involves the best definition of the 
 class. 
 
 The division of the upper clerks of staunch firms, or of the 
 " steady old fellows," it was not possible to mistake. These 
 were known by their coats and pantaloons of black or brown, 
 made to sit comfortably, with white cravats and waistcoats, broad 
 solid-looking shoes, and thick hose or gaiters. They had all 
 slightly bald heads, from which the right ears, long used to pen- 
 holding, had an odd habit of standing off on end. I observed 
 that they always removed or settled their hats with both hands, 
 and wore watches^ with short gold chains of a substantial and 
 ancient pattern. Theirs was the affectation of respectability ; 
 if indeed there be an affectation so honorable. 
 
 There were many individuals of dashing appearance, whom I 
 easily understood as belonging to the race of swell pick-pockets, 
 with which all great cities are infested. I watched these gentry 
 With much inquisitiveness, and found it difficult to imagine how 
 they should ever be mistaken for gentlemen by gentlemen them 
 selves. Their voluminousness of wristband, with an air of ex 
 cessive frankness, should betray them at once. 
 
 The gamblersj of whom I descried not a few, were still more 
 easily recognisable; They wore every variety of dress, from 
 that of the desperate thimble-rig bully, with velvet waistcoat, 
 fancy neckerchief, gilt chains, and filagreed buttons, to that of 
 'the scrupulously inornate clergyman, than which nothing could 
 be less liable to suspicion. Still all were distinguished by a cer 
 tain sodden swarthiness of complexion, a filmy dimness of eye, 
 and pallor and compression of lip* There were two other traits, 
 
222 FOE'S TALES. 
 
 moreover, by which I could always detect them ; a guarded 
 lowness of tone in conversation, and a more than ordinary exten 
 sion of the thumb in a direction at right angles with the fingers. 
 Very often, in company with these sharpers, I observed an 
 order of men somewhat different in habits, but still birds of a 
 kindred feather. They may be defined as the gentlemen who 
 live by their wits. They seem to prey upon the public in two 
 battalions that of the dandies and that of the military men. Of 
 the first grade the leading features are long locks and smiles ; of 
 the second frogged coats and frowns. 
 
 Descending in the scale of what is termed gentility, I found 
 darker and deeper themes for speculation. I saw Jew pedlars, 
 with hawk eyes flashing from countenances whose every other 
 feature wore only an expression of abject humility ; sturdy pro 
 fessional street beggars scowling upon mendicants of a better 
 stamp, whom despair alone had driven forth into the night for 
 charity ; feeble and ghastly invalids, upon whom death had 
 placed a sure hand, and who sidled and tottered through the 
 mob, looking every one beseechingly in the face, as if in search 
 of some chance consolation, some lost hope ; modest young girls 
 returning from long and late labor to a cheerless home, and 
 shrinking more tearfully than indignantly from the glances of 
 ruffians, whose direct contact, even, could not be avoided ; wo 
 men of the town of all kinds and of all ages the unequivocal 
 beauty in the prime of her womanhood, putting one in mind of 
 the statue in Lucian, with the surface of Parian marble, and the 
 interior filled with filth the loathsome and utterly lost leper in 
 rags the wrinkled, bejewelled and paint-begrimed beldame, ma 
 king a last effort at youth the mere child of immature form, yet, 
 from long association, an adept in the dreadful coquetries of her 
 trade, and burning with a rabid ambition to be ranked the equal 
 of her elders in vice ; drunkards innumerable and indescribable 
 some in shreds and patches, reeling, inarticulate, with bruised 
 visage and lack-lustre eyes some in whole although filthy 
 garments, with a slightly unsteady swagger, thick sensual lips, 
 and hearty-looking rubicund faces others clothed in materials 
 which had once been good, and which even now were scrupu 
 lously well brushed men who walked with a more than natu- 
 
THE MAN OF THE CROWD. 223 
 
 rally firm and springy step, but whose countenances were fearful 
 ly pale, whose eyes hideously wild and red, and who clutched 
 with quivering fingers, as they strode through the crowd, at every 
 object which came within their reach ; beside these, pie-men, 
 porters, coal-heavers, sweeps; organ-grinders, monkey-exhibiters 
 and ballad mongers, those who vended with those who sang ; 
 ragged artizans and exhausted laborers of every description, and 
 all full of a noisy and inordinate vivacity which jarred discord 
 antly upon the ear, and gave an aching sensation to the eye. 
 
 As the night deepened, so deepened to me the interest of the 
 scene ; for not only did the general character of the crowd ma 
 terially alter (its gentler features retiring in the gradual with 
 drawal of the more orderly portion of the people, and its harsher 
 ones coming out into bolder relief, as the late hour brought forth 
 every species of infamy from its den,) but the rays of the gas- 
 lamps, feeble at first in their struggle with the dying day, had now 
 at length gained ascendancy, and threw over every thing a fitful 
 and garish lustre. All was, dark yet splendid as that ebony to 
 which has been likened the style of Tertullian. 
 
 The wild effects of the light enchained me to an examination of 
 individual faces ; and although the rapidity with which the world 
 of light flitted before the window, prevented me from casting 
 more than a glance upon each visage, still it seemed that, in my 
 then peculiar mental state, I coined frequently read, even in that 
 brief interval of a glance, the history of long years. 
 
