Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque — 1840, volume I — reading text

she grew strangely in stature and intellect, and was the perfect resemblance of her who had departed, and I loved her with a love more fervent and more intense than I had believed it possible to feel for any denizen of earth. But, ere long, the heaven of this pure affection became overcast, and gloom, and horror, and grief, swept over it in clouds. I said the child grew strangely in stature and intelligence. Strange indeed was her rapid increase in bodily size — but terrible, oh! terrible were the tumultuous thoughts which crowded upon me while watching the development of her mental being. Could it be otherwise, when I daily discovered in the conceptions of the child the adult powers and faculties of the woman? — when the lessons of experience fell from the lips of infancy? and when the wisdom or the passions of maturity I found hourly gleaming from its full and speculative eye? When, I say, all this became evident to my appalled senses — when I could no longer hide it from my soul, nor throw it off from those perceptions which trembled to receive it — is it to be wondered at that suspicions, of a nature fearful and exciting, crept in upon my spirit, or that my thoughts fell back aghast upon the wild tales and thrilling theories of the entombed Morella? I snatched from the scrutiny of the world a being whom destiny compelled me to adore, and, in the rigorous seclusion of my old ancestral home, watched with an agonizing anxiety over all which concerned the beloved. And, as years rolled away, and I gazed, day after day, upon her holy, and mild, and eloquent face, and pored over her maturing form, day after day did I discover new points of resemblance in the child to her mother, the melancholy and the dead. And, hourly, grew darker these shadows of similitude, and more full, and more definite, and more perplexing, and more hideously terrible in their aspect. For that her smile was like her mother's I could bear; but then I shuddered at its too perfect identity — that her eyes were like Morella's I could endure; but then they too often looked down into the depths of my soul with Morella's own intense and bewildering meaning. And in the contour of the high forehead, and in the ringlets of the silken hair, and in the wan fingers which buried themselves therein, and in the sad musical tones of her speech, and above all — oh, above all — in the phrases and expressions of the dead on the lips of the loved and the living, I found food for consuming thought and horror — for a worm that would not die. Thus passed away two lustrums of her life, but my daughter remained nameless upon the earth. “My child” and “my love” were the designations usually prompted by a father's affection, and the rigid seclusion of her days precluded all other intercourse. Morella's name died with her at her death. Of the mother I had never spoken to the daughter — it was impossible to speak. Indeed, during the brief period of her existtence the latter had received no impressions from the outward world but such as might have been afforded by the narrow limits of her privacy. But at length the ceremony of baptism presented to my mind, in its unnerved and agitated condition, a present deliverance from the terrors of my destiny. And at the baptismal font I hesitated for a name. And many titles of the wise and beautiful, of old and modern times, of my own and foreign lands, came thronging to my lips — and many, many fair titles of the gentle, and the happy, and the good. What prompted me then to disturb the memory of the buried dead? What demon urged me to breathe that sound, which, in its very recollection, was wont to make ebb the purple blood in torrents from the temples to the heart? What fiend spoke from the recesses of my soul, when, amid those dim aisles, and in the silence of the night, I shrieked within the ears of the holy man the syllables — Morella? What more than fiend convulsed the features of my child, and overspread them with the hues of death, as, starting at that sound, she turned her glassy eyes from the earth to heaven, and, falling prostrate on the black slabs of our ancestral vault, responded — “I am here!” Distinct, coldly, calmly distinct — like a knell of death — horrible, horrible death — sank the eternal sounds within my soul. Years — years may roll away, but the memory of that epoch — never! Now was I indeed ignorant of the flowers and the vine — but the hemlock and the cypress overshadowed me night and day. And I kept no reckoning of time or place, and the stars of my fate faded from heaven, and, therefore, the earth grew dark, and its figures passed by me like flitting shadows, and among them all I beheld only — Morella. The winds of the firmament breathed but one sound within my ears, and the ripples upon the sea murmured evermore — Morella. But she died; and with my own hands I bore her to the tomb; and I laughed with a long and bitter laugh as I found no traces of the first, in the charnel where I laid the second — Morella. LIONIZING LIONIZING. ———— all people went Upon their ten toes in wild wonderment. Bishop Hall's Satires. I AM — that is to say, I was — a great man; but I am neither the author of Junius, nor the man in the mask, for my name is Thomas Smith, and I was born somewhere in the city of Fum-Fudge. The first action of my life was the taking hold of my nose with both hands; my mother saw this, and called me a genius; my father wept for joy, and bought me a treatise on Nosology. Before I was breeched I had not only mastered the treatise, but had collected into a common-place book all that is said on the subject by Pliny, Aristotle, Alexander Ross, Minutius Felix, Hermanus Pictorius, Del Rio, Villarêt, Bartholinus, and Sir Thomas Browne. I now began to feel my way in the science, and soon came to understand that, provided a man had a nose sufficiently big, he might, by merely following it, arrive at a