 With my brow, to the glass, I was thus occupied in scrutinizing 
 the mob, when suddenly there came into view a countenance 
 (that of a decrepid old man, some sixty-five or seventy years of 
 age,) a countenance which at once arrested and absorbed my 
 whole attention, on account of the absolute idiosyncracy of its 
 expression. Any thing even remotely resembling that expression 
 I had never seen before. I well remember that my first thought, 
 upon beholding it, was that Retzch, had he viewed it, would have 
 greatly preferred it to his own pictural incarnations of the fiend. 
 As I endeavored, during the brief minute of my original survey, 
 to form some analysis of the meaning conveyed, there arose con 
 fusedly and paradoxically within my mind, the ideas of vast men 
 tal power, of caution, of penuriousness, of avarice, of coolness, 
 
224 FOE'S TALE 
 
 of malice, of blood-thirstiness, of triumph, of merriment, of ex 
 cessive terror, of intense of supreme despair. I felt singularly 
 aroused, startled, fascinated. " How wild a history," I said to 
 myself, " is written within that bosom !" Then came a craving 
 desire to keep the man in view to know more of him. Hurri 
 edly putting on an overcoat, and seizing my hat and cane, I 
 made my way into the street, and pushed through the crowd in 
 the direction which I had seen him take ; for he had already dis 
 appeared. With some little difficulty I at length came within 
 sight of him, approached, and followed him closely, yet cautious 
 ly, so as not to attract his attention. 
 
 I had now a good opportunity of examining his person. He 
 was short in stature, very thin, and apparently very feeble. His 
 clothes, generally, were filthy and ragged ; but as he came, now 
 and then, within the strong glare of a lamp, I perceived that his 
 linen, although dirty, was of beautiful texture ; and my vision de 
 ceived me, or, through a rent in a closely-buttoned and evidently 
 second-handed roquelaire which enveloped him, I caught a glimpse 
 both of a diamond and of a dagger. These observations height 
 ened my curiosity, and I resolved to follow the stranger whither 
 soever he should go. 
 
 It was now fully night-fall, and a thick humid fog Hung over 
 the city, soon ending in a settled and heavy rain. This change 
 of weather had an odd effect upon the crowd, the whole of which 
 was at once put into new commotion, and overshadowed by a 
 world of umbrellas. The waver, the jostle, and the hum in 
 creased in a tenfold degree. For my own part I did not much 
 regard the rain the lurking of an old fever in my system ren 
 dering the moisture somewhat too dangerously pleasant. Tying 
 a handkerchief about my mouth, I kept on. For half an hour 
 the old man held his way with difficulty along the great thor 
 oughfare ; and I here walked close at his elbow through fear of 
 losing sight of him. Never once turning his head to look back, 
 he did not observe me. By and bye he passed into a cross 
 street, which, although densely filled with people, was not quite 
 so much thronged as the main one he had quitted. Here a 
 change in his demeanor became evident. He walked more slowly 
 and v/ith less object than before more hesitatingly. He crossed 
 
THE MAN OF THE CROWD. 225 
 
 and re-crossed the way repeatedly without apparent aim ; and the 
 press was still so thick that, at every such movement, I was obliged 
 to follow him closely. The street was a narrow and long one, 
 and his course lay within it for nearly an hour, during which the 
 passengers had gradually diminished to about that number which 
 is ordinarily seen at noon in Broadway near the Park so vast a 
 difference is there between a London populace and that of the 
 most frequented American city. A second turn brought us into 
 a square, brilliantly lighted, and overflowing with life. The old 
 manner of the stranger re-appeared. His chin fell upon his 
 breast, while his eyes rolled wildly from under his knit brows, in 
 every direction, upon those who hemmed him in. He urged his 
 way steadily and perseveringly. I was surprised, however, to 
 find, upon his having made the circuit of the square, that he turn 
 ed and retraced his steps. Still more was I astonished to see him 
 repeat the same walk several times once nearly detecting me as 
 he came round with a sudden movement. 
 
 In this exercise he spent another hour, at the end of which we 
 met with far less interruption from passengers than at first. The 
 rain fell fast ; the air grew cool ; and the people were retiring to 
 their homes. With a gesture of impatience, the wanderer passed 
 into a bye-street comparatively deserted. Down this, some quai- 
 ter of a mile long, he rushed with an activity I could not have 
 dreamed of seeing in one so aged, and which put me to much 
 trouble in pursuit. A few minutes brought us to a large and 
 busy bazaar, with the localities of which the stranger appeared 
 well acquainted, and where his original demeanor again became 
 apparent, as he forced his way to and fro, without aim, among 
 the host of buyers and sellers. 
 
 During the hour and a half, or thereabouts, which we passed in 
 this place, it required much caution on my part to keep him with 
 in reach without attracting his observation. Luckily I wore a 
 pair of caoutchouc over-shoes, and could move about in perfect 
 silence. At no moment did he see that I watched him. He en 
 tered shop after shop, priced nothing, spoke no word, and looked 
 at all objects with a wild and vacant stare. I was now utterly 
 amazed at his behaviour, and firmly resolved that we should not 
 part until I had satisfied myself in some measure respecting him. 
 16 
 
POE'S TALES. 
 
 A loud-toned clock struck eleven, and the company were fast 
 deserting the bazaar. A shop-keeper, in putting up a shutter, 
 jostled the old man, and at the instant I saw a strong shudder 
 come over his frame. He hurried into the street, looked anx 
 iously around him for an instant, and then ran with incredible 
 swiftness through many crooked and people-less lanes, until we 
 emerged once more upon the great thoroughfare whence we had 
 started the street of the D Hotel. It no longer wore, how 
 ever, the same aspect. It was still brilliant with gas ; but the 
 rain fell fiercely, and there were few persons to be seen. The 
 stranger grew pale. He walked moodily some paces up the once 
 populous avenue, then, with a heavy sigh, turned in the direction 
 of the river, and, plunging through a great variety of devious 
 ways, came out, at length, in view of one of the principal thea 
 tres. It was about being closed, and the audience were throng 
 ing from the doors. I saw the old man gasp as if for breath 
 while he threw himself amid the crowd ; but I thought that the 
 intense agony of his countenance had, in some measure, abated. 
 His head again fell upon his breast ; he appeared as I had seen 
 him at first. I observed that he now took the course in which 
 had gone the greater number of the audience but, upon the 
 whole, I was at a loss to comprehend the waywardness of his ac 
 tions. 
 
 As he proceeded, the company grew more scattered, and his 
 old uneasiness and vacillation were resumed. For some time he 
 followed closely a party of some ten or twelve roisterers ; but 
 from this number one by one dropped off, until three only remain 
 ed together, in a narrow and gloomy lane little frequented. The 
 stranger paused, and, for a moment, seemed lost in thought ; then, 
 with every mark of agitation, pursued rapidly a route which 
 brought us to the verge of the city, amid regions very different 
 from those we had hitherto traversed. It was the most noisome 
 quarter of London, where every thing wore the worst impress of 
 the most deplorable poverty, and of the most desperate crime. 
 By the dim light of an accidental lamp, tall, antique, worm-eaten, 
 wooden tenements were seen tottering to their fall, in directions 
 so many and capricious that scarce the semblance of a passage 
 was discernible between them. The paving-stones lay at ran- 
 
THE MAN OF THE CROWD. 227 
 
 dom, displaced from their beds by the rankly-growing grass. 
 Horrible filth festered in the dammed-up gutters. The whole at 
 mosphere teemed with desolation. Yet, as we proceeded, the 
 sounds of human life revived by sure degrees, and at length large 
 bands of the most abandoned of a London populace were seen 
 reeling to and fro. The spirits of the old man again flickered up, 
 as a lamp which is near its death-hour. Once more he strode 
 onward with elastic tread. Suddenly a corner was turned, a 
 blaze of light burst upon our sight, and we stood before one of the 
 huge suburban temples of Intemperance one of the palaces of 
 the fiend, Gin. 
 
 It was now nearly day-break ; but a number of wretched ine 
 briates still pressed in and out of the flaunting entrance. With a 
 half shriek of joy the old man forced a passage within, resumed 
 at once his original bearing, and stalked backward and forward, 
 without apparent object, among the throng. He had not been 
 thus long occupied, however, before a rush to the doors gave to 
 ken that the host was closing them for the night. It was some 
 thing even more intense than despair that I then observed upon 
 the countenance of the singular being whom I had watched so 
 pertinaciously. Yet he did not hesitate in his career, but, with a 
 mad energy, retraced his steps at once, to the heart of the mighty 
 London. Long and swiftly he fled, while I followed him in the 
 wildest amazement, resolute not to abandon a scrutiny in which I 
 now felt an interest all-absorbing. The sun arose while we pro 
 ceeded, and, when we had once again reached that most thronged 
 mart of the populous town, the street of the D Hotel, it pre 
 sented an appearance of human bustle and activity scarcely infe 
 rior to what I had seen on the evening be. ,e. And here, long, 
 amid the momently increasing confusion, did I persist in my pur 
 suit of the stranger. But, as usual, he v/alked to and fro, and 
 during the day did not pass from out the turmoil of that street. 
 And, as the shades of the second evening came on, I grew wea 
 ried unto death, and, stopping fully in front of the wanderer, 
 gazed at him steadfastly in the face. He noticed me not, but re 
 sumed his solemn walk, while I, ceasing to follow, remained ab 
 sorbed in contemplation. " This old man," I said at length, " is 
 the type and the genius of deep crime. He refuses to be alone. 
 
228 FOE'S TALES. 
 
 He is the man of the crowd. It will be in vain to follow ; for I 
 shall learn no more of him, nor of his deeds. The worst heart of 
 the world is a grosser book than the 'Hortulus Animse/* and 
 perhaps it is but one of the great mercies of God that ' er lasst 
 sich nicht lesen.' " 
 
 * The " Hortulus Anima cum Oratiunculis Aliquibm Superadditis " of 
 Griinninger 
 
 THE END. 
 
 
Al