lionship. But my attention was not confined to theories alone; every morning I took a dram or two, and gave my proboscis a couple of pulls. When I came of age my father asked me, one day, if I would step with him into his study. “My son,” said he, when we got there, “what is the chief end of your existence?” “Father,” I said, “it is the study of Nosology.” “And what, Thomas,” he continued, “is nosology ?” “Sir,” I replied, “it is the Science of Noses.” “And can you tell me,” he asked, “what is the meaning of a nose?” “A nose, my father,” said I, “has been variously defined by about a thousand different authors, (here I pulled out my watch). It is now noon, or thereabouts — we shall have time enough to get through with them all before midnight. To commence, then. The nose, according to Bartholinus, is that protuberance, that bump, that excrescence, that ——” “That will do, Thomas,” said the old gentleman. “I am thunderstruck at the extent of your information — I am positively — upon my soul. Come here! (and he took me by the arm). Your education may now be considered as finished, and it is high time that you should scuffle for yourself — so — so — so — (here he kicked me down stairs and out of the door) so get out of my house, and God bless you!” As I felt within me the divine afflatus, I considered this accident rather fortunate than otherwise, and determined to follow my nose. So I gave it a pull or two, and wrote a pamphlet on Nosology. All Fum-Fudge was in an uproar. “Wonderful genius!” said the Quarterly. “Superb physiologist!” said the New Monthly. “Fine writer!” said the Edinburgh. “Great man!” said Blackwood. “Who can he be?” said Mrs. Bas-Bleu. “What can he be?” said big Miss Bas-Bleu. “Where can he be?” said little Miss Bas-Bleu. But I paid them no manner of attention, and walked into the shop of an artist. The Duchess of Bless-my-Soul was sitting for her portrait; the Marchioness of So-and-So was holding the Duchess's poodle; the Earl of This-and-That was flirting with her salts; and his Royal Highness of Touch-me-Not was standing behind her chair. I merely walked towards the artist, and held up my proboscis. “O beautiful!” sighed the Duchess. “O pretty!” lisped the Marchioness. “O horrible!” groaned the Earl. “O abominable!” growled his Royal Highness. “What will you take for it?” said the artist. “A thousand pounds,” said I, sitting down. “A thousand pounds?” he inquired, turning the nose to the light. “Precisely,” said I. “Beautiful!” said he, looking at the nose. “A thousand pounds,” said I, twisting it to one side. “Admirable!” said he. “A thousand pounds,” said I. “You shall have them,” said he, “what a piece of virtu!” So he paid me the money, and made a sketch of my nose. I took rooms in Jermyn street, sent her Majesty the ninety-ninth edition of the Nosology with a portrait of the author's nose, and his Royal Highness of Touch-me-Not invited me to dinner. We were all lions and recherchés. There was a Grand Turk from Stamboul. He said that the angels were horses, cocks, and bulls — that somebody in the sixth heaven had seventy thousand heads and seventy thousand tongues — and that the earth was held up by a sky-blue cow, having four hundred horns. There was Sir Positive Paradox. He said that all fools were philosophers, and all philosophers were fools. There was a writer on ethics. He talked of fire, unity, and atoms; bi-part, and pre-existent soul; affinity and discord; primitive intelligence and homoomeria. There was Theologos Theology. He talked of Eusebius and Arianus; heresy and the Council of Nice; consubstantialism, Homousios, and Homouioisios. There was Fricassée from the Rocher de Cancale. He mentioned Latour, Markbrunnen, and Mareschino; muriton of red tongue, and cauliflowers with velouté sauce; veal à la St. Menehoult, marinade à la St. Florentin, and orange jellies en mosaiques. There was Signor Tintontintino from Florence. He spoke of Cimabué, Arpino, Carpaccio, and Argostino; the gloom of Caravaggio, the amenity of Albano, the golden glories of Titian, the frows of Rubens, and the waggeries of Jan Steen. There was the great geologist Feltzpar. He talked of internal fires and tertiary formations; of aëriforms, fluidiforms, and solidiforms; of quartz and marl; of schist and schorl; of gypsum, hornblende, micaslate, and pudding-stone. There was the President of the Fum-Fudge University. He said that the moon was called Bendis in Thrace, Bubastis in Egypt, Dian in Rome, and Artemis in Greece. There was Delphinus Polyglott. He told us what had become of the eighty-three lost tragedies of Æschylus; of the fifty-four orations of Isœus; of the three hundred and ninety-one speeches of Lysias; of the hundred and eighty treatises of Theophrastus; of the eighth book of the conic sections of Apollonius; of Pindar's hymns and dithyrambics; and the five-and-forty tragedies of Homer Junior. There was a modern Platonist. He quoted Porphyry, Iamblicus, Plotinus, Proclus, Hierocles, Maximus Tyrius, and Syrianus. There was a human-perfectibility man. He quoted Turgot, Price, Priestly , Condorcet, De Stael, and “The Ambitious Student in Ill Health.” There was myself. I spoke of Pictorius, Del Rio, Alexander Ross, Minutius Felix, Bartholinus, Sir Thomas Browne, and the Science of Noses. “Marvellous clever man!” said his Highness. “Superb!” said his guests; and the next morning her grace of Bless-my-Soul paid me a visit. “Will you go to Almack's, pretty creature?” she said, chucking me under the chin. “Upon honor,” said I. “Nose and all?” she asked. “As I live,” I replied. “Here, then, is a card, my life, shall I say you will be there?” “Dear Duchess, with all my heart.” “Pshaw, no! — but with all your nose?” “Every bit of it, my love,” said I; so I gave it a pull or two, and found myself at Almack's. The rooms were crowded to suffocation. “He is coming!” said somebody on the staircase. “He is coming!” said somebody further up. “He is coming!” said somebody further still. “He is come!” said the